Hermana Annie Jo: "To the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Thanks but no"

This has been such an awesome week!!! I can't really even put it all to words, and I don't really have time anyway. But here it goes.

Here are the updates:

-Joel is still waiting to hear if he can get baptized. He's so excited. We meet at the park like every other day, but lately he hasn't had time cause he is too busy training the young men from the ward at the gym. HAHA.

-Maria called us saying that she didn't sleep all night and that we need to go over. We went by and she handed us 3 letters. The envelopes were printed out and addressed to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. One for me, Garcia, and our Bishop lol. Freak I should have taken a picture. Inside she wrote the most formal letter saying she won't be getting baptized this weekend. She wrote like 3 paragraphs assuring the church that we have done our work well, and then she said she wants to go to her sisters church so she can build a relationship with her sister. WHAT.

Pretty sure she is stressing about other things...so we will keep working on it. But it's a bummer. We picked out her white jumpsuit and everything :'(

-Blanca Jose Mayra and Angel!!!!

Okay so long story short, we got a referral from a member for her aunt Blanca. We went by and invited her to Pablo's baptism. She and her husband Jose came. They told us they want to be members so we were like...COOL you are talking to the right people!

We tried by Blanca's house a bunch but she was never there. We finally got her to come to a dinner with her niece's family (members) and their shared their coolest most POWERFUL conversion story. Blanca was like "cool lets do the baptism next week!" haha

We still could never find Blanca at home, but we got another referral for a girl named Mayra. We went by and Blanca, Jose, Mayra and her husband Angel were all there! Turns out they are always all together! So we have been going over every day to eat with them and teach. They all sit down on the couch together and listen so closely. I LOVE THEM . They were all struggling to pray, but the other day Angel was brave and got on his knees to say his first prayer. He sobbed through the whole thing. Then in the middle he stopped and looked up "is this normal?" I was like "yes shhhh keep going!" haha. Then after the prayer his CUTEST 3 year old son threw his arm's around Angels neck and said "it's okay daddy!"

-I had to give a talk in church yesterday...in Spanish...but it went okay! I am growing to love this ward SO MUCH! I feel as comfortable and at home with them as I did with the Eagle 9th ward!!!

-We got invited to a special leadership conference up in Albequerque! It was so awesome. I learned soooo much and can't wait to take the work to the next level. But for real, the best part of all of it was seeing HERMANA MADDI THOMPSON!!!!! Oh my goodness it was like being reunited with my sister. ANNNDDD I saw elder SPECER SMITH! He's doing so awesome! Eagle represent!

-We are biking sooooo much! These pics are from biking to meetings at the church with the elders haha. Elder Sutton's head rarely makes the pic cause he's so tall.

-I sang at the funeral of one of my FAVORITE members. It was such a sweet service. Then after, another member (this crazy old lady who basically kidnapped us once...that's another story) asked me to sing at her funeral! HAHA she's like "I'll tell my son your info so someday he can find you and you can come back and sing at my funeral."

lol....hopefully I don't bail on her.

-That's about it!!! Life is good! The weather is warming up! And I'm still getting chubby on Mexican food!!! :)

xoxoxoxxo

Hermana Johnson