Hola!!!!!! Thank you everyone for all your love and support!!!! I feel it all the way in Guatemala!!! This really was a great week! We experienced a lot of miracles!!! I have sooooo much I want to write, but sooo little time. Hopefully, I can get across some of my thoughts!!!!
We had another baptism this week! Don’t ask me how, Heavenly Father is amazing!!!! One of our families, the mom had a dream about President Monson and Joseph Smith and said I know its all true!! When can I get baptized!!! whattttt theeeeeeee????? We were ecstatic!!!!! The Lord is turning this area around and we are soooo excited!!!!!!! The funny thing is I think now I’m going to be transferred!!! But, the work is starting to progress. We met a lot of positive people these weeks and were also able to set fechas with them. Chimaltenango is waking up from a far toooo long sleep!!!!!! Miracles! Miracles! We are soooo excited!!!! Do not lower your expectations, Increase your faith!!!!! It’s working!!!!!
This week we really experienced miracles. I am soooo scatter brained right now I am going to try and just write some. Ok soooo Angelina.....You know how much I looooove her!! We had the BEST experience! Ok soooo you all know about Angelina and how she is really humble and they took Pablito away because she’s not able to support her kids.....Sooo sad!!!! Heartbreaking!! And so what the church did is they lent her a stove and she is starting to make tortillas because she needs to show that she has some sort of constant income to get her son back. So on Friday, she started this little tortilla stand out of one of the member’s home. We promised her that if she had faith and was obedient to the commandments that God would help her sell all her tortillas. It’s kinda hard because there are tortillerias everywhere and on both sides of this member’s home, but it was the only thing that we could think of doing.
On friday her and her daughter started to work and make these tortillas. We passed by in the afternoon and were soooo happy to see them working! But anyways, the day passes by and we return at like 7:00pm to see how the progress went and I was DEVASTATED because they weren’t able to sell ANY tortillas!!!!!! Oh man, when we passed by Angelina was soooo sad and it just broke my heart!!! I felt soooo sad because I had promised her that Heavenly father would help her. She just needed to have faith! It was the end of the day, and not ANY!!!! NOTHING!!! They lost money on the tortillas they made!! And just seeing their faces made me soooo sad!!! We went in the house and we gave a lesson straight from the heart on faith!!! What faith really is!!! I felt so discouraged and sad but when we were talking to her, I just felt NOOOOO!!!!!! I know that God lives!! That the Book of Mormon is TRUE and that He ALWAYS fulfills His promises!! I have to admit I still felt fear but I just with everything I could looked her in the eyes and told her that if she got on her knees pleading with the Lord to help her and if she committed herself and promised Heavenly Father that if He helped her, she would pay her tithing and be 100 percent obedient to all his commandments, He would help her sale her tortillas!!!
It was one of those moments were the spirit was just blazing and my companion and I from the heart promised these crazy blessings, but no doubt the Spirit was sooo strong!! We left the house and it was already really late so we had to run to the house. But that night I felt so sad because they weren’t able to sell ANYTHING!! But we passed by the next day, it was the craziest thing! Sometimes I forget what I say, what I tell people, or just things that happen because I’m bombarded with crazineess each day!! But we passed by her house the next day and Hermana Angelina had the biggest smile on her face! She told us that after we left last night. She did what we said. She prayed and promised the lord she would be obedient to His commandments and after that she got up and heard a knock on the door!! The people came. They started flooding to the house and she in a manner of probably an hour sold ALLLLLL her tortillas for that day!! Not only that, she had to make MORE!!! Hermana Hernandez, the member who is there had to help her make more tortillas because there wasn’t enough!!!!!!!!!! whahahahhhahahhaahah!!!!!!!!
We started to cry we were sooooooooooooooooooooooo happy!! Everyday since then she has been able to sell all her tortillas!!!!! Oh man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The church is TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How do I even doubt sometimes!!!!!!!! It honestly is the coolest thing to be a missionary, to promise these people blessings that you don’t even think are possible and that through their obedience and faith, miracles happen!!!!!!!!!! Oh myyyyy goooodnesss!! It seriously was a miracle in front of my eyes!!!!!!!!! Indescribable!!!!!! The church is SOOOOO true!!! That’s all I got to say but the miracles don’t come until AFTER the trial of your faith!!!!!!!! God lives! Loves US and has established again His church!!!! We are children of Him! For this NEVER decrease your expectations!! Always increase your faith!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Man happiness!!! This week, we had zone conference and our mission president really spoke to my heart!! Usually our mission president is just really straight forward, direct drill sergeant and gives us chicote because our mission doesn’t baptize like other Central American missions, but this week was different!! He told us that he knows that our areas are a lot more difficult than other areas and that its a lot harder to have success, but he told us that we are here to love. That our mission is to love!!!!! To strengthen the feeble knees and the hands that hang and that if we LOVED we would be successful!!!!! This really hit me hard!!! I’ve really been trying to do this just LOOOOOVEEEE EVERYONE and I honestly have FELT just such a difference!!!! Even though people still do stupid things, I just am trying my best to looooove them!!! It’s crazy to think what these people have had to go through in their lives! Just 10 years ago here in the mountains where we serve in Guatemala the native people were exterminated, killed by corrupt government, lined up and shot!!! Just 10 years ago!! People suffer from abuse, drugs, hunger, extreme, extreme poverty.....THEY NEEEEDDDD LLOOOOOVEEEE!!!
When President was speaking I felt sooo humbled and just thought geeeezzz how blessed am I!! I felt bad for all the crazy things I have said or thought and am just really trying to commit myself to love and learn from them!!!! It is incredible and I really do feel such a difference!!!! I believe in love and that our happiness in this life depends on our ability to love!!!!!! not going to lie sometimes I feel like it is so hard to love people when they throw rocks at you, yell at you in the streets, throw you out of their homes for telling them the truth.....that in the eyes of God they weren’t baptized (happened to me this week...haha said it with allll thelove of my heart!! ) and just are straight up rude.....But if you just try to put yourself in their situation and just love them, you will be happy!!! The mission really is something else!!!!! I am learning so much each day and really I feel like the weakest missionary ever but can honestly say I am trying to love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I feel a difference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love! LOVE! LOVE!!!!!!!!!! Is the answer to life’s problem!!! And the biggest evidence or demonstration of love that we have is the atonement of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ and the restoration of His gospel!!!!!!!! you cannot get more love than that!!!!! For that I will forever testify to loooooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvveeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love you all with every fiber of my being!!!!!!!!! Please know that!!! And sorry for now showing it more!!!!!! I loooooooooooooooooveeeeeee you all!!!!!!!!!! prestos todos prestos the church is true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Hemana Ali
First Companion MTC and CCM, Hermana Williams