"Sometimes I feel like I'm on a tropical island. And sometimes not."
Poster announcing the General Conference Broadcast at the church building.
Yolanda (in yellow) with her family and some of the ward Young Women.This was a sign that was hanging on a bulletin board in the church, and I definitely agreed. We had about 15 investigators between all the sessions of conference. And with a sign like this, it's not surprising! Our rama (Branch) also has a Liahona class every Tuesday night where they have a lesson on a conference talk, and every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday they do Zumba upstairs in the church from 9-10. They're so incredibly awesome. There's always something going on at the church.
This week has been so many miracles. Thursday evening found me on top of my chair shouting for joy after a phone call saying that Gloria's parents had agreed. We still don't have the actual signature, we're still praying a lot, but like Gloria said, "for the first time, there's a way that this is actually going to happen on the 12th" (She speaks English surprisingly well for a sixteen year old.) She desperately wants to be baptized on the 12th before Elder Godfrey goes home. He just got moved to the area next door from here. We're so incredibly excited!!! Gloria is one of our best friends.
Yolanda is doing so great. She's so excited and nervous and everything. We reviewed the baptismal questions with her last night and she had a heart attack because we haven't taught her diezmo (tithing) yet and she's nervous for the interview. She is so ready. She shared her testimony with us the other night and how much she's changed and how she acts differently after knowing the church. She's kind of a blonde, so sometimes we wondered if she was really internalizing what we taught, but after hearing her last night in the mock interview, she's so ready. She's amazing and there are no foreseeable problems. She lives with her aunt and uncle who are recent converts and super strong.
ELVIS!!!! I grin every time I think about him. Hna Erickson and I both are not the biggest fans of contacting, and so we generally avoid it in favor of teaching lessons. But we had a member just barely move into a residential area that has basically not ever had missionaries in it, so we knew we needed to at least get some doors knocked there and start building a teaching pool there. We went to the farthest building in the back to start. Before we buzzed the first intercom, we asked each other if we were going to try to get in or just invite to church, we had a bit of time, so we decided to try to get in. First contact was Elvis. He came down immediately and we had an amazing intro lesson. We came back, put a baptism date for Dec 14-- (We have to wait that long because he's a single male contact, otherwise he'd be ready so fast) --he accepted. He came to church last week and loved it. And conference this week. He's just escogido. There's no other way to describe it. He's about 45. He has a super great understanding of everything we teach. I feel like we're just reminding him of what he already knows. It's way too easy. He's so incredible, and it was incredible how we were placed to find him.
Conference was so so great. I loved it, and I understood it!! Incredible progress from 6 months ago. I understood it so much that I even caught the translation errors. (hombre instead of hombro, and estamos agradecemos). I read all of last conference in the week leading up, and I just have such a greater appreciation for being able to listen to our prophets.
We celebrated Hna Erickson's birthday on Saturday. One recent convert, Liu, bought her a cake and had a surprise party! I made her a cake too. Funfetti with purple frosting :) I did think of you Lindsay!
I'll need to tell you all about Meshack...
He's a Haitian that lived in New York almost his entire life. He got "caught up in the street life" and was deported to Haiti, where he hadn't lived since he was maybe 3. He knew no French, Creole, or Spanish. He came over here looking for a job, but had a tricky time seeing as he knew no Spanish. We would talk to him, and it was the most he got to talk to anyone. We talked about how God still cared about him and he eventually started praying. We gave him a Book of Mormon in English and he started reading it. The greatest part of the whole thing though, is I wish you could have heard the conversations. They were all New York accent ghetto. It was so great to talk about God and the scriptures and Nephi (said Ne-fee) in his street English. We loved seeing him every day. But he left back for Haiti. :( I told him to find the Mormon church and keep reading. I have high hopes for him.
Welp, another week here in Paradise. Running around getting a font filled! And getting the firma (signature) in black ink. We'll get there. Miracles happen.
Love you all!
Hermana Peck
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