family and friends,
AHHHHH! okay. the elders here are sooo distracting haha they are just cracking jokes and telling me about their girlfriends who sent them dear john letters and haha it's hilarious but I only got like....20ish minutes to write now. so, ignore the spelling errors and everything else :) thank you Sister Ranieri for the letter! i loved it! I've been kind of sick all week. actually, it really was nothing i just had a scratchy throat, runny nose, sneezing like crazy, and then for a day my ear started to hurt haha okay...maybe i did have something but I'm okay now! and about my foot, it still hurts haha but my district leader gave me a blessing yesterday so it's feeling better now! :) but really, don't worry about it, I'm not going to die ;) oh yeah, Truman welch! my bro said that you wrote me a letter? i never got it!!!! i told my mom to tell you to write me so hopefully i get something from you soon! :)
okay, funny story of the week. so Tuesday was a super rough day for Sister Mericales and i. i'll just leave it as that :) however, we had a bonding moment during this lunch appointment. it was someone from our family ward and the food was disgusting haha! the lettuce was expired I'm pretty sure, the soup looked like it was made out of poop and the drink she gave us was SUPER strong....kind of threw me off a little bit, not going to lie. besides the point it was disgusting and haha Sister Merciales was struggling! we didn't finish all of our soup and the old sister told us we HAD to eat everything. so...what do we do? well, she goes into the kitchen and I'm just trying to get all of the soup down when all of a sudden Sister Merciales asks her, "umm....are these plants real or fake?" the sister then says they are fake and all of a sudden i see her pour her drink into the plant pot!! SO FUNNY! so then she looks at me and gives me this look so i give her my drink and she does the same for me. then i told her that i would finish the rest of her soup for her because the poor thing was gagging haha. oh man, it was horrible. poor Sister Merciales was throwing up in front of one of our new investigators house haha! it was still a rough day for us but...it definitely was a bonding moment for us :)
Last week was great! However, it was hard because we were hoping for more teaching appointments but people were cancelling on us :( So that was hard but we didn't let that bring our spirits down! The highlight of the week was definitely with our baptism yesterday for Stephen. It went so good! Lots of members from the ward came, it was super organized, our ward mission leader is amazing and our missionary moment went great! Seeing Stephen baptized was an amazing experience. It was a testimony to me on the importance of members sharing the gospel with their friends. Stephen has known Corbett since before he went on his mission and they kept in contact all these years. Now, Corbett had the opportunity of baptizing his friend! I was able to again reflect on my baptism and how my best friend, Parker Austin Williams, baptized ME! Although he didn't introduce me to the gospel, he was always a great example to me and has been since then. My brother Richard was baptized by his best friend as well and I know that that was a wonderful experience for the both of them. This is why sharing the gospel to our friends is so important! I love this work!!
We had a lesson with one of our new investigators named Danielle. She is this super cool, super pretty, and super knowledgeable of the bible kind of mom who lives around a lot of Mormons. we had a member from our ward come who lives across the street with her and it went great! well, actually it was pretty crazy because the little girl was not being quiet so there was a point where i had to decide to help teach or to occupy the little girl and i chose to distract the little girl haha but i trusted my companion and our member present that they would do great. don't worry, i didn't actually leave my companion haha i just sat and colored with the little girl. there was a point when Danielle was talking about how she sees a difference in the Mormon moms that live in her block and Sister Mammen was sharing such a powerful testimony to Danielle. as she was sharing her testimony, i was feeling this sudden urgency on how important this work is and although it's great that we are going to have more missionaries out teaching the gospel, we need more MEMBERS to be MISSIONARIES to help us set apart missionaries to teach the gospel!! I'm sure you have all heard about china opening and how people are getting called there before it's even open...and that in itself is amazing! the lord needs missionaries NOW! we need to be sharing the gospel to everyone we know. we live near a visitors center at the Oakland Temple. i am sure that there are going to be shows going on there. will each of you consider and prayerfully think of someone that you could invite to a show at the Oakland VC? not only will the sisters love seeing you there but it is such an easy way to invite someone to learn about the gospel. i hope we can all think of someone!! :)
this week I've been able to learn a lot. a quote that stood out to me from Elder Eyring from his last general conference talk was, "my desire to know and do His will gave me a soul-searching opportunity." i really want to do better in having a desire to know more about the will the lord has for me. I've realized that i need to do better in centering my testimony on Jesus Christ. sadly, I've been kind of ignoring adding Jesus Christ in my testimony, not that i don't want to but i focus too much on what the world wants to hear rather then what they NEED to hear. we'll knock doors and I'll tell them we have a message about families, knowing what our purpose in life is, etc but i haven't really ever mentioned Jesus Christ as much as i should. our message, which is centered on Jesus Christ is of great value and importance and i haven't been doing my part in sharing that to people! sure, I'm sharing my testimony but i know i can do a lot better in expressing my love and gratitude for my savior, especially for everything he has done for me. a scripture that has been on my mind a lot is in 1Nephi8:12. Here is when Lehi is having the vision on the tree of life. when he partakes of the fruit, the first thing he thinks of is sharing it with his family. he doesn't think of himself, he thinks of his family. the gospel truly brings joy into our lives...why not share that joy to others?
today i was reading in the book of Alma when Amulek and Alma were in prison because of the things they prophesied. at first, Amulek thought they were going to be burned but Alma says, "Be it according to the will of the Lord. but behold, our work is not finished therefore they burn us not." Alma understood the importance of this work and that his time wasn't done in sharing it. they ended up not being burned and thrown into prison where people were coming in mocking them, slapping them and just being plain mean to them. however, they never spoke to these individuals, they kept their composure and never let them get to them. eventually as time went by, Alma and Amulek stood up and Alma cried, "how long shall we suffer these great afflictions, o Lord? o Lord, give us strength according to our faith which is in Christ, even unto deliverance." it was then they they broke the cords which they were bound to and the people fled because they were scared since the whole time they were mocking them saying how if they had the power of god, they should be able to get themselves out of those cords. a verse towards the end of the chapter stood out to me which said, "...for the Lord had granted unto them power, according to their faith which was in Christ." The word granted. It is a privileged to be a missionary. We are given authority but we are not given power. that is something that we need to strive and work for. I am grateful when the lord grants me his power to act in his name. to be able to teach with authority and boldness. that is something that i hope he always grants me as i strive to be his representative every day. i love this work! it is tiring and hard but it is oh so good! again, sorry for the randomness of this letter...elders will always be elders :) i love them though. they truly are brothers to me. may you all have a wonderful week! pray for missionary opportunities and then go out to seek them! happy thanksgiving!
Love,
Hermana Baeza
1591 E Temple Way
Los Angeles, Ca 90024
3. Stephen!
4. yay for baptisms!
No comments:
Post a Comment