Hola mi familia!

So I had a couple really cool tours last Saturday. It had been kind of a rough day, but I prayed real specific for nonmembers to come into the visitor center for us to teach. This woman named Marylin came in and she was deaf and from England, so she couldn't do American Sign Language. But she could read lips more or less and her member friend brought her in for his birthday :-) Genius.

Marylin had been to the Holy Land and grew up studying the Bible with her family. She already knew a lot about the church from friends in Salt Lake City, but was really touched after watching the Joseph Smith Movie and went from asking me hard questions about that PBS special on the Mormons, to saying she recognized the Spirit and was definitely going with her friend to church on Sunday. So that was wonderful, even thoughI couldn't do much, since she couldn't completely understand what I said. It was a good lesson for me on the importance of getting to the point. Short bold statements. I don't imagine reading lips is very easy.

After that I immediately took a couple from Iowa on a history tour. Things are getting much much busier in the Visitor Center. It's cool. So the couple was from Iowa, but the guy was de Guatemala and his fiance actually wasn't a member, yet, but had been meeting with elders and was planning on betting baptized before they got married. So it was really neat, seeing how much she'd learned about the church in just a year and how much faith she had. So the cool part, the Guatemalan's name is Olivario Masariegos and he was one of Lori's zone leaders in theTeguichigalpa (sp?) Mission. He even just happened to have a picture of him and some other elders from the mission out in his truck. I showed him a pic of Lori and told him about Benjamin, but I didn't know which partof Guatemala he was adopted from. So I'll send that to you today, Lori. Thanks for being my connection, because after that we went through God's Plan for His Family upstairs, and feeling connected with the people I teach and vice versa, makes a huge difference. His email is ---------- if you want to drop him a line, Lori.

Our main investigator, Josh, has been amazing. He bore his testimony at the recent convert fireside at Liberty Jail, and the other two “recent” converts that went first, had really been members for a few years. So he was super intimidated, but he went right up there next to President Hacking and bore a powerful testimony about prayer, and how it took him 3 years to find out that there is a God. And how strong he felt the Spirit when he prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true. He was really excited to get baptized this Saturday. We'd read him the interview questions, about a week ago, but he hadn't noticed or realized how important the one about probation is. So we had a really sad conversationwith him yesterday and I feel terrible for him. He met with Branch President Morby and felt a lot better. I think he's been a father figure for him. But I can't imagine how I'd have felt if my bishop said, "Sorry,you need to wait 2 more years, before you go on your mission." I gave him a call last night and we read scriptures together and it really did make a difference. I'll need to be back here in a couple years for that baptism.

Speaking of coming back, I'm am now fully qualified to take the fam on a history tour around Missouri. We went to Adam-ondi-ahman ('place whereAdam dwelt'), Farr West, Richmond and Liberty yesterday and Elder Tedrow (the director of the Visitor Centers) took us around and pointed out tombstones and told us lots of stories and would stop at random intersections and say, “Well, there's no marker here, but this is where blah blah happened.” So, should you feel the need to know far more than you wanted to about small podunk towns in Missouri, I'm your missionary. It actually was really beautiful. I love spring and I identified lots of birds and rocks along the way. I'll send pics.

Love you lots,

Hermana Deb