4th of July!!

Hello all!

I love my mission! I am learning new things everyday; such a huge growing experience. Right now I have been studying the Atonement a lot and learning that yes we are born with imperfections! It is part of God's plan :) We all need to depend on Christ to make weaknesses become strengths and to be forgiven of our sins. I am working on being more humble and recognizing that everything in my life is a gift from God and to receive confidence through Him and His help through the Spirit. I sure did like Zone Conferene yesterday! President and Sister Jergesen are so awesome! They are from San Diego and have a family full of athletes (including sons that played BYU mens vball). It has been fun to get to know them so far. I told them that they remind me of my parents. Their training at Zone Conference was amazing. Sister Jergensen talked a lot about showing love towards people we are teaching, even in a hand shake! President talked about the Gospel of Christ and we read 2Nephi 31. The APS trained on being one with Christ and making our will God's will. The Godhead is so united in purpose, we need to be that way with our companions..we are working on that in our threesome. Man, is it tough. I am going to organize team building activities for us three. We are all together for a reason, and have our strengths and weaknesses. This morning we talking about how we each need to be ourself, because God made us that way, rather than try to be our companion...then the companionship can reach the potential that God intends...

Happy 4th of July! We are so lucky to live with freedom! We went to the Chacun's house for dinner and shared a scripture on how we are all freed through the Atonement of Christ and also Joseph Smith was called to be a Prophet when he did because of the freedoms in the US. We also went to Yolandas house for the 4th and realized that they were celebrating the birthday of a Catholic Saint. Thats okay. We got to see a traditional Mexican dance. A random fun thing we did this week was go on the Carousel with Cynthia Ortega at the branch bbq. We took some cute pics. I love our Spanish branch here! :)
We had a great week! We have one baptismal date with Pedro (July 13). The date might be moved back because of Word of Wisdom obstacles. We are helping him quit smoking and drinking coffee. Today we are going to start the program thatll help him kick the smoking. He is determined to stop and has already cut back a lot. He did request a blessing from the Elders, so we are arranging that...and we invited him to fast to receive more strength. We are working on getting him a solid ride on Sundays especially since he might have work after the first meeting, Hermano Huizar is going to drop him off at work. Hermano Huizar is a convert that is Pedro's designated "fellowshipper." He is also helping us with the quit smoking program. :) Pedro has been doing his reading/listening to the Book of Mormon. We love him so much! He is so cool!

Wow! We made progress this week with Gladis and her family. We went to her son's birthday party to show support to the family...and try to talk to her boyfriend more. The thing with Gladis is, she has a baptismal date set for the 24th of July. Her and her boyfriend need to be married before she can be baptized...and he hasnt been very supportive of our church. Guess what! We had an activity Monday night..we played soccer with the branch and he came. Hermano Ortega, Javier, Esteben, and Enrique (investie) came..it was way fun. Her boyfriend loosened up a bit..I think he was impressed by my headers and intense soccer skills..anyways we taught him last night with Gladis! We watched Finding Faith in Christ and taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We used 2Nefi 31, what we read in Zone Conference, and he committed to finishing the chapter. We sure do see potential in this family! Gladis is completely prepared and with the support of her husband and his change of heart, miracles are going to happen. It was super cute because after the lesson, Gladis was so happy and whispered to him, "they have been praying and fasting to get the opportunity to teach you." She was all smiles. We are meeting with them again twice this week.

Jenn has really progressed this week as well. We had a strong lesson with her after Zone Conference discussing testimony and how hers is developing. She committed to fast/pray about the baptismal date of July 27th. We feel that she is ready to make that step, she just has to recognize that and have confidence that she knows enough. I sure do love her and I know Heavenly Father is so pleased with her, that she is opening up her heart to him. She mentioned she she feels more comfortable praying and relaxed. Yeah for the Spirit!

Enrique came to the soccer activity and loved it. We had a lesson with him this week about living the Sabbath day to help motivate him to come to church. He is praying about it. We explained the importance of the Sacrament.He is determined to change and be a stronger son of God. We taught him at Hermano Galvan's house and they seemed to click well. Fellowshipper status.

We are in love with the Torres family. We were blessed with the opportunity to teach Hugo!! He is so busy with work so its been tough to catch him. We taught him about the Restoration and is blew his mind! He is praying about Joseph Smith being called as a Prophet and has been reading the BOM. He really wants his family to be happy so we emphasized how the Gospel blesses families. He told us that a few days before we found his business card, he was praying to God for guidance. That was so awesome to hear, that we called him because we felt prompted to and it was an answer to his prayer. The Gospel is true! We are going back and teaching the family this week. We made the kids prayer rocks to help remind them to pray twice a day. :)

We went by the house of an investie named Ronnie and found Jose Guzman there. He is super prepared. He had so many questions that related to the Plan of Salvation, it was amazing. After teaching him the plan..he told us that he had been praying to God to send him a message or guidance in his life and we showed up! He was kind of freaked out but we explained that God works in mysterious ways and this is an example of His love for His children. Wow. It is so awesome being a missionary and being a tool in the Lord's hands. We went back for an apt with him and we found two other friends that have lots of potential. Basically, we will be at that house a lot.

For the fourth of July we went by Jose Carlos and Yolanda's party. They are new investies that we found this week while checking up on a referrel. They were bbqing outside in their backyard, so we oymed them and they gave us food! They are super welcoming. We taught Yolanda once this week and she is excited to learn about hte Gospel. This family is going to progress!

As far as less-actives..we found out that Omar's family was baptized..so we are teaching his sister that does not remember anything. She is really nice and wants to learn. We were excited because we taught Omar's mom and that was a miracle considering we taught Omar (a former investie) for 5 months and she never wanted to listen. We are also working with the Lopez family. I love Hermano Lopez so much! He is so cool. We had a branch bbq this last week-end and I sat by him and talked about the outdoors. He is less-active because of some doubts about the BOM. So we are going by weekly to check up and answer questions.

Well thats all folks..until Monday. Miss you and love you. Be happy!

Hermana Murphy