East Coast meets West Coast-- California Los Angeles Mission: First week of the new transfer!

Hi wonderful family! It's so good to hear from all of you! Les quiero tanto tanto!

This week has been all over the place but good all in all!! Rocky start to the week but Sister Smith and I are doing well! Since Norma and Francisco got baptized our teaching pool went down pretty drastically so we spent a lot of this week finding new investigators and contacting! Pretty exhausting but we saw the fruits. 😀😀😀

We were able to teach and set a baptismal date with a joven named Isaac who Sister Smith met on exchanged with Sister Castillo! He is so cool! We taught him the Restoration and he was so receptive to it, the whole time he kept saying " I knew there had to be true church, I knew it!" And he was so excited to receive his own copy of the Book of Mormon. We're really pumped to teach him more!!!!

This week we also made so much progress with our investigator Juan! We've been teaching him for about 5 months now, since I was with Sister Lucas back in June and he has been progressing uber slow. But on Tuesday we taught him and we weren't really sure what we were going to teach. But we go in to teach him and we taught him about the Book of Mormon and Juan hasn't been too interested in reading it because he has such an affinity for the Bible. But we testified and taught about how the BOM is the keystone and we showed him a video of Jeffrey R Holland giving his testimony of the BOM and he really loved it. That Saturday we took him to the VC to watch the restoration movie and he loved it so much. As we talked with him after he told us he believes the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God! We invited him to prepare to be a baptized this month as he continues to read and get that spiritual confirmation himself! It was a huge step for Juan. He also really enjoyed stake conference and was able to meet President and Sister Haynie! :) MIRACLES

In our zone this upcoming week we are going to be starting a member present lesson initiative which we're excited for! We had a super pumped ZTM afterwards and our ZL's really pumped everyone up for the initiative! We're going to try über hard as a zone to get 72 member present lessons!!! We fasted for it on Sunday and we know it'll happen if we're diligent!!!!!

Speaking of members, I know I haven't mentioned our recent converts Marta and Juan Reyes from back in June because a couple of months back they got offended and haven't come to church since. We've tried to give them their space but we've been worried about them for a long while. We had some really cool news last night. Emmanuel Osorio, one of the RM's in the ward told us he was going to visit Marta and Juan, and a few other recent converts/less actives at dinner on Sunday and we told him that would be great!!!! Later last night we got a call from him and he told us that he was able to find Marta and Juan, commit them to come to church, to pray as a couple and that they were totally open to the visit! He also visited out recent convert Karen and Jose Pablo! It was a milagro!!! No one had been able to see Marta and Juan in months!

Members can do what missionaries can't. We need members so desperately to fellowship! My testimony seriously grew of member involvement especially with those who are less active. In Jeffrey R. Holland's talk in the priesthood session of General conference last week titled
"Emissaries to the church" he says:

"My brethren of the holy priesthood, when we speak of home teaching or watchcare or personal priesthood ministry--call it what you will--this is what we are talking about. We are asking you as home teachers to be God’s emissaries to His children, to love and care and pray for the people you are assigned, as we love and care and pray for you. May you be vigilant in tending the flock of God in ways consistent with your circumstances, I pray, in the name of the Good Shepherd of us all, whose witness I am, even the Lord Jesus Christ, amen."

I know he's speaking of all of us in our wards, we have to reach out with love!! I would invite you all to do so, think of someone who hasn't come to church in a while who needs a visit and visit them! I
promise you it means the world to us missionaries and I know Heavenly Father is so pleased!!!!! I love you all so dearly :) You're in my prayers, daily! Have a wonderful week.

With EXTRA love,
Hermana Abreu