Tengo Fe (I have faith)

Hi beautiful family,

Thursday marks my 3-month point in the mission. Has it been fast or slow? I'll be honest--the last month has been crawling by! My spider bite has been healing and is almost gone--thank you for your prayers! Who knew that spider bites peel at the end? I didn't know that. So now I have a bite, a ring of new skin around it, and what looks like a shadow of a bruise around that. Thank goodness I'm finished taking my antibiotics--those made me feel sick and gave me headaches, so I count it as a blessing that it's over with.

This week was eventful, as always. I've had in mind three things that would describe the city of Stockton: (1) ice-cream trucks--I'm not kidding when I say that I think they follow us everywhere. I suppose we could talk to the ice-cream man to find out his selling route and then we'll find out where all the Hispanic neighborhoods are. I hear those darn ice-cream songs all day; (2) the people of Stockton love bounce houses--any and every birthday party must include a bounce house. They're on every corner and always in the parks--it's incredible. Remember my last name? Hermana Brinca Brinca? Hermana Bounce House. I'm pretty popular around here. Speaking of Brinca Brinca, I said that to two kids who couldn't say Brinkerhoff. They loved it and kept trying to get my attention during the lesson--Brinca Brinca! One of the girls is 5 years old and reminds me of sweet Kajsa Jane. Her name is Julisa and she is just the cutest, most energetic little thing. Poor thing speaks to me in Spanish all the time and I pretend like I'm paying attention to something else because I have a really hard time understanding children's Spanish; (3) yard sales--people have never-ending yard sales in their front yards, including one of our investigators. Jo and Quin, I haven't stopped by one of the yard sales, but you'd probably have a hayday here--not just on the weekends. Daily.

We've been teaching yard-sale investigator ever since I've been here--Julio--and he finally came to church!! We were so excited. I'd been praying every day last week for him to come and for the speakers to be inspired to know the message he needed to hear. Two English speakers from the stake came and spoke about service and following the gospel of Jesus Christ (bishop translated into Spanish) and it was perfect! I thought they were the exact things that Julio needed to hear--he wasn't super excited after sacrament meeting, though, which dashed my hopes, but I think he's trying to hide the fact that he knows it's true. We've invited him on a temple tour our ward is doing September 16 and hopefully he'll come to church between now and then. He's just so great and I wish I could drag him to church and to the baptismal font--agency! Oftentimes I listen to the lessons while Sister Carlos teaches and chime in when I know what I should say and can say it in Spanish. When we were teaching Julio last week I felt the Spirit so strongly when I told him that I knew with all my heart that he would be blessed if he came to church and that I know these things are true. He said he could feel the Spirit when I said that and I actually couldn't stop shaking after I told him that. It was a neat experience--very powerful.

We went to the pulga (flea market--or "free" market as Sister Carlos calls it) on Saturday. We talked to about 30 people in the parking lot--Hispanics everywhere! We didn't get anywhere with that--I figured it was going to be a worthless trip. It made me think of Canton--a Hispanic Canton. :)

One of the sets of elders in our ward had a baptism on Saturday for an 88-year old man whose children were baptized 47 years ago. I played the piano and Sister Carlos translated one of the talks (the daughter speaks only English), so we kind of took over the baptism. It was a great experience and I felt the Spirit very strongly when Alex was being baptized. I was so happy to see the faces of his children after 47 years of praying that he would be baptized--his wife died recently and he wants to be with her for eternity. He received the priesthood the next day in sacrament meeting. :)

We found the Little Mexico of Stockton! And it's running wild with dogs. Spanish is still coming along slowly but I have faith that even though I can't speak now, it'll come. I know that if I really need to say something, it will come to my mind. That's the neat thing about the Spirit--that if I really need to express myself and share my testimony, I can do it--however simple it might be. Back to dogs--one was particularly angry at us when Sister Carlos was inviting a man to be baptized--she totally forgot the question (it's a memorized question) and started throwing things out there because she was so scared and couldn't concentrate. Haha oh darn it.

Love you all! I pray for you all the time! Thank you for your prayers. We pray for miracles every day and I love the scripture in 2 Nephi that I read this morning--2 Nephi 27:23. Sorry I have only my Spanish scriptures with me, but it's wonderful. "I am God and am a God of miracles... I work only according to man's faith."

Love,

Kates