Voleibol!

Hello hello hello!

This last week was pretty busy, yet not so much. Things in Corydon are a little slow right now.... actually, a lot slow. Last night I kind of had a break down because we taught maybe like three lessons to investigators this week. We taught quite a few active-member lessons, but we have just been struggling a lot with finding people to teach. I talked to President about it on Monday during interviews, and a lot of what he said really encouraged me, but by the end of the week I was still frustrated. We have been trying to contact potentials and former investigators all week, but literally everyone tells us they're not interested or "We told the last hermanas to never come back" (in a nice way). Nothing is turning up.

Friday night I got so frustrated because Thursday one of the Hermana Training Leaders was here with me on an exchange, and our main appointment with William fell through. So we taught some members during the day and that was that. I felt kind of embarrassed. So Friday night, I started a fast and tried to refocus. I realized I was forgetting God in all of this and relying more on myself to find people. That's not exactly good when you're doing God's work, right?

All day Saturday I just tried so hard to focus on what we should be doing, and then after we had our branch activity (more about that later....you'll want to read that part hahaha), I talked to Hermana Wilkinson and we just decided that this week we really need to follow President's advice and focus on teaching the members in order to get referrals. President Woodbury told us that here in Corydon that may be exactly what we need to do since all the members know the rest of the hispanics in the area. They'll be our source of referrals because no matter how hard we try to find these people ourselves, it's inevitable that people will want to learn more about the church when a member introduces them and invites them to learn more. I can't remember exactly who said it, but one of the prophets said that missionary work is not just knocking on doors; you as members should be the one giving the missionaries things to do and people to teach.

We talked to our branch council yesterday about our dilemma, and they were totally up to us scheduling appointments with each family and teaching them. So that's what we're going to do: teaching the members, getting them excited about missionary work and rekindling the feeling that all of them felt when they were baptized and when they first knew the Gospel was true. All of our members are converts (within the last 5 years). They have amazing stories and experiences that will really help us in the work. Hopefully we'll get some referrals!

Pray for us!

Okay, on to some big news: WILLIAM CHANGED HIS BAP DATE!! He's getting baptized May 10th -- the last Saturday of the transfer! It's going to be like Josue all over again. haha. He has stopped drinking completely, and he told us on Saturday that he's been going running every day after work instead of drinking, and he says he's never felt better. He can really see the blessings of living the Word of Wisdom! :) Makes me happy! Josue and a bunch of less-actives and non-members have been going running too. It's like a little health party they created :) So yeah, William is getting baptized in less than TWO WEEKS now!! (It's just funny because we've really been struggling with teaching and finding lately, yet we have two baptisms coming up really soon. Ironic!)

Saturday night, we had a branch voleibol activity in the park. They barbecued chicken, we ate (as I was eating my chicken, I kept thinking "My mom would kill me if she saw me eating like this" because we pull it all apart with our fingers, put them in tortillas and eat em....greasy yum yum!), and we all played soccer and volleyball. We showed up in our skirts because we didn't think we'd be there long, but we found out that the whole thing was started in the last couple years just so the missionaries could bring investigators and teach a lesson there. What the heck! So this next Saturday we're definitely showing up in pants and not skirts.... All the kids wanted us to play soccer with them, so we had to play in our skirts... Not the best idea. Didn't last long. haha.

Okay, one last thing. In Church yesterday, one of our former investigators who got sent to jail a month ago randomly showed up! It was cool! We had three investigators there and a ton of less-actives. It was really neat! Tender mercies from the Lord all over the place. :)

From all the crying to frustration to seeing some tender mercies here and there, this week has been a growing experience -- this whole transfer actually. My companion and I are still trying to get to know each other and learn how to communicate better, and we had kind of a bro-sesh this morning (sis-sesh?) that really helped me. I guess I have just been lacking in energy and light these last few weeks. I need to kick it up a bit, which I didn't realize. Hopefully after today I won't be so zombie-ish (we had a pretty intense rain-thunder-lightning storm last night that kept waking me up every hour or so. Plus I had a dream that I was running from someone with Bradon and ten other people, so that made me mad. I hate running...).

Anywho... moral of the email, never let your light go out! It's easy, but do what you can to keep it up. Also, help the missionaries por favor!! You mean more to us than you realize! 

Adios!