December 29, 2013

So this week was pretty good! It started really great! But it didnt really end good. Ill talk about that later. Our zone conference with President was awesome! I loved it! And I loved watching the Christmas devotional! Elder Nelsons talk was so good! I loved it! Me and Sister Nielsen loved it so much we watching it again and posted it on our facebook page. And I really loved what President talked about. He talked a lot about tithing and numbers. I love the things he said about tithing. Are you all full tithe payers? You better be! Tithing is one of the biggest commandments and is the only commandment that we literally show our faith by paying our tithing. Its awesome. And so many blessing come when we pay a full tithe. It was really good. He also talked about numbers and the importance of them. A lot of people say that numbers arent important on a mission. Like how many baptisms you have. But President put it very clearly when he said "how many children do you have?" and answered with "I have children, thats the important thing. Not the quantity but the quality of my children." And siempre Heavenly Father knows all of His children and how many He has. He also showed us in the Book of Mormon a few of the missionary stories. They say how many baptisms they have. They always count. Even when there are so many people, they say 8 thousand were baptized or something. It just really made me think about how important numbers are. Its crazy. Because this mission is big on numbers. We are always raising our goals and what not. Its awesome! And clearly it works because our mission is super successful and are always baptizing people. Its great! Then yesterday at church Angel was confirmed a member! It was so great! Sister Mirasol came to church too and even payed her tithing! It was funny, she didnt know how to pay tithing so we helped her and taught her how to pay. Angel loves church now though and was so excited for her baptism and confirmation! Then after church we went out to Bagol and went to see a member. We found out last week that her sister in law who lives there isnt a member. She took the lessons a long time ago and went to church for like a year but her parents and grandparents are strong catholic so they wouldnt let her get baptized and they made her stop coming to church. Well on Christmas we went to visit them and the grandparents were there. We just shared a quick Christmas message with them from Luke and just kept it simple and quick. Well last night when we went back, she told us she prayed for a sign(Jemma, the investigator) and the next day when her grandparents were there, they told her she could go to church again and get baptized!!! Their hearts were softened and now she can get baptized!!! So we set a date for her and are super excited for it! Right now her date is Feb 1. Its gonna be great! After that is when everything went bad. Of course. After that we went to see the Baquias. We had set up an appointment with them at church to come that night. It was the worst thing I have ever seen. I saw the affects of drinking more than I ever have. I wanted to cry. We walked back to their house and heard crying. They dont really have a door, just a curtain and it was kind of open. We looked inside and the whole house was destroyed. We could hear brother yelling and someone crying. We started calling in to tell them we were there and to see what was going on. Dexter came out and we saw Dixon run to the back of the house. Then we saw brother with the stick. He was beating Angel. It was the hardest thing I have ever been through. Sister came out and just told us to come back later because siempre we werent going to go in. Dexter came out front with us and was just crying. It was the hardest thing. There was literally nothing we could do. It makes me so mad but mostly Im sad. I want to go back and see Angel and make sure she is okay but President said we cant go back until we have a leader with us. We talked to bishop this morning and he is going to go back with us tonight. I just feel so bad. I dont know what to do for them or what we will say next time we see them. I just hate alcohol. So last night after that happened we didnt do anything because we couldnt even think straight. Hopefully Angel is okay and we can figure this out soon. But other than that it was a great week! I loved talking to you on Christmas! Did you have a good Christmas? I still havent gotten your email yet so hopefully you send that soon! But I love you! Have a great week!

Sister Remund