Muchos Milagros en Minnesota!

Hola familia! Que tal? Wow what a week. It flew by. I swear I was just sitting here writing you guys like yesterday. Anyways, amazing things happened and I learned a lot this week. There is this lady, G, who the missionaries had taught before I got here, but she is super hard to get in contact with. Finally, we were able to have a lessons with her. It has been months since she last had a lesson from the missionaries, but she said that just a few days before her son, F, had been asking about us and wanted us to teach him! This week, we were able to have a lesson with him and it was awesome! He is 20 and decided he doesn't want to do what his friends are doing- drinking, partying etc. He has so much faith and really wants to learn more about God. He said yes to getting baptized! We haven't been able to see him again but I can't wait til we do! He is a perfect example of how the Lord prepares people to hear our message. He had been making changes and shared experiences with us and we testified that his faith will continue to grow and he will find the answers he is looking for! Also, we have still been teaching P and S. They are the best. I am always SO happy after teaching them. We are going to be teaching them about the 10 commandments and Sabbath and then hopefully Word of Wisdom this week. Please pray for them! They are so awesome and sincere, but they will definitely be faced with opposition because they have lots of changes to make! So I had some incredible things happen to me that taught me a lot about prayer. I have been working on having specific prayers rather than just 'please bless so and so...' Friday we had an awesome day lined up. We were going to have 4 lessons with members plus several others. Hermana Crosby and I were super excited to go have a great day with lots of work! Thursday night I prayed for each of the people we were planning on seeing. I prayed that nothing would interfere and that we would be able to see everyone and it would all work out. The day started out great. We went and saw a sweet less active lady named M. She is really nice and has lots of faith but also lots of health problems so she never makes it to church. By noon though, we got a series of cancellation calls/texts and were left with nothing until dinner time. Seriously everything fell through. I'm sure you've noticed by now that this happens a lot. You'd think I would just be used to it by now. I'm not. I'ts frustrating. Hermana Crosby and I were both pretty frustrated. We both had the same thought to drive out to Apple Valley even though it would kill a ton of miles and we didn't really have a plan once we got there. Apple Valley is where O lives. (I'm sure I've told you about him before... He is so close to baptism, living everything other than coming to church... things keep getting in the way like work, his car breaking down, you name it) We haven't had contact with O for over a week because something happened to his phone. We decided to go try and knock on his door though. He didn't answer. From his doorstep I looked at the road and saw a truck drive by. I couldn't see the people inside but I somehow knew it was O. About 5 seconds later he called us. It was him! He had seen us outside his doorstep! He was with a friend doing something. We planned to meet back in about an hour and in the meantime went and found another person to teach a restoration lesson too! When we got back with O we had a great lesson with him. Seriously what a miracle. The timing was so perfect! He told us that his friend usually takes another way to get to his house but had decided to go that way and drive right past O's house. :) We actually had another lessons in Apple Valley too with a lady we had taught several weeks back. She actually had done her reading assignment! We are going back to see her this week. I think the only thing that actually went as planned on Friday was dinner. Afterwards we went to M and D. They live with M's sister and her family- the Rileys. Both Brother and Sister Riley speak Spanish and often join our lessons. We had a plan to teach about prophets, but Brother Riley was really set on watching this 30 min church movie called Together Forever. He had mentioned it to us before and so Hermana Crosby and I watched it earlier in the week to try and plan a lesson around it. We decided against it though because it was unbelievably cheesy and we didn't really think it applied to M and D. Well, Brother Riley really wanted to watch it and we were in his home so we weren't going to argue. It actually went really, really well. M and D definitely felt the Spirit! I think it was good too because instead of us trying to teach them more things and shove more doctrine at them, they had the opportunity to just feel the Spirit and be taught by Him. I know they are going to get an answer soon because they really are trying! Afterwards we were supposed to go teach this lady named C and her daughter K. C wasn't home though so we just taught K and her friend N who was also there. They are about Brooke's age! The lesson was about the Book of Mormon and it went so well. At one point K said, and I quote "I think I would like being a Mormon. My life would probably be a lot better." :) :) :) She was also super excited to read the BM because she has tons of questions about what we are doing and what is going to happen one day etc. We told her the Book of Mormon has those answers and she said she would definitely read and pray about it! Basically Friday didn't go as planned at all, but it was much better because we had so many miracles. It felt so good to know that we where God wanted us to be, even though it wasn't where we though we should be! One more awesome experience I had with prayer was the next day. It was with A. I had been praying specifically that she would read the Book of Mormon and pray for answers because that is what she has been struggling with. I prayed that she would feel the Spirit and not be able to rest until she had read and prayed. Also, that she would have more of a desire to read. Saturday, she described a voice in her head telling her that she should read. She kept feeling like she should and then she did and as she has begun reading more she really likes it! At first she didn't want to read, but now she does! It was such a cool experience for me to see that Heavenly Father does answer prayers- sometimes the way we want and sometimes not- but either was He does. :) Also, other great news! Back at the beginning I told you about C. She had decided she wanted to go to the Catholic church instead of ours after we had a Law of Chastity lesson with her. Well, we had a nice surprise yesterday and saw her at Stake Conference! Apparently her life has been super hard the last few weeks and she knows that she needs to get baptized and make changes!!! :) We will be seeing her this week several times and hopefully getting a date set ASAP! Well, sorry that was a bit long. Hehe. It was just a great week and I am loving it more and more each day. My Spanish is finally getting to the point where I feel like I can express at least kind of what I am feeling haha... Still a ways to go, pero esta mejorando. (but its getting better) Les queiro mucho! Gracias por sus correos de electronico y sus oraciones y amor! I love you all so much! Thank you for your emails and prayers and love! Love, Hermana Pierce