Journeys in Jersey: Faith

Hola!!

This week was so great!! We taught a lot more lessons than the past couple of weeks.

Here are all the sisters who were at the transfer conference the day I arrived in NJ

We started out the week last week, with our Zone Meeting, Elder Benson and Elder Blanco, our Zone leaders gave a really good training about Faith, which is our monthly focus.

ELDERSSSSS

I am soooo excited for this monthly focus. I could really need to exercise my faith. They made us all a calendar with goals for each day so we can strengthen and exercise our faith. A lot of it is using your personal study time to study faith. I studied a lot about what faith is, how we can improve our faith, and the blessings of acting on faith. On Thursday, the goal was to contact 5 people on the street, and teach them about faith. We looked at the goal before we left, and I felt kind of scared, and I knew this might be hard for me, because contacting people is still really scary and uncomfortable for me, and because a lot of people don't really have the time to be taught a lesson on the street. BUT, We did it!!! It was an interesting day, but we did it, and we found some really awesome potential investigators, and set a few return appointments.

One of the people that we met that day, was a sweet young family, that work at the fruit stand that I wrote about a few weeks ago. We passed by the fruit stand, and the wife was there, who we had never met before, and they had the most adorable little baby girl. We talked to the wife, and asked her if we could return. She was very kind and said she would love to chat with us the next day.

The next day, Friday, we look at the calendar. The goal for that day is "Test your FAITH, invite 3 people to be baptized". I freaked out a little bit inside. We planned really hard for this fruit stand family. We just had a really good feeling about them, and they are just the cutest little young family, and we really want to teach them. So we planned to teach them more about faith, then lead that into the doctrine of Christ, then INVITE THEM TO BE BAPTIZED, right there, on the side of their little fruit stand, on the first lesson.

So we prayed, then left our little apartment to the fruit stand. They greeted us warmly and pulled us up seats. The little girl was in her car seat smiling SO BIG with Cheetos all over her face. One of the cutest things I've ever seen. We began talking to them and got to know them, their background and what they needed. The man, Yonny, is from Honduras, and his wife, Adriena, is from Puerto Rico. They have only lived here for 2 months. They are both really easy going and spiritual, but they aren't committed to any church. We talked about faith, and we asked them what faith meant to them. They both said that they have a belief that Christ is the son of God and things like that. Then we read in 2 Nephi 31 where it talks about the doctrine of Christ. We had them read the verses about following the example of Jesus Christ and being baptized. Yonny said that he knows that he needs to be baptized, but he has been waiting for the right church.. We both freaked out inside a little, then asked them to be baptized and... THEY SAID YES!!!

A MIRACLE OF FAITH, PEOPLE!! SO we have 2 new progressing investigators, Yonny and Adriena. They are wonderful. Pray for them, we don't want to lose them. If everything goes as planned they will be baptized in November. We have been keeping in daily contact with them and they have read in the Book of Mormon the chapters that we left them, together. So exciting!

Sister Martin and me on our hospital adventure.

On Thursday, we got to go on a fun little adventure to the hospital, which is actually not in our area. We had to take the bus, which was... interesting. The hospital is right on the edge of the river, which was so cool! It felt like we could have swam to NYC.

Me by the river shore during our hospital adventure.

The woman that we visited was so cute. She's like 90, but she is so faithful. She told us about how she has worked in the temple and how she has done all these cool things. She sang beautifully too. We sang some hymns with her. She really likes to color in coloring books too, so she proudly showed us some of the pictures she has colored. It was sooooo cute. The people we serve are just so great. I'm going to remember them all forever.

Sister Martin and me - NYC in the background

That night, we went to try to contact some inactive members of the ward and we ended up on a street called Broadway. We went to this woman's house and we met another strange woman named Berta, who told us she was a member of the church.. It was the woman that we had the name of who was supposed to live there... But we just went a long with it. She was very sweet and kind of a spunky lady. But she told us that she wasn't interested in coming back to church... then politely, with a smile on her face told us "I don't want you to come back"... It was kind of funny because she was rude, but nice about it, but then she hugged us and just kind of went along on her way. It was hilarious. Then while we were walking back to our apartment we see these two men walking toward us then all of a sudden we hear, "CONGRATULATIONS!!" we look around confused then he continues "ITS ABOUT TIME THEY LET WOMEN BE MORMON!"... bahahhahahahahahhahahaha. It was seriously so funny. He was a nice guy though. He made sure that we knew that he was Jewish, but he thinks that what we do is really nice. hahaha

On Wednesday night, we had a breakthrough lesson with the Amayas. They are the family that I mentioned we were struggling with. We had only visited them a couple of times, but each time we felt like there was something missing. So this time, we worked really really hard to get some members of the ward present in the lesson. We actually worked it out so that we could have two members with us. Sister Sanches and Brother Paillaman. Two kind of younger, but AMAZING members of the ward. We went in there and the Amayas were happy to see us and happily invited the members into their home as well. Olinda (the woman) had to finish feeding the little girl, but as soon as she finished she came in and sat by me. We were talking about how their youngest and their oldest are 17 years apart in age. When I realized this, I told them about how my sister and I were 17 years apart in age too! When I said this, her face lighted up and she got excited! I felt like that really helped me to connect with Olinda. After that we were IN! We had a great lesson with them, and Olinda finally understood the importance of reading the BOM and agreed to read about it, then pray for an answer as a family. It was great. MEMBER PRESENT LESSONS MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE! If you are reading this right now, pick up your phone, call the missionaries, and ask them when you can participate in a lesson with an investigator. It will be an answer to their prayers. The testimonies of members are strong.

Hermano Cedillo and Obispo Concepcion. Two of my favorite people in the ward. Hermano Cedillo is a recent convert since January and we visit his family weekly. He sounds like Mufasa and he is so wise. His wife always sends us home with orange juice. He's rom Ecuador and he knows l ike 5 languages. Hermano Concepcion is just amazing. I swear he knows everything. He's from the Dominican Republic.

CONFERENCE WAS SO FUN!! I got so spiritually fed. I feel ready to go and do work!! I hope you all are ready to do your part in member missionary work now too!

Evelyn, Me and Hermana Incarroca. They are sooo cute. They texted us one night telling us to come to the church. We showed up and saw all the elders and they said they got the same text Then they showed up with pizza and soda for us. Evelyn is the cutest little girl ever! She's so funny!

My LOVE! Soda Colombiana. I am sooo obsessed Julie...You would love this!

We had a really fun lunch with the ward after the Sunday morning session. I seriously love this ward so much. The people are so awesome. Sister Martin and I were a little bit late to lunch because we got caught up talking to a recent convert who really needed to talk to us about something. Like 3 of the members were looking for us, then when they found us they hurried us into the cultural hall. They had saved us seats and made us plates of food.

All the cute little boys in our ward lined up for the dessert after conference.

Then they would come and make sure that we had all the food that we wanted. Then we had TWO members bring us desert... So we got two deserts. It was so funny. The Elders are always kind of jealous because the members adore us so much. hahahahhaha