Happy Easter!

Hello Family,

What a beautiful week it will be! It was another awesome week this last week. I feel the Lords hand in my life here so much as we work with these people and as we look for the chances to share the gospel. He is really hastening the work and preparing people to receive the gospel. It is truly a blessing to be here. When I start thinking back on the things that happened and how the Lord works in peoples lives it touches me because it is just a testimony that He loves us so much and is trying to help us in every way that He can. He is so involved and we are often blinded by the distractions of the world. We have to always be looking in order to find these blessings or they will just pass us by and we won't realize how He is working in our life. For me this week has been a week of smiles. At times it has been a bit rocky but some amazing things have happened this week that I just can't stop smiling.

Eddie and Yeseddie - Eddie has a baptismal date for April 20th!!!! wooooo hooo Even more exciting, He is keeping commitments. He came to church yesterday. He even brought his darling daughter Yeseddie. It was so great to see him there. I seriously couldn't not stop smiling. Yeseddie is 6 and didn't want to go to primary so stayed with us in the Sunday School. We taught the class on the scriptures and I felt it went really well. We convinced her to come with us so that Eddie could go to Priesthood and we took her to primary. She was holding our hands for the first part and was really nervous but by the end it was awesome because she was sitting with the other kids and even participated in a singing activity where she had to stand up front and conduct. She had this huge smile the whole time. When we took her back to Eddie I said Yeseddie do you want to tell you daddy what you did and she just gets this huge smile and said. Daddy, I had LOTS of fun. :) We said so do you think you can come to church next week and she gets this really sad face and said...ahhh i can't i have to go to school. haha :) We explained it to her and she told us that she would come again. Eddie said he enjoyed it and the members were great. He told us that he would come again next week. So ya'll are probably wondering how the whole baptismal date went down. Well let me tell ya'll. It was a war. :) We were talking to him about how he wasn't going to know if what we were saying was true unless he tried it. Unless he read the book of mormon and prayed and came to church and all of that jazz. After talking to him for seriously like 30  minutes about this stuff. I just asked him and said Eddie have you felt anything as we have been teaching you? He went back to day one when he prayed for the first time with us and when he cried. He said Yes. In that moment I felt hope. It was special that he recognized the spirit. He said so you are telling me that if i read this book it can change my life. We said YES and then we continued talking. Out of no where Hermana Gutierrez (who was entertaining the little kids mostly as we were having this discussion) says Eddie we have a baptismal service on april 20. Will you prepare to be baptized on that date. He was like ahh i don't know. We promised him that he would know and he just said okay. I'll prepare. He is reading and praying and going to church. :) It was so awesome. As we are riding our bikes home, I was like where in the world did that invitation come from. She just starts laughing and was like I have no idea because I wasn't even paying attention to what was going on and then I felt it for the second time so I went for it. We definitely gave each other a high five and we definitely both almost fell off our bikes. :) Two days later we went over and he said. I thought you guys forgot about me. You didn't come yesterday. We taught him the plan of salvation and he said a really sweet prayer and asked for heavenly father to help him understand what we were teaching him. He also told us that his doubt is that he will go back to being the same person he was before and he wants to stay strong. He is so awesome! I love him!!!

Brenda - We contacted this Lady named Brenda Walker about a month ago. I don't know if you remember her but anyways. The english sisters for whatever reason hadn't contacted her again. We had a few minutes and decided to stop by because we were about her area. She was like oh come in come in! We talked to her and she said I just want more of the light of christ in my life. I want people to be able to feel His love through me. I just told her Brenda, I know we didn't meet you by coincidence. She said ya know what. I have been feeling that. She said I have been thinking a lot about how i felt after you all left. She said I slept so good and I felt so good. She said I couldn't stop smiling for about 3 days and even my coworkers were wondering what happened to me. Cool little miracle. I wanted to give her a mormon.org card to watch this mormon message. I had given all of my english ones away of a picture of christ just barely to Yeseddie and like 500 little kids that all wanted that picture. haha I was thinking dang they took all my jesus pictures but it was for a reason. I had to get my second favorite picture but it wasn't by accident. Because I wrote the site down and on the back it had a picture of the book of mormon. The other one, the one i like better, has a finding faith dvd on the back. If i would have had the other one, Finding faith, I would have given her that one but I didn't so i gave her the book of mormon one. She looked at the back and said...oh, I tried to order this book before. I wanted to read it because it was free but I don't know what happened. I never received it though. We were like oh well let us go get you one. She walks out with us to our car and we are explaining about how the book of mormon is another testament of Christ. She said Okay. We gave her one and we promised her that she would feel something special if she read it daily. Before we could even commit her to reading the book, she said. Well I am going to read this tonight and watch that movie online. GOLDEN. I was like oh okay that is perfect! haha :) She said you two feel like my good friends and are so easy to talk to. Why can't you come minister to me? haha texan slang. We explained about the english spanish thing and then said we would stop by every now and then and if she needed any to call us. It was such an awesome miracle. Picture attached of Brenda

Brenda and Alex - Last but not least. We have been working with alex and brenda. It as been a bit crazy because they have been sick and working and this or that. We finally got in with them and we started talking about if they have been reading. Brenda said yeah but I was talking to my mom and I just said i don't know if it really matters if i am studying this book of mormon because it isn't something bad so it isn't going to hurt. It just doesn't make all the difference. It was like...okay something is not clicking. We talked about authority and how it does matter and how it makes all the difference. We went over how you have to be baptized by someone who has authority and that authority is found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. How it was restored through a prophet and how we have a prophet today. They finally got it. We told them how they had to pray to find out for themselves though and not just believe us but to figure it out by asking God. We invited them to be baptized on the 28th of April if they come to know that it is true. Alex said yes and brenda said she would see. haha :) Oh that girl. Alex starts going off about how she needs to follow what Christ and God are saying and to not do it just because her mom said to go to this other church. He said It doesn't matter what man says just God. We are here to follow God. Brenda just said...oh you just know how to sweet talk me. ba hahaha. Hermana Gutierrez and I were just dying of laughter. Couples - Love - ohhh the life. :) We always joke about things that they say. Alex got his point across though so they both committed to taking some serious time to study and to find out if this is true!

Funny Story of the week - English Class - Elder Barney who has been out like 2 transfers is trying to explain the word old. He is explaining it in spanish and he wanted to say. My bones are old or mis huesos son biejos, but on accident he said mis huevos son biejos and that means my eggs are old. It was Sooo funny. I couldn't stop laughing. He is so awesome. He has a great personality and just always has a way to make everyone laugh.

To End my email. I just want to close with my Testimony of the Savior.

I know Jesus Christ lives and that we can find hope in Him when all seems to be lost. When we feel like there isn't any hope that is when we need to look to him because we aren't. I know that He came to this earth and He atoned for our sins and felt our pains so that each and every one of us can be healed through this beautiful sacrifice that he made for us. I know that the power of the atonement is real because I have felt it in my life. I have felt the power of being forgiven, of forgiving another and of being healed of things that have hurt me. I know that He is our perfect example and as we walk in the path that he has walked and truly harken to the words of Follow me, that we will live happier lives and become better than we could have ever dreamed of becoming alone. I love this gospel and I know that when we live by its precepts we are following the Savior. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 is one of my favorite scriptures about Christ

Love you all. Take care. Have a great week. Make good choices. Read everyday

I'll be here in texas, finding the tens of thousands. Thanks for all the updates. I love you alllllll

Hermana Rife