God has a perfect plan for us!

We had a bunch of less active lessons this week. Tuesday we had a lesson with a lady named Sister Swallows.  She's been less active for about 6 or more years, but Monday night we asked her if we could go visit her Tuesday and she said yes, and even invited us over for dinner! The funny thing was we already had a dinner for that day, but the member was bringing us pizza, so we ended up just saving the pizza for a day when we didn't have a dinner and going to see her instead. It went pretty well. We got to know her, and she was very open with us about how she felt overstressed with all the responsibilities she had had, so she had stopped going after she moved from Montana. It was a bit sad because she had been super active and strong in the church, and then one day she just stopped going.  Now she's struggling wanting to return. It just shows how important it is for us to keep on the lookout, even if we feel like we are going strong.

Wednesday we finally had a meeting with our new Ward mission leader, Brother Allen. He seems like he'll be pretty good.  He had a really great mission in Mexico and is super ready to help. He's kind of intimidating though, because he's one of those people you feel like could be a general authority.

Then Thursday we went to go try a few less actives, and we ended up teaching this guy named Joseph and it went really well. He had come to church a few weeks ago and wanted to keep coming, so he was super excited to see us!

Later that day, we visited Kimberly and her family. Kimberly is a less active girl we met a few weeks ago. Her, her sister, and dad are members, but her mom and brother aren't. So we had a good lesson with her, her sister and her mom. At the end we asked her mom if she'd be baptized, and she said she would if she found out for herself if the church was true! So we invited her to pray, and she happily set an appointment with us for Wednesday. We were super happy because Kimberly came to church on Sunday, and she hadn't been for almost 5 years!

Then next day we decided to try Claudia, a lady we had knocked into and found out she was a less active member not on our records. It was cool because we got to teach her and her son who is 8 and isn't a member. He was super smart! He knew a bunch of bible stories and knew all the answers to all the questions we asked him! We taught him the restoration and then at the end we invited him to kneel and pray to know if it was true, and he got down and kneeled and prayed to himself and told us how after he felt peace. It was super cool to see how spiritually in tune he was. I know God lead us to his family for a reason.

A few weeks ago Elder Chiñas had suggested we go try a lady named Chrystal Aguilar who is sisters with a lady he had been teaching in Los Reales, and that I had met a few times at church. Anyways we had tried to find her, but her address had been wrong so we didn't know where she lived. We didn't think too much about it until we got huge package at our door addressed for a lady named Chrystal Barraza. We were a little confused about why the lady had put her address as our address, so we decided maybe our neighbors got the apartment number wrong and the named sounded familiar so we thought it was for one of them. We were going to go ask all of them, but decided to put the phone number of the person who ordered into our phone just in case it wasn't our neighbor and we needed to call the person. I put it in and it was funny because it pulled up Chrystal Aguilar, that member we had been looking for!  So when I saw it was her, I got really excited and realized that we were goig to be able to find her. Then I looked at the address on the box and realized it said 1415 Via Halcon instead of 1414, and so they had accidentally delivered it to the wrong house. We walked across the street and dropped off the package at the right house and left a little note asking her to call us, so we could go visit her. On Sunday we felt prompted to go and try her, and we went over and she wasn't home but we met her sister Chrissie who is a less active member too.  We had a really cool lesson with her about God's love for us and the restoration. The Spirit was definitely guiding us through that lesson, because she has gone through a lot of hard trials in her life and we were able to comfort her a little bit. There isn't a doubt in my mind that it wasn't just an accident that her package accidentally got dropped off at our apartment. God has a perfect plan for us and does everything for a reason! I am so grateful for the chance to be part of His plan, and that I can help others along the way!

To end, I found a really cool quote the other day in Our search for Happiness that was an answer to a question I had. It says "if during the course of our time here on earth, we learn to use that wondrous gift of agency in positive ways to bless our own lives and the lives of others, then our journey will have been successful- no matter how long it lasts and how much is accomplished."

I loved that because it just reminded me that our purpose in life to use our agency is not just for our own benefit, but also for the good of others. We are here to learn to be more like Christ and do things to bless ourselves and others. I want to strive to always make decisions that will bless people rather than hurt them.

Anyways I love you lots!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne