Of Miracles and ....... RABBIT!!

Hey Y’all!!!

Well there is much to talk about this week for sure!! First off we had zone conference on Saturday. It was a special zone confrence. All of the missionaries in San Antonio and also down on the border came to this conference. There were about 115 of us there in total. The only ones missing were the Austin Area missionaries- they had a confrence the day before. So why on earth would 5 zones gather together for a Saturday conference? Cause our area seventy General Authority Elder Richardson came. It was great!! He spoke to us and then let us ask him questions. We learned a lot and the spirit was very prevalent. It was also SO MUCH FUN to get to be around 100 other missionaries!! I got to talk to my friends from other zones and we just laughed and shared stories and had a great time!! Later Sister Larrosa was telling me it was so funny for her to watch me float around the room talking to like every one!!! I have been in three different zones now and I know a lot of missionaries so I had tons of people to talk to! Poor Sister Larrosa has been stuck down here in Pleasanton her whole mission (only 3 months, but still) and so she didn’t really know anyone. Man I was running around talking to everyone! :) I love it when we missionaries all get together!!!!! SO ya zone conference was Great!!!

Now onto the news… investigators. Well I guess I need to start kinda at the beginning with this story. There is this guy Shaun Roberts who was baptized the week before I was transferred to Pleasanton. He is way great and he told the sisters that he was going to get his “brother” Rudy to come to church. Well Rudy is his best friend in the whole world, he practically lives at Rudy’s house and so he has always called him his brother. So anyway Shaun would say he was gonna bring Rudy to church but then nothing happened, some reason or another he couldn’t come. So we were like ok, well it’s not our position to push this recent convert into handing over his friend to us, so we just kinda let that be. Well 2 weeks ago we were out tracting and the area we picked was like empty, hardly any houses, so then I tried to find another spot, but I was just having no luck, so finally I just turned off onto this little street where I knew that a less active lived and so I figured we could knock the few houses and then go talk to her. As we were going about this I had no idea at the time just how much I was being led by the spirit. So we knocked up to the Less Active’s house, taught a lesson to her and then when we left her house and went to go knock the rest, we saw a familiar face waving at us. Shaun!! He was hanging out at Rudy’s house as usual! Well we ended up standing there and talking with him and Rudy for awhile, not talking about church just about Rudy and his hobbies. I was “Building Relationships of Trust” like no other!!! He then said something about hunting and we talked about that for awhile, I talked about how my cousin Jake killed a bear when he was like 14. Rudy thought that was pretty cool! Then we kept talking and he said he was gonna hunt Rabbit that weekend and that we should come over and he’d BBQ them for us. Now the look on Sis. Larrosa’s face was priceless- she had no interest in eating little Peter Cottontail, and I’ll be honest I didn’t either, but I’ll do anything for a baptism!! Ha ha j/k. But seriously I told him that would be great! So then I asked him if he was coming to church on Sunday and he said yes and that he was gonna bring the whole family. So we waited for them at church, and nope didn’t show. Shaun didn’t come either. Later when we called him he said he was sick. So we went about our week this week and just kinda left that whole topic alone, didn’t think much of Rudy and his family. Well then on Friday I got the feeling that we should pop by Rudy’s house again. I was thinking, no way, we can’t just keep showing up at this guy’s house, he’s not even an investigator and what is our recent convert Shaun gonna think. But I got that feeling again so I said ok let’s do it! Sis Larrosa was pretty nervous, she was like what are we gonna say to them?!? I said, ehh the Spirit will guide us. I mustered up all my boldness and we pulled up to Rudy’s house. He welcomed us warmly we had another nice BRT conversation (Building Relationships of Trust) and then I brought the subject around to the rabbit. He said oh ya we need to cook that for ya!! I said yup- I gotta eat me some rabbit! He laughed and said ok, Sunday, we will bbq up a bunch of stuff and y’all will come over. I said great, what time. He said I dunno yet, but we will hash out the details Sunday morning at church. I said, are you coming???? He said yes of course. So yesterday at church Rudy and his wife and their 3 kids (2 of which are baptismal age) showed up to church!!! I about died at first cause we were all the way across the chapel when they came in and sat down on the first row where the deacons sit. I was like oh crap oh crap oh crap!!!!! But they were politely asked to move by the High Priest Group Leader and so they weren’t totally offended. So ya they came and we set up the time to go to their house for rabbit at 4 o clock. So after church we went over and the food was still cooking and Rudy was busy with that and it was perfect b/c it gave us the chanc e to sit and talk with his wife. She is AMAZING!!! At first we thought she was gonna be the hard one, but actually she is so elect! She has been searching and she had amazing questions and she felt the spirit! We ended up teaching her parts of the first 3 lessons to answer her questions and so that was sweet! Then it was time for food! I ATE RABBIT!!! Sis Larrosa refused, but I promised to do it, and you know what it wasn’t that bad, tastes kinda like a turkey leg. So after dinner we watched the restoration video with them and the spirit was strong!! We committed them to read and pray and we have a return appointment on Wednesday night. It is so sweet!!!!!! So there are several things I learned from all of this. One is that you MUST follow the spirit even if it seems crazy. I am so glad we were prompted to just pop by Rudy’s house 2 weekends in a row- the Lord knew that if we were gonna get anywhere with the Ramos family we had to build up a friendship first. It worked- they loved having us over and talked to us as if we were their closest friends- we were honored guests in their house and we hadn’t even taught them a lesson yet!! Such a blessing. So I am so grateful to the Lord for leading us to Rudy in the right way and I am also grateful for….RABBITS! ;p
Well I love y’all very much and I hope to hear from y’all soon!!!! Have a great week!

SMILING ALL THE WHILE
Hermana Kleisler