Hola Familia!
I love you so much! It sounds like you have had a great week! That's too funny about dad in the movies. I'm glad you all had fun though. Things seem to be moving along great for you guys! I'm so happy that you're all working so hard to do what is right. I'm so excited for Cam to get his call!!!!!!!!!!! Hna Wallis is guessing Virginia Chesapeake Mission (that would be super cool, especially because I could end up there) and I guess Ghana or Kentucky if he's stateside. Hopefully I'm right! I hope that you all take the time to watch the parts of general conference that you didn't get to watch this weekend. Does that sound preachy? Probably. Oh well. It was so good! We were so lucky to be able to watch all of the sessions and we even had our investigator, Reyna, come to the Sunday Morning (which is actually in the afternoon) session. I was praying so hard that President Monson would speak in that session so that she could have the opportunity to listen hear the words of the prophet, and he did! She really liked it. She said that something that she noticed and really liked was that everyone talked about real life problems. She said that in her experience a lot of churches just talk about the Bible and the facts about the Bible but that during conference she saw that the teachings of Christ were applied to help solve problems. In the session she watched there was a lot said about marriage and family and it was perfect for her! She's experienced and is still experiencing so much heartbreak in her marriage, but she has a three year old son that she just loves to pieces and she wants to do what's best for him. We promised her that if she went to Conference with a question that it would be answered, and for her it was. And for me too! Heavenly Father loves us enough to listen to and answer our prayers. I love the gospel! I had prayers and questions answered that have really been weighing one me lately. We are so blessed to live in a time where we have living prophets! Did you get a chance to hear Elder Holland's talk? That touched me so much! I've been studying and pondering a lot about faith and sometimes I've felt like I haven't had sufficient faith to do what I need to be doing here. That talk was heaven sent. If you didn't get to listen to it, I hope you do. And if you did, I hope you listen to it again!
This week has been a weird week. I haven't been sleeping too well and I've been kind of grumpy. On top of that, we had a lot of things fall through and a lot of things go not according to plan. It's so frustrating when people use their agency to do things that are not good for them. I can't imagine how Heavenly Father feels with us. Junior has taken a turn for the worse and is breaking our hearts. As in smashing them to pieces. This week we had set up an appointment to come and see him with Rudy, one of the single adults in the ward that was baptized last year and is awesome. But Junior completely avoided us and wouldn't even come out of the room to talk to us. Um what?! We had no idea what was going on. At first I was so mad at him. I couldn't believe that he was being such a stinker. I may have thrown a tennis ball at him through the open door. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately (I still haven't decided), I have really bad aim and missed. We had set up this appointment and Rudy had come and he just didn't even care. And him avoiding us didn't make any sense. But that mad turned to sad really fast. It breaks my heart that he is choosing to miss out on blessings that Heavenly Father wants to give him. Especially because he's felt the Spirit so strong! So we had a lesson with Hna Castaneda and Pili. It was really good for Pili. I don't know how much I've told you about her, but she's a Hna Castaneda's youngest daughter and she just moved here from Mexico right before I got here. She has four of the naughtiest children I have ever met, so naturally I love them. Part of the reason Pili and the ninos left Mexico was because her husband was super abusive. It's a really sad story and they're all trying to recover from it. The kids came here first about a year ago and then she got here pretty recently. She's been pretty inactive for a long time, but she promised Heavenly Father that if He would help her get back to the United States she would do her best to come back to church. And it's been so hard. Trial after trial has come and she's trying so hard to be good and do what is right. And she's even been trying to work with Junior. She's amazing. So it was good for Pili to be able to talk to Rudy and to have a lesson even if that wasn't the original purpose of our visit.
Heavenly Father is so sneaky though. We decided to give Junior some time, we didn't know what he wanted and we were at a loss of what to do. Wednesday though, we were talking to Lourdes, Hna Castaneda's other daughter, and she said that her mom was so embarrassed about everything that happened and that she just felt terrible. So later that day we decided to stop by really quick and tell her not to worry and that everything was going to be fine. And it was Walk About and she lives close. So we get to her house in the middle of the day. The timing was perfect because Junior was going to be working and Hna Castaneda is always home at this time. Wrong-o! We get there and walk up the steps and guess who we see sitting at the table from the sliding glass door. Yep. Junior. He got home from work early and Hna Castaneda was doing errands. I was shocked. Jorge, the inactive returned missionary son was also there. We talked on the porch for a while and we ended up having a lesson. We had no intention of doing so, but the Spirit kept pushing for me to share something. I had something in mind, but then I opened my Book of Mormon and it fell open in the middle of the story of Aaron teaching King Lamoni's father. I had no intention of sharing anything from this story, I had something else in mind, but I have a verse highlighted that just felt perfect. It's after Aaron has testified and King Lamoni's father is praying and he says something so powerful. He says, "I will give up all my sins to know thee." Junior and Jorge's hearts have been hardened, but something about this touched them. They didn't say anything, but the look in their eyes was enough. The Spirit testified. I don't know if it was enough to change anything right now, but at least they know that we're still going to love them and that we're not giving up on them.
Then Saturday we went over to watch the Testaments with that family between sessions of General Conference. Junior would hardly say hi to us. He was sitting slouched on the couch on his phone. He was really being a punk. But, that movie touched him. After the movie was over we shared part of 3 Nephi 11 and testified of Jesus Christ. I was able to look into his eyes and bear testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ and His gospel. And what I saw there made me want to cry. He just has this sadness and this look of being lost that is so sad. And we have what will fix all that. When we were saying goodbye I had the chance to talk to him really quick and I asked him if he liked the movie. He said of course. Then I asked him if he felt anything and he said "I can't say." And I said "Of course you can, it's as easy as yes or no." Then he said that he did. I went on to tell him that it was because it's all real.
So we'll see where we go from here. He's so good, but he's so lost. I promise we have more investigators, we're just always worried about him, so that's what you get to hear about. Welcome to the missionary soap opera that is our lives! I love it. Someday something's going to happen that will help him to take action. We just don't know when but we're not giving up hope. Some good news: some of our investigators decided to get married all on their own! So that's our week. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. I love you so much! Does that blog that you were telling me about come in Spanish? Junior doesn't speak English...
xoxo
Hermana Simpson
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