baking our way to baptism

 Se quema cuhhhh

GOOD:

- Started the week with some lit service. Basically, these members down here are moving into their dream home and they needed some extra hands to move a giant pile of dirt from their front yard to various spots around the yard. We spent a solid 2 hours relocating a giant pile of dirt. It was a good time though.

- This is not "good" but Elder Steen got sick this week. The mission nurse thinks he had the flu so we spent most of Friday and Saturday inside our apartment so he could rest and recover. Lots of extra time for me to get our tech squad work done and study a little extra. But, even with all of that I had some down time. Gratefully, my mother (she is the best) sent me a Halloween package complete with a boxed sugar cookie mix and frosting sooooo... cookies were made. We took them to some of our friends we are teaching and let me tell you. Sometimes baked goods really soften people's hearts. Watch for the baptism of the Boots family soon. 🙂

- Elder Steen and I are having a great time and the work is picking up! We are busy and have some truly amazing friends. The Lord keeps blessing us and I honestly do not know what we have done to deserve being in Weslaco during this time. The Lord is preparing South Texas for their temple and it is so exciting.

BETTER:

- We found the coolest guy named Evin this week! Finding him was another story of seeing the Lord's hand in our work. During the morning planning session I was putting in some contacts that the missionaries had here a few years back. I came across one by the name of Belinda and put her in as a backup plan for another person. I then felt like I had to move her and make it an actual plan, so we did. The day was going well and we honestly considered skipping over visiting Belinda because we knew nothing about her, but we felt we needed to go, so we knocked on the door and found Evin! He invited us in and told us about some of the things he was searching for in his life, we had a great lesson with him and as we were leaving he said something to the extent of "This is so crazy, I have been praying for something like this, then you guys showed up."

- After a crazy turn of events and many conversations with mission and church leadership. Danii Boots and her family are back under Elder Steen and I's stewardship. They are incredible and I feel so glad to have been given permission to continue teaching them. They are about to progress like crazy. Stay tuned.

- LESLIE, MARICRUZ AND CARLOS are so INCREDIBLE. We had some amazing lessons with them where we found out they have been reading the Book of Mormon as a family each night. WHATTTTT, my family doesn't even do that?!?! (sorry to call you guys out like that) They are so prepared for the gospel it makes me very happy. They are still on baptismal date for the end of October and have been progressing well! Our group chat with them is used daily and they all communicate with us consistently (a big deal), they love having us over and are learning so quickly. They are definitely people the Lord wanted me to meet in Weslaco and I know that forsure. There is a picture of the family attached but Maricruz (the mom) was gone the particular night so it is just the kids and their dad, Luis. They are so cool!!!!!

BEST:

One of the speakers in church this week spoke about patience. She spoke about how many times we have to have patience in God's timing and trust His plan. This hit me hard because it reminded me of summer 2021 and the journey that Heavenly Father put me on to receive a mission call. He does not give us what we want. He gives us what we need. I am blessed to be able to look back on my experiences and see that the Lord was teaching me patience in preparation for my mission. I am happy to be here and I am happy to be able to see that God cared about me enough to teach me a hard lesson so I could be a stronger person.

"Life is full of difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be an unending supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we often expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required." - Thomas S. Monson

I love you all. If you made it this far - send me an email or a message on FB Messenger, I would love to hear from you. 🙂

"Work Hard, Keep the Commandments, Have a Positive Attitude and Show Gratitude."

- Elder Stringham