April 8th, 2019

Well this week was another great week. We had exchanges again and I was with Elder Scorse. Man did we have a blast. He's from Glendale so it is so nice and refreshing to have someone close that knows AZ. I always hear about these darn cities in Utah and I'm just like "OK thats cool I have no idea what you are talking about" But we got a ton of stuff done and talked to a bunch of people. Nobody really let us in but hey it was still a good time. Then we hit up Sonic on the way home and got some half priced shakes. I needed that lol it was like a good little restart button being pushed. 

Wednesday we had a pretty sweet day. We had a lesson with the Lorenzo family. The mom is a member and the 3 kids aren't.  So we had a lesson with the two youngest teenagers. We brought Eli along with us (he is a young man prepping to go on  mission) but the poor kid didn't really get a chance to talk. It was a Spanish lesson and he only speaks English and a little German. So I sat next to him and basically translated the whole thing, it was a good time. During the lesson we talked about baptism again and crystal said, "I know someone who wants to be baptized." I was like "wait what did you just say" haha it took me back. But their oldest brother Daniel really wants to be baptized, its been rough trying to teach him because he works a ton for his family. He's really a great guy and he's only like 19 but works his butt off for his family. So things are going well for them, they are going to be praying about an answer on whether or not they should be baptized. We will have a lesson with them soon and hear what date the Lord has given them. Then later that night we went to teach this guy named Arley. He is going through Chemo right now so he is always super tired and weak. So we start this lesson and he is dozing in and out the whole time. But his son was there, Marcos, and he read the entire pamphlet we gave him in like 6 minutes. He had some great questions. He's got a lot of potential to progress really well and find those answers he's been looking for. We have an appointment for this Wednesday with him. Then it was raining in Winchester a different day later in the week and we were walking around. So we decided to get some hot chocolate and we totally saw Marcos walking around to get to work. It was crazy cool. Plus we took a really random way to get to the hot chocolate place and ended up seeing him. Divine timing right there. 

Thursday we got in with Skippy and he is doing great. We had a good lesson with him and he was super excited to see us. He's been working hard and he said his liver hasn't been hurting as much. Then later that day we got in with Amanda. We brought Isaac with us, he's another youth in the ward, and had a great lesson with her. You can see in her eyes the desire to find the answers to her questions. She was so excited to see us and was just talking so much the whole time. While we were talking the Spirit was so strong. She said she had felt that something has been missing in her life. We told her it was the restored gospel. It fills in the holes in our lives, helps us find peace and purpose, and ultimately will bring us back to God's presence. It was SWEET. We also got to visit with Evelia again which was awesome. I realized I am way comfortable in Spanish haha its so awesome to be able to switch in and out. I still have a TON to learn but its becoming a lot easier to talk and understand people. 

Friday we were praying after dinner to head out of the apartment and we got the distinct impression to call Hernan Martinez. So we gave him a call and he said yeah come over for a lesson. We had been trying to get in with them for weeks and finally got to have a lesson with them. They are amazing. They have great questions and are going to start reading the book of Mormon. The problem was that they were being taught by English Elders and they only speak Spanish. But once we were able to get over there and teach them in their native tongue they are on fire! They asked questions about casting out devils and stuff, but it was for their brother so we were good. 

General conference was such a blast and I know that the leaders of the church are guided by God for the things we need. They talked a ton about strengthening the family, strengthening our own conversion to