General Conference!

Hola mi familia!!

I am still loving how Heavenly Father is guiding us, as well as guiding the people here in the area.  One day this week we were tracting around a street doing less-active lookups.  We found this building that had a lot of apartments and so we decided it was a good place to knock!  In this building we ended up finding a member who was baptized 15 years ago in Honduras, but was convinced that when she moved here 12 years ago she was no longer a member.  Crazy!!  While talking to this inactive, a lady kept passing and going into the door behind us.  I looked back, and she looked suuuuper familiar to me, and she smiled at me as she passed.  And then it hit me that she is the non-member sister of one of our recent converts! She had come to church last Sunday with her daughters, but we weren't able to get any information.  God blessed us with a miracle to find her!  We are now teaching her and her two daughters : )

Sister Tirado looooovveeees Peeps marshmallows!

After this, we decided to knock one more door.  We found a 30-year-old woman named Yanet, and we began to talk to her.  Dude. Yanet is super super super duper prepared to hear the gospel. Yanet told us a story about how her 15-year-old daughter lives in Utah because of immigration issues.  Apparently when her daughter came from Hondruas, her daughter was adopted by a Mormon family in St. George Utah! The Mormon family has let Yanet have contact with her, and they communicate a little through Facebook.  Her daughter was baptized and is thinking about going on  a mission.  This was a great conversation starter for us because Yanet had really no idea what a mission was.  We were able to explain to her what we do as missionaries and how the sacrifices we make are worth every effort.  Yanet also told us that Her mother and her nephews are also members in Honduras. She then began to tell us that Her father died a few years ago, and she was mad that he died and she didn't believe in a God. But then God prompted her and she was able to reconcile her feelings and realize that it was her father's time to leave this earth.

She tried to get the member's cat to knock the door... 

She said she prayed and asked for forgiveness that she didn't believe in God. She said she felt happiness in that moment. The Spirit was so powerful in our less!!.  It was probably one of the most spiritual I have had on my mission.  We felt so prompted to ask her if she believed that she would see her father again.  She said "Tal vez?" (that means maybe).  We then testified that she would indeed see her dad again.  The Spirit was so powerful testifying of the truth.   Three days later we returned and taught Yanet and her husband Eduardo!!  That was the most exciting thing.  Once again, the Spirit was incredibly strong and I felt so much love for them.  We finished with an invitation to be baptized, and they said they would think about it. The greatest thing happened at the very very end of the lesson though.  We invited Eduardo to pray, and he was completely hesitant. He didn't know how to pray, and it made it him suuper nervous.  He is a shy man, so even coming out to talk to us was a little stretch for him.  We taught him how to pray, and then re-invited him to do it.  He was still hesitant.  Sister Tirado had the awesome idea that I would pray as an example, and then he could pray after me.  We did that, and Eduardo gave such a sincere beautiful prayer.  As we knelt there in their tiny apartment, the Spirit really bore witness of the power of prayer and I could feel hope for this amazing family.  I know they will come to accept the message of the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ : )

"That's my comp!! We had kind of a crazy night last night.  Hahaha.  Oh man we laugh too much.  Hahahahahahahaha."

Awkward story of the week!! So in between conference sessions on Sunday, Sister Tirado and I brought a little bit of food to eat. Sister Tirado brought a bag of popcorn to make while we waited.  We work about 30 minutes from the church, so it wasn't really worth it to head back to Norwalk, so we decided to stay and work there.  Anyways, so Sister Tirado puts the popcorn in the microwave at the church, but forgets that it's one of those smaller bags that only takes 2 minutes to pop instead of 3... Next thing we know the kitchen is smoking up and we've got burnt popcorn!! The whole entire chapel reeked like nasty burnt popcorn for the rest of the night... Oops!! Sorry!   We have a meeting there tonight (Wednesday), so we're hoping the smell has finally aired out. Haha.

Parking is crazy!!

Anyways, General Conference was AMAZING.  My spirits were lifted, and I feel so inspired as to how I can improve.  My testimony of the prophet, of Thomas S. Monson as prophet, seer, and revelator in these days was fortified.  I know he is called by God to lead us in these times where we must be strong and stand up for what we believe in!!

Love you all,

Sister Dodson