called to serve

called to serve

Monday, June 13, 2016

WORKING WITH JESUS

Mom, Dad, Mara, Seth, Shelby and everyone else I love,
Every week in Los Naranjos is full of challenges and successes. I am happy to say that this week we saw more success than failure. It was a week of miracles!! Nancy Orellana is so so so ready for her baptism! We had some struggles all week with her family and also in the ward yesterday. The whole ward was fighting yesterday...it was really ugly but we spent a good part of the day with her yesterday in church, after for lunch and after for a service project we did and she told us that she doesn't care what her family says and doesn't care that sometimes the ward members are crazy. She knows the church is true and she isn't going to let anyone stop her from being baptized this Saturday. My heart lept when she told us this..."The church is perfect. We aren't." She understands so well! And shes so excited. So...lots of prayers for her this week! Her conversion process hasn't been easy but we are happy to say that she is converted and more ready than we ever thought she would be!
We have been stuck in a pattern of always only one person progressing in this area for well over a year. BUT this week we can say that we finally broke the pattern! We went from 1 progressing investigator last week to 4 this week!!! We were able to find 1 new investigator who is one of the chosen ones.Her name is Tita Garcia and she has been well prepared by the angels that are here working with us. We found her as we were contacting and had one visit with her at the beginning of the week. She said she wanted to know why the mormons don't drink coffee so in the first lesson we taught the word of wisdom and when we finished invited her to keep the word of wisdom and quit drinking coffee. She said yes right away and I thought maybe she didn't understand so I asked her why she would keep the word of wisdom and she told me..."because its a commandment of God and that's good enough for me." And when we returned for our second visit she told us that she had only drank one cup of coffee the whole week but that she was going to try harder this week. She also told us that she was talking to her husband about our visit and told him that she doesn't feel obligated to go to church with us...but she feels a DESIRE to go with us. She has now read...in just one week...4 folletos and is reading from the Book of Mormon as well. She is a miracle. She was in Santa Ana on Sunday.but said she is going to cancel her plans this weekend to come to church.
We decided to return with some of our old investigators this week and found two who are finally ready to progress. Raul Orellana has come to church two weeks now and told us yesterday that he would like to put the 25th of June as his goal for his baptism. His problem was that his friends in the school were bullying him for coming to our church. He is from the most popular church in Los Naranjos and has been received alot of flack for visiting with us so we left him but he is now ready. He told us he doesn't care what they say, he knows the church is true and he knows he wants to be baptized. He also told us that after his baptism he is going to take us around to all of his old friends who have stopped attending his old church so that we can baptize them too :) haha so we have some potential future investigators! We also returned with a old man that we only taught a couple of times but then got sick. He is 94 years old and his name is Julian Garcia. He had told us originally that he wasn't ever going to go to church with us because he can hardly hear but we invited him and offered to bring him in a car and he came! And when he left he said he really liked the church and he is going to come again next week. We are going to start planning a wedding for him and his wife over the next couple of weeks and hopefully a baptism in July!
So many miracles here this week! There is a promise in chapter 5 of Jacob that says that if we work with all of our strength the Lord of the vineyard will work with us. That's all it takes...follow the rules and work with all your heart might mind and strength. I cant say its easy. I feel like as we see more and more miracles we also see more and more contention, but I know the Lord is here working along my side and my heart is full of gratitude for the blessings that he is sending me right now.
I was also able to have an interview with President this week. He asked me a question at the end of my interview and told me that it was more important than any other thing he asked in the interview. "Hermana Stoor, what are you becoming?"I thought about it for a minute and just started to cry. The Lord is changing more hearts than the people in Los Naranjos. Hes changing mine as well. Maybe that's the biggest miracle of my mission as of now.
I love you all and I'm happy to hear that everything is going good at home. I know your busy and have lots of responsibilities...but don't forget to take care of yourselves as well. I love you all so so sooooo much! Talk to you next week! ❤

Hermana Stoor


​I am enjoying the rain here in Los Naranjos...although I'm freezing cold...I wish it would just rain every day. I'm all prepared with my chumpa and rain boots :) BTW...the pants are happening in July. I HAVE TO WEAR PANTS. Its going to be so so so weird.

​Another cool thing about El Salvador...their are mariposas the size of my head :)

​Just a selfie. 

​I ❤ HERMANA GAMA

​HERMANA RAMOS. HERMANA GAMARRA. HERMANA CHAPMAN. PUPUSAS. These are a few of my favorite things. ❤

A surprise dinner with President Sanchez. WE LOVE HIM. BTW...He wants to know if Grandpa knows a man named Walter Petersen from home...he couldn't remember if he was from Idaho or Utah but he served in his mission as the mission doctor and I told him I would ask :)

​I am not sure if I already sent this photo...but Nancy is in the white sweater..Shes getting baptized on Saturday wooohooo!!!!!!

​Also ....the family that went less active came to church this Sunday! It was a miracle! Here's another photo that we took during the birthday party for their daughter last week. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE ❤


No comments:

Post a Comment