Hola mi amigos y familia!
I have no clue how to describe this week, but the best word that comes to me is, magical. First of all, our area is absolutely beautiful. I am in the mountains most of the time which is super fantastic...well, most of the time. Did I tell you we have a car and I am driving? Well, if I forgot start praying for me. You see, here in Puerto Rico, the roads are super tiny, but they still expect to fit two cars side by side. And with the mountains, there are many inclines and you can't see when cars are coming up or down. So, it gets a little tricky. BUT, I am learning, and I have the Lord on my side :)
So, I kind of wrote an novel to my president in my email to him, so I am just going to include it in my general email because it pretty much sums up our magical week. It goes as follows:
We decided to revise our finding plans and work on finding and cleaning out the area books of old investigators and less actives. Since we did that, the Lord has just POURED blessings on us. We ended up finding a TON of people to teach and have so many lessons scheduled with either old investigators, or new investigators we found. At one point I am sad to say I got a little discouraged that day, and I didn't like it. I knew that I had a love for missionary work, and I didn't want to loose it when there was so much work to do! We drove our car to the area and went walking and walking, and walking, and we weren't finding anyone. No one seemed to live in the houses that we were finding. I said a prayer in my heart thanking Heavenly Father for the opportunity we had to find his children, and I asked him to help me be more positive and to help guide us to those who were ready to accept the gospel. We continued to walk, and we were able to talk to more people, and share the gospel with more people and things started to pick up. Not too soon after that, we came to a house of a former investigator. He ended up not living there anymore, BUT the person that is living there now is a less active! She was baptized, but she hasn't been to church for years. She has 3 kids, and 2 are above 8 years old. She asked for a Book of Mormon and we will be teaching her this week. I was so thankful for that tender miracle. We were also blessed on our last house we had to find. We walked and asked people and couldn't find this last house for the life of us. It didn't seem to exist. But, after searching for a good 30 minutes we decided to walk back to the car and head home. We thought maybe a member would know where this house is and they could show us. Well, as we were walking back to the car my companion shouts "Right there!!" I turned and there was the house! The house that we had been looking for for forever! Well, the person we were looking for didn't live there either, but there was another family there. And they were super sweet to us. We talked to them for a little bit and and ended up with a return appointment. The Lord blessed us with the opportunity to talk to a bunch of people and share the gospel with His children AND find those who would accept his message. Now, I don't know what will happen with these people, I have a very strong feeling that we will be seeing miracles in baptisms by at least one of more of the people we found this week, but I gained a stronger testimony of the love the Lord has for us as missionaries and for his children. He will not let us work in vain as long as we are faithful and obedient. President, I am so thankful for this area. It definitely isn't easy, but it is totally worth it. We are being blessed with an excitement from the members to find more less actives and bring them to church. Our ward council yesterday was AMAZING with goals, and names, and plans to go out with us EACH WEEK! I am growing to love this area and the people, and I am getting a glimpse of the love the Lord has for this marvelous work.
So, basically, missionary work is awesome. I LOVE being a missionary. I could not ask for a better way to spend 18 months of my life. I hope all is well at home. It is so good to hear from you all! We might be moving, and I don't know when, so just send all letters to the mission home.
Love you all!
Hermana VanKammen
Pictures:
My beautiful area! (also the horse is a usual occurrence here. People ride horses instead of cars a lot of times)
and another picture of the mountains :)