BED BUGS!

hola!

Sleep tight, DO let the bed bugs bite! So the news update here is we had to evacuate our apartment and stay at the mission home..my companion has bites all over her. L I only have a few…We are washing all of our clothes and our apartment is getting sprayed..new mattresses as well. She kept getting more bites throughout the week and we thought it was mosquitos. We were way wrong. It will all be taken care of, she has medicine for her itching… On a positive note, lots of people came to church yesterday! It was so awesome. Gladis (who has been studying for over 3 transfers) finally got a Sunday off. She loved church and felt so welcomed. She brought her son, Osfoldo and it was his second time coming. Hector, Alejondro, Jorge and his daughter came also came. After church, we went to the home of a Hispanic family that recently lost a loved one. We sang hymns and shared a message about Eternal Families and receiving peace through the Atonement. The Spirit was really strong! We will be visiting the family again once things get better.
Hector received a blessing from the Elders for his health, he needs to quit drinking! We have been brainstorming ways to get him to fight off the temptation. We are going to share a General Conference talk with him today about the Atonement and putting our sins behind us and moving on! The grace of Jesus Christ allows us to repent and receive forgiveness. He needs to understand that and that he wont ever be perfect, but he can strive everyday to become better than the day before. Right now he is stuck in the cycle of repentance and needs to cut out the sin completely and not relapse.We are going to give him scriptures written on paper to read when he has a strong temptation. We talked in coordination meeting yesterday about using members' homes to teach him. He lives in a shelter, so we teach him outside and we cant ever mix up the way we teach...so we are bringing a member with us tonight and plan on teaching him in different environements throughout the week to keep his interest as well as bring in the Spirit more strongly. I am excited about it! The members are being really supportive and offering to help. Our goal is to set a date with Hector and help him have confidence that he can get over the hump in the repentance processs to be prepared for his baptismal date. He has the desire to be baptized, but is scared to fall again. Faith!

Alejondro was also at church, but we are taking a break from teaching him this week. We are not sure how serious he is about learning and being baptized. He enjoys coming to church, but we think that he still feels that all churches are good.

Gladis and her son came to church as I explained before! That was a milestone in her life as an investigator. She really enjoyed the classes and participated and asked questions. She knows that she wants to be baptized, just wants to finalize her work schedule to be able to come often...also figure out what she needs to do about her boyfriend that is living with her. Tonight we have planned a Family Home Evening to go over a really awesome talk from General Conference. It explains how living the Gospel of Jesus Christ is how we were made to live; it is natural to us and it is how we will be deeply happy. We are spirit children of Heavenly Father and our Spirit craves the teachings of Jesus Christ. The talk demonstrates an analogy of a fish. When we go fishing we use bate to lure the fish away from their natural habitat into our boiling pot. Once the hook is in the fish's mouth, it has been kidnapped from safety, flopping in a boat. Obviously the fish cannot survive under these circumstances. This can all be connected back to us as the children of God. We need to be immersed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to survive spiritually (in the water)...if not we are found flopping around, struggling to breath, eventually dying spiritually (in a boiling pot!) The teachings of the Savior and His church bring happiness in Gladis's life. She wants to become closer to God because that is what her Spirit was made for. She just needs to fully commit and live the commandments to be immersed in the waters of baptism and to become a child of Christ. Satan will try to tempt her with bate, but with the gift of the Holy Ghost, she can be protected and have a better gift of discernment. the truth is we all are caught at times by Satan, he lures us in and gets that hook in our mouth...yes, it hurts to pull it out (repentance) but we can fully heal again and have the Spirit strongly in our lives. oh, how great is the Atonement of Jesus Christ!!!



Jenn really wants to be baptized this Saturday and is completely ready. She finally realized that the Gospel was what was making her happy. She used to not believe in God! Unfortunately, her parents do not agree and will not support her if she gets baptized. She has a really tough decision to make, we are praying a lot for her. It has really made me sad because we see how happy Christ makes her and she wants to do God's will. We explained at times we need to do what the Father of our Spirits want us to do, rather than the Father of our flesh.



As far as less-actives, we are still working with Hermano Lopez and every time we are there we are reading from the BOM. Pedro is doing so great. We talked in the meeting on Sunday about getting him hometeachers, and they are coming with us to a lesson this week. He brought his friend Jorge with his daughters to church again. We plan on teaching Jorge sometime this week.



We have some real potential with other investigators...for example Elizabeth fasted so that the situation with her mom would get better! We hope to teach her mom this week. Jose Rubio wasnt able to come to church but we gave him a tour after church...he seemed to feel comfortable and wants to change his work schedule or find a new job to be able to come.

I really enjoyed leadership training this week, and I am grateful for the opportunity to train Hermana Guthrie, she is a great missionary. We are practicing her Spanish so she feels more comfortable. I am going to focus more on serving her..she has different needs than Hermana McGuire had when I trained her so I need to adjust myself to be better for her specifically. We will have leadership council every other month and we meet with all the zone leaders, district leaders and trainers. Lots of things are changing in the missions around the world, as far as training the missionaries. Hermana McGuire and I got to teach a lesson to the group! It was fun; we talked about how to get investigators to church and living the Sabbath Day. I have to update Hermana Guthrie on all the great training we received!

Love you all.

Hermana Murphy