9-2-13

Hola Familia!

Things here in Royal City are going pretty great. I have been so blessed and have definitely been counting my very many blessings.

The members here have continued to be awesome, every other day we have someone new coming up to us and asking us to tell them when they can come out with us. It is truly amazing! Members are becoming so active in the missionary work it is awesome.

Funny thing that happened this week, we were driving home the other night and i felt like i was in the star wars ride at Disneyland when you are going through warp speed. why? because that is what it looked like. There were a crazy amount of bugs! Not kidding!

So this week i have learned something that will likely impact the rest of my mission. We were having a training on talking to people outside of their door and how when we introduce ourselves people become really closed off really fast because they think we are trying to convert them. Well we talked a lot about talking about being representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ rather than being missionaries from a church. It totally changed the way i view talking to people. It opens up the conversation to Jesus Christ and it has really been awesome. As we were talking to people, we tried to make sure that they knew we were there to help. One man after we knocked on his door was very reluctant to be talking to us (as most people here right now are because of harvest, very busy) and as we were leaving, i asked him if there was any questions that we could focus on the next time we came back and reluctantly he answered and asked us about heaven and how you could know whose view or ideas about heaven were right. It was so amazing, it was one of those little miracles. Also on Saturday we found a neighborhood to knock!!  It was awesome! As we were going through, towards the end of our journey we knocked a door and a lady answered and as we told her about sharing messages about Christ she was very closed off, right after my companion asked if anyone she knew neeeded service and she said no. Jokingly (sort of) my companion said that we were really good at pulling weeds. She asked us how much that would be and when we told her free she thought we were kidding. It gave us a great opportunity to  talk about service and trying to be like Jesus Christ both in word and in action. By the time we left her door the entire attitude of the conversation changed and we were able to testify about the thing that is most important and that is Jesus Christ.

We had interviews with President Ware this week. It is always good to talk with him and have an opportunity to receive strength and guidance from others. We had a great chat and he motivated me to continue to learn and grow and be a better missionary in every way. We talked about talents and how we could use ours to become better missionaries and how the gifts of the spirit that they talk about in the scriptures are some of the spiritual talents that we can develop. And i don't think it is any coincidence that i ended up teaching gospel principles this Sunday on talents.

Another cool thing that has happened here is that our ward just sent off a sister missionary last week, and everyone knows this girl. It has been a huge opportunity to talk about missionary service and open up everyone to talking about Jesus Christ. She has been a great help to us here and she doesn't even know it! Plus in general, people ask us questions about our life as a missionary. People have been asking us questions, and it has been fun to talk with them and get them thinking about what is important in life.

The event of the week: Owen's Baptism!!! He has been working with the missionaries for quite a bit here and was baptized and confirmed yesterday. I think i have mentioned him in emails before, but he is really awesome. He was so ready to be baptized. His baptism was amazing, there were so many members there supporting him. The spirit was there and strong the whole time. The closing song was The Spirit of God and Owen had never heard it, well, i hope he made the connection to that song and what had just happened. There are almost no words to describe it but amazing. After, we were talking to Andres, one of Owen's friends that we are teaching and he said he only understood about 30% of it, since he speaks mostly Spanish, but he could feel it 100%. He said after he learns more that he would want this too. He had gone to both Darone and Owen's baptisms plus one other and every time his desire to learn has grown a little stronger. I imagine that when i am looking back on my mission that this will be one of those nights that i will never forget.

It has been a great week and I feel very blessed to be a servant of the Lord. Thank you all for your love and your prayers. Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Ray