sunshine & bicycles!

Hello Sunshine and bicycles,

Overall the area is going good! Our recent convert Jose Rubio says that he is doing great and feels the Spirit. :) He is so funny. "My body is cold on the outside and warm on the inside." We love his english. But really he keeps telling me, "this is what you were talking about, I feel it!" Hermano Serrano came to church and received a blessing to help him quit his drinking. He is doing so much better. He has the desire and faith. We are supporting him all the way! We had a strong lesson with him about the Atonement and how much we can change through Christ. He can do it! We are working with his less-active girlfriend still, and she is stuck between our church and the Jehovah Witness church. We committed her to read from the BOM everyday, and to pray for understanding. Guadalupe and Arut are really struggling to stop smoking. They didnt completely start the stop smoking program, so it hasnt worked yet. We committed them to start and we also committed to stop biting our fingernails. Hermana Hancock and I both do that and it is a hard habit to stop. We are trying to relate to them and "struggle" with them so we can all get over our addictions. :) We really love them. They havent been reading in the BOM, so we focused on the importance of scripture study (the iron rod). We are going to see them today and explain the first vision in depth, like how the power of God always overcomes the powers of darkness...it will be great! They can totally do this and fight off the tempations as they lean on Christ, who is our deliverer from the chains of the Adversary. They also received a Priesthood blessing to strengthen them. The less-active family (Amalcan) that we have been working with for awhile finally came to church! We were so excited. We made them pancakes and they gave us a ride. The branch really welcomed them! Gladys and Eder are doing okay. Hermana Hepworth is doing her hair today, dying it.

We taught the lesson during the third hour and committed the branch to read chapter 5 from PMG. We have discussed ideas with the Zone leaders on how we can fortify our Spanish Branch and encourage member missionary work. The lesson went great and we had participation from various members. We feel this commitment (we gave them a calendar to complete all the activities and reading before Christmas) will help the brach obtain the word and then declare it. We emphasized D & C 11:21. We love the branch here so much and want to do all we can to help them. We are doing service for Hermana Esmerelda this week (helping her with her math homework) and we are attempting to teach at the houses of the members.

Halloween was fun. We went to Jenni Crespos and had dinner...we also made brownies. Here in Des Moines I saw zero trick or treaters. Sad. Look forward to Thanksgiving! We are going to do it with the Crespos. They are my family here.

The Hermanas rock and we have lots of fun. Zone Leader Council tomorrow!

Talk to you later
Hermana Murphy