Too good to be true, and yet the truth.

Hey que tal? Really good week with disappointment, success, learning, and fun. Oh and heat too. It's over 100 every day, but still preferable to Florida heat. We had a lot of good little stories, too many to share. But something really exciting was what happened yesterday. Background info: President issued the standards of excellence this week for our mission. And if we were consistently achieving those standards, there's no doubt it would be excellent, haha. But bottom line, God rewarded our efforts this week with enough new investigators to hit the goal. And they all came yesterday. Sundays are usually a bit slower for work because we have less time to proselyte, but we used our lunch (we were fasting) to go visit a few people, and the first one we visited was a lady recently met, with a lot of potential. She was at the point of getting baptized ten years ago and tore up her image of the Virgin Mary. But days later her 1-yr-old baby died, giving her the thought that God was upset and she was scared to join the Church. Now with struggles in her family, she is eager to learn and is so sincere. She says that her son is doing drugs and she feels like crying all the time. We relayed to her promised from the Lord that the Gospel will bring her family peace, happiness, understanding, comfort, stability. My companion and I talked about it afterward and agreed that as we were helping her to see the glorious vision the Gospel offers, it almost seemed too good to be true...and yet it is the truth. How wonderful! There's no problem, no challenge, no dead-end in life that living the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot fix. I love being able to feel confident as I teach that to others. It's not me making people promises; they are promises from God that will all be fulfilled. I know that is true. The other new investigators are a family we met on Friday and they came to church! They actually know a family who just moved out of our ward and became interested in the church from talking to the member family. It was a thrill having them there and seeing them learn. They really loved it, too. Our lesson in Gospel Principles was the atonement. I leaned over and asked the father if he's heard that word before. He said he hadn't. I asked, "What do you know about Jesus Christ?" "Well He died on a cross, and...I don't know. I just saw a movie once." It really surprised me. I realized it was the perfect lesson for him that day. In primary one of his kids got a handout that says "Does this choice draw me closer to Jesus Christ?" And the ward shared really heartfelt testimonies of the Savior. I think he and his wife really got the impression that we follow Jesus Christ. It will be exciting to teach them, although we've only got another week before my area will be trading English wards within our zone. With or without seeing them be baptized, it's a thrill to help others understand the role of the Savior in their lives. Well I don't really have time for much more. I'll have to tell you about Joe one of these days. We ran into him again this week. It's classic. We crashed a Catholic baptism after-party this week. That was kinda interesting, too. Carrie, what's the recipe for oatmeal burgers? Tyler, how do you go about teaching English as a second language? Does anyone know where my CDs are? I would still love to have my 2009 EFY and the BYU singers. Happy Birthday to Erin and Dennis! Have great week, everyone! Much love, Elder Joshua Gathro