"We Wear a Helmet"

Hello Family!

I am doing fine! :D The heat is not that bad and EVERY person that we contact offers us water. We go through 6 or 7 bottles a day just from others. I am doing fine; I am drinking a lot. Please do not worry. Thank you.

The investigator pool is Very much and up and down process. This week was both of that. On exchanges, Elder Cardoso basically contacted every single Potencial/High potencial/somewhat potencial/and down the list haha. He said it was a long bike day. I was in car and Elder H. was making the decisions because it was his area. So my day was boring. It was nice to be back in Estrella Sur the next day. But we had some ups! Maria came to church; she believes Jose Smith was a profet and that the Book of Mormon is true; she believes EVERYTHING. But she says she's already been baptized... So we are focusing on Priesthood authority. Rene came to church and he is a stud! He took the Principles of the Gospel book home and said he wants to read it. Also he asked us a question: "If I become a part of this church then am I too far behind to learn all that I need to know at this point in my life?" It was a fun question for a missionary to hear!! In my personal study I found the second-to-last verse in JSH. Check it out! It answers his question perfectly and it is really cool. We had two super awesome lessons this week. 1st Jose: He is so prepared. He loves going to church and learning and reading and listening to us. But his wife wants nothing to do with us. We haven't met her yet. But on Monday Jose told us that He believes God has a purpose for everyone. He believes that he decided to move from San Diego (take that Elder Hulet hahaha) to here 30 years ago so he could meet us! We have only met with him like give times and he loves what he hears. And then he told us that his wife will see his example once he accepts these things and then she can accept them too. That was music to our ears. We have been praying for the heart of Maria to be softened since we got to this area. It will happen. Jose will be baptized. It would be a privilige and an honor to be here when it happens, but we will do all that we can do and see what the Lord's timetable is. Our other lesson was with Joyce. First of all this is how we found her: Glenda's (recent convert/very fired-up family) mom broke both her legs and has been in the hospital. We kept bothering them to let us go in and give a blessing. She finally figured out a time when it would work. We went with President Aguierre and gave it. The mom was crying. She felt the Spirit! But Glenda's two sisters were there too and they said we could go over and visit them. So we visited Joyce, Glenda's sister, on thursday with Hermano S. Joyce is PREPARADA. Wow. She accepted the baptismal invitation and just loved everything we had to say. The Spirit was strong and Elder Cardoso and I applied everything we have learned from PMG into that lesson. Everything happened at the right time. But there were a few downs: Jose's AND Joyce's mothers-in-law BOTH died over the weekend. They both couldn't come to the church Father's Day dinner (another mexican party we had; pictures to come haha.They are such great missionary opportunities!) and they both couldn't come to church. The Lord works in mysterious ways.... We are praying that this event softens Maria's heart. We think this is just the thing and the reason our dinner with her and Jose was canceled on Friday. It is weird how things happen like that. But as we do all that we should, and just trust in the Lord, he allows things to play out exactly how they should. That is what happened. And for Omar and Clemente: It has been difficult to meet with Omar. He has a lot of work and he very much likes his Christian church haha. We invited him to church and he said he couldn't go because he has church at the same time and then he invited us to his church... haha. But we are working so hard on a testimony of the Book of Mormon. That will answer every question he has. He still can't accept most of what we tell him but for some reason he is reading the BOM and doing it slowly so he can "understand all that he is reading" as he would put it. There has to be some doubt in his mind and a little more than just curiousity in the church to be reading as much as he is. We will see. We extended July 20 as the Baptismal invitation for Clemente on Tuesday. It was intense because we were lovingly bold and were trying to help him with all his doubts. Elder Cardoso was doing a lot of it. I compared him to Nefi and the member and I to Laman and Lemuel who could not touch Nefi unless they wanted to get struck haha. Finally, Hermano H. told him to pray fervently about that date. He said he would. I love that family SOOO much. Deseret, Ann-Jolie, JC, and Clemente. They didn't come to church--which was devastating. But I want the Gospel for them so bad. I feel like we are trying so hard. See if you could have Clemente and his family, and Jose and his wife in your prayers. I love them so much!

Sorry this is so long! It took until now to realize all the miracles I have seen this week... One last thing on finding: Elder Cardoso and I keep joking around about how his 15 months of biking will be over next transfer when President makes us Zone Leaders of the EL MIRAGE ZONE (5 square miles) and that he will be taking us truck shopping. We make ourselves laugh. The reason we joke about that though is there are SO many people in El Mirage who accept prayers, who let us in, who accept return appointments, and who become investigators! We found 10 new inv. last week. It is a finding miracle here in El Mirage. We schedule appointments every hour because in between them, we contact the world. It is very effective. It helps that literally 9 out of 10 speak Spanish too. The District leader (co-serving in Estrella Branch) asks us how we find and we say 'Pusimos el casco sobre la cabeza' (we wear a helmet). The Lord is doubly preparing people to accept this message because of the new flood of missionaries and the opening up of new areas. It has chanced upon us that we are able to see the fruits of this in the specific mission and area where we are serving.

This week was miraculous. Every week is miraculous! Nightly planning last night was tough because we couldn't think of anyone to visit or teach tonight but I have all the faith in the world that we will see three hours of miracles then too! It is great to be a missionary :D

Love,

The Eldest Elder Parry