Hello family!!
First and foremost, I am totally bummed that I did not hike Orderville and enjoy the beautiful serenity of the ranch with you all this weekend and I would give lots to celebrate 4th of July in America, but its all good. I will surivive. At the very least, I will eat a hot dog and wear red, white and blue. You can take the girl out of America, but you cant take America out of the girl. :)
Buttt Gabriela was not baptized last week. As I predicted, there were a few problems. On Tuesday we practically spent the whole day with her. She excitedly showed us a CTR ring and lots of other things she bought at the temple. We planned her special day with talks and she even prayed that her baptism could come faster because she could not wait much longer. Welll.... we were ecstatic. But as we usually do we warned that she would probably feel some sort of opposition and to be ready. And, like clock work, Tuesday night she called us sobbing and told us she was calling off her baptism.
I don´t know if I mentioned but her entire family is Jewish. They are not practicing now but she grew up reading the Torah, celebrating Hanukah, etc. Also, her family has lots of money. So when her dad caught news that she was well on her way to becoming the newest member of the ´´Mormon church´´ let´s just say that he was not exactly pleased. He screamed that she was betraying her family and her traditions etc.
As you can imagine, we were devestated. Because this was the FOURTH time this week something like this happened...
1. Miguel told us that even though he wants to be baptized more than anything and that he recognizes how wonderful the gospel of Christ is but that the other Bolivians he works/lives were giving him an unbearable time: mocking and scourning him for his decision to meet with us, go to church and change his life. He told us that he needs space and that when things calm down he will find us at church.
2. We were teaching this 89 year old woman named Rosa. Hard as a rock and about as old as Moses but she showed some interest. She came with us to church and a FHE and allowed us to change out all the coffee in her house for hot chocolate. But in a moment of weakness she told her daughter about the headache she was having because she gave up coffee. Her daughter then convinced her that we were trying to wreck her life and coffee clearly was good for her.
3. Silvio, the man who has taken care of his mother for 20 years, the one with the list of 20 inspired questions that led us to teach all of our lessons in one night finally came to church last Sunday. And he absolutely adored his experience. He answered all of the questions in Sunday school and made instant friends. So much so that the Elders quorem president called that very night for his address and number and they immediately put him on the list of people to visit!! But, (there is alwayssss a but) his brother in law hates the church and said some awful things like all of the crazy, estranged serial killers in the United States are members of the church and that we practice arranged marraiges. Silvio realizes that these are complete lies, but his mom is old and a little crazy. She started sobbing, wailing actually that we are trying to take his son away from him. So while Silvio wants to join the church more than anything in the world he has to wait until his mom dies or for a miracle to return.
Sooo long story short, we were pretty devestated that our investigator of gold, Gabriella was also struggling. We fasted and prayed to know what to say and how to say it, and I truly felt the hand of the Lord in our work. Actually very quickly. We called Gabriella the next morning and she was sooo much better!! She told us that after she got off the phone with us, her tough-as-nails, smoker,drinker mom, Cecilia, gave her a pretty inspring pep-talk. She said ´´Look, I am Jewish too. And while I am sad that you want to change, I can see that you are happy. You are changing for the better so go forward with this decision and dont listen to your ´idiot father´.´´ Cecilia was our personal angel this week!! Sometimes answers to our prayers come in interesting ways!!
That very same day Silvio called and told us that he already felt a huge fault of us and that while he could not accept visits from the church at home, he will gladly accept a message at any time at the gate and he is praying for a miracle! I´ll take it!
But I found a quote by Sister Dalton that I think is especially special after this roller coaster week:
``No wonder Satan has increased his attacks on identiy and virtue... If you can be dismayed, discouraged, distracted, delayed, or disqualified from being worthy to recieve the guidance of the Holy Ghost or to enter the Lord´s holy temple, he wins.´´
So, just stay away from those 5 ´D´words and go forward with faith! Everything will work out!
In other news, Brazil is still in the world cup! The game with Chile was crazyyyy! These crazy Brazilians are so excited!! and giving my Chilean companion a pretty tough time. Today we are going to 25 de Marco (a Brazil version of Canal street) to celebrate the win. We will buy futebol jerseys and just anything with the Brazilian flag so we will be all sorts of prepared for the next game on Friday! Transfers are coming up and I really reallyyyy hope I stay here. I love this difficult but gratifying Vila Sonia.
Have a great week!!
Sister Lauren
p.s.
p.s.
thank you for your email mom! I am great and happy!! Yeah I guess I wont miss hiking lone peak again. I am glad I am here far away so I cant get suckered in. So, Katie did not go to the ranch? What did she do? And my face is getting better. A process defintely. Sao Paulo is so so dirty and I think that does not help but I am taking the medicine religiously
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