Stay on the line

Buenos dias!

We had a great start to the week when we got to go to Bloomington to hear from Elder Carlson of the 70. He had some amazing things to share and I could probably write a whole email just about what he said. One thing he talked about was "staying on the line." He was referring to when we make specific plans and then following through with them. Heavenly Father is anxious to bless us; we just have to make a plan, with His help, and then stick with it. Hermana Ficklin and I have been working hard to do that this week and we have seen a lot of miracles! Sometimes it is easy to get off our plan because we think it would make more sense to go be in this area or whatever the reason. I realized for the first time this week that even though we aren't necessarily doing anything wrong, we are still being diligent and trying to work smart and hard, sometimes that is Satan trying to distract us! Of course, there are times when we have to change plans, but we found that as we stuck as close to the "line" or plan as possible, we were blessed!

I also was able to catch up with Hermana Rawlins and Hermana White! Hermana Rawlins is doing great with training and is an awesome missionary. She has already been out 9 months!! I found out how everyone is doing in Lakeville :) I was especially grateful for the good news I received that Al is doing absolutely amazing and that Mi is also doing well and working to prepare for baptism. It turned out that he had some problems with the word of wisdom and he is now working through those. They are such a great family!! I also found out that Ma and Eg are doing great; Ma really wants to be baptized! Probably the best thing I heard was that Hermana Carrillo, a less-active that I absolutely love, is doing better, her heart is being softened, and the sisters are teaching her son who before hadn't shown any interest. Heavenly Father blessed me to know that the efforts that I spent in that wonderful place that forever changed my life were in no way wasted and that the work is continuing to be amazing there. As much as I really do love Austin, it has been hard being away from those people and having no idea what is going on with them! I'm so glad they are doing well!

Anyways, back to what is happening here! We had an awesome miracle with Gh this week. He didn't come to church because he goes to another one and said he can only visit occasionally. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and the only problem he had is that he drinks a beer every Thursday. We committed him to stop doing that. We saw him again a few days later and he said, "you know how I know that your church is true?... I told you that I couldn't come to church every Sunday and you still are trying to help me to follow God and make my life better." Of course, he doesn't totally have a solid testimony of the restored church, but we are sure that as he lives the commandments and makes changes he will gain that testimony!

We also had an interesting lesson with Ge yesterday. We brought a French-speaker with us which was super helpful, but we found out that something really bad happened in Ge's past. We aren't sure what it is, but the Spirit testified strongly to all of us that he had been hurt in some way and suddenly it made sense to why he says what he says or why he doesn't want to commit to baptism right now. I'm not sure how to explain it, but we got a new perspective on him. We are praying that we will know how to help him!

We recently started teaching this awesome lady named Ju! Her brothers are less-active members, but we haven't met them yet. She is very interested! We are teaching her tonight so hopefully it goes well!

I love being here and am so grateful for this experience! Have a wonderful week!

♥Hermana Pierce