el 28 de marzo

this week was actually really exciting, because miracles do happen! we only have six investigators in hand to go to church, and when we got to the chapel, like thirty seconds before the sacrament hymn, we found out that a convert had showed up with her husband all by themselves! God is good to those that work hard.

a favorite person, we have the three musketeers. paola, maria eugenia and sugey. three sisters in the ward who are a hoot! paola invited us to dinner last night, and as photographed below, it was amazing. well worth the little bit of wait. the members are starting to invite us to come dinner and i think that it is an important sign. it means that the ward is starting to trust us a little bit more. we didn't have a lot of growth as far as people in sacrament meeting, but we are having a lot of success finding and bringing converts and less actives again to church. they are bringing friends and the ward is helping us by taking advantage of missionary opportunities.

a tender mercy... we were able to have lots of investigators in church, find lots of new people and help them progress, despite the fact that the greater part of the nicaraguan population is in rivas or san juan del sur... everybody goes there for the week before easter, or semana santa, and no one is home. the streets are empty and it really is a miracle to find anyone home..

goals for the coming week: we are going on a hunt for families to complete. men and women who have been baptized but the rest of their family has not, in the hopes of finding new people while reactivating the ones that aren't coming to church. the ward is getting excited about a temple goal for the end of this year, and we are trying to get everyone excited to get activated and GO!

today we had sopa de res, an original name for soup of beef. it's not my favorite, but sister hussey and i found the way to enjoy a little bit of it. *picture included*

my comp and i are getting along great. she is so humble and so willing to keep a good attitude about everything. sometimes all we can say about the day is this: the book is blue, and the church is true. they are the only words that can describe all the feelings that were present.

a favorite scripture. today i was studying in jesus the christ, by james e. talmadge and he talks of the Atonement of the Christ. he speaks of the experience only cited in Luke, that an angel appeared to support him, but even then, he cried that the cup pass from him. 

::and there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. and being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.::

how great must have been his anguish, that even the strength of an angel still left him with agony.

for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

i know he lives.

hermana graves