This week was amazing. On Saturday we got to go do baptisms for the dead with Naio, and it was absolutely incredible. The Spirit was so strong! Edgar was also there, and he baptized me in the temple. How cool is that?! He seems to be doing really well. Naio loved the temple, and Jacob's family is still being taught and is progressing, so all good news from Pasco!
While we were stuck inside sick we decided to call everyone in the area book to set up teaching appointments. This week we met . . .
VALERIE who's a mom of two with another on the way! She is so open to coming to church and just learning what we believe. She's awesome.
ZANE is a 14 year old boy who we met while he was out shooting hoops. (He let us shoot a couple with him and was really nice) He's had a super hard life and his mom only speaks Arabic so it's hard to communicate with her. We reassured him that the gospel of Jesus Christ could bring true happiness! He said he has always wanted to be baptized and so we told him we could work towards that, but there's a lot that has to happen before then. Lots of opposition. Brother Davis and his son gave him a ride to church on Sunday (he came to church!!!) and then had him come over and hangout afterwards. We went over for a lesson and taught the word of wisdom and law of chastity (and also had brownies). It was awesome!! He is so prepared to learn and he is so willing to act on the truths we teach him. He even asked us if he can have piercings and said if we told him he needed to, he would take them out. We are going to meet with him some more this week and hopefully set a baptismal date.
EMILY! so Emily's mom Courtney is a member of about a year and Emily's brother even served a mission in Australia. So she knows a lot about the church but the missionaries have never sat down and taught her. When we ask her gospel questions she tends to get shy but we basically told her last week that we are here for her! She said she wants to continue being taught and building her relationship with God. She even came to church with her mom on Sunday.
JOAN! Joan is neighbors with Sister Cornia. We did lots of "how to begin teaching" and basically figured out why she likes meeting with us. She said she wants to learn more about the Book of Mormon! We left her with a copy and invited her to church. She actually came!! She sat with Sister Cornia and stayed and asked questions after. She told us she read about five chapters in the Book of Mormon and we only asked her to read one! She is so cool and her heart is being softened every time we meet. She has tons of potential.
We met MASON for the first time last night. He is 8 and wants to be baptized. His dad used to be a member and is trying to come back, so he wants Mason to get baptized in Utah so a family member can do the baptism. He is so ready to be baptized though! We will probably offer a baptismal date next week. He came to church with his dad too!
With great blessings and miracles comes great opposition. Just so you get a taste of the opposition we've been facing, I'll include this story. We went to meet with this women and we had been warned that she might be a bit hard to teach so we decided we would share our testimonies because she can't deny what we believe is true.... or so we hoped. She invited us into her home and was so "nice" and then we started talking about why we were on missions. She was intrigued that Sister Bogle is a convert and wanted to know why she joined. So she shared her testimony of Jesus Christ and the feelings she had when learning the gospel...but got immediately shut down. She said she wants historical facts and that feelings are not the way to know if something is true. We left as quick as we could and kind of laughed it off. The Spirit had warned us as soon as we walked in the house that we needed to leave, so next time I will be more quick to listen.
I know that this is the work of the Lord! The fact that we face opposition testifies to me the importance of what we're doing. Why else would someone be trying to stop us? We worked hard this week, and we saw miracles. Please keep Zane, Joan, Emily, Valorie and Mason in your prayers! :)
Love,
Sister Jensen
Zane is in the blue Jersey; that's the picture we took at the members house after church.
The temple pictures you can kind of see how crazy windy it was! Notice the elder's tie.
Aprons from Mom
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