This week we went to go have two different lessons with Luz and Gustavo.
The first one we had with Gustavo was really cool. He hasn't showed a lot of
interest lately but always seems to surprise us. They have been going through a
lot lately and haven't had money to pay for gas to go places, buy food, and are
even cutting it close on the rent. Gustavo told us that he had a really cool
answer to his prayer because he was praying for help money-wise and out of
nowhere his neighbor asked him how they were doing. He said not so
good, so the neighbor gave him all the cash out of his pocket (which was about
$6) but Gustavo was very grateful because it was enough to get them through the
day with food until he went to work the next day. Gustavo always surprises us
and has lots of faith, we just need to help him stop smoking again. We also
taught Luz a few days later when Gustavo was working and she told us about how
she had been having a lot of flashbacks recently to when she was young (really
horrible memories) and was asking us why God had made her
remember all these terrible things. Immediately 2 Nephi 9:39 came to my head
and I read it to her. Then the spirit started talking through me to say what
she needed to hear. I was talking for about 15 minutes until I finally stopped
and she just stared at me and said "wow, that was the answer to my prayer".
Then she proceeded to tell us how every time she has a problem we show up as an
answer to her prayers. She told me how she had been thinking about the question
that she asked us when she was watering the plants yesterday and she knew that
God had sent us to answer her question. Luz and Gustavo are really close to
getting baptized. The only thing is that they are still waiting on the divorce
papers but they are going to come August 4th, which is really soon so we are
excited for them.
We went on exchanges this past week and Elder Martinez and I had a really
cool experience. We were teaching this lady who is about 60ish years old. When the missionaries found her a week ago, they left a Restoration pamphlet. She has
bad vision and can't read so they asked her grand kids to read it to her. We came
back and they hadn't read it yet so we read it with them. We had trouble keeping
the lady's attention and at the end of the lesson we asked the lady to say a
prayer. She said she didn't want to but Elder Martinez told her we weren't
leaving until she prayed. I told her "si se puede!" which means "yes you can"
and after a few seconds of silence I said "the flies are waiting" which was a
really odd thing to say but it came to my mind and 3 three of us started
laughing uncontrollably. After some more silence I explained to her that a
prayer is really simple and all that matters is what comes from the heart. All
of a sudden she started praying and burst into tears. She prayed for about 10
minutes talking about all the people that were close to her that have died and
all the hard things she was going through. Eventually she ended her prayer
still in tears and got up and hugged Elder Martinez and I and wouldn't let us
leave her, but eventually we got away. It was a cool experience.
Thursday night was a crazy night. At about 10:25 we got a call from...
DELTA SOUTH (my old area). We were super surprised and Elder Guzman and I got
to talk for a while. He told me he was calling because one of our old
investigators (who has been taught about 6 months) Carolina Montiel just found
that she has kidney cancer and it's really serious. She is not here legally so
she can't get any treatment here so she is leaving to go back to Mexico as soon
as possible. It was really sad news to hear because Carolina is awesome. She
has a strong testimony but just hasn't been baptized because her husband and
family don't want her to and she doesn't want to be rejected by her family.
Then Elder Guzman proceeded to tell me that Familia Guzman has not been
progressing since I left and they are going to have to drop them. However,
finally a bit of good news: Jacqueline Ross (a 9 year old girl we were teaching)
is getting baptized this Saturday. We had to drop them when Elder Guzman and I
were there because the mom was studying with the Jehovah's Witness and didn't
have a car to get the family to church. We stopped by the day before I left and
sat down with the mom and promised the mom that if she prayed about what she
would do she would know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is
true. Elder Guzman told me how she took our challenge and found out for herself
that the church was true and because she's already a member, is going to start
coming back to church and now her daughter is getting baptized. I'm really
excited because I get to go back to Stockton for the baptism this week, give a
talk about the Holy Ghost during the baptism, and see some old investigators and
members down in Stockton.
Elder Austin and I are also excited because we have a baptism the 3rd of
August. Frederico, the 9 year old son of a super less active lady is going to
get baptized. We have been teaching him, his younger siblings, and a lot of his
aunts (that are between 6-25 years old (it's an interesting family)). Frederico
is the first of many in the family that are going to get baptized and we are
super excited about that. He is awesome and hasn't been taught anything about
religion his whole life but he loves to pray and read the Book of Mormon, and
loves when the missionaries come over.
We committed the wife of Nelson, a less active guy we found from Costa
Rica to be baptized in August as well! However she is Philipino and only speaks
English and Tagolog so we are passing her off to the English missionaries in our
area. But we had an awesome lesson with them and she is super solid. Nelson is
also really cool and working on cutting alcohol out of his life again.
That's about all I've got for this week. Hope all is well!
Los Quiero,
Elder Gaskill
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