The Work is Progressing

I think I mentioned last week that Fernando came to church and that he's progressing more than he ever has in the past. So this week he came to church again and he's participating in the lessons and stuff and it's great. So we had a short lesson after church and talked to him about baptism and told him that we felt like he could be ready in September (which is legitimately true. That's not even because President committed everyone to have a baptism in September. It's because Fernando could have been stinking baptized already and now he just needs a stinking goal.) and he said that he would pray about it. So we were pretty excited about that because Fernando has been investigating the church for SO long and he knows it's true and he's doing almost everything he needs to do. He just has to stop smoking. Sister Richey went over yesterday while we were on an exchange and she didn't have a lot of time to talk to him because they were running late, but he told her that he doesn't understand why he is being pressured into baptism and why it has to be in September. It's probably good I wasn't there because I probably would have freaked out a little. Pressuring him is literally the last thing we've been doing. We haven't even talked to him about baptism since probably the third week I was in this area. So that's 12 weeks without even mentioning baptism because we knew that any type of pressure would be bad. And we also only mentioned September once. We just told him that we had been praying about it and thinking about it and felt like he could be ready in September. We didn't even give him a day in September! We told him that if he wanted to get baptized in September that he could pick whatever day he wanted. So basically I don't know what the heck we're going to do to help him. I mean there must be some underlying problem, but I've done all I can to try to find out what that is and he's told us that he want's to get baptized so I just don't understand. We're going to meet with him again later this week and hopefully we'll be able to get some answers about what the heck is going on. So whether or not Fernando will ever get baptized in this life is a to be continued story...

Veronica on the other hand is doing great. We're not sure if she'll be ready for baptisms until maybe October if she keeps progressing the way she has been but she loves what she knows so far. She is reading the Book of Mormon a lot and understanding a lot and always asks really good questions. So we're excited to see her keep progressing. 

Manuel has officially gone to Boston for work and won't be back for 3 or 4 months. We're SO bummed because he told us on Saturday that he turned down his friends offer to go to church because he liked the church he's going to (aka The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and he also said that he thinks he would get baptized ones he clears up the few doubts he had. So basically he's awesome and now he's gone and no one will know about him when he comes back. But luckily he is now friends with some of the members and he said he was going to keep in contact with them and with us so that should help. We were hoping to send missionaries to him in Boston but he'll be working 7 days a week until 8pm so that makes it a little hard for any missionary to visit him.

Leydi is doing absolutely fantastic and we're going to the temple with her next Wednesday. She's never been before so she's SO excited. And the family history specialist in the ward is helping her find family names to take with her so that we can do that work while we're there. It's going to be the coolest experience ever! We're sad a little bit though because she told us that she still doesn't feel super comfortable at church unless she's with us and that's not good. We've been trying to get people to befriend her but it's been more difficult than it should be. We're hoping that she'll be able to have a good relationship with the family history specialist since she's a young mom like Leydi.

Sister Richey and I are also doing great. Missionary work is the greatest and I love it! It's been fun to be a sister training leader and work with some of the other sisters and learn from them so I've been enjoying the exchanges we go on. I have a feeling I'll be getting transferred this next transfer though but I think it will be a good change. Even though if it happens, I'll miss everyone here in New Rochelle so much, it will be refreshing to have new problems to work with.

I hope you are all doing fantastic!

Love,

Hermana Parkin