January 18, 2010

Hey Everyone,
Man, I didn't take notes this week about what to write about. And I have 15 minutes! Ah!

My aunt asked a lot of questions, so I'm going to try to answer those.

Luz came to church by herself this past Sunday. She was even 10 minutes early! She is AWESOME! She is SO golden! We teach her 2-3 times a week because she's progressing! We also are teaching her "sister-in-law" (Rosa is Pedro's sister, but Luz and Pedro are not married) now, Rosa. One day she was at Luz's house, and now we teach them both together regularly. They are awesome! They both want to change, but it's really hard. Especially when they are both in separate homes where they are the only one who wants to change.

Guillermo hasn't come to church again, and we haven't taught him for a little while. But we just haven't been able to find him home and he doesn't have a phone. He did find a job the Sunday after he came to church. What a blessing!

The Gomez family didn't come to church. We taught them on Saturday. They were telling us that they are very confused by all of the churches and wonder which one is true. We taught the second half of the first lesson, Christ's earthly ministry, The Great Apostasy, The Restoration, Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon. They were on the edge of their seats as they listened to us. Melinda seems very interested, but Miguel was like, Christ didn't appear in the Americas, he couldn't have. Man, I walked out of their house so sad! The spirit was SO strong in that lesson, and I just thought, how could anyone deny this?!?! And yet, Miguel doesn't want to believe. Which is SO interesting because he wants to know the truth, but he's not accepting it. I don't know what will happen with them. :/

Alma... we taught her an intense lesson the other day on obedience, and we just drilled it the importance of reading the scriptures, praying, and coming to church. It was powerful! I actually talked about my family, and my past, growing up. I didn't want to share because I knew that I would probably cry, but I felt I needed to. Al, their dad, is back. He's a terrible man! I've only heard awful things about him, and Hna. Whiting kept telling me that she hopes I never have to meet him. But I saw him yesterday briefly. He's a drug dealer. Everyone wants to kill him. It's a scary situation, and now he's living with Alma, which is not good. Destiny hates her dad. He wants him to leave or she is going to move out. I shared about my past, and I started crying. When I started crying, everyone was silent, even crazy Tokyo. Alma, Destiny, and Tokyo all just looked at me so intently. I told them the ONLY way I got through everything was by going to church. Destiny was in tears. Tokyo said, "Hogewoney, you're crying." (She doesn't say "ing," she says "ey." It's cute!) Anyway, it was a powerful lesson. I know that the spirit touched them, but I don't know if they've been reading and praying. They weren't at church on Sunday, so that's not a good sign. And when we went over yesterday, Alma was swearing, and things were not good.

Well, I gotta run! I love you all! I know that missionary work is SO important! Everyone NEEDS the gospel desparetely. It's not up to us to decide who needs it and how badly they need it because everyone needs it the same. That's why we need to share it with everyone, no matter who they are, where they live, or what they look like.

One last thing, Shelly is forwarding my e-mails from my gmail account. I don't have access to that account, so don't send e-mail to my gmail account. And hopefully you all have my address here in Oklahoma. I am not in the MTC any more. I got a couple letters forwarded from the MTC, so I just wanted to make sure you all knew that. Ask my dad or Shelly for my address!

Thank you all for everything!

Love,
Christina

PS Corey is doing great! His e-mail was short this week with very little detail, but he's good!