Week 52 - San Rafael

Querido mis amigos! 

This week went by really fast, it was pretty great! We got to do exchanges this week and I was with Sister Porter who I came into the mission with! It was awesome to catch up with her and learn from her. She's so good about testifying during lessons. We got to have a super awesome lesson about the Book of Mormon. We really talked about how it works and what it is with one of their investigators. So that was a really cool experience.

We also ran into a nice old white man named Gordon while finding. Our visit with him was one for the books. First off he lived in a senior center that looked like a psych ward so finding his little apartment was interesting. He opened the door and proceeded to tell us he doesn't do well with Mormons but asked if he could pray with us, of course we said yes. Then he continued to tell us to repeat everything he was saying, I'd never had this situation on my mission and Sister Porter and I just kinda looked at each other and shrugged and began repeating. I was preparing to stop or reject saying a phrase he gave us but everything we said he believed. He told us we have now been baptized into the kingdom of god and that we are saved, so lucky right? Yes then he basically told us his life story and held our hands and prayed some more times and was very sweet and asked for us to be protected as we went about spreading the word. He told us where his Christian church meet and told us we needed to come because we had been baptized and I smiled, told him we were Christian too, and where we meeting. We threw in there that Jesus loves him of course. Gordon was a nice man. 

We did another service with the coast guard service and got to wear tvex suits while we re-painted the red paint on curbs. We also picked up trash on the beautiful beach and our phone may have fallen out of a pocket during that time so the beach ate it. Yea you don't know how much you use a phone until you don't have one. It's great. But the service was really fun and that same night we got to see the Paniaguas again! It was so great to meet with them. We talked about the blessings the Lord gives us each day and how he is always always ready to pour down blessings on us but we have to be doing the things he has asked of us to receive them. How lucky we are to have such a loving father in heaven!

There's a member who's a police officer named officer Horner who wanted to take us to A&W for root beer floats. So we went with him and it was so fun he was so happy. He said that he is on call on Sunday's sometimes so it's hard for him to get to church so going out with us helps him to feel the spirit so much. He said we made his New Years and we took pictures with his patrol car afterwards which was a quite fun. 

This week sacrament meeting was combined again with the English ward and sister Jeffrey spoke. She talked about charity and how we all can develop that Christlike attribute. She talked about 3 Nephi when Christ went to visit the Americas. Before leaving the scriptures say he had compassion on his brethren and he stayed for a while longer and blessed all the children and the sick and afflicted. And it made me think maybe Christ strayed from the plan at that moment. Maybe he had been ready to return to his father in heaven but he looked around and felt the love for his brothers so he strayed from the plan to stay and help them. Instead of returning to the father on time he took his time and took the unplanned opportunity to really help those around him and love them. The people who faithfully had waited for him and loved him. Continuing on that right before Christ returned to heaven he gave 3 nephi: 27:21. I encourage you all to read that this week and really think about what you can do to be more Christlike as you are going throughout your day!

I love my savior and that's a pretty good way to end off this email! I love you all! Hope you have a great week! 

Cuidenese,

Hermana Foster

Hermana Burton's Family and our next door neighbors when we lived in Draper

Hermana Burton, her first companion that came for a visit