"You have the best job in the world"

Quote from our investigator Kelly. I think she's right.

LOPEZ FAM
the lopez family is so rad. they've been through LOTS of hard stuff adn it seems to keep coming but kelly is ready for some big-time changes. she knows what we're teaching her about is true and even though she still has some major things to work out to prepare her for baptism, she tells us about how she has felt closer to God these last few weeks than ever in her life. she keeps coming to church and on easter her husband jose finally came with her. he loved it and decided he wants to come with her every week. she started crying. :)i sat in sunday school with her daughter Lani (who just moved back into the house and has never been to church a day in her life until easter). we had a lesson all about faith in Jesus Christ and Lani asked an awesome deep question about how if we need to have faith in Christ, doesn't He have faith in us? so cool to think about. I know that He does because He sent us here in the first place. He knows we can be successful or this whole plan for us to come back to our Father in Heaven wouldn't even exist. They didn't send us here to fail. they gave us the gift of agency or choice so that we could CHOOSE to follow our Savior and His commandments. i love that she thought of it from that perspective. we're excited to start teaching Lani. it's a little tricky cause we're 5 of the people in that home and they're all really at different places right now, but they will all be so strengthened by the gospel. i'm excited to see the changes that come into their lives and they let them.

STEVEN'S BAPTISM
of course, every bit as amazing as everything else about teaching him. it was such a beatiful baptism. the best part was that the ward members totally took control. the whole thing was planned and orchestrated by the youth. they even made the programs. tanner, one of the 16-yr old boys from the ward baptized him and it was all just so awesome. steven was so excited the whole time. that week on the phone he'd tell us how excited he was getting. we asked him how he felt after the baptism and he said "like i'm home."the next day at his confirmation the blessing talked mostly about his family and how he would be able to help them grow closer together in love. he was so humbled by the whole thing. the Lord really will use him to do amazing things!last night he called us just to let us know he was doing good adn that since sunday it's been easier not to make the same kind of mistakes and fall into the same kind of temptations that he would before. he said that now if he almost says a curse word or the Lord's name in vain he stops and thinks of something else to say. he can totally tell the difference having the gift of the Holy Ghost in his life. :)

TIFFANY BLAS
...is amazing! (I know, i never use that adjective...). her husband is a member of the church but hasn't been in years. (she didn't even know he was until we stopped by :) ) she has three boys and works 2 jobs. crazy busy as you can imagine. we haven't even really been able to teach her a sit-down lesson yet because there's constant chaos and schedule shuffling but since we've started visiting she's started having family prayer (without us even suggesting it). i told her about having couple prayer with her husband adn she got all excited about that. she really wants them all to come to church next week. they were supposed to come on easter but were worried cause the boys had grown out of their church pants. :( i let her know it really didn't matter what they came in and that it was more important that they came. she's excited to read the Book of Mormon and said when we call tonight she wants to tell us about what she's read. :)

EASTER
we had easter dinner twice. the Lopez fam invited us over for Puerto Rican food adn a lesson and then we went straight to the stake presidents house for a lesson and an amazing lesson with Steven adn his little bro. the first part of the lesson involved some kind of logic thing where they were tied up and had to get out. steven is SUPER smart (he explains that he's not super smart, he's just asian :) ) so he was adament that they could get out of the ropes. it was hilarious watching them try. totally reminded me of something scott would've done. the point of the game was that they needed to humble themselves and ASK for help so we read a scripture about ASK and ye shall receive. but even once steven understood the spiritual lesson behind it he was still too stuck on being able to figure it out with his own logic. made the lesson even more appropriate about how we can be so stubborn trying to do things on our own before asking God for direction. luckily, in spiritual matters Steven is very un-stubborn. :) we're going to start teaching his brother next week.

COOL RANDOM FIND
so we felt like we should go tract on a specific street and when we went we found a girl named Jessica who doesn't even live there but was dog-sitting. she was so excited about everything we shared and to hear that there's a prophet on the earth today. the Spirit was so strong as we were talking, witnessing then and there that the message we shared was from the Lord-not from us or from man's ideas. while talking to her, her cell phone went off. usually that's a distraction from the Spirit but it was playing a song that was some Christian song and the chorus said "God is all around us..." She almost started crying. it was way cool. she doesn't live in our area but we're gonna go back and meet her boyfriend who's house it was when he gets back in town. way cool girl. she's very close to the Spirit and relies on the Lord for direction adn answers in her life.

DESTINY AND SUNSHINE
There's lots to write about them but i gotta go. they're the kids who've grown up knowing virutally nothing about God. i asked sunshine the other day what her favorite thing was that she's learned so far since we've been coming over adn she said, in her quite, ultra-shy voice, "what Jesus did for us." blew me away. i'm so humbled by these kids that have such a love of God and are so anxious to feel their Savior's love that they will put all of the things of the world aside. love them, love them.

wow, longest email ever, but there was lots to say. anyone who reads this whole thing gets 10 points (or it's 2 in the morning and you're doing anything but going to bed...go to bed.)

love you all!
--sis c