Week Three! Hola!

This week, has been up and down for me. Time of really struggling to know if I should be here, if I could even do this work, if I would ever be able to speak spanish, if I could even teach in ENGLISH for that matter, and if it was really the best thing for me to be here right now. And let me tell you - the Lord answers prayers. Really and truly. Entonces we finished with our first investigator, Oscar, last Thursday night and on Saturday when we got our 2nd teacher - SURPRISE! it was Oscar! His name is really Hermano Garcia and he's from Colombia. His parents were converted by missionaries in Colombia and he's been a member all his life. Right now he's going to school at BYU and he served his mission in Chicago speaking spanish. My other teacher is Hermano Avila. He's a Mexican American who grew up in LA and is bilingual. However, he served his mission in Mongolia and so he often prays and or gets frustrated in Mongolian. He's also going to BYU. ANYWAY this week we started teaching 2 new investigators, both of which are 'represented' by our teachers and are actual people that they either taught on their mission  or are very special to them. For example, Oscar, our first investigator, is one of Hermano Garcia's good friends from Colombia. We taught Eddie (Hno Avila) first. And that lesson just crashed and burned. We were toally unprepared, and our Spanish wasn't there, but more inportantly the spirit wasn't there. I mean, ok, I guess it was but it was just scattered. We weren't unified as a companionship and things just kind of fell apart. I mean, we walked out of the lesson feeling ok - but then in our class period afterwards Hna Holladay just started crying. No bueno. I was seriously doubting my self and struggling all week. Until yesterday.

We had our first lesson with a man named Arnaldo Llamas. He's 50, form Mexico, and he's living in c

Chicago right now working to make money to support his family, send one of his sons to school in Monterry and hopefully bring them to the US in a year.  He was a media referral, meaning that he saw a commerical on the TV for the "finding faith in Christ" video and he called and ordered one. We then were bringing the video to him, and stopped in to give him a message as well. WELL we were scheduled to be in that appointment for 15 minutes, and we had planned to just share a short message, give him a Book of Mormon, and then ask to come back and then we'd share a full lesson. The Spirit is a funny guide sometimes. We ended up teaching for FORTY FIVE minutes. IN SPANISH. Yeah. I mean, it was broken, but it didn't matter. He understood us, not because our Spanish was perfect, but because the Holy Ghost was speaking to his heart. We even asked him to be baptised. He said he might, but that he wanted to pray and read a bit first. We had him pray at the end of the lesson, after we taught and guided him though the steps, and he said the most beautiful prayer I've ever heard. Asking to bless his family back in Mexico, to bless us hermanas for the work we were doing and for bringing us to him, he asked to know the right path for him, how to be a better example for his family, and to know whether or not to be baptised was the right path for him. After that lesson - there was nothing in the world I could ask for. I had been struggling all week to learn how to fall in love with this work. Our teachers tell us all the time that that's what we need to do - and I was struggling! I honestly didn't know if I could, or if I even would. But after meeting with Hermano Llamas I can see that light. I can see how I could fall in love with this. It's gonna take some time for the love to outweigh the fear, but it well eventually. I just know it.

AHH! Well, my time is running short. I'll be off until next Thursday!

 LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!

Hermana Hensley