Called To Serve: Stories from Brownsville

July 18, 2016

Howdy!!

This week was another good one!! We passed off Julio to the other sisters who are in YSA. He came to two different sessions of church! 6 hours! Miguel is getting baptized this Sunday!! We are hoping that Julio will too:) Miguel told us that he will do it this Sunday if there is music at his baptism. I have been practicing my opera singing so I can sing a solo haha- no I haven't but we are super excited for him! On Saturday we were on bikes and we had a lesson with him at the library and then we rode our bikes a good distance to our area. We had been working for about 2 hours when we realized our phone was gone. We looked and looked and finally came to the conclusion that we left it at the library. We biked all the way back and when we got there we found out that it closed 20 minutes earlier! The library didn't open until 1:00 the next day and our church starts at 1:00 so we were going to have to go get it after. During church I told Miguel that we didn't have our phone! He was super worried about it! Well during priesthood when we weren't with him he sneaked off to the library and asked if they had found our phone! They didn't. He went in the computer lab and called it and found it under a desk! He showed back up to church (we didn't even know he left) and handed us our phone!! It was a huge tender mercy because if we would have went to the library we wouldn't of found it! We were also worried that it wouldn't look good if people saw the Mormon missionaries at the library on a Sunday. So it all worked out! It's crazy how such a little thing came out to be a huge blessing for all of us! God is in the details even when we do dumb things!

Me reading a Spanish story for district meeting about cockroaches

Before church yesterday Sister Eggett and I were sitting in the car for a minute talking before we went in because we were super early. This guy came up to our window and we talked to him. He told us that a belt in our car sounded like it needed to be fixed. We got to talking with him and we told him that we were missionaries and we were going to church. I invited him to come and he said he had somewhere to be so we told him it ended at 4 if he wanted to come to the last part. He said he might. We didn't think much of it because we have heard that a thousand times ha! So during church towards the end we look over and it's the guy! He came back and stayed the last hour of church! It was super awesome! We got his information and he is probably going to be baptized soon;)

District picture

Can you find the cat? :)

There is this lady named Mariel who has just gotten out of prison. She is a member but hasn't been to church in over 14 years. Yesterday was her first day back at church. After church we went to visit some members and she was there. She has been staying in this little camper in their neighbor's backyard behind their trailer. We were talking to her and asking her how her first day back at church was and she told us that she was sitting in the second class and she didn't want to comment or say anything. She wanted to leave but something told her to stay at church. She was called on to answer a question but wouldn't talk. During third hour sister Eggett and I taught Relief Society. She commented a lot during that class. While preparing for the class I was super nervous to teach it in Spanish! I have always not liked teaching in bigger groups but as a missionary it's not about what I like. Mariel told us that our class brought back a lot of memories for her and that she felt the Spirit! She told us that she has a 12 year old daughter who isn't baptized and she wants her to grow up in the gospel and be baptized! It's so amazing to me that God works through our weaknesses. I know it wasn't anything that I said during the class but the fact that I was able to grow from the experience and be a part of helping someone else to feel the Spirit and have the desire to be better.