MOTOS, MY EYES, AND A BAPTISM

Hola Familia!!!

Sounds like you guys are doing INCREDIBLE!!!! Thanksgiving IS THIS WEEK! Eat lots of food for me and if you are with the McCleskey’s tell them I love them and say hello!!!! Mom, to answer one of your questions, yup I got your package!!! And I cannot even thank you enough for everything! I didn’t have time this morning to go through all of it, but from what I was able to see, THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING! You are all the absolute greatest and I feel so blessed to have such an incredible family!! The Priority Mail Envelope hasn’t arrived yet but they said hopefully by December for the stuff from the CCM. And I am going to send a pic next week of the food I eat! Our pencionista is incredible! So stay tuned for food pics!

So guess who was my companion for a day this past week??? Hermana Cardon, Kayla Cardon’s sister who is in your YSA ward!!! She is my Sister Leader and is absolutely incredible! She ends her mission in a week, so I was her last intercambio! She is an absolute doll, and it was heavenly being able to speak English and talk about all of our experiences so far on the mission. She is an incredible missionary and gave me such good advice! Seriously, it was the best 24 hours of my mission so far!! I just love her!

Also, funny story from when I was with Sister Cardon. So we were contacting and we found this family just standing all together outside of their house, so of course ran over to talk to them. It ended up that the only person interested was their son, about 23 years old. So we sat down and had a quick lesson with him. I was sharing some of my feelings about the gospel and THE ENTIRE time he was looking at me and smiling. I assumed it was because of my Spanish, because it’s a typical reaction when I start talking :)! But nope! Right as I finished talking (more like pouring out my soul, people!) he says, "You have the most beautiful eyes." And I just lost it! It was the funniest thing ever, and he seriously had not paid attention to a single thing in our lesson! Hermana Cardon tried to bring it home by sharing her testimony and he said the same thing about her eyes! Yup, we ended the lesson with a sweet little final testimony and hustled out the door! We busted up laughing afterwards! It was too great! What a little rascal, he wasn´t even interested … but it was a great experience!

Oh and some big news is we have a BAPTISM this week!!! Wohooo!!! It is our investigator Jorge, and he is so excited! He is the sweetest thing and his mom is so happy that he has made the decision to be a member of this wonderful church (she is a member). And my companion and I feel so blessed because he hasn´t been interested in listening to the missionaries, until the last few months, and so we all are so excited that he has made this decision! We can´t wait!

Overall, we are having some great success with the families we are currently teaching! Family Ramoni (the family of Water, Norfidia, Gaby, Luz) are incredible and are so willing to hear our message. The only thing is they are a little scared every time we talk about baptism so we hope that after time they will come to realize that is more of a blessing then a scary thing! But overall, they seriously are so amazing and I hope that they realize how much of joy comes from the gospel!

Another thing I want to share with you is a great quote I found in Preach My Gospel. It says:

"Regarding one’s testimony, remember, that which one willingly shares he keeps, while that which he selfishly keeps he loses... teach and testify. There is no better combination."

To me that is so powerful! The only way we can grow our testimonies and MAINTAIN our testimonies is if we SHARE them! So my challenge this week is SHARE your testimony! Whether this Sunday, or during the week with your friends, just SHARE what you believe! From experience, I seriously am always so scared to testify, because my Spanish is so bad, but I want you all to know that every time I do testify, no matter how weak or bad, I feel stronger and more confident!

I love you all A MILLION KAJILLIONS and thank you so much for your support!! Always do what’s right and have the greatest Thanksgiving!!!

XOXO – Hermana CHUMway!

Riding in the moto with my comp (our typical form of transportation which is basically a motorcycle with a little cabin for people to sit in)