July 10, 2017

Apparently very excited about a recent shoe purchase, Sam's letter started like this:

"I GOT TWO FOR ONE AND NOW I HAVE SOME GREAT SHOES FOR AFTER THE MISSION, #BLESSED!"
Honestly, I am loving life. I have had a lot of trials and things I never thought I would go through during my entire mission but.. whats new.?! We are working really hard and it has been awesome to see the blessings.
I think the biggest blessing has been witnessing how endurance has been rewarding. The people I taught and got to see enter the waters of baptism are great. Some of them have a hard time with trials but they have always found their way back to the truth. Same with many of my family, we have all messed up and then somehow we feel the gentle light of truth and it over overpowers all the darkness we thought we were in. It has also been incredible to see how the truth will always prevail.

"Ely, your engagment/proposal es tuanis!.

Well yesterday we went to do "shut-ins." I have been begging one of the youth in our ward to go with us when we do it because I have always had that really, really, strong feeling to do so. He told us no for like 3 months because he was nervous to say the prayer. He finally came and it was awesome. We went to a sister in the ward, who everyone calls Abuela. She loves to be called Abuela, ha ha ha, she is awesome! She has a super strong testimony but cant go to church because no one takes care of her brother and her brother doesn't want to go. We don't want to give her the sacrament every week for two reasons. #1 We don't want her to depend on the church to get her the sacrament and #2 we want her to always feel the need to go to church. She tends to make excuses like she is too tired etc. We are super busy with all the other stuff we are doing so it is hard. So anyways, we went yesterday because she said that it has been too long since she has had the Sacrament. So that young man said okay I'll go, and his little brother tagged along. it was awesome! She gave us something to eat and it was an awesome experience as it usually is with the Abuela. The youth Jerson, got to say the prayer for the first time and his little brother gave her the bread and water, it was the BEST! We stayed there and talked to her for a sec and when we left both of them (the boys) said to us, "I LOVED THAT it was so great I felt the Spirit so strong!" I loved the way she looked when we showed up and the happiness that was on her face. It was so neat seeing how happy they were when they were doing their priesthood duty! I loved bringing the Sacrament to the "shut ins" back home. I really did like visiting the people and telling them like 900 times what my name was! I love the priesthood and I am really happy that God once again has restored it to the earth.

I love you all and have a good week!