To Kennewick with love: 7-28-14

Hola Familia!

This week was a whirlwind and so fast. i can't believe it. Lots of growth took place this week as I have learned to put things in the Lord's hands.

The week started off with me in Wenatchee for a day on exchanges. It was kinda weird... There was so many people and buildings. Anyway you will never believe who we ate with.... Bro. Michuads uncle that lives in East Wenatchee. I walked in the asked me where i was from, followed by "Do you know any Michauds?" (first indicator that they knew you all really well was because they pronounced your name right) SO i said that i did and that i knew Trevor and Kenley was my brother-in-law. Not to mention i had know them for quite a while. It was fun to sit and chat and weird when you can connect things to home. Other than that being in Wenatchee was fun, talked to a lot of new people.

Meanwhile being in Wenatchee, my companion and Hna. Rockhill extended a baptism date to one of our other investigators, and he accepted. So we will be preparing for another baptism in the near future :)

Life is going so good here. We are really being blessed with people to teach and work to do.

This week we really focused on getting Irasema ready for her baptism and we had some cool experiences. Her grandparents from Mexico are here and so that is why the baptism was planned for this weekend. we were cruising this week and all was smooth sailing.

Saturday we spent almost all day up in Pateros doing fire relief projects. It was a stake activity and it was a good experience. We brought Alondra and Serafin (13 and 15) with us to do it. Their family is investigating the church and their mom really wants them to be good people. So we had them come and it was really cool. they had a great time and overall we went through and cleaned up 2 houses. combing through the ashes for things that might have survived the fires. and taking all the metal out. It was a very humbling experience. Saturaday was great! ... until about 10:20 pm. We got a call from our ward mission leader telling us that we were only going to have sacrament meeting and that after whoever could was going to go to Pateros to volunteer. The problem with this. We had a baptism at 1:30 (after the 3 hour block) and all ward leadership was basically going to be gone. So the ward mission leader asked us to get a hold of Abigail (Irasema's mom) to see if we could change it to 11:30. It was too late to call that night and i didn't know what to do. I felt totally helpless. Everything we had been working for for the past couple weeks was about this baptism. We were working with the family as well as getting a bunch of less active families excited to be there. Fear creeped in. How on earth we were supposed to change this important event in like 24 hour notice (when most of that 24 hours they would be asleep). I was upset and helpless, i seriously couldn't believe that we had worked so hard for things to fall through or be changed and not work out right. I cried. No lies here. I was so tired of every good plan i have had on my misison falling through last second. I prayed and i talked to Heavenly Father and i told him exactly that. I told him that i couldn't do it anymore and that I didn't know what to do. I told him i don't know how we can work so hard and still have these things happening. After that i went in and tried to sleep (good one right?) i turned on our cd and the song came on called Better than I. Talking all about how God knows better than us

"You know better than I,

you know the way.

I've let go the need to know why,

for you know better than I"

I must have finally fallen asleep. We finally got a hold of Abigail the next morning and she was a little confused but seemed ok with the time change. We then had to send out messages to inform all of the Less actives and investigators of the time change. And off to church it was. Needless to say i was a little bit of a ball of stress yesterday morning. Irasema showed up with her family and one of the less active families a few minutes into the meeting. As soon as i saw them, all the stress left. i finally got some peace that Heavenly Father really did know better than I did. All ended up being absolutely amazing! the talks were short, but so sincere and perfect for the moment. When she went down into that water i realized why it was all worth it. Why we had worked so hard. To help this little girl who just wanted to be baptized and to be a missionary one day. It was such a great feeling. Many people were at the baptism and many people felt the Spirit and it was just AWESOME! Couldn't have gone any better. it was the definition of a miracle. God knew what was happening and He was going to make it work how he needed. Looking back i can see reasons for the change of time besides going to help in Pateros, but it just goes to show that we only see a piece of the puzzle, but God puts those pieces together to make a bigger picture.

I learned that Heavenly Father listens to our prayers. I have always known that but this weekend he was aware of me. I will keep pushing on, even when the craziness comes. There will be much more service to come in the towns that got partially burned, but hey lets say if i have learned anything it is how to roll with the punches. Even if it feels like i am rolling head over heals down a mountain. I am glad to be part of this work. I feel blessed to have this opportunity and have got lots more work to do here. With all the talk of fire, Manson is Spiritually on fire right now, in the best way possible. Thanks for keeping the people in your prayers and keep looking for ways to help others. Have a great week!

Hermana Ray

From left to right: Abigail (JR), yo, Carmen, Irasema, Hna. Alcocer, Abigail (SR)