Wow I really learned a lot this week. I learn a lot every week as a missionary but wow this week was beautiful. BEAUTIFUL.
I have a true testimony that miracles of the Lord follow after you fast and pray unceasingly. Hermana Romo and I have just been
getting even stronger with the teachings of the spirit. We studied a lot about knowing God and hearing his voice daily.
In John 17 verse 3 we read that this is life eternal, that we might know thee the opnly true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Mosiah 26 GOD IS LOVE. Ive learned to know Him we must love as He loves. To know Him we must ACT not just speak. We must
keep His commandments to recieve the blessings. To know Him is to have order that we might become more like Him and understand
His bounds and promises. Then we will come to understand more fully, His deep love for each of us individually.
Mosiah 5 vs. 12-16 the most important part of a family being sealed in the Temple forever, is the sealing we each have specifically to our
Heavenly Father. "therefore I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable always abounding in good works THAT the Lord God
Omnipotent might seal you HIS!" Thats beautiful. He loves us so much that He wants to bind us to Him for all Eternity and if we are
perfectly bound to Him we will forever be bound to eachother. We must know His voice to be able to follow Him. We must study His
words out in our mind in order to be prepared for His coming again to the earth. His voice is what helps us to endure til the end.
So that we might have a perfect brightness of hope and be found at His right hand at the last day.
The scriptures tell of our flesh being weak. I have come to understand this more fully. The mortal frame is a great test of obedience
to purity and holiness.We cannot have spiritual strength without first learning self control and respect and love for our physical bodies.
Satan´s plan is to trick everyone to find love and appreciation in the things of the world and the only way to true and lasting appreciation
is that of our Heavenly Fathers plan. Our Fathers plan is to make us all perfect through His Son. If we understood the depth of His plan
for us, we would begin to taste only a part of the pure love he contains for us!
As far as our investigators go... wow... THANK YOU HEAVENLY FATHER AND THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PRAYERS!
Ernesto has over 3 assistencia meaning that he can and needs to be baptized BUT... the night we found him that he accepted and
desired baptism, he told us he was only worried about what the Evangelical people would tell him and think of him. There is an evangelical
church on every corner in random buildings with random pastors that scream at the top of their lungs and im not kidding, it freaks me out
everytimem but they are super quick to tell our investgators NOT to listen to us. Its sad. They practically force or threaten people sometimes
and the people fear of what the out come will be if they do listen to our message. But we still had faith in him and we planned to baptize him
on Sunday. We got a remise to drive out to the villa and get him and the evangelicals took him to their church. So we went to get Lilianna and
her kids, but they were super sick... so then we went to Alejandras still hopeful and happy... we didnt give up hope. We got there to find the dad
and he said they already left to come to church! We pull up to the church and guess what we saw!!!! ALEJANDRA and her pregnant daughter
that walked ALL THE WAY FROM THE FARTHEST END OF OUR AREA TO GET TO SACRAMENT MEETING IN CHURCH ON TIME!!!! I just
cried. I was so happy. To top that off she says with a smile, "Hermanas, heres some money, its not much, but I want to pay my tithing, I want to
change my life and im ready to do it, it means everything to me and my family and even though im not baptized yet I want to be, can I please pay!"
we could NOT believe this!!!!! All thanks to the inspiration of Rory, sharing with me a mission story when he was in africa how a guy walked all the way to
church just to be there! THANK YOU RORY your story motivated our investigators!!!!! Sacrament was beautiful with all of the wonderful testimonies! I dont
even remember what I even said this time I just got up and remember saying, as missionaries we work SO hard and see few miracles but ALEJANDRA you walked here! Thats a huge miracle! and Lorena! You came with your daughters again! thats a miracle! thank you all for the miracles you are in our lives! Their faces lit up! I couldnt
stop smiling while i was up there.
READY FOR OUR EVEN MORE WONDERFUL MIRACLE... So we had Lorena watch the Restoration video with Alejandra and Estefania and geuss what!
They all were so overpowered by the spirit and felt so good. Hna Romo got up and asked what they liked and what they thought... and they said, "all of it, I know
its all true, I just know it" Hna Romo said, " thats wonderful, and how can we KNOW its true?" They said "pray to god" and she said, "exactly! Alejandra, you prayed,
and what was your answer?" She said, " I know its true, ALL of it, He told me, I wanted to bare my testimony today but im still just to shy but I know this is His true
church." Lorena responded that she has still not yet prayed about it. So getting all kneeled down together, My wonderful companion asked her to pray to know as if
we were not in the room at all and pray from her heart.... this was the best part... So everyone with closed eyes Lorena starts out by saying "nuestro Padre Celestial,
con TODO mi corazon...." and just tears... pouring tears.... powerful peace in the room... she says " no puedo no puedo" meaning I cant, I cant... She was SO overwhelmed.
and before anyone else could say anything at all... Alejendra crawls to Lorena and takes ahold of her hands and with gentleness says, "yes you can, you can, we will do this
together ok!" She starts saying the prayer... "our heavenly father, we want to know if what ive learned is true, if this is your church that you want us to be baptized in in the name of
Jesus Christ, Amen!" Silence.... peace..... Hna Romo asks what is stopping her from baptism and what answer she has now recieved.... She eventually says shes afraid because
all her family and all her life shes been Roman Catholic... Alejandra once again works the miracle and says.. "ITS okay, dont be afraid, I was catholic before too, It doesnt matter what religion you have been, God loves all of His children and he has just made a way for us to all know the whole truth. He doesnt want to take away from the truth you have, he just wants to give you more!" We told her... its true, its like a puzzle, you have a picture in mind.. but some pieces still dont fit quite at perfectly... but Heavenly Father has restored truths in the earth for us that create an even bigger and better more glorious picture than we imagined. Lorena announced she wants to get officially married to her husband and desires to be baptized as soon as possible because she knows with all her heart that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. I fell to the floor in amazement. I couldnt hold back the tears. this is a very special time for me.
We will be baptizing Alejandras wonderful daught Susanna next week and are still working on helping Alejandra and Lorena with seperation and marriage to be baptized as soon as possible.
On Sunday we visited our wonderful bishop and brought him food and David Medina and Claudia have been helping us so much with the mission work! We were prompted to walk up this dirt road and we saw an older lady walking up on the opposite side... I said... Me gusta su camisa, muy linda! (your shirts pretty) we continued to walk because most of the time old grandmas are set in there religions and ways already and dont like us much but she smiled and said real softly... thank you... whats beautiful is you sharing the word of God.... So you bet we stopped dead in our tracks to turn around and sure enough she cried to us asking for help and to share our message with her because she has suffered from much abuse in her life and her son suffers from cancer... numerous trials.. but nevertheless she KNOWS God is our Father and during our lesson she called us her angels to answer her prayers. She heard the plan of salvation and where we are going after this life and she said... WOW... this is what ive been missing... this is why I have never fully understood the Bible, and I read it all the time! hahaha WOWWWW MIRACLE! This stuff NEVER happens for us! We plan on baptizing her soon so see her joy become complete. Not to mention we are teaching a family that owns a bakery that said they want us to come by and pick up their extra left out stuff and take it to the families we teach who are suffering from lack of food. We have fed families already that have been so grateful. ITS THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!! I want to feed everyone in the whole world! We love our people here. LOVE them. We love this Gospel. Its incredible!
Thank you for your help, and prayers, and love... you all are playing such a big role in saving and helping these people simply by your prayers... they ARE heard! So thank you!
Mom, loved your email thank you! Thanks for the sweet pics of the boys Tal! JOCELYN Im SO proud you bore your testimony and pictured me encouraging you to go up and do it! whooo hoo girly! Your missionary sister is overwhelmed with joy to picture such a precious site! I love you and you are so sweet my angel! Theres always more I wish I could say but... Ill just have to tell you all in person how wonderful the mission truly is... wow... theres truly no greater work. Im so happy. EVEN THOUGH im missing MUSIC more than I can even put into words... the mission is such a wonder, I needed to meet these ppl and these elders and sisters at this time to truly reach my potential and joy that Heavenly Father always had planned for me... this is a dream and im so blessed to be living it. No matter where you each are on your journey... keep going... dont get in the way of Christs light and He will bring you to shine so very bright!
Today we went with the Elders and Presidents wife to the Zoo in Escobar we had a blast!
It was lots of fun but we are left with little time! So ill attach some pics for ya to see and talk to ya next week!!!
I LOVE YOU GUYS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
con amor,
Hermana Ashley Ann Gillum
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