Mission Letter 18 "Feeling Inspired" "I Look Too Happy"

Wednesday morning really had me stressing. Tuesday I spent some of our service hours at the museum calling all the people in our ward directory to see who we could bring with us to lessons. I thought to call Sister Lamb, a really fun older lady in the ward who is in the Relief Society. We set up to take her out with us Wednesday at 6:00. Later that night we got in touch with a spanish referral who asked if they could meet us Wednesday at 6:00. Hoping we could find a spanish sister to take with us so that we could split up and go to both lessons, we said yes. 

The plan was that Sister Farias would go with Sister Lamb to a visit, and I would go with a lady from the spanish branch to the referral. Wednesday rolled around and we still hadn't found a spanish speaker to take with us. We called everyone we could think of. Three hours before the lesson we still had no one. I said a prayer and thought of someone we hadn't tried yet--a young less active woman about my age, Mayra, that we had met with only once. We stopped by and she said she could come with us. It was truly inspired. 

The lesson with the referral fell through and so we ended up trying potentials and knocking. We say a prayer before each door and at one point, as Mayra was praying, she stopped and said, "Sorry, I don't usually do this." I assumed she meant that she doesn't usually pray in English, and so asked her, "Do you usually pray in Spanish?" And her response, "No. I don't usually pray."

We tried about twenty houses and no one wanted to listen, so at 7:30 we returned to the church to wait for Sister Farias and Sister Lamb, and while we waited we talked. Mayra said she had no idea how hard missionary work was but told me she was grateful for the chance to pray so much with me and that she would ask her friends if we could teach them. 

Sunday, Mayra came to church and bore a powerful testimony on prayer and the spirit we can feel at church. She told us of her desire to come back to church and feel the spirit more and thanked us for inviting her to go out with us and letting her experience that spirit. It was a powerful testimony that confirmed to me that God inspires this work and cares about each of his children. 

The less active that Sister Farias and Sister Lamb visited came to church for the first time in 14 years and enjoyed it and Sister Lamb loved so much coming with us and getting to know the less actives we are working with that she asked to come out with us again! 

Thursday we went knocking and we prayed to find new spanish speakign investigators. My companion felt like we should knock Bowie, and as soon as we got to the street I felt like we should turn right. The house there on the right-hand corner is the home of Karen Q, who is searching for peace and truth and asked us to come back and teach her more. The other street I felt like we should knock was Casas Lindas, and we found three spanish-speaking families who invited us back to teach them more. 

I love how the Lord inspires this work and so grateful that he works through us! 

I am constantly amazed at the power of prayer and at the beautiful relation we can have with our Heavenly Father. 

Con amor,

Hermana Anderson

Pics:

Practicing our crocheting skills while we wait for people to show up
at service. We decided a scarf takes way too long, so we would just
make dorky collars that, who knows?, may be in fashion one day ;)

Studying on the church lawn because it's finally feeling warmish

When we realized we didn't have a single picture in the car and we're
feeling really cool with our sunglasses (because it was finally warm
and sunny enough to wear them)

Feeling really Mexican making tácitos con frijoles y queso mexicano

All our favorite kids from the ward

What happens when we try to take a serious picture. It took so long to
get one where we both had straight faces. Most of them we were trying
so hard not to laugh that we just looked constipated