Here comes the sun

Buenos dias familia,

This week was pretty good--pretty typical, which is a good thing. The only thing that's a little different is that I've been extremely exhausted this week (and the past few weeks--maybe it's been my whole mission;). This week I've felt like I've needed to be dragged to walk to any doors. Wow, it's no wonder boys 19-21 years old are the ones who are supposed to serve missions! Those are my thoughts pretty much every morning because I just think "ohh my body." And good thing elders are the ones who serve for 2 years--18 months sounds good to me! Thankfully Sister Toro is a napper, too (just like Sister Novakovich!), so we get to eat lunch really quickly and use the rest of our hour to take a little snoozer--never enough!

A theme from our district meeting this week was, "Have we been on our knees enough?" That's been a question on my mind this week--have I been praying enough with faith that Heavenly Father will hear and answer my/our prayers? The motto for the month in the mission is Faith in Every Footstep, which I obviously love because Stace, Jo and I sang that at my farewell. Yeah, remember that tear jerker? Oh boy was I a mess. Anyway, it's neat to think about the pioneers this month (we got to watch 17 Miracles on the 4th of July in our zones) and how they sacrificed so much for this work. Well we're involved in the same work as we find new people who will be pioneers in their families for generations to come as they accept and live the gospel. Last month we had a goal of baptizing 55 people in the mission and we baptized 60. This month the goal is 67. We had a miracle yesterday at church--we worked all week to find someone (a family) to come to church, but it didn't look like it would happen (but we still had faith that after doing all that we could, the arm of the Lord would be revealed). And it was! There's a man named D who lives with (or is just always at their home--we don't really understand) a less-active family. We taught them this week and invited him to church. After calling the family about 10 times Sunday morning before church to wake them up (we warned them we'd do it if they gave us permission--it didn't work, by the way), we thought it was a lost cause. And then they came! And D loved church and loves learning! We're hoping that he's our July miracle. 

We had a stake correlation meeting yesterday with stake leaders and ward mission leaders and missionaries in our zone. I appreciated what one of the counselors in the Stake Presidency said about having faith that our prayers will be answered, after doing all that we can. Oftentimes we conjure up the faith that things will happen if we truly believe with all our hearts that it will without putting in the effort to do it. President talked about how Heavenly Father can do anything, of course, but He expects us to do our part, to really think about it and study it out and put forth the effort. Only after that do we have the promise that he will make things work out for our good (if that's His will). But we're the ones who need to get things moving first. That's something I need to work on a little bit--I pray earnestly with the best intentions but sometimes I don't study it out enough and think of what I am capable of doing first before the Lord takes over and the miracle happens.

Another focus for our companionship right now is family home evening. We printed off family home evening packets to give to every family in our area and cute sheets of paper where they can make family assignments so everyone gets involved. So far we've been able to teach three or four families about FHE and will be following up with them on that! We want to follow up with them every week about it because I think it's something that will really help the families in our ward (well, it doesn't hurt that it's a promise from the prophet and apostles that it'll strengthen the family). Make sure you're doing your family home evenings! I always think about my siblings and their families when I'm teaching this and hoping y'all are doing it. :)

Love you all. Thank you for your prayers and letters and emails and pictures!

Happy birthday Millerman and Scottie!!!

Love,

kates