Halfway Mark 11/17/14

So because there is no transfer in August I am not quite sure when my halfway mark is but my ninth month mark will be this week (CRAZY!!). I am actually not quite sure how I feel about it. I am a little scared by how fast the last nine months have flown by and everyone tells me that the second half goes by twice as fast and I really don't want to believe that because it makes me panic that I have not done enough and I cannot possibly go home until I feel like I have given all I've got. So that is my new resolution. To get rid of all of my excuses and really give 100% of myself every single day!

Things were really quite crazy last week (i think I say that every week but they really were more than normal last week). On Tuesday we took our investigator and two inactive youth to the Oakland temple visitor center. It was really cold and dark so we huddled as we took a tour of the outside of the temple and then we went into the visitor center and saw the presentation of the Cristus statue and the plan of happiness. We also saw a really old movie with no words, just music but it told the story of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem and then in the Americas. A few days after we asked them what their favorite part had been and they said that the old movie with no words. I really like it too. It connected for me the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it shows that God loves us so much that he really did send his son for all of us. So that we could be saved.

On Thursday we decided to go contacting for 2 hours because we were embarrassingly low in contacts and we found two incredible new investigators. He is a single dad who has recently decided he needed to believe in God and his daughter is 8 and has no idea who God or Jesus Christ are but she soon will :)

We also got to go back to Oakland and hear from.... Elder and Sister Bednar!!! It was so great to be in a room with 500+ missionaries and be able to just listen, observe, and learn. Most of what he did for the 3 hours he spoke with us was ask us questions about what we had learned from the 3 talks we had been assigned to read. As we answered he would ask more questions and initiate a deeper conversation about that topic. We all felt the spirit so strongly as we taught one another and shared our testimony of the work we have been called to do.

At the end he asked us what we were going to do with what we had learned that day. I decided that I needed to quit with all of the excuses and just get to work. I love being a missionary and I love all of the people I get to work with here in Livermore and in the San Jose area. I have full confidence that God is directing his work. 

I'll leave you with one of the only direct quotes I was able to jot down form Elder Bednar:

     We are not hastening the work. The Lord is hastening the work and we just have to keep up with it. The Hastening of the work has to do with individual repentance, improving, and moving forward.

I love you all!

Hermana Quintana