Solid Investigators in Chuburna!

Hola Familia,

Lia and her Babies (Hermanas Wilson and Harper)

We finally have our first solid investigators in Chuburna! Please meet Abril y Luis... Abril (16) just had a bebe and we are trying to get them married. But teaching them is quite incredible. I couldn’t believe our last lesson-- we came after church (to ask why they didn’t come to church-- they went to the mall with their family) and asked them what they knew about Keeping the Sabbath Day holy. “What does that mean?” asks Luis. (They actually ask questions.) At the end of the lesson we ask, “Okay, so what do you have to do to keep the Sabbath Day holy?” And they could ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS! It was like kids in Primary! It was like something out of The District (a missionary training video series).

And then, Luis says “I guess we can’t go to the mall anymore on Sundays.” They APPLIED what we were teaching. And then, in the prayer to close the lesson, Luis asks for forgiveness for not keeping the Sabbath Day holy! We didn’t even tell him to do that!

I was asking Hermana Wilson, “What is different about Abril y Luis? Their situation is pretty much the same as everyone else: Raised Catholic, living in unión libre (not married), without high school education. Why are they able to understand what we’re teaching?” And the reason we came to was that they want something more. They had a desire for “something better.”

An Evening of Painting with Carlos and Javier

I think one of the biggest obstacles in Yucatán is complacency. Their lives are not all that great... but nobody seems motivated to try to improve. Hermana Wilson and I have been asking ourselves what we can do, especially in the first contacts with people, to motivate them to want more out of their lives or have a desire to know God more intimately.  If anyone has suggestions...

I have a suggestion for people who are going to leave on missions. Bring a study binder, not a study notebook. By the time you are a year into your misión, and even if you organize your notebooks well, you will have TOO MANY notebooks to be able to effectively retrieve old information. In a binder, you can keep it all in one place, sorted by topic, and add more ideas to old entries simply by putting in new pages.

~Courtesy of Hermana Wilson (who thought to bring a big binder)

Family History - Missionaries with Members (Hermana Norma)

How great is it that you are going to share Thanksgiving with the Cummings! You can share stories about your missionary daughters. :) Can you send me pictures?

Christmas is in a MONTH! That means we will have our last phone call in a month!

Much love,

Hermanita L