Mawidge

This week was really incredible, I am full of happiness and ecstatic to share the news with all of you: MARIA IS LEGALLY MARRIED TO HER CURRENT HUSBAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I nearly pulled an Ammon and fainted with joy but I managed to compose myself and was totally chill 

 for the whole lesson :)

I'll start at the beginning... On Tuesday we did service then saw the G family. They are less active, the mother hasn't been to church for about a year and what worries me is that she does not see a difference between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the other churches. Also, a Jehovah's Witness showed up and started with her "What's God's name?" thing. She finally left so we carried on with the lesson. We also saw Paola. Paola's brother is on a mission right now, she is a former investigator but she felt pushed by the last missionaries so we are taking it slow with her. She is really cool and makes very deep observations that make me think about life. We also found out that Yasmin was in the hospital so we visited her after dinner. Poor thing!

On Wednesday we saw Maria:) [I call her maria smiley face because we teach a lot of marias and this maria in particular always smiles and is super kind] anyway, we planned to teach the law of chastity and since she had mentioned that she was not married to her husband we really planned out what we were going to say and how. We started by showing her a picture of the temple and explaining what it was and about how families really can be together forever and not just for this life. She absolutely loved it so we talked about some of the things we need to do to prepare for the temple like living certain commandments. She told us about her previous marriage and about how important it was to be faithful to your spouse then she mentioned that her current husband had a similar past and that is why they had decided to get together. At this point I was just dreading what was coming but then she made a comment about how they had gone to Salinas to sign the papers and I just asked her "so... you are legally married to the man you live with?" It might not have been very tactful but she just said "we are not married in the eyes of God because the Catholic church won't let me get a church divorce from my previous husband." So I repeated the question and she explained that she WAS legally divorced from husband #1 and is legally married to husband #2. Ohhhh man! Then she brought up how much she would love to get married with her husband in the temple and now she wants to wait to be baptized so she can be baptized with her husband. I'm a selfish missionary and want her to get baptized now but she has a very good reason so I'll just swallow my pride and be happy for her.

On Thursday we saw Yadira and Norma at 11:30 a.m. but Yadira had just woken up and was still kind of out of it. We were talking about how their camping trip had gone when Norma mentioned a little creek that they had seen with a critter living in it. Yadira said "oh yeah! it was a lobster" to which Norma responded, "Trust me Yadira, if it had been a lobster I would have eaten it." Yadira looked super shocked and said, "You can't eat that mom, you don't know where it's been or what it's pooped!" I laughed about it the whole day :)

The weekend went by super quick and was highlighted by finding a new investigator. Her name is Maria (I'll name this one Chuy) and she is a friend of Hermana Josefina. We visited with her Friday and Sunday. She prays to the Virgin Mary and she gives her the credit of her husband surviving cancer for 10 years so that might be a little hard to explain to her, she also has a bit of a memory problem but she is great and has an awesome member friend already :)

This week I have been thinking a lot about the power of the small and simple things that make a big difference in our conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I thought a lot about prayer and scripture study but the one that really stuck out to me was church attendance. Every week I get to see a physical change that comes to the people we work with when they go to church on Sunday. When we ask them about their week, those who attended church use words that are more positive and uplifting. I was reading the Ensign from this year's April conference and there was a quote from Elder Donald L. Hallstrom about church that reads "We meet with confidence that His Atonement gives every one of us- no matter our weaknesses, our frailties, our addictions- the ability to change." I testify that this is true. Church is not just something we do for fun, for social opportunities, or to check off our to do list. We go to church because we know that it is an essential part of our spiritual progression and our eternal salvation.

Please remember that Heavenly Father loves you, that He sent His son to atone for our sins and because of that, we CAN change. There is hope!

I love you all, 

Hermana Quintana