Week 73 - Aruba

Hello Everyone!!

Well, just to start off I want to wish my lovely little Felicia a very happy birthday this week! Sending lots of love your way!

Sooooo we had a great week! Lots of wonderful spiritual experiences! Angelica is doing well! we are teaching her friend Consuelo now who is SOOO RIDICULOUSLY ELECT its not even funny. They didn't come to church yesterday which was sad and we don't know why but we still had one investigator there named Leo who is a friend of several members. He is really cool! from Venezuela...Anyway... squirrel hahaha!   Angelica! She is doing okay but we can tell its kind of eating away at her that she isn't obeying a commandment that she knows she needs to obey. We are really trying to work with her but she really needs your prayers!

We are teaching a cute little Arubian man named alex who loves us and always gives us Arubian treats called "frios". SO good! he is adorable. He is SOOOO healthy. He and my dad could be friends. No joke. He LOVES biking and running sooooo much and does it constantly. He is hardcore. He's 61, but way healthier than me. He is doing really well! He was raised catholic and really likes his church but we can see that he is slowly opening up his heart. He needs lots of prayers as well!

We were fed sooooo much this week and its truly a blessing and everyone loves us so much. We got to this one appointment which was just supposed to be a normal lesson but we got there and she started dishing out our plates. I wanted to die, because when we arrived there we were SOOO full already and then BOOM. We were literally just praying that we could finish it, but not only were we able to finish it, we felt okay after. We felt just as full as we did when we got there! It was insane! We realized that God totally helped us out through the atonement of His Son!!!!! So unbelievable. THEN! We were at a lesson about 35 minutes away from the church and we had a meeting right after!  Welllll we had to BOOK IT to the church right after that lesson to get there. The wind was so strong that day and if I have learned anything it is to not pray that the wind will stop, but that you can have the strength you need to face it! Well I was doing exactly that. Then a phrase popped into my head and I just started yelling it as I was biking. I was just yelling "THROUGH THE ATONEMENT I CAN DO ANYTHING" over and over again at the rhythm I was biking hahaha! It really did hit me that day that we can literally do ANYTHING through His Great Sacrifice. It was a really cool experience. Well we ended up getting to the church in 15-20 minutes. Even though I felt like dying, and even though we were sweating BUCKETS, we made it. GOD IS SO GOOD!

There was a baptism for the elders this last week for a lady named Nanny. She is a really neat lady! We had to opportunity to teach her a lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the spirit taught us all something that day as we were teaching. We were just talking about the last step, which is enduring to the end, and I caught myself saying, "a lot of people that say this is the hardest step, but it isn't! It is just the Longest". Nanny LOVED that and so did I! it was a really cool experience! She has a little boy who LOVES me and will only sit by me in sacrament meeting. I feel like he is one of my nephews! So cute.

We have a pretty tough area in the sense that most of it is just rich. Looootttttts of rich people! We did finally find a more humble area that we have been contacting. We had the COOLEST experience there on Sunday! There was this huge group of 6 Venezuelan women sitting outside and we just had to have a "fear no man" moment and go talk to them! Before we went in sister Hardy said "they are waiting for us!" Well, every single one was super interested and super sweet and they all just really wanted to learn more. We walked away from that contact so uplifted and happy, and then we walked over to the next house, yelled in and met Jonathan! He has been to "every church in Aruba" and said he no longer believes in religion. He is very open though and says he has some interesting ideas and that he will be a bit of a headache, but we are open for the challenge and hoping the best! He talked to us for quite a while! Right after that we contacted a family that had just gotten home and we went up and talked to the young dad of 4 children. He was super interested and open and just really wanted to learn more. It was truly an incredible experience and I was just so grateful that we listened to the spirit as we were picking that area! God leads us to those who are ready!

KEEP READING THE BOM!  I love you all so much!

Have a great week!