Letter #52 - September 13, 2010

Dear fam and friends,

This weeks email is going to be short and sweet. I don't have a ton of time today. But I did have some really wonderful experiences this week that I wanted to share, and some frustrating ones that make the sweet ones all the better.

On Saturday we weren't having any luck with finding the people we had planned to teach. But finally we a lady named Flor let us come in and start teaching her. We are teaching her son Kevin and we had taught her as well one time before but this time, Kevin wasn't home and it gave us the chance to answer some of her questions. She started asking about the Book of Mormon. Basically it turned out to be a really frustrating lesson in which she was totally closed to accepting anything we said and just threw one objection after another at us. I felt like we actually did a really good job of answering her questions and objections and showing her how Heavenly Father's plan all works together so perfectly. I even felt the spirit testify through me as I bore my testimony of a Loving Father in Heaven and the book that he prepared for us in these last days to clear up all the confusion that exists in religion. But she was super closed to taking anything into her heart and at the end wouldn't even accept the invitation to read part of the Book of Mormon to find out for herself what it contained and if it was true. That always hurts a little bit. Not because we were rejected, but because she will never know what kind of happiness and truth she could have had. I love the Book of Mormon with all my heart.

Now, contrast that experience with yesterdays testimony meeting where Bernarda, our recient convert of about a month ago, got up and bore a sweet and simple testimony that she is so grateful to have discovered the true church, and that through the reading the Book of Mormon, she knows that the church is true. Wow. That was probably one of the sweetest moments I have had. It is so hard to get people to read the Book of Mormon out here, members AND investigators. And hearing her testify of the Book of Mormon from the pulpit yesterday about made my heart burst. She has gone through a ton of trials since she got baptized, but she has been faithfully reading the book of Mormon and it has made all the difference.

The other sweet experience was with Luis and Suyen. They didn't get baptized this saturday because Suyen still had a lot of doubts and is worried about her family totally rejecting her if she gets baptized because they are super catholic. But we trudged through a hurricane to get to their house last night and it was well worth the bath. When we got there, dripping wet even though we had a huge umbrella, Suyen said she had some news for us. She said that they wouldn't be coming to church anymore and that they were going to stop receiving the lessons... my heart skipped an entire beat and a half. But then a sly smile creeped across her face. Just kidding, she said, we're going to be baptized on Saturday the 18th, for sure. Wow! I wanted to jump up and shout and dance, but I settled for giving her a big hug. This family is really special. I feel like if they were the only ones that I got to teach and baptize in my whole mission it would be worth it.

Well time is up, but I just have to say that being a missionary is the best thing in the world - the bitter makes the sweetness that much sweeter.

Love,

Hna. Crosland