Stacie's email and pictures March 31, 2015

Hi everyone!

So I want to start off by wishing my wonderful sister, Angela, a very happy birthday this week! I'll probably bum some tres leche off a member tomorrow in celebration (there's always someone making cake over here :)) Anyway, so this week was pretty eventful, so I'll try to fill everyone in with the short time that I have.

So my investigators, Ruth and Manuel Romero, have been actively participating in our lessons and seem to really love the Spirit that they've been feeling. However, we found out last week that Ruth has pretty severe depression and has a hard time being around people, which is why they've been skipping out on church lately. She also doesn't understand why there are so many churches and doesn't like the idea of getting into a new church because of all of the differences in religion among her own family members. She just isn't convinced unless her whole family can be together, which is kinda hard with so many different faiths to choose from. Here's the miracle: this week she had been trying hard to get a hold of one of her sons who lives in Mexico. On Thursday, she called him, and he told her he would have to call her back because some Mormon Missionaries just knocked on his door and he was in the middle of a lesson with them. Can you believe it?! There is absolutely no such thing as a coincidence, and I was so grateful to those other missionaries for being prompted by the Spirit to knock on his door at that moment. Ruth took that as a sign from God as to what direction to take, and she has been actively praying about our message since. What a blessing!

Michelle, our new investigator, really seems excited about our lessons and actually brought up baptism herself. We invited her to get involved with the Young Women's activities and she's also reading the Book of Mormon. I see a lot of potential in her, and in her Grandma who sits in on the lessons.

We've also been working with the Alvarez family a lot this week. Michelle and Roberto got married last Friday, and Roberto is desirous to obtain the Priesthood. We are still working on Michelle, her goat died last week and she needed some consolation from us. Weird, but God works in mysterious ways! We were then able to convince her to come to church with us again!

I was able to attend the Women's Session of Conference this weekend with a young woman from our ward named Ashley. She's only 12 but she has had a really rough past and home life and has acquired a severe type of anxiety and depression. What a blessing it was to sit with her during that conference. We encouraged her to write down her feelings and quotes that she liked while we listened, and while I was sitting with her, I saw that she had written "I am loved. I feel happy. I can be happy because of Jesus." My heart was so touched by her. 

I encourage everyone back home to not only take the time this weekend to listen to the words of our modern day leaders, but be proactive about it, and write down questions and thoughts that you would like addressed in this Conference Session. What a blessing it is to have it so easily accessible!

Also, with Easter coming up, I hope that you are all able to feel of the infinite love that Christ has for us. I hope that you all remember the life, sacrifice, miracles, death, and resurrection of the Lord as we celebrate everything that he does for us! I know that he lives.

Oh and don't forget to watch the new Easter video #becausehelives

Hermana Townley