Lots of Miracles!

Hi!!  I am doing amazing! God has blessed us so incredibly this week, I just don't even know what to do to thank Him! I am just so grateful to be a missionary! :)

Today we are celebrating a bunch of missionaries in our zones birthdays that are last week and this week, so we are going to a trampoline park.  That should be fun. One of the missionaries Mom is paying for it which is really sweet of her since there are 20 of us!

This week we had a really amazing miracle. On Tuesday we were on exchanges.  Hermana Flake and Hermana Olivas were in our branch, El Rio.  I went to Los Reales with Hermana Ferwerda, so I wasn't actually there for the first part of it, but while Hermana Flake and Hermana Olivas were trying to visit one of our investigators this lady drove by and all Hermana Flake did was smile at her.   A few minutes later the lady turned around and drove up and asked if we read the Bible with people, and they said of course so they exchanged info and we went to visit her on Saturday. When we got there she was telling us all about what she believes and how she doesn't smoke, or drink, and how she just wants to be a really good person because she loves God so much. Before we even talked about baptism or invited her to join our church or anything like that, she told us that before she joins our church she wants to learn about it so that she can fit in and live the way she needs to. Hermana Flake and I were really surprised. She is already planning on joining the church without us even asking her! It was crazy, since we thought she just wanted to read with us! We taught her the first lesson and talked about how all the churches have parts of the truth, and she was telling us how she wants to find the one with all of it. We read James 1:5 with her, and she said I want to know which church to join! She applied the scripture to herself without us even prompting her. Then she was getting all choked up during the first vision. She felt like she related to Joseph Smith, and she is just so amazing! For some reason, I felt like we needed to talk to her about the Word of Wisdom, but I just kind of shrugged it off because I thought that was strange.

The next day, we went back and asked her about how her Book of Mormon reading went, and if she had the chance to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Then she told us how she has a confession to make and we got a little nervous, but all she said was that she was learning more about our church online and how she read that we can't drink coffee. She told us that she has an addiction to coffee, but how she was going to try to stop drinking it.  She just asked us to explain why we don't drink it. She told us how she gets why we don't smoke and drink, and how she wants to be really healthy and able to do a lot when she gets older, so we shared with her D &C 89 where it talks about the blessings of keeping the Word of Wisdom.  She said that's exactly what I want! I know I can stop drinking it, but it will just take some time. So turns out my prompting wasn't totally me being crazy, and we taught the Word of Wisdom any way! Then we also started teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she told us how much she wants to learn all about it. Then we invited her to be baptized on the 18th of December! She said yes, and that she will do anything to join! She also shared with us how she used to never let people in to talk about religion, but how she feels like this is the time that she needs to join a church.

It was amazing because she was testifying to us about the truthfulness of the Gospel without us even having to teach her pretty much anything. God truly does prepare people to accept the Gospel. Teaching her has taught me that it's not all about what we do as missionaries or how amazing we are at preaching the Gospel, but how God is so loving and willing to trust people who don't deserve such incredible blessings, with His children who are ready and just waiting for the Gospel! Anyways we have just been so blessed that God's giving us such amazing opportunities!

We haven't really been able to see Oyuki and her family this week, because they were in Mexico. On Monday we had a really great lesson with them and with the member of our branch who referred them to us. Oyuki, her son Jose, and her daughter Zeydi are all scheduled to be baptized for December 5th, but we need to push it back a week since they couldn't come to church yesterday! We are excited for them, and hopefully their dad will start to be interested soon too!

Also good news! We've been teaching Naomi, that 9 year old girl I talk about a lot for a while now and we really want to extend a date to her, since she is ready to be baptized. The only problem is her Dad who isn't a member is really hesitant, but Hermana Flake was able to talk to him while we were on exchanges and he really opened up to her which is awesome! He told her that he would pray about if Naomi should be baptized right now, and also pray for himself to know if Joseph Smith is a prophet of God! We haven't been able to visit him since then, but we have an appointment tonight with them, so keep your fingers crossed!!

Another awesome thing is one of the less active recent converts of our branch that we have been teaching and has been progressing a lot finally came to church with her children yesterday! It was a miracle! I think it helped that Hermana Santa Cruz came with us to visit her on Wednesday and straight up told her she needs to come back to church and offered to help out with her children! It was great though!

Yesterday, Hermana Flake had to sub for our branch pianist in sacrament and in Primary, so we got to hangout in Primary all day! It was awesome.  Those little kids are some of my favorite people! I also sometimes forget how crazy they can get!  I have a lot of respect for the people in charge of taking care of all the junior primary kids now haha! Keep up the good work Mom!

So chances are that I am going to be transferred to a new area next week, but we will see something crazy might happen and I might stay here and Hermana Flake may leave. I honestly wouldn't mind staying though!

Anyways I love you so much! Thanks for your amazing example to me!! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne