Rockford Diaries Week 15: Quien even knows - December 15th, 2014

Queridos,

This week was awesome! Crazy and hectic. But great! :) well I will start with the amazing people we are teaching :)

Laura & Jesus:

They're this middle aged couple we're teaching. We found them when we went to look for their daughter (also named Laura) and then we just had a really good talk with Laura. She has been through a lot and feels like her faith is just failing. She had cancer and almost passed away, just in the last couple years. Jesus is her husband. They used to be separated but are back together and you can tell how much they love each other. They are so amazing. They are looking for what's missing in their lives. They want something to hold onto, something to fill their sounds. We have been teaching them for a couple weeks and last week they prepared us hot chocolate and pancita saying, "you have shared so much win us, now we want to share with you". They're so great. I love them so much. They said they would be baptized and tonight we are going to put them on date :)

And for the miracle person!!! :)

Johanna :)

First, I mean her name is Johanna, c'mon perfect! She is amazing. She is a referral from the english elders, and they said she was so great and blah blah blah, but we tried to find her several times and never were able to get in with her, so we kind of put her on the back burner for a couple weeks. 

So here comes another story for the week to explain how we found Johanna. On Tuesday we had planned to spend the day in a city named Freeport. It's about 45mins away. They only reason we really go here is for one investigator Roberto. Well this week we were going to visit him to find out if he was really interested anymore, kind of an important lesson. Especially since if he wasn't we aren't going to go to Freeport anymore. So anyway we call to confirm our appointment with him during lunch on Tuesday and guess what.....He won't be there, He'll be there in Thursday(He wasn't there then either). Well great, no there is no reason for us to go all this far. So we have to quick replan our entire day during the next 20mins of lunch. It was pretty stressful, especially because I was already feeling pretty sick. So anyway we replanned. Let me just tell you. That was the Lord's plan because everyone in our schedule that day we were able to teach. It was awesome. And one of those people was Johanna.

So back to Johanna. We knocked on her door and she let us right in. We had a super powerful lesson with her and she has so much faith. She wants to come to church so bad. She has been praying that she would be able to go to church with her family for a long time and she says that she knows that we are the answer to her prayer. She told us she has been reading in the Book of Mormon ever since the elders gave it to her (The Elders didn't teach her, they just gave her a Book of Mormon-amazing). Anyway, we of course invited her to church and she said yes she would come. So we set a return appointment for Saturday to help her be able to come to church....she wasn't there.. Oh no. Then we also told her we would go by her house Sunday morning and she could follow us. So we go to her house. It takes them FOREVER to answer the door. But when she finally comes to the door, she looks like she just got out of her bed and we are like 'oh, no'... So she says she can't come because they're having all these problems with there house and plumbing (and they were you could smell it) and she really wants to come but she can't, especially because they only have enough gas and money for her husband to get to work this week. 

[side note: Johanna and her family just moved here from Las Vegas, they are financially struggling ALOT. But they're such good people and always are trying to put their family first. She sells plasma so they have enough money for her husband to get to and from work each day. They bought a Christmas tree so then when their plumbing stopped working they could afford to rent the thing to fix it.]

So anyway she said all this, and my response went just like this, "Oh okay.... well let me tell you why you should come anyway..." Then I talked with her a lot about putting the Lord first and trusting in Him and then I told her we would wait outside while she went and got ready....so she said yes. Haha I DONT UNDERSTAND THE WORD NO. Missionaries have selective hearing. When you say, "no but I really want to, but I can't" we hear "I really want". Haha anyway, so Johanna lives about 30mins from the church. It's about 8:35 at this time. She comes back outside all ready with her two little daughters at about 8:55. We're like well we're going to be so late, but at least she's coming. We send a text to the elders to stall sacrament meeting....o(ur branch president starts at 9:00am on the dot, even though no one is there except missionaries and the presidency). And we begin our journey. Hitting about 3 red lights in a row..... I quick say a prayer that we will be able to have some green lights and get there a little faster. Then here is the miracle. Pay attention. We are in our car, and Johanna in the car behind us. We see this light we are pulling up to turn red. So we stop at the light and as soon as we stop, the light turns green again real quick. Keep in mind this light had literally turn red right when we got there. So just barely, and no one else had gotten a green light yet. But it turned green again and our two cars drove through and then it turned back to red. It was only green long enough for our two cars to get through the light. We were just like, what just happened. Then we hit every green light on the way to church. (There's a lot of lights). It was a miracle seriously. Anyway, so we got to church and Johanna was only going to stay for an hour, but she stayed the whole time and they all loved it!! And in Sunday school, the taught about baptism(Hermana Hunsaker and I taught that lesson in Sunday school last week, but she taught it again because she forgot) which was perfect! And somewhere in the lesson Johanna says, "I'm getting baptized". You should have seen Hermana Hunsaker and I's face. We were in shock because we haven't even talked to her about that yet. Anyway, moral of this long story, it was the BEST Sunday. Johanna loved church and she said she kept telling everyone she is coming every week. Her daughter asked in the way out if they could come next week and Johanna said yes, they were going to come every week, and that next week they were going to bring her husband and her two sons, who are over the age of 8. :) it was the BEST!! She is amazing. So please pray for her! We are going to see her today :) she said that when she told people she was coming to this church they all said crap to her about it but she said "But I kept my faith, I held onto how I felt when you came to my house". Then she also said, "You girls are my angels". It was the greatest. I love her so much. 

Anyway, that was basically the week :) we had exchanges too. I went with Hermana Lopez. She is from Argentina. She is awesome and we decided we should be companions someday. We also ate dinner outside the mission....oops. Then on Saturday, we went downtown with other missionaries in our zone and hand out 'He is the Gift' cards to the people in cards at the red lights. At first it was awkward, and we were like......this is uncomfortable. But then it was just like whatever. Haha Hermana Hunsaker and I have a Moto to 'just roll with the awkward'. We actually had quite a bit of success. Including seeing a brand new, beautiful Lamborghini being dropped off, and then the man revving his beautiful engine. It was great. Our faces were priceless. Haha 

I love these people I get to teach. I love church. I feel the importance of being there and partaking of the sacrament every week. It is just a renovation and day to rest and start over for the next week. So go to church everyone :) it's a blessing in our lives. Put God first, and then He will put you first. 

Well that was the week. Besides our adventure out in the middle of nowhere. I will send pictures of that :) I love you all. Fight the good fight!

Love,

Hermana Simmons