Hola mi familia!
Lo siento for being such a slacker last week! In my mind I had written a weekly email, but all your emails were a good reminder that I hadn't... oops! I will attempt to create a two week wrap-up : )
Saturday night, Oct 18, was our Branch Noche de Talentos (Talent Night), and it was incredible. Our branch may be few, but they are definitely few and talented. We already knew that though, since are always fed such fabulous food. We had a lot perform dances- the relief society did an Èl Salvadorian dance, the primary kids danced to the Happy song, invitees from the New Rochelle Ward did a Mexican dance, one of my favorite members Ludvin did a dance, and we did a dance! We probably could have just called it Noche de Bailes... Haha. But let's be honest, Hispanics are incredible dancers (Random side note, the other morning Sister Ramirez taught us how to dance typical Latin dances like Salsa, barchata, and merengue!! Best ever. (Random cultural note, Latinos are basically famous for dancing. When you go to parties and dances, unlike American dancing where we just do whatever unchoreographed move we feel like, typical Latin songs have a beat that match a certain dance, so people at parties dance that dance. It's legit.))
Anyways, we sort of did a dance with the elders. It was so fun and hilarious. We definitely got a little bit close with each other during this dance… ; ) (They performed a dance while doing the “dwarf skit—where one person is the head and legs and a 2nd person behind the curtain is the arms. Sadie & Hermana Brower created 1 person, the Elders, another….) The best part about the Noche de Talentos was that Daniel and Maria showed up! She has been so sick and it has been a big struggle for her to get outside unless she is going to the doctors. But she is a woman of her word! Anytime she promises to do something, she does it right away, and she promised us that she would come. The next hope is that we can get her to promise to come to church (and to be baptized.. ; D
Last Thursday, so almost two weeks ago, we met with a less active, Isabel. She is the sister of Miracle Miguel and she is so fantastic. She just wants to come back and receive all the blessings she has been missing. We decided to show her Elder Scott's talk from conference that emphasizes the importance of getting up and exercising faith. I LOVE this talk because he says that NOTHING is more important than your prayers and scripture study- not school, work, sleep, etc. (Random side note, many hispanics LOVE IT when Elder Scott speaks because he translates talks into Spanish himself! So when you hear a talk by him in Spanish, you hear his sweet soothing voice.) We were planning on showing Isabel the full talk, but after Elder Scott spoke about prayer we felt like we needed to stop and talk about it. We asked Isabel how her prayers were going. She said she hasn't been praying because in the past when she has prayed she always had nightmares of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. We taught and testified of the importance of prayer, reminded her HOW to pray, and then invited her to try again. Isabel is so incredible and accepted with a willing heart. Even though this is something really difficult for her, she knows that if God commands her to do it, she should probably do it. She is a fabulous example.
As far as this past week goes, it was awesome. We had interviews with President (don't worry, I passed.. phew!), a Halloween Party, and super great lessons. The Halloween Party was definitely a highlight. It was geared towards the Primary, and I can't even express to you how stinking cute everybody looked in their costumes. Heavenly Father blessed us a lot, and we had two less active families and three investigator families show up! We were definitely freaking out a little. The party ended with a trunk-or-treat and so we popped open our trunk and joined in! When the older kids came around, we made them do a trick to get their candy. One of my favorites included a 10 year old singing (more like screaming) the National Anthem at the top of his lungs.
Saturday we had a pretty eventful night! At 8 o clock we went to go check one last investigator before heading to the Yonker's ward Talent Show. As we pulled up to the curb, we heard a big giant thud. I have hit curbs before, but this one just sounded bad. We decided to pull up a little farther, and all of a sudden the flat tire alarm started yelling at us in the car... Whoops! But honestly, a flat tire is better that anything else that could have happened. Upon further inspection we noticed that the curb had a corner edge that stuck out about 4 inches farther than the rest due to a tree. Lame. We couldn't remember how to change it ourselves, so we called the elders to come help us! They are lifesavers! They came and changed out the tire in like 20 minutes. We felt like such girls! But hey, what would we do without the Elders??
Sunday was the baptism of Sheyla, the daughter of Fila, one of our incredible members. Sheyla is 8 years old and is sassy as all get out. I love her. Fila is best friends with one of our etern-igators, Oriana. Oriana and her whole family came to the baptism, including her less active sister-in-law, and her husband. Yay for miracles!
Lastly, on Monday we had our usual FHE with Daisy and Estiben. The last time we set a baptism date for Estiben who is 8-year- old, hoping that his baptism will give her and her family the drive to reactivate. When we came on Monday, Daisy told us she wanted to change the date because she wants to make sure Estiben really understands what is going on. She told us that she has thought and felt a lot this week about how he needs to be more prepared and how it is HER responsibility as his mom to get him ready. She said she is going to start reading the Book of Mormon with Estiben every day for 15 minutes and focus more on family prayer! I was jumping out of my seat!! I was so excited!!! I know the Holy Ghost was speaking to her and prompting her to do more. We are so excited to see their whole family progressing! Side note, we introduced the Book of Mormon to Estiben and he said, "I am very intrigued by this book..." Kids say the funniest things.
Love you all, have a safe and happy Halloween!
Hermana Dodson
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