MIRACLE Week!!!

 Hey guys!! Miss you all and hope you had a great week! This week's email is long but I promise it's good! If you don't have time to read anything else at least read the miracle!!

A few quick updates... transfers are this week so wish me luck! I'm nervous I'll be leaving Santa Maria and I don't want to go! But whatever happens I gotta trust it's in the Lord's hands!

Every time transfers are about to happen, most the missionaries go to Panda Express and get a fortune cookie just for fun so they can guess what's gonna happen at transfers based on the fortune cookie. I don't know if that's just a tradition in our mission or if other missions do it too haha but that was a fun part of the week haha

We had some super cool friends come to church this week and one of them was brought by our other friend, Carlomanuel, who's on date to be baptized right now! Carlomanuel's friend is named Diego and he's soooo awesome!!

MIRACLE THIS WEEK:

I want to share the MIRACLE that came this week!!! I feel like explaining it over email really doesn't do it justice, because so much of the miracle came from the power of the Holy Ghost that was felt in the experience, but I'll do my best!!

We do a lot of facebook finding in our mission. Which is awesome, but there are honestly a lot of times where the last thing I want to do is to stare at a screen and send pretty much the same message to a bunch of people. Without the face-to-face contact, it can be hard to remember that I'm messaging people behind the screen.

But wow, Heavenly Father really is preparing people. One of the friends I reached out to a few weeks ago is named Jesus. I invited him to church and he said he'd like to come but didn't show up that Sunday. I ended up trying to suggest having a video-call lesson with him the following week, and he agreed, so we called him last Monday night! He was super cool and excited to talk. He introduced us to his cute little 2-year-old son over the phone, and told us a little bit about his background and some really sad family struggles he's been through. It was a great lesson and we set up another for a few days later.

We showed up at his apartment a few days later and invited the bishop's wife to meet us there for the lesson. She met us there and she's AMAZING because little did we know that she hadn't even found someone who could watch all 4 of her little kids, so she had just taken them along with her without complaining. I was a little nervous seeing her show up with all her kids haha because I was hoping it wouldn't intimidate Jesus.

It turns out that was just what he needed! He and his little son were so excited to have guests, and the 4 kids became besties with his sons which was awesome haha because it kept him busy during the lesson. We taught a great lesson to Jesus, and at the end, he asked us if he could share something.

Jesus then said that a few weeks earlier, he had been feeling really lost and alone. He was feeling hopeless one night and prayed to God to send him a sign that he was aware of him. Right then, Jesus said that he got the first message from me on Facebook. He said that he had felt God's love so strongly and knew that he needed to learn about the church with us. He said he was super excited to keep learning and knew this is what he and his son needed.

The Spirit spoke so strongly in the room as he shared this story!! I felt close to tears and just so much love for Jesus and his son! He has truly been so prepared. I feel so humbled and grateful that Heavenly Father trusted me to be a part of that miracle, and that Jesus felt God's love so powerfully through my inital message on Facebook! I pray that we can continue to see him progress, and I am just so incredible thankful for his experience and for the power I felt in hearing it.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT:

This one's long I know but I really wanted to share!! This week I listened to a super good talk by Elder Holland called "The Laborers in the Vineyard." It has a really beautiful take on this parable from the Bible and I definitely recommend the talk to anyone who can listen to it this week.

Just a re-cap on the story... a bunch of different workers were hired to go labor in the vineyard for the day. As the day progressed, more people came looking for work and were hired. Some started working when the day was almost over. At the end of the day, they all were paid the exact same amount, even though some had been working a lot longer than others.

There are a lot of really good ways that the story of the Laborers in the Vineyard can be interpreted, but I want to take the perspective of the people who worked all day and received the same wages as those who showed up right before the day finished. In some of the parables in the Bible, I tend get worked up about how unfair it sounds for the people who were followers all along! (think of some of the other parables.. like the brother of the Prodigal Son, the 99 sheep Christ left for the 1, etc.)

I think sometimes it's easy for us to get in our heads and wonder why those who stayed on the path and those who struggled for a while to get back on it could both receive the same sort of celebration from the Savior.

But then I thought, aren't we all sometimes those Laborers in the Vineyard who didn't find success until partway through the day? Or the lost sheep that Jesus Christ went out of His way to find? If we are all going to represent that beggar at some point in our lives, and we want to feel Christ's mercy, why wouldn't we celebrate whenever He shows it to anyone else?! If He's showing mercy to others, no matter what point they're at in their spiritual progression, that means He's willing to show it to us too!!!

Elder Holland said, "We are not diminished when someone else is added upon."

My invitation for you all this week is to pray for ways to celebrate the success of others!! "[The Lord's] concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there."

I love you all!

Hermana DeMordaunt

Photos:

tortilla-making with the district!

fortune friday

fun alleyway

comp beach pic:)

district activity by the beach!

flashback film to Hermana Silva and I with Liz, Ashlin, and Irving!