Veronica - We had FHE with them Monday night while teaching the message of the restoration. We played Telephone to illustrate the Great Apostasy and then watched the 20-minute Restoration movie. She prayed at the end of the listen and all her kids were there and she invited her sister and her kids to come too! She's moving in with one of our member's this week, Hermana Preciado, and she even came to church! Everytime she prays, she feels the Spirit and feels so much peace. We're working on helping her two kids, Ramses and Jenny, to progress. We're so excited to help this family.
Martin - Martin hasn't been able to make it to church because of work, but he has been teaching all of his co-workers about Joseph Smith - he's not even a member but he's sharing the gospel with everyone and totally understands why Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet! His sons still don't want to learn, and his wife has been avoiding us, but we know he's ready. It's hard for him to move forward without his family, but they'll come around someday. This family needs the gospel SO MUCH - no matter what we sometimes assume, every family needs the gospel. Every family has its own problems and concerns and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only thing that can truly help and have a lasting impact.
Maribel - Maribel is having a hard time getting to church, but she's AWESOME. She has stopped drinking coffee since we taught her the Word of Wisdom last week, and she even taught her husband so he's drinking less! She's already seen the blessings of the gospel in her family, even though her husband doesn't want to learn right now. The biggest problem is that they are moving to Illinois next month to the middle of nowhere - Hermana Ivey and I searched online for a Spanish branch in that area and there's NOTHING. So......we'll see.
Sonia - Sonia wants to come to church so bad. She almost made it - her husband is very devoted to his church, but he said he would bring her. But of course, he didn't make it home on time and she didn't tell us. But she really is looking for the truth and reads everything that we give her. We started teaching he 15-year-old daughter Vanessa this week too who also doesn't want to be baptized in her dad's church. We only see them once a week usually, but they're great and we've found some great fellowshippers for them.
Marilu and Atzidi - We didn't have a lesson with Marilu this week, but her 9-year-old daughter Atzidi is reading the pamphlets we've given them and came to church with Hermana Preciado! And they live right across the street from the new house of the Preciados and Veronica! Such a blessing, such a miracle.
Mario - Mario is a referral from Anabela, a lady from our English class. I absolutely love her and we tried teaching her a couple weeks ago, but she wasn't getting it and wasn't interested in learning more. She did read a little bit of the Book of Mormon though. She's here for a few months and she's going back to Guatemala next week but she's living with Mario's family. Mario has leukemia so she asked us to visit him in the hospital. We're going back there this week to give him a Book of Mormon and teach him some more - he has a lot of faith but we can know the Book of Mormon will give him even more hope and strength in the future.
And now.......Miracle referral stories.
Familia Campillo - Referred by a recent convert who didn't even know the name of these people. She only knew that they lived in her building. We showed up and they immediately said "Oh we're Catholic" and acted like they didn't want to talk to us. But as we kept talking to them, we found out that Hna Campillo is meeting with the Jehovah's Witnesses and they don't go to church or read the Bible. At first they told us that they were on their way out, but we ended up talking for ten minutes at the door. By the end of that, we had their phone number and found out that they're interested in English classes and the VC and church. And they told us we can pretty much stop by whenever we want. We're going to set an appointment for Friday when we're in Berkeley again. We NEVER would have found this family in Berkeley without the help of this random recent convert neighbor - we can't do this work without the members!
Familia Rodriguez - We've only met Hno. Rodriguez, but his wife is just as excited to listen to us. Hno. Rodriguez works in Concord at the apartment building where some of the Concord missionaries live. During his lunch break, they started talking to him and he asked about Adam and Eve. They gave him a Book of Mormon and he's really interested to understand it better and learn more. We're seeing them tonight and we're super excited!
Another tender mercy from the Lord: exchange with Hermana Garcia in Hayward. After being in her area for the first year of her mission, this was her first exchange staying in her new area in Hayward. Not too much happened, but we taught a miracle investigator - her husband is a very less active member of the English ward, and his home-teacher set it up for the sisters to go over. She's soaking it all in and doing so great. I love Hermana Garcia so much - it's nice to have companions that are also great friends.
Quick summary for the week, but there were literally miracles all around. It's the last week of the transfer and I'm just hoping and praying that I get to be here for all these baptisms that will happen soon!!! Our mission president told us in an email today that this next transfer, more than half of the missionaries in our mission will have been out for 6 months or less. There's a lot going on, but it's exciting and we never know what will happen. All we can do is have faith that the Lord knows better than us and He'll take care of everything.
Have a great week! Love you and miss you all!
Hermana Hunsaker
