Zarahemla Week 40

The Mejia family at their baptism!

We had a great week! Lots of work was done, and lots of progress was made with some of our friends that we're working with. Here are some quick highlights!

We had an amazing wedding/baptism in the ward on Sunday! It was super cool, the mother is a member, but the father and kids were not, and they were all baptized right after the father and mother were married! The Sisters were mostly teaching them, but it was a whole ward effort! Elder Ramos was able to baptize them which was super cool, it was his first time! It was a great experience; the ward is growing so much!

My favorite Poutine and a Québécois soda made with
Maple Syrup. Regrettably, I ate it all.

Sean has been making really good progress! We've been teaching him most of the commandments, and he is very committed to keeping them. It really helps that his wife's family are some of the most solid members in the ward! They have been doing a great job at bearing testimony and helping him stay strong. They've been pushing him and reminding him to read the Book of Mormon, to pray, and he's been coming to church with all of them very consistently! It's been awesome to teach him, he's so prepared.

We've made serious progress with Horacio this past week! He was struggling to read the Book of Mormon consistently, and so we set some alarms on his phone in the morning and evening to remind him to read. And, ever since then, he's read about 2 chapters every single day in the morning and evening! It's been such a cool miracle! We've been struggling with him not being motivated to be baptized soon, but we know that as he reads and prays and comes to church consistently, he will be able to know what God wants him to do! He also came to church on Sunday, and the members did a great job at fellowshipping him. Another Colombian member bonded with him a lot, and will be going to teach Horacio with us tonight! Horacio is really excited, it's great to help him have some more friends here. He's doing awesome, it's been such a pleasure to teach him!

This past Sunday, we went to visit a referral that some other Elders sent to us. We couldn't confirm with him, and we had other things that we could have been doing, but we felt that we should visit him nonetheless. We showed up, and not only was he there and willing to receive us, but he had 3 friends living with him, and we were able to teach them all! It was awesome to see that the Lord guided us and helped us know where to go. They all moved here from Mexico a couple of months ago, and they really want to get involved in the church. They were super cool! It was an awesome miracle!

Jonathan, the man I talked about last week who we talked to for an hour standing by the street, kind of disappeared last week. He came to church and loved it, but for some reason we couldn't get a hold of him for the whole rest of the week. We thought that maybe he was just ignoring us, but we prayed really hard yesterday that we would somehow be able to regain contact with him. Later in the day, we were doing some finding in the Metro. We felt like we needed to get off of the train and go in the other direction, and as we went to the other side of the station, Jonathan was just sitting there waiting and said hello to us (This is a miracle, millions of people use the metro every day and you very very rarely see anyone you know)! He invited us over right then and there, and we were able to have a good lesson at his house! It was awesome! Such an amazing miracle!

Things are going amazing over here in Zarahemla. I'm loving my time here, and I'm excited for all the experiences awaiting us in the weeks to come! I love you all so much!! Have a fantastic week!

Elder James