May 12th

Well since its just been SO long since we´ve talked I have so much I have to say to you. Okay but actually I have a lot since a lot always happens within a week here in the mission.

So super cool, at Concilio on Monday and Tuesday, President Deere only talked about the doctrine of Christ. We had a very spiritual, very cool Concilio. He kept on saying that "we live in the time of Thomas S Monson, the time of the WHOLE doctrine of Christ." I love it, in our mission, we are shifting our focus from just baptizing to working with the whole doctrine of Christ! It reminded me of the presiding bishop´s talk when he quoted that idea of elder bednar of making a list of all the members of your family and write down what the next saving ordinance is for them because that is what we are doing in our mission, with investigators, members, less actives, recent converts, EVERYONE! Also to retain the new converts, we are teaching lesson 5, the laws and ordinances, before baptism now too. This is a really cool time to be in this mission, I know that we are going to be seeing some cool growth happening in all of the units we work in.

I don´t know if I´ve ever written about C.., but I wanted to describe a little about this woman. C.. was baptized YEARS ago, she´s one of the first converts in Dos Hermanas. The cool thing is that even though her family all went inactive over the years, she is the only one that has stayed strong. Her husband never got baptized and she went by herself to activities, to temple trips, to meetings for YEARS. She couldn´t have children of her own, but her siblings were all messed up, so she raised most of her nieces and nephews. C...´s only desire was for her husband to get baptized so they could be sealed and enjoy the blessings of membership together. Finally, 4 years ago, he got REALLY sick and realized that he needed to get baptized. So he finally got baptized in his 70s and they were certain he would live long enough for them to be sealed, but sadly he passed away 11 months after his baptism, not ever having had the opportunity to be sealed. It seriously tried C...´s faith and suddenly she was questioning everything. It breaks my heart to talk to her because she says she wants to have the faith that she once did, but that she just can´t seem to do it. she still hasn´t done the work of her husband even though 3 years have passed. It really breaks my heart EVERYTIME I talk to her. I just know that once she gets back to the temple, everything will feel right again. She will feel the peace and comfort she is still seeking and once she does her husband´s work and they are sealed, she will have the closure she´s seeking.

So update on P..., we didn´t get to see his sons this week but hermana blake met with him during intercambios and she says he still won´t take a step of faith and ask which is the true church because he´s afraid of offending or losing any friendships.

Love you all! thank you for everything and have an excellent week!! 

HERMANA FOLSOM

ps today is my 11 months... TIME IS FLYING!!!!