week 44

what a great week!!! my heart is full of gratitude today for the love i have for the mission, missionary work, and the Gospel. we are so blessed. i sure do love this work! i have some awesome miracle stories to tell too :)

first thing's first, JOSE ACCEPTED A BAPTISMAL DATE! do you have any idea how long i have been praying for that? day and night, for 3 1/2 months now. and he said YES! so we had a lesson with him on Friday, which was actually outside haha. it wasn't cold (finally warming up here! i am not even wearing tights today! this is a big step kids.) but it was super windy! we were on exchanges, and my companion for the day, Sister Leung (chinese) spoke no Spanish. so we would teach and i would translate, teach, testify, translate... repeat. it was quite fun! we answered a lot of questions like we normally do, he always has 100. but he felt the spirit. and he finally understands that Joseph Smith had the same question as he does - which church is true? Sis Leung extended the baptismal invitation... he didn't understand so i translated and also testified to him that if he commits to wanting to get baptized on a specific date, and prays to know its ALL true, he'll know! and he said YES! May 3 :) i cried. because prayers do get answered :) now i just gotta pray even HARDER that he receives an answer. i have come to realize though that a mission isn't about you at all, and i love praying and pleading and studying in behalf of the people here who i love so dearly. also, with Sister Leung on Friday we taught an investigator named Elena who speaks absolutely no English. so i basically taught that lesson alone. welcome to this awesome diverse multi language mission! annndddd Sister Leung fell asleep cause she didn't understand anything hahahaha i love exchanges :)

miracle round 2: NATASHA and KATHERINE. so monday night Kendra set it all up for us to teach her twin best friends from Costa Rica who she really wants to share the gospel with (she's such a little missionary! i love her.) we headed to her house after we finished pday... she even made dinner for us all! after we ate we taught them L1 - the Restoration. they LOVED it! i will never forget their faces when we told them Joseph Smith's experience. we were wrapping up, and after 5x of already bearing our testimonies again and again, Katherine said to me, wait, can you bear your testimonies again? she then asked us if she could say the closing prayer! they want to be baptized, they even want to serve MISSIONS! talk about prepared daughters of God. haha they have asked us like 100 questions about the church in the last week, they LOVE everything about it and want to be baptized so bad. we are just figuring things out with their super Catholic dad but he agreed to let us come teach him this week and said he'll come with them to church this Sunday. more prayers answered!

we had to say goodbye yesterday to our progressing investigator Carlos :( he knows the church is true (answers received through Conference! the church is true:) and is ready to be baptized!!!! he is going back to Venezuela to see his (member) wife and children. i wish we could go with him! 

oh! one more thing! this week we took Luz to to family history at some members house. it was so cool! she can't remember all the dates for the births/deaths of her family members but just absolutely lit up doing it. she is preparing to go the temple on May 2. please pray for her!

i am learning so much as a missionary and i am grateful for it everyday. we can always be better, and i love that everyday i have the opportunity to wake up and work my hardest to BE better! to be more like Christ and to be a better missionary. ill never be perfect at this, but i am grateful for Christ's infinite Atonement to know that i canbe better. i love this Gospel.

XOXO, HERMANA HORTON

ps: we went running this morning and i fell again. hahaha that is the 3rd companion i have fallen with while running. sos!