I am finally writing a letter! My companion es sick & taking a nap, so I’ve got a bit of extra time.
So I said I’d write about one of our investigators from La Floresta – Leticia (Lety). She is AMAZING. So here’s the story.
Remember the story I told about how we found a girl on day as we were getting ice cream at Amandau (best ice cream place in Paraguay). She was the worker & she had found a pass-along card with a picture of the Salt Lake temple & started drawing it. Well her name was Lorena. We taught her once & then never could find her again (she got a different job). But we kept going back & trying to find her, but it was always this other worker guy – and finally he figured out she had a new job & wasn’t coming back, and he told us, so we invited him to church (yes – classio missionary response, right).
Anyway, a couple weeks later (we had talked to this guy in passing a few times now – really nice guy) but he hadn’t come to church yet. So we decided to pass by & invite him again (& get some ice cream while we’re there, of course). BUT, he wasn’t working that day – it was some other girl we’d never in anyway. And we started talking to her, got some ice cream & sat down, and she came & sat with us. And we started talking to her about churches & Christ, etc.
She said that she had been in the Catholic church growing up, but she left because she realized that in the Bible it says ‘Thou shalt not have any gods before me (God)” & that we shouldn’t make or worship images, which is what the Catholic religion does, so she left. Then she went & looked at a couple other churches, stayed for a while, but again, ended up leaving because she didn’t find what she was hoping to find in the church. Basically, she was searching for the truth.
We shared the message of the Restoration. She was prepared. It was amazing. In the next week we managed to go to her house & teach her mom a couple times, but we could never find her because she was always working at the other Amandau location, which is not in our area. But finally on day about 10 days after that first time, we decided, hey let’s go try again & see if Lety is working here today. So we went & we found her.
She was really busy at that moment so we sat down to wait, but people kept coming in for ice cream. And then we remembered that we hadn’t brought a Book of Mormon. Well, we lived really close, so we decided to go get it while she was busy with customers. So we left, come back, & sat down again. She was free now, so we taught her a little about the Book of Mormon, talked about church, etc. And then she told us that something strange had happened to her. The day before she has been working in our Amadau, and she thought maybe we would pass by (because the other worker guy had told us she might be working that day) but we hadn’t stopped by. And that night as she was falling asleep, she remembered us. So she prayed to God, and asked him, that if this church was really the right one, that we would come the next day at some specific time. Well, we did come that day – the 1st time a little too early. But remember that we left to get the Book of Mormon & came back – and that time it was at the exact right time. So she was like “Okay, I’m definitely coming to church this Sunday.”
That happened Friday night. Saturday we taught her again. And Sunday she came to church. She even called us in the morning and asked us if we were coming (because we got there a little later than we said we would). So she went to church, and that night we stopped by again & had another lesson with her & we brought a member. And he asked her how church was, & she said she really liked it – That she felt something that she’d never felt before in any other church or anything. She said she didn’t know how to describe it except to say it was a feeling of peace. And that she’d just felt so happy & peaceful all day. She also said that she knew that since she was doing the right thing that the enemy would be right there trying to distract her, but that she wouldn’t give in because she knew it was right – she knew where she was going. The lesson was so amazing and the spirit so strong. We invited her to get baptized on the 10th of May and she accepted.
She is really amazing and prepared. She basically bears her testimony to us in the lessons – how she believes in present day prophets & Joseph Smith, that the Word of Wisdom is good because those things (including coffee) aren’t that good for your body, that the Book of Mormon is true & necessary to clarify & support the Bible & because there were people here in America as well during that time & God loves us all, et.
I would not be surprised if she became a missionary. Seriously – she’s already inviting her family & friends to church! So perfect investigator – and I got transferred…
But I’m already in love with Itá (my new area) & the people here, and I have faith that she’ll be baptized, even though I won’t be able to see it.
But I’m out of time, sorry no literary endings. Love you!
<3 / Hermana Urie
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