I hear its starting to snow in Utah! Winter is on it's way, that's for sure. It doesn't quite feel that way here in Union City, New Jersay. We were walking down the street, past one of our favorite stores, 99 cent dreams (not quite because of the merchandise, more because the name is awesome!!) and wondering if it was fall, or summer still. I feel like I am in another country here, everybody speaks spanish, the stores are in spanish, the music blaring from the houses is in spanish, the people look at us and reject us in spanish, they call at us... thinking we don't speak spanish, the food is hispanic.. If I didn't know any better.. I would think I was in the middle of South America. One thing that wasn't in spanish.. Other than the technical errors we had, was conference! Conference as a missionary is like recess for an elementary school student!! I felt like the nerdy kid on the first day of school. It really IS different as a missionary and I couldn't drink it in fast enough!
I seemed to be engulfed in the talks about the importance of an eternal marriage and raising a family in the church. Something that I have grown an even stronger testimony on in my mission. Well that about pulled my mind into another world as we were walking to our appointment in between the sessions. A lovely street contact that we met and we walked into the house and it was like a family party!! Nine of them in total and I remember a thought I had earlier this week as I reflected on how I hadn't taught a large family lesson in my mission yet and that's something I would want to experience. Irony? I don't think so. The contacts daughter( she was a mother and had her three kids there) asked us if we could teach their nine year old triplets about God... I'm pretty sure that is actually something we CAN do! What I quickly realized was that:
1.God is our loving Heavenly Father.
2.The Gospel blesses families. Families bless us in the gospel.
The extra power and drive I had for my own family, and future family that I had from conference, led to this lesson. The mother, with tears running down her face during the lesson, asked us if we could come back every sunday and teach their family. The immediate trust and love that came from the spirit was a blessing. Even the grandma who had just gotten there from Cuba that day, gave us a huge hug and a kiss. They realized that families are important and how lucky are we to be able to help them understand and grow on what they already know!
Oh and we had a few investigators at conference, Ramon, Diego, and Jairo. Diegos baptism is next week and because he has work and school we still have a couple lessons to teach him before his baptism. Law of Chastity, and tithing. Well thanks to conference, those two things were covered really well!! I just remember thinking to myself, "Well.... hmmmm... oh boy... ok.. well there's our lesson on chastity, I think he heard that he should get married a couple times..." Thoughts like those. Who better to teach our investigators the lessons than the Presidency of the church themselves!
Picture is of me and Eddy.. the 12 year old that got baptized a year ago that told me I was his second favorite missionary ever and the thing that would make him the happiest in the world would be if I would get married to his first favorite, the elder that baptized him! Ha ha ha oh the things people tell us... what do you even say to that? I'll tell you. You say,"Woa! Look!! Conference is starting!"
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