An Amazing Week!

Well my family and friends, I had a most amazing week here in New Mexico! It's weeks like this that make all of my sacrifices and heartaches of being a missionary seem so small in comparison to the blessings we're receiving. Oh how grateful I am to be able to serve here right now in this area at a time when so many exciting things are happening!

Monday: It was a holiday, so the library was closed. We went to the Coronado State Monument that is located between our apartment and Bernalillo. It was so interesting! It is ruins from the Kuaua (koo-aa-wa) people that are 600-700 years old. It was so interesting to see that little bit of history in this area. I really enjoyed my time there. It was interesting to see how the native people in this area lived. And it is way neat to think that they were probably desendents of the people in the Book of Mormon! The history of that location is so rich! Dad would love it. The weather was fairly nice, I was only wearing a sweater and didn't freeze. And that night we had yet another amazing lesson with the Marquez family. They hosted FHE in their home, and Brother Marquez taught the lesson about the Plan of Salvation. This family is so amazing, and are progressing so well!

Tuesday: It was a normal missionary day full of lessons and cancellations etc. We tried out a new object lesson on faith that we borrowed from some of the Elders (they did it for the dinner message when we ate with them one night). It had a really powerful affect. We'll have to do it for a FHE when I get home.

Wednesday: It was cold and windy and it hailed. It made for a miserable day, especially since we did lots of walking because we were kinda worried about where we were sitting mile-wise on our car. We actually spent a lot of time walking this week.

Thursday: We had District Meeting, and it was probably my favorite one we've had yet. Elder Jorgensen was very inspired and I felt like what he was saying was specifically for me. It was a wonderful meeting! It was again cold, and we did lots of walking.

Friday: The scab finally fell off of my dog bite. It really doesn't look as bad as I'd thought it would, and as I continue to take care of it, it will continue to get better. We had weekly planning. And we had yet another amazing lesson with the Marquez family. We committed them to be baptized! They are so excited and so ready for this step to improve their lives. This will be such a blessing to this family. I love them so much, and am so grateful to be able to be a part of their process to learn about the Gospel and make these changes in their lives.

Saturday: Once again, it was cold and we were outside walking. But we were all in a good mood after our lesson Friday night and didn't really notice the cold.

Sunday: We got the BEST NEWS EVER!!! Okay... story time. Are you ready? 7 1/2 months ago when Sister Michel was first transferred to this area, there wasn't really any support for the Spanish speakers, other than one ward who has a lot and does translation every week. But in the Bernalillo ward, where she was serving, there was nothing. Their investigators would go to church and not be able to understand anything. So she and Sister Trunnell started talking, and ran an idea past President Anderson, and President Roundsville, the Stake President. This idea was to start a Spanish service, because there weren't enough people for a branch yet. They liked this idea, and so a Spanish sacrament meeting was started, presided over by one of the counselors in the Bernalillo Bishopric. A few weeks later, Sunday School was started in Spanish. And my first week here, they had all 3 hours for the first time. What a blessing this became! President Roundsville had a vision. He wanted to start a Spanish Branch here in this area. He knew that there were enough members here in the area who speak Spanish to support a branch, so he started the process to send a request to Salt Lake for a Branch, with the hopes of having the Branch start on January 1. Well, December came and went without any word from Salt Lake. We were calling President Roundsville every week to give him an update on our work, and to ask if he'd heard anything. January 1 came and went as well, but we didn't give up hope. Well, around 10:00 we received a phone call from President Roundsville. We'd called him Saturday to let him know about the Marquez family, so that's what we thought was the purpose of the phone call. And we did talk about that. But then he gave us some VERY good news! La Rama Coronado is going to be started on February 28, 2010 at 2:30 pm!!! A horrible time for church, I know, but we've got our branch! What we've been working so hard for and the members have been faithfully and diligently waiting for has become a real blessing for the people here! Only one short month and the people in this area who speak Spanish who have been attending church in English and not really understanding, or listening to translation and not getting the full message will be able to attend church in their own language and will be able to bless and benefit each other! What a blessing for me to be here right now at this time!

(I’m thinking part of her letter didn’t come through because no signature and below is another short e-mail home and she never talked about pictures in the above part—oh well! At least we know she is having a great week and her leg is doing better )

Just kidding. No pictures. I found a card reader in my desk drawer here and thought it would work for my memory card, but it doesn't. I'll send my chip home soon. But I promise that my leg is looking so much better!