January 7, 2013

Family,

Glad to hear that everyone had a great NewYears and that your keeping up the family traditions minus goingtothe Jensens.

Well this has been one of the hardest and best weeks of my mission. My comp. gets offended and mad very easily and last week I just didnt know what to do. I think it makes her sad that this is her first time being senior companion and so anytime I try to lead the companionship she gets insecure and offended.  Anyway, last week I wrote Ben for some advice on how to act with prideful Latin companions. Well he told me to just communicate with her and not be afraid. So one morning I asked her kindly if we could have companionship study together because I feel like our teaching is not that unified and she flipped out and left the room. While she told me some really hurtful things when I asked her what was wrong, in the end I am now able to understand her much better. I really had days last week when I wanted to call president and ask if I could have a change of companion. But then I decided to spend a lot more time praying for her to understand me and for me to understand her so we could find love in our companionship and focus on the people we're teaching. While the love and peace of the Lord didn’t come immediately, I KNOW he answers prayers and he has now given me peace. I have learned so much this week to learn to not react and not let a bad attitude affect mine. I really understand her a lot better now….how Im able to help her and now we are getting along and having fun and working hard to teach families and find more. When we forget about our own desires and work to serve others we can find happiness no matter how hard our situation is. I always hate hearing when people say they are so grateful for trials but really I am grateful that I had this one because Im learning so much about self control and trying to love when its hard to do. Its amazing how sometimes we can feel so alone and then it completely changes when we apply the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives.

Well we have had a lot of success this week finding more families. I don’t know if I told you about Ricardo and Luz but we have been teaching them and they really want to change their lives. We contacted them about a month ago but never had time to visit them because they were only home on Sundays but we found them again on new years eve and we have taught them almost every day this week and they went to church yesterday.  They have some difficulties in their relationship so we're visiting teachers and marriage counselors on steroids but we're praying they can work through them so they can get married and baptized because hey both really want to change. Luz also has a 10 yr old son that loves to read the Book of Mormon.

Karla and Hartin are progressing and were hoping they can get baptized soon.

Cesar and Yelba are still struggling with wanting to change- Cesar not yelba. Im hoping their son can help their dad see the truth. I asked this 9 yr old to say the opening prayer in one of our lessons and he prayed for his dad to want to change. I then told him he could choose who said theclosing prayer and he wanted to say it again and prayed for the same thing.So sweet.

On Tuesday we were contacting in the afternoon…the worst time of the time because families usually aren’t home together. All we were running into were evangelicals that felt like arguing. I said a quick little prayer to bless us to find families to teach and in the next hour we found  2 new families. Quick prayer answered. One of the families is Evelyn and Darwin. They  know very little about the bible or any church and so were trying to teach them very basically so they understand. They have  7 children and they are really positive. They went to church yesterday so were excited for them to progress.

Were also teaching a 16 yr old boy named Eric that is really understanding how the authority of God was restored to the earth and the power of the Book of Mormon. I love it when people actually get it.

Isnt it weird to think this time last year I was waiting for my mission call…….I am so glad I chose to come. I know this work is real and that the Lord is leading His missionaries. I love you all so much.

Hermana Anne Pearson