Last Saturday we found the Guzman and the Ambriz-Varela families. Luis Ambriz lives with his mom, Otelia Varela. She speaks very little English and she cannot read Spanish. She feels sad about it. She said where she grew up in Mexico the boys were educated but not the girls. We are going to teach her to read in Spanish and she also wants to learn to speak English. She is a terrific lady and I feel a connection with her.
The Guzmans have two really cute daughters. One has graduated from UCLA and the other daughter is attending there now. They are from El Salvador and they were astounded and very excited when we told them there was a temple there now. We are going to print out some of the pictures Eileen sent to us to give to them when we meet next week. They have been members about 10 years. They want to go to the temple to be sealed as a family but Jose Hermano Guzman has a drinking problem he has never been able to overcome. He gave one of the most sincere prayers I have ever heard. I hope he is able to overcome this problem.
Because so many members work on Sunday, Third Ward has Young Men and Young Women meetings, Relief Society, and Priesthood Meeting on Tuesday nights. Sixth Ward does this on Wednesday nights. We had invited the Morans, Guzmans, and Luis Ambriz and his mother to these meetings. Earlier that day two out of the three had cancelled their appointments. I was very discouraged but Dale assured me that is the life of a missionary. To our pleasant surprise, they all came Tuesday night! We made appointments with them for next week.
I also felt better about Young Womens this week. They had someone there training the girls on leadership and how to plan activities. I think things are starting to look up. We have been told many times not to take over, just love them and loving these people is so easy to do. They have very loving natures.
Following all the meetings they had a surprise birthday party for the bishop (Obispo). They had so much food. Of course they wanted us to taste all of their dishes. I was so full! I hope this doesn’t happen too often. Overeating at our age isn’t good!
Wednesday night we met with Obispo Estrada of the 6th Ward and he gave us 8 names to work with. Thursday we went to the DMV—they made us get California license plates. We can keep our Idaho Drivers Licenses, however. We spent the rest of the time trying to find where all these people live. Friday we went to the temple and spent some more time trying to locate these people and make appointments with them. We even found a really nice lady,Lorena Miranda, who agreed to have us come back to tell her more about Jesus Christ. She did not want to set a date & time because she was just leaving with a friend. She did ask for our phone number and gave us hers though.
Saturday and Sunday we were able to watch all of conference live. Dale got KBYU on the computer and connected it to the TV and Voila! We had conference live. Of course here it starts an hour earlier because we are on Pacific Time. We really enjoyed the talks. Many had good things for the our inactive families.
Tonight we fed 4 elders assigned to 3rd Ward. We had a great time. They were so happy to have an “English “ meal. We had roast beef, potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, salad, homemade bread, pie and ice cream.
We think of our family and friends often and we always pray for them. We hope they are doing well and are okay.
The Lord knew exactly which mission you were needed to help these specific families! Way to go. Carry on.
ReplyDeleteLove, Your brother and sister, Walt & Eileen