La semana pasada fue muy dificil pero muy gratificante tambien! This week was such a hard week, I didn't think it was ever going to end, but it was also a very good week and my Heavenly Father blessed me with MANY tender mercies! 

It has probably been the hottest it's been all summer this week and we spent most of our time walking around and knocking on doors looking for people to teach! I was soaking wet every day... it was super gross, but definitely a character building experience I would say for sure. (;

Monday after P-day we went to Angie's and had a lesson with her and taught her some Spanish. She's doing awesome and she's always so much fun! She has been having a lot of health problems and I can't remember if I wrote about this already but on Saturday the Elders went over and gave her a priesthood blessing and after the blessing all of her health problems completely went away! It was a miracle. After Angie's we spent the rest of our night on the streets looking for people to teach!

Tuesday we had all of our studies, our service at Bargain Box, and then we went and visited a member in the ward. She's been working for her temple recommend for a little while but we felt like she might need an extra push so we dropped by and she was home! We did a virtual temple tour of the Philadelphia temple and talked all about temples and why we should go and the spirit was so strong! We were all in tears and I know that our Father and Savior were very close by during that lesson. We spent the rest of our day tracting and then we had a member in the ward feed us dinner (which was super yummy) and then we went to relief society to help the sisters out on some visiting teaching activities. 

Wednesday we had another lesson with Angie (those are always my favorite). And then more tracting. And then we went and saw Zaira! We had a lesson with her and her three cute little boys. We taught them the ten commandments using our fingers and they loved it, they were laughing the whole time and it was so much fun! Then we did more tracting. And then we had a lesson with Fidencio, we're helping him read from the Book of Mormon so we read all about the Brother of Jared together! After that we had to hurry home for a skype conference with the missionaries in our district to receive some more training. I seriously think it's so cool all of the resources we have to do missionary work. 

Thursday we had district meeting and did our district lunch. I love district lunches they're my absolute favorite! We drove to Winchester afterwards and did some tracting in Winchester... we found a lot of people who spoke Spanish but unfortunately no one was interested. After Winchester we ate dinner and then went to a lesson with Angie. Unfortunately she can't be baptized so we had to talk to her about that and she actually handled it super well! Maybe in the future she'll be baptized but she can't right now. But we're still going to go over there and teach her and help her come closer to Christ! After Angie we went and saw Fidencio and he told us he didn't want Sean to get baptized and I almost just started crying. He said he didn't feel like Sean was ready but we had a good talk and then he said he would have a good talk with Sean to figure some things out. After Fidencio's lesson we went home and had a Facebook lesson with Oscar. It went super well. I think it's so amazing how we are able to have so many more lessons now that we have Facebook. The resources are incredible. 

Friday was just a bad day to start with. Hermana Milligan and I were having a bad day and just didn't know what we could do to find and help people. We prayed and then went to work. We were in a neighborhood and we saw this man sitting on his porch so we went and sat by him and started talking to him. He ended up speaking Spanish so that rocked and we probably talked for a solid 40 minutes. He was super interested and said we could come back and teach his whole family! It was such a tender mercy and lifted our spirits. Then Beverly from the ward fed us and it was soooo yummy and we had a lesson with their family. They're the cutest family ever!  After we did more tracting and found this house with about 20 Hispanics. We started talking to one and he was asking all sorts of weird questions, I felt super uncomfortable. The last question he asked and he asked it while pointing at me, "Can I marry her even though I'm Catholic and she's Mormon?" And Hermana Milligan says, "Sure! My aunt is Mormon and my uncle is Catholic and they're married." I couldn't believe she said it I was gonna kill her hahaha! And then she realized that he was being serious and it wasn't a scenario and kinda started freaking out. I was about to run away but then Jorge came out and saved the day haha! That one guy left and Jorge started talking to us and he was super interested in what we were doing. He laughed and said he did the exact same thing as us but just the opposite. He goes around trying to convince everyone that there is no such thing as God. I started laughing and called him Alma for the rest of the night. We ended up talking a while and I felt prompted to share a scripture with him, I had him read it and his eyes got HUGE. He looked up and he said, "Crap, if this is true then what I'm doing is not a good thing." hahaha! We talked some more and he said, "Well, I need to know if God is real and I only have 5 days in Paris so you have 5 days to turn me into a man of Christ." So we set up an appointment the next day. 

Saturday we had coordination in the morning and then we did service for the entire afternoon. Then we met Jorge at a cafe for his lesson. He was incredible, he read the introduction and testimonies in the Book of Mormon, about three chapters in 3 Nephi, and the entire Restoration pamphlet. We taught the entire Restoration and he had so many questions and was really loving learning. He has a really hard time wrapping his mind around authority and God being real, but the spirit was so powerful and he's figuring out who he is. We added him on Facebook so we could send some more resources for him to study. After his lesson we ate dinner and then did some contacting on the streets and then Elizabeth picked us up for a lesson with Sean. Elizabeth helped Fidencio out with his family history while we had a lesson with Sean. The lesson was awesome and him and Fidencio had a good talk and Sean should be getting baptized this next Sunday and Fidencio is going to baptize him! I'm so excited for him! 

Sunday was amazing because HERMANA CROWTHER CAME BACK TO PARIS!!!!  I was sooo excited to see her! She made my whole entire day! No. My whole entire month! It was so much fun! But church was good I last minute was asked to teach a Spanish Sunday school class and then a primary class and I did it. It wasn't great, but I did it! This whole mission thing is really preparing me for being a member later in life haha! And then we spend the rest of the night tracting and then we had a lesson with Fidencio! And Fidencio bought us tamales! Oh I was so excited! 

But this week has been super good with lots of street walking and tracting. Also... can somebody please remind what the tear drop tattoos mean? Which side means they killed somebody? I think I meet one person a day with the tattoo and I'm not judging... just looking out for my own safety if you know what I mean haha! But other than that Paris is really incredible and I love it so much. I wish I could stay here forever!! 

I hope you all had a good week and I hope you all have a great week this week. Have fun at Swiss Days! Oh I'm so sad I'm missing it!! Don't fall into any ditches, eat a scone, and make sure you buy lots of fun stuff! And.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY THIS WEEK PAYTON!!! I hope you have such a happy birthday and I hope you know how much I love you! Make sure you check the mail, there's something coming your way! 

I love you all soooo very much! Thank you for everything you do for me! I'm such a lucky girl. And of course... Be happy, because life is too short to be anything else!

Con amor,

Hermana Swapp