MIRACLES!

Hola Familia y amigos!!!

Birthdays birthdays and more birthdays. Good thing mom has everything down and can make breakfasts, dinners, wrap presents, like a pro. I remember always loving this week of the year because there’s so much good food! But it’s okay... in celebration of all of that, we found a really good burger and fries place today and obviously, had our traditional banana split that we always buy on P-days. :)

Me and Hermana Sanchez

This week. This week I learned what it means that there needs to be opposition in all things. But mostly I learned about the blessings that come after the test and hand of the Lord in everything we do. On Thursday in our Zone meeting we talked about the trials that we WILL have as we try our best to work hard. We talked about an arm wrestle without the resistance of the other person or a stick-pull with just you and the stick. We discussed the game Mario.. what makes it fun, what’s the point, and how it feels to conquer a level. But.... how there would be no point if there were no obstacles. No Bowser. No hole or no pillars to cross. And so it is in life. How would we feel the joy of succeeding and being like Christ if there was no Satan. How would there be a miracle if there was no need for one... no suffering, no opposition. Well, this lesson prepared us well because the next day was a slow one. Very few people were home. A few people that we thought were progressing didn’t show much interest, and our investigator that has his interview for his baptism next week, didn't show up. At the end of the day we were feeling a bit bummed.. But it didn’t last for long. The next day turned around and was about the opposite. Lots of blessings.

Members in our ward

But... much more than trials, we saw sooo many blessings this week. Blessing after blessing after blessing. We decided that it was our week of miracles. Which is interesting because it was our last week in our month of faith. Sure cool to see how the Lord works. This week I felt like a real missionary, seeing real help and real miracles from the Lord.

Some big, some small. But they all made me stop and think about how blessed I am.

On Thursday, one of the Elders had given us a reference of a family in our area. He told us that they lived in a yellow house, sold salchipapas, and were across the street from a college. Well.... considering that our sector is HUGE and there are a lot of people and a lot of yellow houses, I wasn’t so sure how we’d find them. But... we had it in the back of our mind. That day we were on our way to the house where we were going to each lunch... a house we’d never been to before. We got off the bus at the stop that we thought was right. As we crossed the street, I looked up a saw a yellow house, looked in their window and it had a sign that said.. Salchipapas Aqui, and… I looked back. Yep, there was a college. We went inside and sure enough, it was the family we were looking for. Who knows what will happen, if they will progress or want to listen, but it was a small moment that showed me yes... for sure the Lord is helping us with his work.

Tuesday we also had a cool experience. We had a few lessons planned, but as we called all of them, they weren’t home or were busy. We had a few hours until our next appointment, so we decided to pray and then just walk and follow what we thought was right. As we got done praying, one of our investigators came into my mind who lived fairly close by, so we decided to walk over there to see if she was home. We knocked and knocked. No one. So we decided to do something that we had read about and talked about in PMG and contact the five doors around this house. At the second door we knocked, a lady opened it and welcomed us right in (which was kind of surprising because that doesn’t happen very much). As we started talking with her we found out that she was a single mom, wanted SOME change in her life and actually listened to the missionaries a few years ago. We felt the spirit strongly in this lesson as she explained how she wants to find more direction in her life, and at the end, accepted a baptismal date for this month. I know that the Lord led us there. 

These last two weeks we’ve also found a lot of people who have accepted baptismal dates. In our district meeting we read a scripture in Helaman about him and his challenge to take care of a huge amount of cities with few numbers of soldiers. Because of all the blessings we’re seeing in our district, our leader told us that that’s how we are right now. We’re finding lots of people with potential, but our challenge is figuring out how we can take care of them all and help them progress. Ya, I guess it’s not the worst problem we could have. Haha but I know it all comes from the faith we’re trying to show.

We also had a baptism this week of a girl named Rubi.. and it was so cool to see how many people from the ward came and supported her. She said afterward... "I feel more bright inside and like all the bad things left my heart." :)

Rubi's baptism

But I think the biggest miracle of all was yesterday. Man, we had an experience that I will sure remember for a long time. An experience that told me… don't worry, don’t doubt, just trust and know that the Lord is in charge.

I don’t know if you guys remember, but back in November we got a challenge from our mission president to look for families. To pick a number, pray about that number and that we WOULD find a family to baptize that the Lord was preparing. Well a few months have passed since November, but this challenge has very much been in our minds and in our prayers every day. For the past couple of weeks, we’ve made a goal to pray about our family in every prayer and look for people we can contact. Both my companion and I felt good about a family of five, where four people would get baptized. Kind of random and specific, but that’s what we decided on and felt good about. Well, yesterday we found our family. After waiting and praying. We had a lesson with a family a five where four accepted a baptismal date for the 26th of March. During the lesson they told us that they’ve been looking for a church to join and want to find a church to stay in. There were a few members in the lesson with us and they have family and lots of neighbors that are members of the church. The whole night was a testimony to me that the Lord doesn’t just answer prayers, but he answers MY prayers. Helps me with MY worries and MY desires. Earlier in the month we DREW our family (of five) to help us envision and BELIEVE that the Lord would help us find them, and as we were leaving, we saw a drawing on their wall of their family.. that looked the same and in the exact order as our picture in our apartment. We are being so blessed.

My scripture that I’ve been meditorizing this week fits perfectly. 2 Nephi 27:23  "For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith."

Miracles are real. They were in the scriptures, they are right now, and they will continue to happen if we have faith that the Lord will help us.

Thank you for your love and support! Love you all!!!

Hermana Yorgason