Bastante Por Él

Hola a todos!!! Feliz lunes!

I'm writing this in the morning so that I don't forget because I love y'all and I know you're dying to hear how my week went :).

Me and Hermana Peine started this past week with the goal in mind to give our all and serve with diligence. We've had to stop teaching quite a few people, which was rough, but that meant we needed to go out and find new friends (investigators, but we call em friends which I love). I don't know how many doors we knocked, but needless to say, it was a lot, and we didn't have much luck. By the end of the week we were both exhausted, and Saturday afternoon we had come home and just collapsed on the couch, not being dramatic at all lol. We weren't sure what to do, but we decided to pray. After we prayed we both felt like we needed to get outside, we weren't sure where, but we grabbed the keys and started driving. We stopped at an apartment complex and knocked some doors, and then we ended up at a Walgreens and still no luck, and finally I decided to map us to a tienda. As we started driving to the tienda, the sign for La Taqueria caught my eye because underneath it said supermercado (supermarket). We kept on driving at first, but then we felt like we needed to go check it out. We pulled in to the parking lot and saw that it as just a whole row of latino stores and there were Latinos everywhere! We met a lot of new people and were able to tell them about what we do and invite them to English classes, they seemed really interested and accepted our cards. I saw in another store that they made fresh tortillas, which sounded like absolute heaven, so we went in to see what they had. The guy at the front was super friendly and knew about our English classes already, he had seen our FB page. I asked him for a fresh tortilla, and he started pointing at all the other things they had. I really only wanted a fresh tortilla, but it sounded like he said it was free, so I said I would get a thing of salsa. He wrapped it up for me and told me to pay in the other store without the fresh tortilla :(, was a little sad about that, but the salsa looked actually amazing. We went to go pay and there were two latina women in front of us in line, we started talking to them and they were both really interested in learning English, so we were able to give them our cards too! We left the store just so happy and grateful. We wouldn't have ended up there without having gone to the apartments and walgreens, God led us there in His own way, and because we trusted in Him, He blessed us with miracles.

The next day we spent the morning contacting everyone for church. Some of them didn't answer, and some said they couldn't. The first little miracle was when we decided to reach out to Johan who we'd stopped teaching a little while back. We'd been giving him some space, but decided that we should invite him to church. As we were getting ready to go, we got a text from him saying of course I'll be there! Bless his heart that made my day! We get to church and Johan shows up with his friend Ruben! We invite them to come sit with us, and then Pedro and Mauricio walk in the door! They'd said they would come, but you never know with those two. And then, Raul and his two boys walk in! They hadn't been to church for the past two weeks and it made my heart so happy to see them! But THEN, our two friends Charlie and Julie come in and sit down! They just kept coming and we were just sitting there in shock, looking at each other like what is happening!!! We started the morning thinking we would have no one at church, and then God blessed us abundantly. We gave what we could and He multiplied it.

I started this transfer trying to fill the shoes of my last companion, and she is one of the most hard-working, diligent people I know. I wanted to keep up the momentum and stay on top of everything, and in the midst of it all, I stopped working alongside Christ, I thought I could do it alone. But we can't do it alone. Right now, we need Him more than ever. We need His mercy in our imperfections, His strength in weakness, and His love to heal us and bind us to Him. Yoke yourself to the Savior, share the weight you bear, let Him carry you when you feel you can't take another step, know that you are never alone, that you are loved perfectly and fully, and that you're enough for Him.

Yo sé que tenemos un Salvador, que Él vive, y que gracias a Él, todo es posible. Su corazón es abierto a todos, todos son sus hermanos y hermanas, y Él ama cada uno de nosotros perfectamente. Estoy tan agradecida por Él, yo he sentido Su amor y Su gracia en mi vida, y Él ha cambiadome, y yo sé que Él puede cambiarte.

I love all of you so much!!! Have a great week!

- Hermana Neil

Photos in order:

- up to no good...

- temple trip!!!

- absolutely soaked