Week 38: Come to Christ

Hey fam!!!! my computer wasn´t working for 30 minutes of my time, so this week is a short one, but I do love you, i promise, haha. seriously. I love yall.

This week flew by, as does almost every single week. The days are like weeks and the weeks are like days, seriously. I am so glad that you are better and are back in Costa Rica. We pray for you every single day, so that you can keep leading us and helping us to bring people to Christ.

We are preparing Grettel to be baptized this Saturday. She hasn´t been sure about her baptismal date for weeks now, and she kept on saying that she wants to be sure and more prepared, but we´ve explained and shared our testimonies of how we don´t have to know everything there is to know about the gospel, because we will never know, but that what matters is if we will be humble enough to obey the Lord and follow the promptings of the Spirit, and we will be guided to know what we need to do in our lives. She has been progressing extremely well, and we´ve taught her all the lessons she needs to be baptized, but this Sunday she finally said yes to being baptized this Saturday. It´s been her date all along, but she always told us that she still didn´t feel ready or prepared. But sunday, our mission leader asked us if he could tell the bishop to announce her baptism. So we asked her and she said yes! Finally. I know that she is ready to make this covenant with our Heavenly Father to keep and obey His commandments. We are very excited for her.

I know that when we do our part, the Lord does the rest (really it´s the Lord doing everything, but he allows us the opportunity to be a part of bringing our brothers and sisters to the truth), and the miracles happen every single day, we just have to know how to recognize them. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a representative of Jesus Christ and to testify of the restored gospel to the people here in Coronado. I know that whatever happens, I can choose to be happy and that even though I cannot control the actions or will of others, that I can mold myself into who the Lord wants me to be. I want to continue to strive to be a better servant of the Lord and to develop the attributes that Christ showed us we need to have.

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Flake

Pictures Week 38:

Week 37: Faith is where it starts

Querido familia,

This week we continued working with Grettel and her daughter Keitty. Grettel came with her two daughters to the Relief Society activity on Friday. I think she really enjoyed it. They learned how to make honey butter and watched a movie about the life of a bishop. We almost had more investigators than members show up, ha, almost.

The two daughters of the regressing-to-activity family were baptized this weekend! Camila and Ana :) It was wonderful, as all baptisms are :) I gave the talk on baptism because the member who we´d planned couldn´t come, and the mom gave the talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The following day, Sunday, Camila and Ana both shared a scripture in sacrament meeting, and their papa gave a talk on Prayer. It is so amazing to see the progress of this wonderful family. Their papa is recent convert since 3 years ago, but only in these last 6 months or so has he been active (when his job permits). Before his baptism he was an alcoholic, and fell into that again after his baptism. But with the help of the bishop and ward members, he was able to baptize his little girls :) So adorable.

I was reading about the faith one day this week and found in James 2:19 a scripture that basically says that Faith is not only Believe, because the demons and devil believe in God, but they are not saved. We cannot only believe that there is a God and that Jesus Christ is our Savior- we have to follow Him. John 14:15 Helaman 15:7.

The primary purpose of this life is to put it in harmony with the will of God through repentance. We can return to live with God only through the mercy of Christ, which we only recieve with the condition that we repent.

Sorry this is so short, we had to take a huge survey that took up most of my time. I love you all so much!!!! have an amazing week and serve the Lord the best that you can!!! Until next week

Love,

Hermana Flake

Pictures Week 37:

Week 36: Recognize your blessings, the Spirit, and your testimony

Buenos tardes mi familia maravillosa,

Another week has gone by...time flies. We are still focusing on helping Grettel and Keitty prepare for their baptism this month, as well as preparing Ricardo and Karla´s family for the baptism of their daughters, Camila and Ana. Yesterday we had a noche de hogar with Ricardo and Karla´s family in the house of Gabby, a member who´s husband we are teaching but still hasn´t accepted to be baptized. It went well; we taught the lesson about eternal families and the road that leads us to the temple. Ricardo and Karla are preparing to go to the temple soon. I am so excited for their family and I love them so much.

Hermana Rubio and I went to seminary today. It was nice to see 6 of the youth in the ward there. I sure am happy to be a missionary. I know that there are more people here in Coronado that we need to find and allow the spirit to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. My companion and I have a lot still to learn from each other. I, for one, know that I need to learn to have more tolerance and patience for my companion. We are sometimes too honest with each other and I know that I need to start with myself so that we can be a dynamic duo worthy of the company of the spirit always. This morning I made a pact to think, "what would Jesus do" every time I respond to my companion. I know that I need to not only be converted in my testimony of the gospel, but in my actions to become like the Savior through following His example, even and especially with the companion that God, through inspiration given to my mission president, has given me.

I studied this week the importance of the word, ´recognize´. This life is a lot about recognizing: recognizing our blessings, how the Lord had His hand in our day, the spiritual promptings of the Holy Ghost, the progress of our testimony and that of our family, the love of those around us, the service that has been rendered for us, etcetera. When we truly want to recognize all that our Heavenly Father and our Savior have provided and done for us, we will take action and put in place goals to do so. For example, having more personal prayers, showing more gratitude, being more cheerful, serving others more, writing down spiritual promptings in our scripture studies, keeping a journal, expressing our love for others especially our family, etc. I know that when we begin to do these things, begin to recognize the love our Heavenly Parents, we will have a more abundant life and will be more prepared to live in His presense with our families. Mosiah 2:19-22, John 14:15, John 8:31-32, Mosiah 2:41, 1 Nephi 11:1, Moroni 8:26, 1 Samuel 3:10, 1 Tes. 5:16

I love you all so much!

Hermana Flake

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/make-the-exercise-of-faith-your-first-priority?lang=eng&cid=HPTU020315669#watch=video

Pictures Week 36:

Week 35:

 Pura Vida!

Grettel came to church and this time for all three hours! Yay :) haha  Grettel is an investigator from other missionaries, but we visited her for the first time last week. The missionaries had only visited about 3 times, so she practically didn`t remember anything that they had taught. We taught about prophets, dispensations, the great apostasy, the restoration through Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon. She is reading now the Book of Mormon, starting with the introduction and testimonies in the beginning. She is wonderful, and learns quickly. Her daughter, Keitty, is ten years old and we are also teaching her, but a little bit slower (we only taught her that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families). We are helping them to be prepared and to receive an answer that the Book of Mormon is true so that they can be baptized the 21st of February. To be continued....

Derian, a twelve year old boy and less active member from a family of inactive members, came with us to church last sunday and this Sunday! :) Last week the youth of our ward went on a mini EFY where they went to the farm of familia Corrales and had many spiritual activities as well as recreational ones. Anyway, after going on this trip with the ward, Derian sent us a text saying that he wanted to go to church but didn`t have anyone to go with, so we arranged a family to come with him to church. And this Sunday we went to pick him up from his house and walk with him to church, and this time he had on a white shirt and tie! :) with his duty to God in his pocket. So adorable! haha. His goal is to serve a mission and to receive the Priesthood. Finally he is making progress towards these goals.

Heidi, our Relief Society president, came with us yesterday to visit Kattia. We taught her about temple work, baptisms for the dead, and family history work. She was so happy to hear about the work we do for our ancestors :) Her dad and brother were murdered and she wants to do their temple work for them (at least their baptisms).She is super excited to go to the temple with the ward next month.  I love her so much. She didn`t come to church this Sunday because she went to visit an elderly neighbor who had an operation in Tres Rios (a couple hours away) and she went Sunday morning...but when we visited her with Heidi, she told us that she felt bad that she didn`t go to church...she missed taking the Sacrament and said that she feels like she didn`t fill her canteen for the week :) We told her that it is for that very reason that it is so important that we go every Sunday, but that thankfully we have repentance and when we fail or fall, we can start over again. Thankful to the Atonement.

Thursday my comp and I were leaving a lesson with Walter, our less active member who is now regressing to activity, and we didn`t have a planned appointment for 6pm and on, so we were sitting on the steps of the gigantic Catholic church calling all the numbers we had of future investigators, trying to see who we could visit....for about 10 minutes we were there, and it started to sprinkle a bit, and it was really windy (like usual in Coronado). Anyway, I saw a man on his cell phone near us who looked like he was waiting for someone. I kept thinking that we should talk to him, and I saw him look over at us a couple times. Finally, when we started to leave, we went up to him and asked him if he lived in Coronado, if he knew someone that would be interested in listening to a message of Jesus Christ, and also if he would like us to share this message with him sometime. We started talking a bit, he asked us lots of questions who we are as missionaries and our purpose. He then asked us, "who is Jesus Christ for you?" I told him, he is our Savior, redeemer, the Son of God, who came to make it possible for all mankind to return to God. When we shared that, he said that he had heard from other churches that the mormons only believe Christ to be a prophet, the most important prophet, but not believe Him to be our Savior. After that he was REALLY interested in what we have to share. Then he started to get a little teary eyed and told us about some really difficult things that he`s going through. Then he said, "I was waiting for my friend to come so that I could vent my feelings about all this, but he never showed up. Then I prayed to God to help me, because I felt like I had lost all direction in my life. I don`t really know my purpose in living." Then he said that we showed up and started to talk to him. "You two are the answer to my prayer". Wow.  We`ve taught him once more since then, and he has called us almost every day with a question, or to ask about the Book of Mormon which we left with him and he`s been reading. I know the Gospel is the only way for him to find true peace and purpose. To be continued....

Well, another week has come and gone....sorry I don`t have much more time....
Matthew 26:29, Matthew 7:21, Isaiah 57:15, D&C 136:33, Matthew 18:4, John 5:30, Helaman 3:35

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Flake