Another great week.

This week was awesome. I learned so much.

I've been learning how to work by the Spirit and recognize the Spirit working through me. For a while I felt like I wasn't having those "bosom-burning, mega-enlightening moments," or "Enos moments," as my teacher in the MTC puts them, every time I do something. I was upset that this wasn't happening every moment of every day and felt like I wasn't an effective missionary as a result. Sister Wheatley, who I have learned SO MUCH from, reminded me of Elder Bednar's talk he gave in the MTC. He told a story about how when he was on his mission, a general authority and his wife were visiting. As they were boarding a train to leave, Elder Bednar had the thought to give them 20 marks in case they got hungry or something. During their travels, they were stopped in....East Germany? to cross into...West Germany? I can't even remember where they were. But pretty much these huge government officials with guns boarded the train and said that everyone who didn't have a passport had to get off the train. Getting off the train would have meant missing their flight back to the United States, and the general authority and his wife would have been either stranded or imprissoned. They thought fast and slipped the government official the only 20 marks they had in their pocket. They continued on their way just fine. Elder Bednar thinking to give them the money completely saved them. He said that at the time he gave them the money, he felt no special strong feeling to do so, no burning in the bosom or strong enlightenment or anything. It was just a thought that entered his mind and he acted on it. He said that he could only recognize years later that that was the Spirit. In his talk he says that if we are just good little boys and girls, the Spirit will inspire our minds with thoughts that lead to actions, that lead to accomplishing the Lord's work. So he said you can just be a good little girl or boy and trust that the Spirit is working through you.

I've started having much more faith that as I am simply working to accomlish our set goals, Heavenly Father is working through me. Even if I can't identify at the time that my thoughts are from the Spirit, I can have full faith to know that I am being guided by Him. And that's when we see miracles!

I've also learned that when we set realistic goals and do all we can to accomplish them, that's how Heavenly Father does His work. As we are acting, He places us where He needs us to do what He needs done. If we sit around and wait for a prompting from Him telling us where to go next, it won't come. We have to act on our own and then trust that what we are doing is inspired by the Spirit. I've seen in the past few days that even when plans fall through, if we do all we can to still accomplish our goals, Heavenly Father provides us with miracles. It's amazing. Saturday, we had a chapel tour planned with our investigator Ricardo. Because we needed one more woman with us to be allowed to enter a building with him, we planned for Sister Gomez to accompany us. At the last minute, she cancelled. We were stuck in a bind and could have either said "well, she cancelled, so let's just go teach someone else," but instead we decided that there HAD to be SOMEONE that could come with us. I swear we called all the women that we knew in the ward. Finally, we got a hold of Sister Simons, who said she would be glad to come. We picked her up and showed up at Ricardo's house to have him follow us to the chapel, only to find out that he wasn't even home. We were way bummed. We'd gone to soooo much trouble and had this planned with him all week, and it was going to be a really awesome lesson by the baptismal font about baptism. We even had to arrange for the other sisters in a different area to come all the way to the chapel to bring us the keys so we could enter. And now it wasn't going to happen.

So, we decided to walk down the street to Dameon's home to teach him while we had Sister Simons with us. As we knocked on his door, Ricardo's friend Baltazar popped out of nowhere and said he'd love to have a lesson with us. He lives far away but said we could all just sit outside Ricardo's house, so we went back. As we started the lesson, Ricardo finally rolled up in his car and said sorry that he'd missed the chapel tour, he had to go somewhere. We started teaching and a neighbor Jose saw us all congregated outside, so he rode his bike over and sat in on the lesson. It turned out that the experiences and testimony that Sister Simons gave was absolutely perfect for what each of them needed to hear. The Spirit was strong in the lesson and they were all asking a lot of questions and were in deep thought. We realized after their comments that all three of them are the elect. We realized that had the events of the day not changed the way they did, we probably wouldn't have had that opportunity to discover that these are true investigators. They ended up coming to church yesterday and Ricardo said he even was going to bear his testimony but got too nervous. But they are progressing well. Baltazar has read the whole Book of Mormon and knows that it's true. We're working on getting him a date.

I can't even explain the whole week in one email. I learn so much every day. The work is getting better and better as I slowly learn and apply different principles for success. Transfers are one and a half weeks from now, and I really really really don't want to leave this area (Valencia branch)!!! But we'll see what will happen. I'll go wherever Heavenly Father needs and wants me to go. But I have a feeling Sister Wheatley and I will be able to be together here one more transfer. We've just set up such a great system of communicating and working together and learning from each other that I'm not looking forward to having to start that all over!

Well I love you so much!!

I'm sending you the xdcard today! :)

I totally forgot to include a story about A MIRACLE we had this week, so I copied and pasted it from Sister Wheatley's email to her fam into mine since there's no more time to type it all out. His name is Terry:

"This has been another week of some amazing miracles. Last Monday I was driving and Hna. Wadsworth saw a man crossing the street with a bunch of blood on his arm so she felt we needed to go back and help him. We parked the car at a gas station and helped the poor man walk back to his trailer. He was so happy that Mormon missionaries were helping him. He talked all about how 10 years ago he went to the "Mormon Castle" and he loved it. We got back to his community of people who are 55+ and everyone knows everyone. So naturally when Terry comes in bleeding with two girls everyone comes out. We helped him clean up and got to know so many of these sweet old people. Terry and all of his neighbors LOVE us now! They were such nice people. We ended up staying to teach him about the Restoration and he had AWESOME questions like, "I was baptized Catholic as a baby, that does'nt count right?" and "Did the authority ever get passed on?" Then he asked, "When do I get the Priesthood?" He is such a funny and cute old man. The sad thng is since he speaks English we had to pass him off to the English Elders. So we set up a pass off lesson with the Elders. Well, Terry wanted to have the lesson in the Clubhouse and in the middle of talking about the Book of Mormon a woman came in and totally went off on Anti Mormon stuff right there. It was interesting. She grew up in Palmyra and so she had a lot of hard feelings. We just listened and answered her when she asked questions. I then read the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and invited her to do so and to ask God. She flat out told me, "No; to be honest with you, I am scared to read it." She went off and said that we had been decieved and then she harshly warned us to be careful with Terry. I absolutely love Terry! He remained pretty quiet but stood up for us a little then when she left he asked when church was Sunday. We told him that us or no one else can tell him what to believe. The only thing we invite him to do is to read the Book of Mormon then to ask God if it is true. He can trust that God will answer him. He was just so funny and went off on how he has already been converted and how he will be a Mormon. This was an experience that taught me so much! I think it helped me to realize mostly the importance of the Book of Mormon. Whenever anyone throws anything that is anti against me; things that I guess could shake my faith, I always go back to how incredible and miraculous the Book of Mormon is and how I know that it is everything it says it is. Not only is it the evidence of Joseph Smith and the Restoration, but I feel that by abiding by the precepts in the Book of Mormon I have recieved a sure witness that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. People just need to read the Book of Mormon and I know that their lives will change dramatically. If they read it and don't recieve a witness then at least they gave it a shot, but I am confident that when someone sincerly reads, ponders, and prays about the Book of Mormon they will receive an answer that it is true."

LOVE you!!!

:)

Hermana Wadsworth