Monday, April 27, 2015

Power of Prayer 22 July 2013

So this week. Well what can I tell you about this week? It was another roller coaster week. We had some really awesome things happen and some... not so awesome things. 

Last Monday Naomi (the family we stay with) took us to Burley to get some shopping done. It's kind of funny that we live 45 minutes from any store, we really have learned to plan during the week for what we might need for the following weeks. Since we don't always make it into town we have to kinda stock up for the next few weeks. That was fun, Naomi is a hoot. I hope you guys received the letter that she sent. Mom, she wants to stop by your work sometime, She's in Utah ALL THE TIME. She doesn't really like how lonely it is up here so she goes to visit buddies. I gave her your number and address for work, I'm sure she'll let you know when she'll come in. 

Naomi saw that I was feeling a little overwhelmed with everything that has been going on this week and she surprised me....she had made a "you are my sunshine" board the other day in Relief Society and she had made an extra one for us to decorate our room! She is so sweet. A few days before that another sister from the ward came by and brought my companion a violin because she had mentioned she was missing hers at home. The people out here love us, its so amazing. I'm sure before we know it we are going to have to do some sort of musical number... I'm just glad they don't allow guitars in church! haha. 

Anyway, about our week: 

We met with the Goodrich's this week, they are the eternal investigators that have been going to church for 13 years and have little callings but they aren't baptized. They are both older, probably around 70's but they are very mobile. Bro. Goodrich is a race-car driver, believe it or not. He is ALWAYS talking about cars and the government--both are things we have no idea about. He started up his race car in the garage and knocked down like 4 pictures in the house, it was so funny. Some one had told me that Sis. Goodrich likes flowers so I went out and bought her some seeds for Forget-me-nots and some daisies. She was so happy, she wanted to plant them right away, so we did. We are hoping to meet with them this week and really find out why it is that they haven't been baptized... We are working hard in their area with a lot of Less Active members, that seems to be the majority of our work out in Elba. We really enjoy it though, we have seen a few sisters come back to church so we feel like we are doing our job. 

We have seen some wonderful progress with Carmen and her family in Raft River. I don't ever remember what I say so I hope I didn't mention this already, but we taught her the Plan of Salvation this week. We met with her twice and the second time we asked a Spanish sister to join us for that lesson. It went so well! She has mentioned that she hasn't really let anyone from other religions in her home but that there was something different about us. As we taught her the Plan we could see a change in her. She said she never knew that there was more after death and that it made sense, if Jesus Christ set the example for us, why couldn't we follow his example to live again? It was really good to see her piece these things together. The sister that came with us is Sister Jimenez. She is originally from California and her and her daughter and husband came out here to experience something else besides traffic. She is having a little bit of a hard time getting used to it, just like Carmen, so I thought it was perfect! She helped us explain all the different beliefs of other religions and why ours made so much more sense. I cannot express how important it is to have members present, they help more than you can imagine! Not to mention they got along really well, she might even come to church within a couple weeks! 

After meeting with Carmen, we got to go to Sis. Jimenez's house and she taught us how to make authentic mexican food! haha. I had a blast. "Enchiladas Suizas" is what we made. I definitely wrote down the recipe because they were AMAZING. She knew I didn't do well with spicy food (She saw me at a party try and eat a jalapeno.... I'm really glad everyone got a good laugh out of it...) so she only added one Jalapeno in the sauce, oh boy it was perfectly spicy! I think I'm going to try and make it again sometime this week for the Wight family, they like mexican food :) 

Speaking of the Wight family, we were able to go over Saturday and do some service. We helped them weed and helped the kids put up their new trampoline! We had burgers and shared a message. I really like that family, Sister Wight seems to be doing better about the divorce, she likes our company and definitely needs our help. We are more than willing to help out!

The power of prayer and fasting is one that is beyond description. We have been praying a lot for the Gomez family, for Gloria to be more receptive and for the kids to have the strength to tell her that they want to be baptized... We fasted for them this week and saw miracles. We took over the video about the Restoration, we watched it with them as part of our lesson. What we didn't expect was for Gloria to absolutely love it. She asked if she could keep the video and mentioned several times how good it felt to watch that. We testified of the truthfulness of the video and that it really did happen, at that moment we saw a change in her eyes. We invited the family to attend church yesterday and the kids said they would. Gloria's sundays are the busiest days of the week but she said she would let us know the next time she had a sunday off. We went to church yesterday and waited and waited...The Gomez kids didn't show up. We were a heartbroken, we texted Edgar and he said he had to run up to Burley for a car part that had just arrived at the shop before it closes... So they couldn't come cause they only have one car. We were discouraged but realized that we saw a huge move forward from the mom, the kids are ready and we need to work on her a little more. We need this family to grow together. 

Jill, our investigator with a baptismal date, ran into a bit of a road block this week. I don't know if I mentioned this but she has been dancing around a bit, moving her baptismal date from too soon to too far away. She asked us to come by and we went over with the Zollingers, she informed us that she had picked up smoking again... Bahhhh we were so mad! Turns out this was the real reason why she had been moving the date and wouldn't settle on just one. We gave her another lesson on the Word of Wisdom and encouraged her to get a priesthood blessing. She texted us this week saying she hadn't smoked for 3 days and wanted to be baptized with her son on saturday, we told her that might be too soon. We have to have her be clean for 2 weeks before she can be baptized, not to mention she has to have another interview. She was not very happy with that and we still haven't heard from her! She has been out of town so we can't just stop in to see her. We scheduled a return appointment for Tomorrow, we are hoping that everything will work out okay... 

The more we pray, the more we see blessings AND trials. But like the scriptures say, the only way to receive is by being tested and exercising faith. I hope that throughout this week you are able to stand firm through your trials with faith and prayer. Life will never be easy, and we should never pray to have less trials. Rather, we need to pray to have stronger backs to carry those trials and learn something from them. 

I hope ya'll have had a good week, I always love reading your emails and letters so keep them coming! I will let you know how this week goes. 

Love you!

Hermana Calero

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