The Prayer in the Laundry Room

This week was awesome!  We had an activity called, Meet the Mormons on Friday.  Each Friday we have family night in the chapel with the branch.  This time we watched, "Meet the Mormons," for our family night.  We made flyers and passed them out to everyone we talked with.  The members also talked with their friends about the activity and invited them to come and meet the mormons.  It was a great turnout and we received several great references of people who would like to learn more and made appointments to visit them.  We also met a great hermana named Alejandra who was a miracle one night this week in our last lesson before returning home.  We had contacted Alejandra's mom in the street a few days before.  When we arrived to teach Alejandra's mom she had to go to her work so she couldn't receive us so she left us with her daughter, Alejandra.  As we talked with Alejandra we explained why we are here and what our purpose is as missionaries.  We explained that we are here to help others come unto Christ and prepare them for baptism.  We asked her if she would like to prepare to be baptized and she smiled at us and said, "yes!" When we invited her to be baptized the 28th of November she happily accepted the goal and as we taught her how to pray when we finished the lesson she prayed and asked to be able to be baptized in her prayer.  We are so excited for her!

To finish off he week we had quite the funny experience yesterday after church.  We had been fasting so before eating we asked the hermana who ate with us if she could let us use a room to pray.  The hermana is an older sister so I don't know that she understood us very well.  She led us to the kitchen and explained that they say prayers in the kitchen so we could pray there if we would like.  We asked her if there wasn't a room a bit more private we could use.  She led us to a little space in front of the bathroom where they keep their dirty clothes.  We decided it would have to work and thanked the sister for her help.  However, she must not have understood that it was something we wanted to do in private because she stood there looking at us and didn't leave.  My companion knelt down thinking she would get the hint and I held the curtain door open for her so she could leave but she just stayed there and said, "I can't kneel down with my bad knees" and folded her arms and bowed her head.  "Oh well," my companion and I thought as I knelt down and said the prayer to break our fast praying for our investigators and for their specific needs.  The hermana accompanied us with her arms folded the entire prayer.  After we finished she said, "It was a prayer about something to do with fasting right?"  She is a member so she knows what fasting is but I don't think she really understood what was going on.  Either way, it was pretty funny.

It was an awesome week and we are working hard and happier than ever! Have a great week!

Love, hermana Paini

Primitive Appliances

This week was awesome, but wow did it go by fast.  I feel like it was just Monday yesterday!

I am really loving my new area.  This is the first area I have been in that is a branch instead of a ward.  It is a bit small but we have lots of re-activation and conversion to do and are ready to help the branch grow and progress to soon become a ward.

Something I have noticed and loved in all of my areas up until this point is that there is always at least 1 member family that is so good to us and becomes like our own family in the area.  In every throughout my mission that has been the case and I am so grateful for that.  It is amazing for me as I experience how one can grow to love such complete strangers in such a short time.  I have come to do so in every area with the members, investigators and companions with whom I have associated with and it has made such a special impact on my life and on the person who I have become and am today.  I am so grateful for the power of each of these wonderful influences in my life!  We have been working harder than ever this past week helping 3 couples in particular to get married and be baptized.  Ada and Alexis as well as Sergio and Tania are two couples who are so close to being baptized and just need to overcome the obstacles that are put in their way of getting married.  We are working with them and fasting and praying for them constantly so that they will be able to do so.  We are also teaching an investigator who is the mother of a missionary in our branch who just recently left on his mission about a month ago.  Her name is Rosio.  She has such a strong testimony and knows that the gospel is true, all that she needs now is to get married with the person she is with and she can be baptized.  We have seen so many miracles lately, great and small, and continue praying to see more each day especially with these investigators who we love so much.  I trust in my Heavenly Father and know he loves them even more than us and have no doubt that he is working with them through us as well.  With his help there is nothing in this world that is impossible!

I love you guys.  Have a great week!

Love, Hermana Paini

Our water heater

Our dishwasher

Our washing machine

House Adventures

This week was great!  I am really loving it here in my new area and I love my companion, hermana Briscoe, very much as well.

It is very calm here, not much happens... which is a good thing.  However, the house is always full of adventure.  The toilet is currently not working so we have to fill buckets of water up in order to flush the toilet.  The shower works great, however the drain doesn't work so all the water fills up the bathroom and quickly floods the entire bedroom if we are not careful.  After showering we have to mop up all the water and put it in the sink so the other companion can shower without flooding the house.  There is also no hot water so so we boil water and pour it in buckets and that is what I use to shower with.  It is always a good time:).

This week was full of miracles!  There are so many we are teaching who are progressing very well and will soon be able to be baptized.  We have also been praying lately to be able to find a family of 4 who have already been to church at least 2 times and can prepare to be baptized.  Our prayer was answered when we boarded a bus to go to Tuxtla for our interviews on Saturday and we met a brother named Carlos. While talking with him we found out that he is a member who was baptized about 3and a half years ago and then became inactive.  However, his wife and 3 kids above the age of 8 are not members and have been to church several times.  Carlos went to church yesterday for the first time in years and we were able to make an appointment with him and contact his family with a group of members after church yesterday.  They are so great and we are very excited for them!

That's all I have time for this week, but I love you all very much and hope you have a great week!:)

Love, Hermana Paini

New area, New companion

Hola!

This will be my group letter this week instead of the picture I usually send because today we are shorter on time.  

Transfers are always a blessing in disguise.. I never like the idea very much but always end up realizing that I am supposed to be in the area the Lord has called me to and with the companion to which I have been assigned.  I love it here in Cintalapa and love my companion very much as well.  SHE IS AMERICAN.. that is so weird for me.. I think I went into a brief culture shock for the first few days as companions because I have gotten so used to having latin companions for such a long time.  But she is great and I love her!  She is from Idaho and has 17 months in the mission and will finish this transfer.  I will finish only one transfer after her.  But we are making the most of the time we have left and working like crazy.  We are sister training leaders which is fun and get to help more people which is really awesome.  Though we are both americans we only talk in Spanish.. all day everyday, we have forgotten a lot of our engish and it is just easier to speak spanish all the time.  

General conference was so amazing.. I never wanted it to end.  General conference has turned into the super bowl for me as a missionary and I love it so much!  I felt as is every talk was written specifically for me and learned SO much!  

I think that ´s about all that I have time for this week, but I love you all very much.  Thanks for all your love and support! 

Love, Hermana Paini