OK, fun week.
Ruben, who had surgery, is now wearing pants again (his last excuse for not being able to come to church was because his belt rubbed his stitches, so he couldn't wear pants.) but has taken off to Saint Louis to see his daughter, and may be going back to Mexico again. I hope we don't lose him, and I'm afraid I might not be here for his baptism.
We had two amazing lessons with Rosa, the mother of the troubled teens I mentioned last time. Salvador (Her husband who spontaneously stopped drinking) has left the house for a while, because he doesn't get along with Rosa's mother, who is visiting for the next month. But he has and is reading his book of Mormon.
But getting back to Rosa, the last we had seen of her, we had started the 10 commandments, which she vaguely remembered from catechism. (BTW, she insisted on using the BOM - she says she understands it better than the bible.) This time, she UNDERSTOOD them. We got to "graven images" (the words for Image and idol are the same in Spanish) and her eyes got huge, and she explained the whole thing to us. We just had to say yes, you understood correctly, we should not have idols in our house. And then we got to the Sabbath day, and she was shocked. She, of course had learned the Spanish Catholic twist "Remember thy fiestas, to keep them holy." So when we read the whole thing, she promised, without any prompting on our part, not to take overtime on Sundays any more. Well then we got to adultery, and she had the typical, don't cheat on your husband sort of understanding. When we explain, she gets this sad look, and says, "You know what? I never got married." Hermana and I have out heart attack, and then Rosa gives us this long explanation, in which it comes out, that they are married civilly, but not by the catholic church. Well, we calm down, but we're out of time.
So, Monday we come back, and most of her extended family is there. For benefit of all we decide to review the 10 commandments... but we didn't have to do much. Rosa ran the whole thing, from calling on people to read to explaining the scriptures. Our only job was to keep things moving and on topic. Rosa just taught the whole thing, and bore testimony of the Book of Mormon the whole time. We gave out a whole bunch of copies, and Rosa committed everyone to read. I wanted to cry for joy - She's just so amazing! I don't really know how many of her family are in our area, but I'm sure this had a lasting impact on them any way you cut it. It was such a miracle. We committed her to be baptized, and she said yes, without any vacillation, right in front of her whole catholic family.
She also has a deep testimony of the Proclamation to the World. It was what we shared with her the first time we met her. She knows it's true, and she pulled out her copy to share with the rest of the family, and we pulled out our extras. She spent five minutes just talking about, basically bearing testimony, of that. Herman asked me if having a burning testimony of the Proclamation was enough to get someone baptized.
Other than that, most of our time has been spent knocking. It's tough, because it's cold and damp. But we saw a big sign the other day that said, "Spring is coming! So Thank God!" With flowers and a little angel on it. It fit my mood well at that moment.
Don't worry about me. I do get moments where I feel weird about going home, like when I found out my MTC companion is going home next week (which is transfers, BTW,) but I'm all here. Just have my bed ready.
Love,
Hermana Jones
