Happy New Years! (Week 65)

 Good morning everyone! I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that your new year has been FANTASTIC! To those of you who were awaiting my email with bated breath last week (aka my mom), I'm truly sorry to disappoint. Our apartment has been having a not-so-little problem with bed bugs recently and so we spent last Monday prepring to move! Despite all that preparation, we did not end up moving last week and we're moving tomorrow instead. And, after we move, I'll be a bike missionary again!! But in the last two week, quite a few miracles happened, so lets get into it!

Ramiro:

We decided to send out a text to all the people that have been taught in the past and invite them to our Christmas church service and Ramiro responded! He wasn't able to come to church that Sunday, but he came to a movie night our ward had and we've been teaching him since then! He has such a strong desire to follow Jesus Christ and to change his life and it's incredible to see. He's already come to church twice and he's preparing to be baptized this Sunday! He even came to one of the english baptisms and we translated the whole thing for him. It was a little different than what he was used to, but he loved it!

Hermana Paz:

We spent Christmas Eve delivering cookies to some members and friends! The last member we visited was hermana Paz. She lit up and soon as she saw us and immediately invited us inside and offered to feed us dinner. We said we couldn't stay for dinner since we already had something else set up, but that we could stay for a little bit a talk with her. We start talking and find out that she was going to spend her Christmas eve alone, despite having family nearby. While we're talking we get a text that something came up with that family that was going to feed us dinner and they can't anymore, so we told hermana Paz that we would love to try the chicken she made. And she got so happy. The whole time we were with her, she just kept saying how happy she was. It was probably the best Christmas eve I could've asked for. 

Christmas:

We had a zone activity! We ate pancakes and I watched my first movie in over a year  (it was Klaus and it was really good) and then we spent the rest of the day with members that had invited us over and talking to our families

Last Sunday we had some people who came to church for the first time! It was so good and it made me so happy! They all liked it and some of them even came to a baptism the spanish elders had later that day! We also spent basically all Sunday at the church which was crazy. After our service, we had a meeting to plan the missionary activities for the year, then the bike elders dropped off our bikes at the church, then we stayed and I played the piano for a baptism the english sisters had, then we went to dinner, then we went back to the church for the elders baptism and ended our night there. It was a crazy day, but so good!

Lourdes and her family:

For whatever reason, we've been getting a TON  of online requests for our english class (I think we got like 15) and so we spent most of last Monday visiting the people who hadn't responded to our texts. The last visit of the night, we met Lourdes. She immediatly invited us inside (before we could even introduce ourselves ) and we got to know her. As it turns out, her whole family was being taught by the missionaries before COVID, but then she got cancer and they stopped coming to church and responding to messages. But they still had interest. So she saw the ad for english class and reached out to us! They all have such a strong desire to learn and I love teaching them! Now Lourdes, her mom, one of her daughters, and several of her grandchildren have Books of Mormon and they're planning to come to church next Sunday!

Sulma:

Sulma is an inactive member that we ran into when we were knocking doors! She is super sweet and a little bit lonely. It was just a miracle that we met her and we're planning on going back this week to get to know her better!

New Years Eve:

Happy 2026 everyone! We got permission to go to a part of the new years party our ward was having, and it was a lot of fun! Some inactive members came so we got to get to know them!

Noe:

Noe is someone that we've been teaching for a while. He's been going through a hard time recently, so we haven't been able to get in contact with him as much. But this week he texted us and asked if he could get baptized this Sunday! He still has a couple more things to learn, but he definitly had a breakthrough! 

Okay, you'd think after such a long email I'd have nothing left to say! But as I was writing this, I realized something really really cool. Almost all of these miracles didn't happen right away. When we met Lourdes, I was honestly discouraged. We spent 3 hours visiting and trying to find people who 1) weren't interested or 2) were unfindable (we couldn't find their house). And so, when we knocked on Lourdes door, I thought it would be more of the same. But it wasn't!! When we were delivering cookies to members a lot of them weren't there, so we ended up leaving the cookies outside their house and I thought the same thing would happen with Hermana Paz. But it didn't. So what I've learned in these past two weeks is that we should never give up. Never suppress a thought that inspires you to do something good, even if you think nothing will come from it. I know that those thoughts are from God. That He is guiding us through this life, even though we have to face challenges and disappointments. There are miracles awaiting every one of you!

Love you all

 Hermana Erickson