Hermana Medeiros Texas Houston Mission: Week 39

On Thursday i hit 9 months and then on Monday will be 9 months from when i go home! Because yeah my flight will probs be on Wednesday the 27! i Can't believe it! It seriously still feels like a dream sometimes! I can not believe that i have been out for almost 9 months.

I have to say i am so glad last week is done. It was probably the hardest week for me and my companion. She you know adjusting to missionary life and then me i was just feeling stressed and it was just a really stressful and hard week for the both of us. but we also saw so many miracles. Besides the lessons that we had with members we had a total of 23 lessons. This includes member presents, other lessons with investigators and less active lessons. It was such a good week. We also got more baptism dates! Olga for the 9 of may. But we just found out that she might be moving so we will have to see how that goes. And then the velasco family has a date for the 16th of may. Then last night we had a really great plan of salvation lesson with a family of 5 and they said yes to baptism but they didn't feel comfortable putting a date on it. But they are praying to know and so hopefully on Thursday when we see them again we will be able to talk to them a little more about it. The kids will definitely be baptized we just have to work on the parents. i love the family so much!

so we have some really good news!! We get to go to the temple this week! President gave us permission to go with Lourdes (the lady whose daughter died) we are going with her on Wednesday and since we are going in the morning he told us it doesn't have to be our p-day!! We were so happy!

We finally got in with an investigator who i had never met before! and she is so sweet! We are so excited to start teaching her again! We finally found a less active who is in the English ward but she doesn't speak much English so her husband asked us to go visit her about a month ago and we finally found a time when she was home! She just has so many questions on the book of Mormon and if the gospel is really true. We had a really good lesson and we are hoping for the best with her! We magically had time to weekly plan on Thursday. The past couple weeks we've had so many appointments that we couldn't plan till Saturday or so. But we got to do it and it was so good! Friday my baby went on her first sleep over! She went over to Louetta and Buno who is the other STL came here for exchanges. sometimes i think i'm bad luck for exchanges because on every exchange i go on all the appointments cancel. We went to the relief society activity and we were only planning on being there at the beginning because we didn't think that any of our investigators would come but we got one of them to come and so we stayed for the whole time. It was so awesome! And then we finally saw a less active and had a really good lesson with her! she came to the first 2 hours of church on Sunday! Normally if she comes it's only for the first hour! but this time she stayed for two and she told us she was going to come to relief society but when we turned around she was gone. Sunday seriously was the best day ever. We've decided to fast every Saturday night till Sunday after church and we definitely saw the blessings from it. We came home and broke our fast and then we went to our dinner appointment and then we got in with less actives who we haven't been able to see in a long time and we had a great lesson with them, we got in with our family of 5 investigators and taught them the plan of salvation and we were outside but then the rain/ice/hail storm started so we finished it inside. They asked so many good questions it was amazing! then we went and saw olga she said she didn't have time to have a lesson but we managed to sneak on it. we talked about faith and asked her to read a scripture and then we got in with another inactive and it was the most powerful lesson i have had with him. he started crying and talking about how he knows he needs to change. After we said the first prayer i felt i should ask him how his prayers are and he told us that he hasn't been praying and that he feels satans powers are just too strong. I had found a scripture earlier that day when i was looking at the tabs that i have in my book of Mormon and i found one about prayer and so when he said that i was able to reflect back onto that scripture and we shared it with him and he really liked it. it's really sad because he served a mission but his family who some are members but they don't like the church and so they give him a lot of problems about it. But he has such a strong testimony and that was the best lesson i have had with him. It was a huge blessing. Yesterday everything we wanted to do worked out. We saw everyone but one person who we had planned to see and the only reason why we did see the other person was because we ran out of time.

Like i said in the first paragraph this week was a little rough for the both of us emotionally. But we made it through. God really does inspire companions. I am able to use some of my experiences and advice I've received to help my companion. She tells me almost every day that she doesn't think any other missionary could have been with her. I've struggled with some of the same things that she is facing right now. But she's never faced them before so she doesn't know what to do. On Saturday (which was a rough day for both of us) she finally talked to me about it and we had a nice talk while we were driving. It made both of us feel better. It seriously is like De Ja vu because so many things that we talk about is what i talked about with my trainer. It's so great! I've been able to notice when things aren't going so well but i'm just trying to make sure she knows i love her and that i'm always here for her and when she's ready i know she'll talk to me. it's definitely just like being a real mother. haha speaking of which before our exchange on Friday we were talking and she was saying "man what am i going to do with out my mom tonight" and i was like "what" and she just looked at me and then i realized what she had said haha she calls me hermana mom sometimes because i'm hermana m. So i'll call her mija. haha it's so much fun. We really have a lot of fun together.

We've had a few small struggle together but i know that it is just going to get better from here because we've been able to talk about them and work things out.

so no one came to the Spanish ward but Laura's kids went with a member in the English ward which was really awesome. Over all i would say our investigators are doing well. We just have to really work on them progressing especially those who have baptismal dates. Speaking of which Rosa who has a bap date totally disappeared to Peru last week. Her son told us and he said she should be back this week. So hopefully we will get back in contact with her really soon.

Over all this week was so good. I definitely learned a lot! I am so grateful for the privilege that i have to be a trainer and to work with a new missionary and to help her learn how to become the best missionary she can be. I love seeing the change in people's life! This week is going to be pretty exciting. We got a lot of plans coming up this week!

haha right now at the library there are 12 computers in a rectangle and all but 1 are filled up with missionaries. We are taking over the world!!

When we were driving here to the library we were listening to conference talks. And one of them was called "it's true isnt' it? then what else matters" i don't remember who the speaker was but this gospel is true and as long as we follow it, nothing else matters. The storms can come the rain can come. But this gospel is true and God is our loving heavenly father and he is always here to help us when we need him. i know that the promise in moroni 10:3-5 is true. I have seen it in my life and i have seen it in the life of the people i am teaching. I am so grateful to be out here on a mission at this time in my life. there is nothing else i would rather be doing. I hope you are all doing well. and remember there has to be rain before there can be a rainbow!

#graciasaqueelvive

yo se que este iglesia es verdadera. Dios es nuestro padre celestial y nos ama. El sabe todo. y siempre esta aqui por nosotros. Podemos recibir mucho consuelo cuando leemos las escrituras y orar sobre de las cosas leemos. Dios es su padre, Jesucristo sufrio para usted. Nunca olvide esto.

Cuando ponemos nuestra fe en dios todo esta posible!!! Nunca olvide que dios le ama! Dios es siempre con nosotros, tengamos que buscar por el. le amo mucho! Gracias por todo de su apollo!