Bus To Church

WELL I have just been bouncing all over like a little bouncy ball this week haha inviting every person we saw to come to church. That was our focus. We dont have much time since its almost 6:20 and we need to get home and get working by 6:30. Good thing we live super close. We (E. Hales, E. Christensen, E. Payllef, E. Jaime, E. Lemo, E. Vargas) went and placed futbol (soccer) with all of our zone. Great zone! I LOVE futbol! Its so fun and now that I have a competative companion the game was even better. I played hard today. We have a few battle wounds and bruises that im pretty proud of. Reminded me of playing softball growing up and doing sports. I miss it. My comp worked over the elders though, she made tons of goals and Im best at defense haha. Its good to get all pumped and let go of all the stress and then start the week with new energy. Just one of those things in life we can use for drive to work harder.

Just want to tell you all that we worked our butts off and prayed so much to have great success this week. With our faith to follow the spirit in every single thing and follow the counsel of President to pray specifically (that all of our investigators World relieve and accept the spirit of invitation to come to church.) WE WERE AMAZED!!!!! We broke a record for our numbers of success in the south. We had forty one lessons this week! That for me at least is unheard of but I have always wanted to do it. Now that we have we are going to set even higher goals for the transfer and keep up the pace. I dont think Ive ever in my whole mission worked so hard non stop as we did this week without a pause. We did all we could to commit each of them to come to church and read and pray. We prayed to find men that are prepared to hear the gospel and relieve the priesthood and they were put in our path as we diligently worked and contacted all of our referentes within 24 hours. We prayed to find many familias that are ready for the gospel and we ended up finding four! We put like 10 fechas throughout the week (baptism dates) and we were pumped! It was beautiful to see the Lord blessing them this week. However the mother didnt come to church because she had to go vote this weekend. We verified that they were all preparing to come to church each day this past week. Each day we called to see if there was something we could do to help them prepare and we taught them about the doctrine of Christ and why partaking of the Sacrament is so important. Thanks to the famous Family Tello, and their big bus van they offered to help us this Sunday and load it full of our investigators and it was amazing loading all these people into the van and seeing how happy they were to all be together going to church. THEY WOKE UP!!!! THEY ALL CAME!!!! We knocked on every one of their doors waking them up and making sure that they had everything ready to be on time. We have also been working with all the less actives here because they are really amazing people… just kinda lost their drive… so we have done all we can literally ALL we can to teach them about Christ and how much he loves them and that their families deserve the gospel. It was amazing to see them all commit to come with us this Sunday! The President of our Branch, was so impressed with our efforts. He saw us all week hustling around to make everyone happy and get everything done. Then The Branch saw all of us with huge smiles to have filled four rows of people! New families, our recent converts, and three less active families that havent come in years! We made sure that the members sat with them and we made sure that they were very welcomed and loved as they should be. Singing the hymns in church I wanted to cry. I truly am comino to understand what a repentant heart means. Last Sunday we had 0 investigators in church and it literally killed me and we repented and said… well now we just have to get to work double time and note ver let this happen again. It takes a lot more effort here in the south to get these people to church. Its definately one of the toughest areas but with the Lord nothing is impossible. We had so much faith and confidence and sure enough Heavenly Father worked his miracles according to our faith. My comp is such an amazing missionary and person. I absolutely love her and love working here with her. Our zone is really united now and we are all working hard and motivating eachother to accomplish what weve been sent here to do.

Man it was a great week….So great…. Now about emails... its obvious that I only have a little time left because the emails are withering down to nothing (cough MOM) even YOU forget to write me! haha Its ok I know how it is with busy life and all. And you are not all thinking about me so far away in the bottom of the world :( just kidding! I appreciate those of you who have been a support even still, Sorry to you who have sent emails, and I have had trouble writing back, thats because im so short on time and ive just been really focused on the work. It doesnt mean I dont love you, I DO!!!! YOU KNOW THAT I DO!!!! But theres no excuse, I can still write you back here a little there a little though so Ill just have to write back when I have more time. THANK YOU FOR YOUR EMAILS AND SUPPORT you guys are the best!!!! I just love the mish so much! I cant wait to tell you all about it when I get home! BE GOOD! have a great week loves!

Lots of love hugs and kisses,

Hermana Ashley Ann Gillum