I love you, I love you, I love you! It sounds like you've had a pretty busy week! I'm glad to hear that the kids seem to be doing pretty well with sports. Yay Cameron. Maybe you should just stay at 170 so you're not grumpy! And Kelley, sorry that you lost, but I'm glad you scored some points! Keep up the good work. Mom, you're life is crazy. That doesn't surprise me, but I'm really happy that you are almost done. The end is in sight! What day are you done for Christmas break?
As for the mustard down east skirt I have, I'm pretty sure I don't have a mustard down east skirt...But if I do, go ahead and send it I guess. And maybe the denim looking one with the buttons? If you send my camera, can you make sure you send it with the cords so I can connect it to the computer to send pictures. Or I guess I could find a card reader here too. I'm so glad you loved my pictures! And I am so happy to have brown boots!
I'm sorry hear that Sister Gubler died. That must be so hard. I too, am so grateful for the Plan of Salvation, and I'm so grateful that I have the chance to teach it to people that really need to hear it. Life would be so different if we thought that death was the end. I'm coming to understand more about temples and I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father has made it possible for us to be sealed to our families forever! What a blessing that is.
Thanks for getting Laura's address. I'll try and resend her card. Also, I got a letter from Alena this week. She got her mission call! Ft. Lauderdale, Spanish! I'm so excited for her! And kind of jealous because she's never going to be cold!
We had kind of a rough week this week. A lot of our appointments fell through, and we didn't really find that many new investigators. And then on Saturday, our investigator Moises had his baptismal interview with the district leader. He did great! But then, when it came time for his mom to sign the paperwork, she wouldn't do it. She doesn't believe that he's ready and his grandma doesn't either. The thing is, we've taught Moises all the lessons and he knows everything. He's so ready, but without the support of his mom, he's not going to believe it or say that he is. He needs to know that this is something that his mom wants for him, and he doesn't. She just keeps saying that she only wants it if he does. We talked a lot about faith and having the faith the make the decision, but we didn't get anything. It was maybe the saddest moments of my entire life. And that's no exaggeration. I felt so awful. I felt so sad for Moises, because really, there's only two choices, to take the steps towards salvation or not. And right now, he's stuck. He can't move forward. And I know how much baptism would help him. I've seen such a change in him since we started teaching him. This is a kid who wouldn't even make eye contact, let alone talk to you before. Now he's laughing with us and joking with us, and he's praying. Out loud! He told us he's never prayed before in his life! And all of that is coming to a stop, at least temporarily. He's confused because we're telling him one thing, that he's ready, and his mom and grandma are telling him something else, that he's not. Hopefully we can continue to move forward, and help his mom understand why it's so important that she's not the only person that is baptized in the family, and that Moises is indeed ready. But right now, it's so heartbreaking. Hermana Stewart and I have shed more than a few tears over this. But we keep praying for him and we'll keep trying. At a time like this it feels like it would be so easy to just give up, because it feels like it's impossible to make progress from here, but we can't do that. Jesus never gives up on us, and as His representatives, we can't give up on Moises either.
Saturday night was a little bit better. We went with one of our recent convert families to the temple! It was so beautiful! And I got to see one of my good friends from the MTC there too. Also, they're doing concerts every night of December and the night we went Jenny Oaks Baker was performing! It was only about 45 minutes, but it was so good. On the way back home we were playing would you rather with Kamila, she's nine. My question: "Would you rather eat a worm or a booger?" Her question: "Would you rather marry Justin Beiber or Taylor Lautner?" Obviously she doesn't have younger brothers. I said "What would you choose?" And she said, "Oh that's so hard!! They're both soooooo cute!" It was super funny. She proceeded to tell us that we should probably marry Taylor Lautner because he's closer to our age. She loves to keep us up to date all the pop culture we're missing out on. I'm not exactly sure how reliable it is though, coming from a nine year old.
Yesterday we didn't get to go to the Christmas devotional because we had to take a recent convert, less active, or investigator and none of ours could go. We were really sad about that, but I guess Heavenly Father had other plans for us. We decided to knock doors for the hour and a half before it was time to go home. We knocked three entire apartment buildings and not a single person let us in. Not one! I was getting so discouraged, and we still had about 30 minutes until it was time to leave. So we started on building number four. At this point, I wasn't really hoping for anything, but then someone answered! We could barely even say that we were missionaries before we were being invited in. The woman knew exactly who we were! It turns out that her mom and brother are actually members and they were baptized years ago. She went to church a few times with them in Peru, and went to family night and all sorts of activities. She had only met the missionaries once since living here, and they were English missionaries that said they would send Spanish missionaries, but no one ever came. That was about two years ago. Her son still remembers going to church and they have a Book of Mormon and everything! So we taught them the sweetened condensed version of the Restoration and we have a return appointment for Friday! This woman's boyfriend was also there and he had never heard of the Book of Mormon before and he's really excited for us to come back and to learn more. Maybe they're finally ready to hear the gospel and apply it. And their Peruvian. Peruvians are some of my favorite people to teach! So we had a good end to a kind of bummer weekend. And now it's P-day! We don't have very big plans this week, other than to get a Christmas tree! We're really excited about it though. I love this time of year. It's been really fun to see the all the lights and decorations that have been going up around here!
I think that's about all I have to say for this week. I'll start thinking about Christmas. It's kind of hard because in order to skype we have to go to a members house and almost no one has internet here, so we're trying to find a way. Figure out what's going on with Brady and we can try and coordinate. Also, I have exactly two things that I've already added to my Christmas list: A body warmer and a water bottle. I just get so cold in the morning doing personal study and I'm thirsty all the time.
I also have a question for you mom. You were a ward missionary like a million years ago, right? Well what could we do to work better with the ward, do you think? We're kind of having a hard time communicating with them and working well with them in our correlation meetings. I know that we could be doing much better, and I'm just wondering if you had any good ideas?
I think that's about all I have to say this week. I love you so much and I miss you. It's almost Christmas!
xoxo
Hermana Simpson
p.s. The Spanish is really come along, according to Hermana Stewart. This morning she told me I was talking in my sleep in Spanish! Success!
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