Hola!

Hola!

Well, adding Hermana McGuire to the mix has completely changed team chemistry! Reese and I had been here awhile and were comfortable with how things were going. But McGuire helped us realize that we had some investigators that weren’t progressing and we were wasting our time with them. (McGuire was just in an English area, so it was a different teaching atmosphere) We are going through the investigators and getting rid of those that don’t want to keep commitments…we have dropped Maria V, Julio, Oscar, Ally…there will probably be more. Reese and I have been here awhile, so we have gotten comfortable. We are becoming more focused on our contacts, to always mention the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, as well as our role as missionaries. We are trying to discern who has real interest and who is just inviting us over to be nice. We have had lots of training to take contacts as far as they will go, but with the Spanish culture they almost always say yes. So to save us some time we are being more specific and getting those that want to progress! We are here to be their guides and help them, but they also need to do their part to receive their own testimony (read, pray and go to church). It is hard for me to let them go sometimes because I am so emotionally attached! I am working on realizing that yes all have potential to be baptized because they are children of God…just not all will be in the next 6 weeks. I have faith that everyone will come to know it’s true..so I am going to keep that but be more realistic. J At times it is overwhelming because our area is so large, but we do not have to see everyone in the next 6 weeks…to help those we have we need to spend more time with them and focus on them. We are going to do splits a lot this transfer and that will help us see more people. We have some really great potential right now!



Pedro Martinez is so awesome! We set a date with him for the 13th of July. He came to church yesterday and stayed for all 3 hours. Wahoo! We will be seeing him 3 times this week and are working with him on his smoking and coffee addictions. He felt really good at church and believes that the church is true. We had a great lesson with Jenn this week. We watched Finding Happiness and talked a lot about God and His existence. She is scared to commit to baptism before she knows more. She is afraid to have questions after being baptized. I was like, ofcourse you will! I did and I still do. We continually learn and nurture our testimonies. It is tough being a convert, but it is worth it. She has been reading and praying..like the Book of Mormon, feels at peace when she is reading it. We are also trying to help her recognize the Spirit. At church yesterday, I kept asking her, how do you feel now? Haha We had three member presents with Gladis this week. Hermano Santana was really excited to share his testimony with her. Jenni Crespo once again helped Gladis see the light at the end of the tunnel with her husband, that she can be an example for him. At her house, we invited him to learn but he didn’t want to. We are still organizing an activity to get him involved with members. Hermana Flores (the recent convert of one week) came with me on splits and her testimony really helped Gladis. They both come from Catholic backgrounds and believed in the Virgin Mary. Hermana Flores explained how she changed her belief in that, as in Mary was an important instrument in the Lord’s plan but she was human and we don’t need to worship her. That is a tough one for Gladis. We shared the ten commandments and about how God is a jealous God and doesn’t want any Gods before Him. We are still trying to work out a solution for her job on Sundays. Her and her husband will probably get married at the court house or maybe split up? She really desires to change, with the new knowledge she has of the law of chastity and how the church can bless her children. Her faith has been a great example for me. We saw Diana, who had a baptismal date…and taught members from her new Pentecostal church. Right now probably isn’t the time for her so we are going back to teach them once more and will probably call it quits. The Torres family have real potential, we made them prayer rocks and will give them to them tonight. Hermana Torres was eating up the Restoration lesson! We found lots of new investigators that seem promising. Yolanda and Juan Carlos fed us our second dinner after meeting them last night. That is such a prop to being Spanish speaking, great food and people! J



I am going to focus my studies more on the basic doctrine of the lessons we teach and develop outlines for the lessons with progressing investigators. I want to focus more on THEM, how we can help THEM, and how we can teach better for THEM and not just to be a “better” missionary. As a companionship, we are going to focus on teaching more basic, testifying more and sharing more personal experiences. I want us to focus on following the Spirit and being humble. We need to recognize more that this is God’s work and we are a team here to work together. We all have our own talents and faults and we are here for a reason to learn from each other. At times, it is easy to compare myself to my companions and they probably do it too. But I feel that doesn’t get me anywhere…I want to have a loving atmosphere and not a competitive one. We are a team! Go team! It has been hard to balance out lessons because we are all confident but also excited so we all want to talk. :) It takes some getting used to and getting a flow. I know we will have a great transfer!



Hermana Murphy