Big news........the Ramirez family all came to church for the first time! Their dad is a less active member but both he and their mom has work off this Sunday (for once) so they all made it! And Antonio felt the Spirit there! We had to leave early to get to the VC for all the guests there but it was so so good. We talked about the Milennium in the second class so that kind of threw them off, but it turned out GREAT. Cynthia is totally living the Word of Wisdom now and they're totally getting baptized this month! Yay! They also came to the VC for a tour and came again when the lights came on Saturday night!
We had Thanksgiving at our bishop's home. This family takes care of us so much - every Sunday, they feed us and it was so great to be with them on Thanksgiving. Even though it's not quite my favorite holiday, it was nice to be in America to celebrate it, even in the Spanish program :)
The Sanchez family didn't come to church this Sunday but they did come to the VC Monday night - even Hugo! He loved the VC and even sent us the nicest text we've ever received from him afterwards, thanking us for the tour at the VC and everything we've done for his family. He's changing! He's totally going to accept a baptism date ANY DAY NOW and marry Lizeth! This family is the best, and they'll totally be ready to get baptized this month!
We're teaching one other family, the Romeros, but they're not quite progressing. Hno. Romero is all talk and says he wants to come to church and change and be free from the guilt of his mistakes, but he's not doing anything right now. His wife is studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses which makes things weird, but she reads the Book of Mormon consistently, more than he does, and says she wants to find the truth. We started teaching them the plan of salvation last week but we couldn't finish because they had so many questions, especially about what happens after this life. We're excited to answer those questions this week and help them find their testimonies!
One last miracle: Abby. I can't remember if I wrote anything about Abby, but one night we drove by her house and we had noticed it a few times before but we didn't knock it. That night, we decided to pull over and knock on the door. Little did we know that she just requested a Book of Mormon the weekend before! Her boyfriend is serving a mission right now and her family is super Catholic but she's looking for more. We finally had a lesson with her this week where we taught her about the Restoration. She already believes that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet! Her boyfriend sent her some clips from General Conference as well and she believes that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet too! And on top of all of that, she told us that she had been praying to know what to do just one hour before we knocked on her door that night. And still, no other missionaries have received the referral and tried to contact her. The system totally lost her information, but God didn't forget about her, and he sent us there to find her. Listening to the Spirit is hard and sometimes we don't recognize promptings until after we see the results of acting on those promptings, but the gift of the Holy Ghost allows us to work miracles for God in the lives of His children. This was another testimony to me that God really does love us, His power is real, and this is His church because He "show[s] forth his own works in it" (3 Nephi 27:10).
The Visitors' Center will be CRAZY this month. We're there almost every night - we had over 1500 people come Saturday night when the lights turned on and another 800 last night. And I'm staying in Oakland, in the Visitors' Center and with Sister Ayala for yet another transfer! It's going to be great! I'm so grateful to be in the Visitors' Center for another Christmas :)
Have a great week, and a great start to the Christmas season!
Hermana Hunsaker
