Miracles

hello everybody!

i am staying nice and cool here in texas. yes, that's right. we got a cold front this week. so instead of being 96 all day every day it's going to be in the high 80's. i may need a jacket so i don't freeze.
this was a week of miracles! there is this girl named genesis that we are teaching. in fact, missionaries have been teaching her since the beginning of may. she origanally was going to get baptized the first week in june, but her mom wouldn't let her. she's 17, so she needs parental permission. apparently after asking a few different times, after a fast by the whole young womens in the ward, and lots of praying, mom still wouldn't budge. so finally we decided to try and talk to her. miracle number one was that she showed up one night while we were over with genesis. usually her mom is ALWAYS working. the missionaries had only met her twice in the whole 4.5 month period of teaching her. so anyway, she shows up. we help her carry some groceries in. we ask her if we can set up an appointment to visit with her. she said yes. that was miracle number two. so after a couple days the appointment rolls around. she was actually home. that was another miracle. we then just laid it all out. that genesis wanted to get baptized and that we wanted to share with her what we've shared with genesis so that she can understand a little better why it is genesis has been willingly making these changes in her life and coming to church and early morning seminary and youth temple trips even though she couldn't go inside the temple. we taught a little bit to her mom and she completely opened up to us. told us her whole life story. she's had a very tough life. she also expressed her concerns about her daughter joining the church. they were all pretty much misconceptions. she thought that the second she got baptized we would send her off to some foreign country to be a missionary and she'd never see her again. she thought that her daughter wouldn't be able to get a job or do any of the things that she wanted to do in her life. so, two hours and many tears later she finally agreed to let genesis be baptized. she got baptized this weekend, her mom came to it and it was beautiful. her mom sadly expressed that she does not believe in an afterlife and that no book or saying a prayer could ever make her believe otherwise. so teaching her right now isn't much of an option. but i know that with time genesis' example will have a big impressionon her mom and one day she'll find a little more happiness to her life as well.

we have added more troubled youth to our teaching agenda. one girl who we found this week is 15 and has been locked up three times. she is hopefully getting baptized in november (it will take longer because she's on probation and there's lots of paper work and meeting with her parole officer involved) but she is awesome.

anyway. i'm out of time and p-day is a burnin'. today we are trying out a new thai food restaurant to celebrate the baptism. hope you are all doing well!

love,me