Dearest persons that live in the United States of America,

Ok, this week was awesome. We had the baptism of one of our investigators. Actually basically our only investigator. Her name is Marta. She is about 60 years old, and is incredible. She has so much faith and such a strong testimony. She paid her tithing this past sunday. $4 pesos. She earned $40 pesos this week and we taught her all about tithing. even though she didn´t have money to buy food, she saved the $4 pesos to pay her tithing on Sunday. Also, she came to church all by herself even though she was sick (she had the flu or something) and walked in the cold even though she shouldn´t go out in the cold. she said she was going to go to church no matter what because she wanted to be baptized after the meetings. so she got baptized. she was so cold and shaking, but so happy and kept saying, "thank you, thank you". she suffers from epilepsy and doesn´t have the money to buy her medicine, but i know that she will be blessed for her diligence and her patience and her obedience. wow, she is incredible.

and, we had another miracle. we split our ward with some Elders, and a couple weeks ago they told us about a boy that always goes to all the activities and always goes to all the church meetings who isn´t a member. his name is Elias. his dad is a member (as of about 4 years ago) but inactive (as of about 2 years ago). because Elias is only 13 years old, we have to get permission from his dad to baptize him. Elias wants to be baptized real bad, but his dad says that he needs to wait longer. He also told the Elders that he didn´t want them to come by anymore. So, the Elders asked us if we would go talk to the dad. So we got permission and crossed our area limits by like 3 blocks to visit the dad (named Pedro). The first time he wasn´t there so we left a little note ( it is amazing how notes are miracle workers). Elias told us that when his dad saw the note, he was really happy. So we stopped by again. We prayed that he would be home and that we would be guided in our words. We didn´t even know what to say, but that is the name of the the game as a missionary.

we went by his house and he answered the door. he was nice, but a little bit closed (obviously because it was the first time that we had ever met him..) and we just started talking to him. we talked about a bunch of different things, everyonce in a while diving into a gospel topic, which he would quickly change every time we did. anyway, we finally started asking him about why he got baptized and his testimony. that got him to remember that he did have a testimony. then my awesome companion asked him if he ever had the opportunity to bless the sacrament. he said that he did once. we asked him how he felt during that experience and as he started talking, tears began to flow. he told us it was a really nice memory and that he remembered feeling really happy at that time in his life. we helped him understand that he really did want his children to have that experience too which helped him realize that Elias needed to be baptized. then elias shared his testimony with his dad. it was really a cool spiritual experience. he signed the baptism paper right then and there, and we are planning on his baptism for the following Sunday, or if not then, not this saturday, but the next. Elias was so excited that when his dad went inside to get a pen, he started jumping up and down saying, "thank you! thank you!" we were so excited as well that we almost hugged him. haha. no worries...we didn´t. but later that night at our ward family home evening he was telling everyone that he is going to get baptized the next Sunday.

It is moments like these that makes everything worth it.

Love you all!!
Sarah