Love In The Air

This week was centered around Valentine's Day here! Apparently it is a super big deal.  When we visited the center of the city to buy fruit and vegetables, it was as if a box of pink hearts and stuffed animals had exploded!  Everyone was selling things for Valentine's Day the entire week.   As for Hermana Ortiz and I, we had our own little Valentine's gift exchange with two other hermanas in our zone.   I received an elephant and some chocolates, so of course I was a happy camper!

We got dropped by one of our investigator families which was depressing, because they were really progressing and enjoying the lessons a lot.  But they talked to their Padre of the Catholic church who told them to stop the lessons with us.  :(

But, the good new is that we gained a new investigator named Victor.  He is a friend of one of the members, and already has a Book of Mormon and has been reading it!  He attended church with us on Sunday, and even stayed for the baptism service of someone afterwards.   He said he felt the Spirit really strongly (as did I) during the baptismal service, and we are going to teach him this week and invite him to be baptized!

We have been having a lot of success with less active members too! I have come to realize that they are just as important to visit and teach. We had 5 less active members show up to church this week, which totally made my day! The amount of joy I felt for them was indescribable and I am loving being a missionary (especially when I can witness the lives of others changing for the better!)

Here I am with Luna (which means moon).
She is so sweet! She stays on the property
with us and howls at the moon at night!

Hermana Ortiz and I have started running for 15 minutes each morning, which really does give us a ton more energy during the day.... plus we have to work off all of those tortillas!  It is so weird here, because when we eat at a member's house, I eat everything on my plate ... then they ask what I want more of. And if I do not get seconds, it is considered an insult or they say "You didn't like the food Hermana Eliason?" So they are stuffing us with so much food!

My Spanish is improving and each night we read a story from the Liahonna (a magazine of our church) out loud in Spanish and then in English for Hermana Ortiz.  I wanted to include this quote that I really enjoyed from one of the articles about character:

"God uses your faith to mold your character. Character is woven patiently from threads of doctrine, principle, and obedience. Character is the manifestation of what you are becoming. Strong moral character results from consistent correct choices in the trails and testings of life. Your continuin exercise of faith will forge strength of character available to you in times of critical need. Such character is not developed in moments of great challenge or temptation. That is when it is used.The bedrock of character is integrity." Richard G. Scott  

I know it is kind of long, but I just love the way he describes character!

The Bishop's daughter and son.
The son is almost 3 and so adorable!

The super attractive tan lines
that I am developing! haha

I love this gospel and I love being a missionary!

I hope all is well and everyone had a fantastic week including Valentines Day!

Hermana Eliason