🔥☀️THE SUN☀️🔥
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you guys got to eat a ton of super good food and be surrounded by a ton of family and friends. It was just a regular Thursday for me😁 Now send me emails please.
So it’s been AZ hot all week. It’s not 120⁰ yet, but soon it will be. This guy told us to go to his house at 1:30 which is when it’s like the hottest. We went to his house and guess what? Either his family doesn’t know him, hiding him like the book The Hidden Place, or he told us the wrong house. Whichever it was, we were pretty annoyed. We’ve been drinking a lot of ice cold Terere though and its soooo good.
My comp made banana bread this week that was sooo good.
On Monday we ran out of plans and so the obvious question was “where is the Spirit telling us to go?” My comp felt as though we should go to this inactive’s point on the map, so we went there. The person didn’t live there but pointed us around the corner. We went over there and found this mom and her daughter. They told us that they had seen missionaries in the streets before and were interested in the church and what exactly we do. We taught them part of the Restoration but said we’d come back first thing we could. Next morning I woke up with a PHAT headache but went anyway cause I’m locked the freak in. We walked to the other side of JVG where they live and taught almost the whole fam (6 out of 8). We taught them the Restoration and I could tell there’s no dad in the home and there’s a 28 year old single mother. Also during the lesson we got hit with the “we’ll we’re Catholic”, but we like always were just like “alright?” When we were bearing our testimonies it was one of those experiences where I didn’t really know what I was saying in the moment. It was a spiritually strong lesson and I’ll share kinda what I said in my spiritual thought.
We went to the 2 little girls my first trainer baptized and it was only the older one at home, Guillermina. When I first met her and for weeks she was super animado when we would pass by, but recently no. Her dad is horrible and treats them like dogs. It’s heartbreaking everytime when we go over and I wish I could just get rid of him.
We’ve kept teaching Gael and he is still super goated. He loves reading and we even followed his channel on Whatsapp where he just posts Spiderman edits.
The other people Élder Hicks and I found are doing pretty good. They just haven’t come to church like everyone else we’ve taught.
We planned an activity for Saturday to have Ping Pong and a movie night where we were gonna watch The Prince of Egypt. We told the kid who can get the movie to get that one and we prepared a TON of popcorn because we thought a bunch of people were gonna come. ❌️❌️❌️ It was the Branch President’s family and one of the convert little girls, Carla.
The Branch President said that he is gonna buy the sleeveless garments for my comp and I when they go to the temple next week. So maybe I won’t die in the upcoming heat🙏🙏🙏
2 workers came by our apartment to clean the air filters on our AC and we thought it might fix this problem we’ve been having where in the middle of the night there will be a loud clanging sound and there’s nothing we can do about it. They cleaned the filters and it didn’t help the problem. We just wake up in the middle of the night and turn the AC off. We got a fan in our room though so it’s chill.
For Thanksgiving my comp made fried chicken and it was so good. Definitely doesn’t compare to what I would’ve had at home but that was goated.
Oh yeah! My mission got 109 baptisms this month! Last week we were about 35 off of our goal which was 100 and yeah we got it so that’s pretty nuts!
That’s all for this week. We got transfers next week so depending on whether or not I leave, I may or may not be able to send an email. I really hope I stay because we should definitely have some baptisms this month and also I just love this area.
Spiritual Thought:
So the Testimony and invitation I gave in that lesson basically went like this “I know you all are Catholics and it is crazy that there are 2 gringos 6000 kilometers away from their country telling you that the church they attend is the true church, but we are here because we have gained a testimony of this church and of the Book of Mormon. I know that it’s true and I know how busy you all are.” (2 are single Moms like I said and I is in school to become a nurse) I pointed to each one of them and said “I know you are working to become a nurse, and you 2 are both mothers, a demanding and one of the busiest jobs in the world, but I invite you to set aside time, not just find time, to read this Book and to ask God if it is true. As you do so, I promise you that you will receive an answer.” I wasn’t expecting the 2 moms to cry and the other to get teary eyed but they did and it was a really powerful lesson.
I have gained a testimony of the small and simple things that we are taught to do to keep us spiritually strengthened at all times: reading and praying. They often appear so small that we forget to do them or give little care to do them, and that makes them even more important! You are literally reading the words of ancient prophets that received revelation for us today in our time and have the opportunity to speak directly with our Father in Heaven! It is sad how often we say “I’m too busy to do these things. I just can’t find the time to do them.” The point is not finding time, but making time. I bear my testimony of these things and I will leave you with 1 Nephi 16:29:
“29 And there was also written upon them a new writing, which was plain to be read, which did give us understanding concerning the ways of the Lord; and it was written and changed from time to time, according to the faith and diligence which we gave unto it. And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things.”
Please let me know how things are going at home or in your missions! I love, miss, and pray for you all!
— Élder Curtis
