Well, this week was yet again another great one here in San Jose. Everyone was rejecting us. It was awesome. haha but really I can't expect my last few weeks in the mission to be perfect.. For some reason we had a lot of opposition here in our area this week but it is helping me to keep learning and progress in these last few days I have out here. So I can't complain because I am still learning so much everyday.
This week I had my last Leadership Council. :( I have loved being able to go to these conferences because I LOVE hearing President and Hermana Morales speak. They are so smart. and well since we are going home about 20 something missionaries all together.. about half of the zone leaders and Hermana Bowers and I are going home. President spoke here and then in the conference saying goodbye and thanks and I basically just wanted to cry and cry but I held strong. haha. But we had an AMAZING conference. Like remember me before the mission and how I just really didn't know who I was, where I was going, I was just something in the corner taking up space? Well... President has because my best friend because he has helped me so much to realize that God has plans for me, He tells me "You don't just have what it takes to be successful, you have TOO much of what it takes! So work with what you have and you will be just fine." He is just always helping me out and well... I could go on and on and on about how awesome I think President is but I will wait until I get home and we can skype him so you all can see for yourselves! Yes! He told me I can skype him! hahaha My 2nd Dad via skype. Can't wait!
Anyways! what else... I got super excited after the conference and came back and in the night held a little meeting with my companions... I bet they think I am a freak! Anyways I told them about all the experiences President had shared with me.. like the time he baptized 31 people! and then I told them I would like to set better goals and some things I wanted to improve and how I hoped that they would help me and correct me. So we set goals and well I told them I am going to work for 5 baptisms in our area this month and even if we don't have them I am going to work as if we were going too! haha. So we are working super hard. It has been months since my legs have hurt so bad. the fronts of my thighs feel like they want to fall off my bottom. I kind of wish they would haha. Basically we were all over the place looking for people this week. We only had like 2 people really accept our message and the others just bashed on us. haha.
The two that accepted our message are really great though! I will tell you all about Dalia. She is a reference for Hermana Morales, President's wife.. so of course she is golden. Hermana Morales contacted her in Sally's Beauty Supplies in McAllen. There are a lot of Mexicans that live here but work in the US.. anyways SHE contacted Hermana Morales asking her if she was from a church telling her she was looking for God and things like that. So, we called her on Tuesday and she was like come over tomorrow night. So we went over.. she lives a street away from us! But we went and visited her and she is Hilary. I am teaching Hilary. haha I will have to take a picture with her. But it was so weird. But the lesson was amazing. The spirit was so strong. Everything we said and she said just all clicked together like a puzzle. We invited her to be baptized and she was like "But I want to go to church on Sunday too! Can you guys give me a moment to find another job or help me to find one?" She has 3 kids or else she would have already quit her job she told us! She was prepared by God. So we will see if she kind find a new job this week so that she can be baptized before I go! But at the end of the lesson we all knelt down and she said the prayer. In her prayer she thanked God for sending us and she prayed for each one of us individually, she prayed for me that I would be able to help others at home like I had helped her. I have held strong but I definitely shed a few tears in that prayer.
I am going to miss the mission so much.
Good news is that the church really is the same wherever I go and I know at home I will have great experiences as well. I just keep telling myself that I can never say that this will be "the last time" towards anything I do out here in Mexico because it won't be :)
It has only been one week since Gisel got baptized and she was at church yesterday early with her kids helping to set up the chairs for sacrament meeting and getting the sacrament table all ready. LOVE HER! She then offered to take home to table clothes and wash them. Which in Mexico means wash them by hand. One day she'll be relief society president and I will be so happy hahaha. I can totally see it!
Oh so we share our area with a companionship of Elders. The American elder got sick this week. All of the elders out here get Typhoid Fever.. haha.. I shouldn't laugh.. but us sisters never have health problems. Anyways he was in the hospital this week. So they had us go and visit some of their investigators this week. We visited a family, where the mom (31 year old widow) less active member named Edith and her daughter and son. The kids are getting baptized on Saturday. Hopefully the elders leave the hospital by then because if not it will be so sad. But we got to visit with them this week and I think it was good because we got to help the mom clean her house. She has been through a lot. Some people's stories are so crazy!
K, I think that's all I got for this week! I don't really have photos from this week but I will see what I have in my camera that I can send your way!
Love you all!
Hermana Gillette