Week 6 (Just another day for you and me in paradise...)

First off, congratulations to Daniel Barnes and Cassandra-almost-Barnes!! I'm so happy! expect something from me soon. Next, for those of you who don't know, trinidad in spanish means the trinity but it also means the Godhead. I remembered this talk that an elder gave saying that the Godhead was real but he was speaking in spanish and he said, "Yo se que la trinidad es verdadera,uhhh, si, trinidad, pero, no trinidad." haha, it was funny. For those of you from San Jose who know him, it was Elder Hall. He ended up in my zone in the CCM (MTC). I had an awesome experience in the Referral Center this week. A lady called wanting to know about the church because her 21 year old son had recently joined and wanted to know more about it before going to church herself. she said her son was too busy to tell her much so she was calling to order a Book of Mormon and to ask questions. She was one of the most prepared people I have ever seen. To give an example of the kind of woman she was, I will tell you this. When I was taking down her contact information to be able to send the Book of Mormon to her, she told me that her apartment number was #3. Then she quickly corrected herself and said, "Oh, #5!" I said, " Good thing you caught that. I'd hate for it to go to the wrong place," to which she quickly replied, " If it went somewhere else it would not be an accident." She was a woman of great faith. When I read her some verses from the Book of Mormon about prayer in Alma, she was immediately touched and began talking about the way she felt when I read it. She started describing the feelings of the Holy Ghost. I was able to direct her to Galatians 5:22 to help her understand that. I proceeded to tell her about Prophets, apostasies, dispensations, Christ's ministry and Atonement, the Great Apostasy and the Restoration. After that I committed her to pray to Heavenly Father to know if Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision was true and if Christ's Church indeed was restored on the earth today and was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She said she would. I then said, "Ruthie, if you find that these things are true, would you be willing to take the next step and be baptized?" She said yes. It was scary for me to ask her that but the thought popped into my head so I knew I had to. I was amazed by her response. I'm going to call her tonight to see if the missionaries have contacted her yet. Anyways, it was awesome to say the least.
When we taught in the TRC it was funny because now we teach everything in Spanish and so we have spanish volunteers who we teach to. Well, the lady we taught didn't know ANY english and she spoke so fast, it made it a real challenge. But a good one. Elder Scott and I just laughed about it afterwards. One part of that lesson that made it funny was when we were recounting the first vision, Elder Scott decided to take that part until all of a sudden, when we quote Joseph Smith's account, he turned to me to say it. It totally caught me off guard. I had barely got it down in spanish that morning and, ya. I went for it and did alright until Elder Scott messed me up because he was trying to follow along in the scriptures and he skipped a sentence and told me the wrong thing. haha, it was funny because he was no help. We laughed about that too. Anyways, the work is going good and the spanish is coming along. It is hard to apply all of the verb tenses like "haber + gerunds" and subjunctives. That's why we try to speak all that we can. I told my teacher I'd speak only Spanish this week. It's been 3 days and it's been hard. haha, but it pays off. those times that I try really hard to only speak spanish, I remember the most. This work is great and the Lord's Blessing is seen every step of the way. Take care! See you soon Hermana Butterfield!
-Elder LaPorte =)