Family and Friends,

Well once again this week was a week of adventures, but at least this time our toilet worked. ha Well lets start from the beginning shall we? First the spiritual, on Monday night we had a family home evening with a inactive family which was really great because weve only been able to give lessons to the mom, but we finally met the father. No they didnt go to church this week because they were out of town, but at least we got to meet the father and we will continue to work with them to reactivate them.
 This week on Friday I did interchanges with Hermana Mendoza and when we went to visit Hermana Silvia we began talking about baptism and weve visited this hermana for a while now, but this day she was really showing interest in baptism and she told us that she wanted to be baptized soon. Earlier in the month we had put a goal for the 25th, but she has been living with her boyfriend which is why she hasnt been able to be baptized yet and she really hasnt wanted to get married, until Friday. Hermana Silvia told us that she wants to be baptized and that if she needs to be married, shell do it. I was taken by surprise because this whole time that weve been teaching her she kept saying that she doesnt really believe in marrige, but shes now changed her mind because she really wants to be a member of the church. She asked us to come back later that night and talk with her boyfriend about it, so of course we did and it took some convincing, and a lot of help from the spirit, but her boyfriend agreed to marriage and well this Saturday, March 1, well be having a baptism and a wedding! 

Hermana and Elder Utt (senior missionaries) came to our area on Saturday to help us out with some of our investigators. With Hermana Silvia we wathced a video about the importance of families and they shared experiences of the importance of the church in thier marrige and it went really well. They also went with us to visit a couple of other investigators too which was nice of them, they helped out a lot. They also took us out to lunch on Thursday which I was greatful for. ha 

Oh so since Im Hermana Leader of Santa Tecla my job is to watch over the hermanas and make sure that theyre doing what theyre supposed to and to help them become better missionaries. Who knows why, but this change weve had a lot of problems in our zone with the hermanas (and this is why I have more guys friends than girlfriends ha). One night one of the sisters called me for help because she was having troubles with her companion so I talked to her and gave her advice and helped her to feel better about herself. Then the second I got done talking Hermana Slater asked me if she could talk to me. So I was feeling like a psychologist at this moment because it was like alright whos next, but it was definitely needed. She had enough confidence in me to talk to me about what problems she was having and how she has been missing home and what not so we talked for a while and well it takes twelve weeks to train a missionary and I basically did her training from 10:30pm-2:30am. Yup I was definitely exhausted the next day, but it helped to better her companionship and it also helped us to become better friends. Its definintely hard to watch over a bunch of Hermanas but its taught me a lot, and I know that Ive had the guidence of the spirit to help me comfort each of them. 

Mishaps of Monte Sion:

On Monday Hermana Pena and I decided to go shopping for clothes because well after wearing the exact same thing for the last ten months its about time that I bought something new. So we were enjoying our pday looking for clothes and walking around the markets until we went to leave a store called Mega Botique. Here in El Salvador, when you enter a grocery store, or a mall, or anything, you have to turn in your bag and then you get a card with a specific number. Well Hermana Pena and I did that at Mega Botique and when we went to leave the guard asked us for the our number. I looked at a Hermana Pena and said "Youve got the number right?" and then she looked at me and said that she thought I had it. Yep you gussed it...we lost our number! Well youre not allowed to leave the store with your things unless you have your number, so Hermana Pena and I had to retrace all of our steps and look for our number. We even had workers who were helping us, but we never did find our number so we had to pay them for the lost number. Oh the adventures we have. ha 

Oh so Hermana Penas leg was hurting so we decided to turn in a bit early, but then I felt the impression that we needed to visit one other person before the night ended. So I asked if shed be okay and she said yes so we turned around and went to visit this person. Well they werent home, so who knows why I received that revelation, but it is what it is. The second that we turn around to go home it just starts pouring out of no where. Yup we returned home soaked. 

On Friday we went and visited a less active member and her son. We started talking about the theme "choose the right" when all of a sudden the mom went off about how its not right that we as woman have to take the blame for what eve did and how women are treated like scum and who knows what else. And while we were trying to help her see that thats not how it is, her son asked me if I had a choice between a plant and a human what would I chose. I told him human and he said hed rather have a plant because humans dissapoint people and they just die and plants give us oxygen and humans are causing the planet to die. And when we asked him if he prefered his mom or a plant he said a plant and his mom said shed rather have a plant than her son. Where do I live?! haha

Well thats my week for you, Ill let you know how the wedding and the baptism goes next week. Pray that everything will go well this week so that the wedding and the baptism happen. Thanks so much for the letters, love, and support and prayers. I love you all so much. This really is the true church of Jesus Christ.

Love,
Hermana Ontiveros