Hello my familia y amigos. :)
Happy Birthday Laura! (Tomorrow!) Crazy that my little sister is 17. I pretty much can't believe it.
This week was really good! We had 3 baptisms yesterday! It was so good. Katty was baptized yesterday-we found here through a contact with her uncle. She's 18 years old. She reminds me a little bit of me when I was 18. Right now, she is the only member in her family, but we've taught her sister, mom, and grandma before. After her baptism, she started crying, and she said that she felt so good to belong to this church. Later, she told Hna Lopez that all she is missing now is her mom, dad, and sisters to come to church.
We also had the baptisms of 2 sisters-Stefany and Kenia. Stefany is 13 and her sister, Kenia, is 10. They are both so sweet too. Everytime they see us they give us great big hugs. We were afraid for a little while that we wouldn't be able to get the permission for them to be baptized, but their mom gave them permission on Saturday. Kenia was afraid though to be baptized. We had her baptismal interview though, and afterwards, she was telling everyone at the church "I'm going to belong to this church tomorrow!" It was so cute. We also discovered that having a baptismal service right after church means that more members attend, which was really good. We're really trying to get the branch more involved in missionary work. We found Stefany and Kenia because their neighbor, Vanesa, is a member, and she introduced them to us. Missionary work really is so much easier when the members cooperate and help us find people.
The other sisters that were baptized 2 weeks ago are doing so well too. They are both waking up early to go to Seminary in the morning all by themselves, and they are coming to church on their own. They haven't even known the church for a month and are already doing things that most of the world would think is crazy. However, we did find out this week that their parents aren't married. That's a huge problem down here. People will live together their whole lives, raise a family of 7 children, and never get married. We asked them what was impeding their way, and they said that now there really wasn't anything. I think getting married here is a little more difficult than getting married in the United States. Sometimes, they have Mass Marriages, where a bunch of people can get married civilly. So we're looking for one of those so that they can get married and continue to progress. For now though, we're going to keep working with them. I don't know if I'll be here to see them be baptized, but I know that this is just part of my job as a missionary :)
One other cool thing this week was the chance we had to go on "splits" more or less. I went to visit our appointments with the Primary Pres, Hna Andrea (she is amazing!) and Hna Lopez went with one of our investigators, Pilar. Pilar is 15, and she is going to be baptized on the 27th. We've been teaching her for a while, but her mom hasn't given her permission. We had been kind of frustrated and felt like she was telling us more of the things that we wanted to hear, rather than what she really felt. But when she was with Hna Lopez, she bore her testimony and Hna Lopez said it was so strong. Without any prompting from Hna Lopez, Pilar told one of our investigators "I'm Catholic, but I'm going to be baptized on the 27th of March!" She was so excited to tell people to "come visit us in our Church" and she was sad when people didn't want to listen. We're going to keep working with her. :)
While I was with Hna Andrea, we went to go visit our appointments in my planner, but none of them were there. So we starting knocking doors. We found a young man named Edinson. It was hard, because I'm used to starting a lesson with Hna Lopez, but here, I was the missionary, the one who had to start the lesson. The beginning was a little rocky, but once we started talking about prophets, I felt a lot better. Hna Andrea helped me to explain things too. At the end, he said he felt really grateful to us for teaching him the truth.
Well, that's my week in a nutshell. Speaking of nuts, I found Nutella today!! It cost 16 soles, so I probably won't buy it for a while. Maybe for my birthday or something special. I also found legit (Canadian) smarties. They cost 27 soles, so I didn't buy those either :( But they exist here! I was so happy! Also, just for next week, our P-Day is gonna be on Tuesday. Just so you know.
Well, I'm gonna call this a letter for now. I love you all so much! This Gospel is true, and I love it!
Love,
Hna Williams
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