Happy 6 Months

Dearest Family and Friends,

Happy New Year!!!!! I hope you've all made some wonderful goals and plan to make them last until at least February...haha. :) This week has been interesting. A lot of super cool, amazing, wonderful, and perfect things happened!!!! But of course, every week has its disappointments.

So, unfortunately Fermin didn't pass his baptism interview. He forgot some key things about the lessons. So we have to reteach him this week. But now he's ready, and it's going forward for Saturday!! Yay! So, what started out as a huge disappointment, turned out to be a cool miracle! We may have had to teach the Restoration again, but it was the best lesson I've ever been in!! I love watching him in the branch. He has so many friends! We sat down to plan his baptism, and he knew who he wanted to speak, baptize him, confirm him, and stand in the circle. He knows the whole branch!!! This is the IDEAL situation! I am SOOOO excited for him! This week will be a great one!

Key Indicators - so President Foote came up with some key indicator goals for the mission, and as a companionship we have been trying to meet them. We knew it was impossible to achieve all of them at once. So, we decided to focus on lessons using the Book of Mormon, and lessons with less actives. As a mission, we have a goal to have one baptism per companionship per transfer, and one less active reactivated. We have been working with less actives a lot – especially with the Book of Mormon, and we have seen SOOO many miracles! The book of Mormon can truly change lives. It has reactivated a couple less actives. How incredible is that?? THe Book of Mormon is truly powerful! President Foote was truly inspired with these goals for the mission! I can't wait to see more miracles!

Going along with the key indicators, we now have 5 progressing investigators! It is so incredible!! We used to just have Fermin and Hector, but now we've helped an investigator start progressing again, and we are teaching this amazing couple!! They are a member referral. Their names are Rogelio and For. They are SOO sweet! He is from Guatemala, and she is from the Dominican Republic. They are SO sweet! We taught them the Restoration, and when we followed up, they had read the Book of Mormon! We then taught them the tree of life story, and they loved it! It applied to their family perfectly! They love the Gospel! Flor called us yesterday and told us to start calling her every Sunday and inviting her to church, because she wants to come!! Holy cow! There are miracles all over the place!

So, a cool story from this week. Well, not super cool, but I thought it was funny. The mom of the two twins who got baptized is super less active. She works every Sunday at 11, and church is at 10. We are trying to get her to come and at least take the sacrament. Well, she agreed to do that yesterday. So, we called her Sunday morning to wake her up - no response. Then we went to her house and banged on the door until she woke up. Well, she said she was too tired, but we wouldn't accept that. We went in the house, got up the two twins, and forced them all to get ready for church - in a loving way ;) Sometimes you need some tough love! WEll, it paid off. They came to church; Martha took the sacrament, then headed for work. The twins are doing such a good job!! They force their mom to read the scriptures and pray with them every night. They are only 9 years old!!!! I am learning so much from this sweet family. I love being a missionary :)

So, that's my week!! It's been amazing!! I would like to end this email by asking if all of you could pray for me. My stomach isn't doing so well, and I can't eat anything - like nothing at all. I could really use some prayers so that my stomach gets better so I can keep working - and eating! :) I was able to get a priesthood blessing from a sweet man in the branch. He's my dad here on the mission. He and 3 other men whom I'm really close to came and gave me the blessing. It was such a special moment for me. I was promised in the blessing that I will be able to serve my whole mission. I believe that! Being a missionary brings so many cool experiences! I love being here, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else! Thanks for your love and support! Now let's all get back to the gym and actually stay there! Haha. Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Bringhurst