The One with THE Miracle

May 27, 2013

Wow.  Do you remember how last week I wrote an email saying that I knew this was going to be a good week and that I would write a lot this week? WELLLL . . . let me tell you . . . the Lord blessed us this FULL week, so this email is going to be a little bit lengthy. 

Within this email I will discuss the following things:

1. Things you probably don’t know about Texas

2. Fabrizio

3. Dogs

4. That one time our apartment got broken into

5. Maria y F

Believe me; I have narrowed this list down. I could tell you stories on stories for this week, but I will leave you with these 5. 

1.  I have noticed some random things about Texas.  Maybe it is just the area in which I live, but the whole "Things are always bigger in Texas" saying? No. Everything here is smaller?  I don’t understand.  Second thing I bet you didn’t know . . . there are dead frogs everywhere, haha.  I bet you didn’t know that!  Where do they come from!? I don’t know! They are just everywhere! Third thing—I don’t think I had ever seen an un-neutered dog until I got here. No one neuters their dogs. (AKA: Why there is such a terrible dog problem.)  Next, even when it is cold, it is hot.  HOLY COW, IS IT HOT. You can literally feel the air you are breathing in, but I actually love the humidity. But MAN, is it hot and apparently we haven’t seen nothing yet. I already told you about the mailbox thing. Everyone has crazy mailboxes here. Last, you know how in Washington people have like super friendly beagles but have "BEWARE OF DOG" signs to be cute? Yeah. When people have them here and it means "If you enter this gate you are going to get killed, so seriously don’t come in."  Welcome to Texas.

2. Fabrizio :). So this week we were heading back to our car from an appointment that fell through, but we couldn’t get out of the gate that surrounded this apartment complex. So this guy runs over and is like "Oh, I will help you! I’m a member of your church!"  We were both like "Wait...what?" And he says, "I am a Mormon!" This guy proceeds to tell us about his conversion and bears his testimony.  He recounts Lehi's dream and is telling us how he wants to get back to church (inactive) because he knows that is where he will find the love of God (the fruit). He is a rock star! PLUS, he is from El Salvador, but he has blue eyes! How cool is that? Anyway, he got baptized up in the Hafer area, so he wasn’t even on any of our records down here, so if he hadn’t happened to help us that day, he might not have ever been found! Now we get to teach him and help him get reactivated! :)

3. Dogs. You guys, we almost got mauled by dogs this week. Dogs HATE missionaries!  I don’t even know why! We were just walking along and BAM — near death experience.  So, here is the story. We were walking down the street and there is a gate. There is one big dog, chained up, and then two medium size dogs that aren’t chained up. The big one is barking at us, but the two medium ones are just chilling, so we just keep walking. Well, we get to the point in the fence where the gate is and we see the gate is open. We are trying to decide whether we should go in the fence and risk the two dogs coming after us or be safe and just keep walking. We decided to be safe.  Guess what? It was not the safe choice. Like 10 seconds later we hear barking and the pitter patter of paws and turn around to find these dogs bounding after us. Hermana Parry TAKES off running and so I don’t have much of a choice, so I take off and we are both just sprinting as fast as we can because these things are literally about to kill us.  I yell "GET ON A CAR!"   She turns into a driveway and we both leap onto a random person’s car (in our skirts, mind you). When the dogs realized they were not going to get us, they headed back for home. However, the owner of the car came out and was like "What are you doing on my car?"  So, that was awkward. "Ummm there were these dogs . . . and scared . . . and we jumped . . . and yeah. . . ." But he didn’t get mad, so that was a blessing.

 4. So last night we got to sleep at President's house because we had a little experience we like to call "Remember that one time we were at home and our apartment got broken into?"  HEYYYO. Mom, don’t freak out. So, we were sitting in our apartment.  We had just gotten home from church and so we were just grabbing some comida before we headed out to appointments.  I was sitting on the opposite side of the living room away from the door and Hna Parry was sitting on the couch right by the door. I saw the door open and then I hear Hermana Parry start screammmming as she jumps off the couch and heads for the door. I jump up to help her and she is just screaming "GET OUT! GET OUT!!!!!" and pushing against the door.  After slamming the guy pretty hard, he gave up and then he and his friend ran away. So.....that happened. Yupp. Hi mom :) Are you dying? I’m safe, I promise.

 5. Now the reason for the title of my email. This week we had one of those miracles that you hear about in general conference/from that crazy guy who sits in the foyer all of church and tells stories that you’re like "Wise tale? Those kind of things don’t happen." WELL, we had one this week. It was MIRACULOUS. So, we had a guy in our area book named F. He and his wife had only received one lesson antes, but we decided that we should go try and see him. So we went on Saturday. He answered the door and within 5 minutes of talking to him he was crying, just crying.  He was saying -- "I just want to change; I just want to change, please help me, angels, please help me."  He was pretty drunk, but like the most sincere drunk person I have ever met and, believe me, we talk to drunk people a lot. We couldn’t go inside because his wife wasn’t home (and he was drunk, haha), but he asked us to come back the next day. So we went back yesterday and his wife answers the door and tells us to come in. We didn’t even start to teach and she goes "Estoy listos ser bautizado en La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias" -- which means: "I am ready to be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". This women, GAH, this women, met elders when she was 12 years old and has been waiting since then to be baptized. She is now 66 years old. She goes, "Me and my husband are ready to be baptized."  She continues to recount the Jose Smith story and says, "I know that he is a prophet of God; I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God." !!!!!!!! THEN, as Sister Parry and I are sitting there trying not to scream, we start our lesson. We read 3 Nefi 11, when Christ comes. F is just crying. He struggles with a drinking problem, but he wants to change SO bad. And he will! YOU GUYS, the best part -- they are MARRIED and neither of them work on Sunday!!!!! They are so prepared! It was the most amazing miracle in the entire world! We said, "Will you prepare to be baptized June 22, 2013".  They say "What do we need to do?" Maria wrote the date down and started taking notes on the requirements for baptism. It was a miracle. 

That was my week! I love you all so much. The work continues! And it continues to be great! Pray for Gulfbank. 

Love,

Hermana Burnham