East Coast meets West Coast-- California Los Angeles Mission: What an edifying week!

Hope you all had a fantastic week!!!!!! I have been thinking about all of your end-of the year activities, I always remembered the craziness of testing, class parties etc. I hope you are all enjoying it!! Summer is approaching, can you believe it?! It's been surprisingly cloudy most of the week with hot days here and there, I'll take it!!! Trying to hold on to the cool weather before the Cali summer hits :)

What an edifying week!!! We have had a lot of really special mission-wide "focuses" this week, such as Charity Week, where we have focused on setting bold, loving baptismal dates everyday and we have been re-watching the missionary broadcast in segments, that we had back in January, where general authorities spoke to all the missionaries in the world and we have been setting goals to apply the things that were said to our areas! The results all over have been so cool! Something me and my comp have been doing is focusing more on the Doctrine of Christ, bringing all our teaching back to the pure, simple doctrine, faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. No matter what we have been teaching, whether its Word of Wisdom or the Plan of Salvation we have been helping our investigators understand that all the things we are inviting them to do is to build their faith in the Savior.

We have had several solid lessons with solid people that have fallen through day after day this week but our faith hasn't dwindled, we just went out day after day and worked hard! We have been working a lot with PMF(part member families), and we will have many new investigators and this week more baptismal dates with these families. Actually on Sunday a PMF, Besi Cordona and Nelson Ramos came to church for the first time in about 10 years. We found them last transfer while contacting and right in that moment, Besi has told us that they still love the gospel but they haven't been able to go to church as a family because Besi has had to work on Sunday for many many years but right when we contacted them they said that after many prayers, she finally has Sundays off!!! The Lord's timing is incredible. They LOVED church on Sunday and they have a daughter who is 10 years old that we are going to start teaching. We also got a referral last transfer of a less-active that we've been working with, of more than 10 years as well and she wants to come back. She hasn't gone to church in the United States but was an active member in Mexico, but also because of her busy life as a stay at home mom and going to school, with three children she hasn't been able to go. We have a family home evening planned with them this evening, with her non-member husband, David. We are so excited to start teaching him!!! We also have had a lot of success with working with recent converts, when I arrived here there was a recent convert who had almost instantly become less active, Jose Manuel, but as we have been focusing on helping him to understand the Doctrine of Christ, the basics and the fundamentals of the gospel, we can't believe the change he has had. He came to church again for the first time since, January! And he is taking those small steps like prayer, scripture study to exercise his faith. We also are so close to getting Jose Dany, another recent convert to go to baptisms for the dead. He is continuing to work on his family history and his desire to get to the temple has grown so much. We are so happy!!!!!!!!!

Favorite quotes of the week

"El Espiritu Santo es el sabor de la vida"

-Jose Manuel

"Jesuscristo is the real MVP"

-Jose Dany

I invite you all to do as President Uchdorf says in his talk, "It Works Wonderfully, if the gospel isn't working in your life simplify and start where you are. I love you allllllllllll! Have a great week!!!

-Hermana Abreu