Week 25

Buenos Dias Familia!

So guess what? I decided to get my hair cut super short and I dyed it dark brown!  I figured that I didn't want to have a lot of hair this summer with the temperatures that are so common down here in summer.  Ha ha, ok just kidding, but we did get to have some fun playing around during a dinner appointment trying on some wigs.  I am including the picture of me with short hair, so you can see what I would look like if I ever decided to go with short hair.  Sister Biancardi went for the longer hair look, so we basically just traded hair roles.

I had another exchange this week with a sister down here in El Paso named Hermana Mitchell.  She came in the same day as Hermana Biancardi, but she is 19 - so she is one of the young ones.  We had a really great time together, but the crazy story is of driving to the exchange.  So I will be the first to admit I really dislike city driving and city driving at night is the worst.  We were exchanging around 8pm so it was already dark and we were meeting in more of the downtown area of El Paso.  The other sisters were a little late and we were trying to find a good place to meet because none of us know that part of town really well.  We decided to drive up a little ways farther to see if there was a better place to meet (at this point we were stopped in a gas station).  So I pulled out to the road and was just telling Hermana Biancardi how much a disliked city driving in part because there are so many one way streets and they are all narrow etc.  So as we are talking I pull out on this street to head farther south and I am looking at these stoplights and that they are facing backwards.  All of the sudden the horror hits me that we are doing exactly what I had been telling her was my biggest fear 5 seconds earlier.  Yep we were on a one way road going the wrong way!  Luckily there were no cars and I was quickly able to fix my mistake, but my dislike of city driving has just increased.  In my defense there was no sign coming out of the gas station that said one way, so people that live there and know that street is one way would be fine, but for someone who has never been in that part of town in the dark it's just asking for trouble.  If that's not enough car trouble for one week, the low tire pressure light came on and so in the morning two sisters in skirts had to figure out how to check the tire pressure and fill it up at the gas station.  Of course the gas station closest to us was broken, so we said a little prayer that we would be able to go to our first appointment and then fix the tire pressure and that we wouldn't blow a tire and have to try and fix that in skirts too!

So in missionary news we had two really exciting miracle people this week.  The lady who we talked to outside by the BBQ is amazing.  We are teaching her and she just wants to know everything there is to know.  She keeps saying how God put us in her path and she is so lucky we are teaching her.  The funniest thing is that she has beat us to some of our own lines.  In preach my gospel there are some suggestions on how to begin teaching people and one of them is talking about how we are guides to help people find their own answer and in the middle of the lesson she called us her guides and we were both silently laughing because it was like she has read preach my gospel.  She also asked how she could get her own copy of the Book of Mormon and if we would give her a specific chapter to read, both things we had been planning on doing towards the end of the lesson, but she beat us to it.  Besides that she is the nicest lady and it is such a blessing that we are getting to teach her about the gospel right now.

The other little miracle this week was on Sunday we were trying to contact some less actives in the ward and we weren't finding anyone.  We only had about a half an hour left, and the name of an investigator popped into my head.  We stopped by her house and she and her boyfriend were home.  They said they had been meaning to call us because they just got engaged and they want to get married and he wants to take the discussions and get baptized.  It is so interesting because back in January Hermana Cruz had been driving one night with no one to teach and we said a prayer and the same name (this same sister's name) popped into both of our heads.  That is when we first met her and her boyfriend was at the house and we taught him about the Book of Mormon, but at the time he was living in Dallas, so we couldn't teach him anymore.  He is really interested in the Book of Mormon and now because he is living in El Paso we can begin teaching him!  So yay for lots of little miracles and sooo many blessing from the Lord.  I am so excited to work with all of these wonderful new people and I know this gospel is going to change each and every one of their lives for the better.  This week we had the special blessing of getting to go to the temple up in Albuquerque.  Although it was a long day of driving nothing can compare to the peace and joy that you can feel while in the house of the Lord.  They open the temple on this Monday just for the missionaries.  The greatest blessing of the temple is knowing that we can live with our families forever by making sacred covenants in the house of the Lord.  The couple that wants to take the missionary discussions right now is already talking about how the temple is their ultimate goal.  It really strengthened my testimony that we don't just try and get as many people baptized as we can and then forget about them.  Every member of the church is a special responsibility and every member has the sacred duty of helping their brothers and sister stay strong in the gospel and endure to the end.  I hope you know how much I love each and every one of you.  I can feel your prayers in my behalf and I know that they make all the difference, so thank you so much.  Have a super fabulous wonderfully awesome week!

Con Amor,
Hermana Klaus