Miracles!

Buenos dias mi familia maravillosa,

I was happy to hear that y'all got together this weekend for Ryland's baby blessing! Verna tells me that Ryland is a really cute baby, and I just realized that I haven't seen a single picture of him! Somebody this week was giving directions in Spanish, and they mentioned something about "Ryland." I had to stop them and ask them to repeat that because I hadn't heard the name before, but they were just pronouncing the name of a grocery store here--Raley's--in Spanish. I almost found another Ryland...

Mom and Stace--thank you for the shirts! And the Skittles! I think I'm going to use those in lessons to illustrate the principle of tithing. Kids love learning about tithing when candy's involved.

This week was amazing!! We taught the familia Ro, family of six. The mom, L, was baptized fifteen years ago but has been less active for quite some time. When we first approached her--did I tell you that we were going to visit a potential and I saw two of her sons in the distance, thought they might speak Spanish, and then went to talk to them? In our first visit she told us that her husband was Catholic and basically told us that it was worth a try because he'd stay Catholic--even though her whole family was LDS. Ra (the father) is starting to change a ton. They keep all their commitments--reading from the Book of Mormon, praying as a family, watching videos that we leave and conference talks that we pull up on the computer. Last night he called because he thought they were watching the wrong talk and he wanted to double-check--aww. They loved church yesterday (it was their second time to go), and when we stopped by last night and without even asking him how he felt, Ra told us that he's noticing a big change in himself. He wants to spend more time with his family and wants to be a better person--that's the Spirit at its finest! The three in the family who are baptismal age accepted a baptismal date of June 16! When I asked one of the sons if he was excited about his baptism last night, he told us he was and that he wanted the missionary who returned to her country to baptize him. haha We haven't really talked about priesthood in depth... We sister missionaries can't do the baptizing!

We actually had four investigators at church yesterday. The fourth was a 25-year-old man from Michoacan, Mexico named Bo. He is incredibly shy and quiet so it's really hard to discern his needs/what he's thinking, understanding, etc. We called him yesterday before church and asked if he wanted to follow us to church this week--his sister told us that he actually tried coming last week with the map we gave him but kind of got lost and returned home. We were so surprised to hear that so yesterday we went to his home and he followed us all the way to church. And he loved it! Actually, we're not sure how he liked it since the communication is extremely limited, but I'm sure he was thrilled. He even started reading from the Book of Mormon and is on page 15--I don't know if we invited him to start reading from the beginning, but we're definitely okay with the initiative! Unfortunately he might be moving out of our area soon--and he accepted a baptismal date of June 16 as well.

We taught another family from Vera Cruz, Mexico--Mi and Ed this past Thursday. We've met with them a few times before but the lessons were a little here and there about the gospel of Jesus Christ and getting to know them. We taught them about the Restoration and knocked their socks off and by the end of the lesson Ed was flipping through the Book of Mormon, reading bits and pieces and looking at the pictures at the front of the book. They are an amazing little, young family. They have two cute kids--K (5 maybe) and B (2)--and they have a wonderful relationship. They actually married siblings--sister sister and brother brother. We're going to meet with them again on Thursday, which I'm really excited about, and they told us they'd come to church next week because they wouldn't be able to make it yesterday.

We're seeing a lot of progress in East Sac Spanish! Hopefully we can keep using our charm--and other helpful resources like the true gospel, the scriptures, prayer, all those good things--to help people progress to the waters of baptism, the door to the kingdom of God! 

Love you all,

kates

P.S. Happy birthday, Grandpa!! In a few days. And happy Memorial Day!