Happy 4th of July

Her own street sign

We are so blessed to be living here in America, and to have the freedom that was so necessary for the Restoration to come about. I am so grateful to be living here and serving here. Here in Sunnyside you meet people from ALL over the world. So far I've taught/met  people from Africa, Jamaica, Ethiopia, France, Islanders, Samoa, Haiti,   Dominican Republic, Russia, Netherland, Greece, and every country in South America. From what I can recall every single one of them said they love their Country and they talk about how beautiful it is, but they all talk about how dangerous their countries are and no matter how hard the work is here they are more than willing to live here. Man we are so blessed!! 

The Elders finally  blessed us with two referrals. Sadly the first one doesn't actually live at the address given. But the other one Fire is super cool. He actually lives right down the road from us and he lives in this run down home with his cousin Pablo. They are both from Jamaica and just moved here the beginning of the year, and yes they say," Ya man." Haha Fire doesn't believe in God he believes in a being called Ya?? I think.... that is his name. We taught both of them about the Restoration and they asked a ton of hard questions, but luckily the spirit was able to teach them that these things could possibly be true. We have another lesson with them this week, so I'll let you know how the Jamaicans!! Oh I forgot to add that Fire has dreads down to his thighs.... yeah it's pretty legit!
 

We have a couple really solid investigators that are progressing really well towards baptism. One is a referral we received from the Spanish hermana's and he had a stroke 3 months ago, but is recovering really fast. He loves the messages that we share, and he is diligently asking God to know if these things are true. I love seeing how fast the Gospel can change someones life if they truly have the desire to know, and apply.

Last Tuesday we were inviting our Police officer friends to our 4th of July BBQ and I picked up out phone and next thing I know it completely died and gave up it's spirit. So we went over to one of the members house in our area and we had to stay there for 3 hours so we could be in contact with the mission office.... needless to say this member is really poor and felt bad that she didn't have any food to feed us... so she gave us Vienna Sausages.. I don't know if that's how you spell that, but they are the little sausages that come in a can.... I can't believe people eat those. I of course was very polite and ate them, but man they are NASTY!! I would rather eat any foreign food the hispanics give to missionaries than those thing

Pizza party

s. Gross!  But after a long 3 hours and a trip to Sugar Land we got a new phone. It's a brick and I have no idea how to work it, but it's something different.

Our investigator Solomon is the cutest old guy you will ever meet. We've taught him almost all the lessons and he really wants to be baptized, but his wife is a different story. One lesson we invited  him to be baptized and he told us that he would like to be baptized in September, but after the prayer he told us that if it's possible he would like to be baptized sooner :) We're just praying his wife will let  him.

The 4th of July was a HUGE blessing from God. We had 6 rockin lessons just full of the spirit! We finally got to meet one of our Less Active members who has 3 boys over the age of 9 who are not members. She ended up having company over, but invited us in to teach all of them. Her friends were visiting from Oregon and actually have friends there that are Mormon too. They loved the lesson about the Atonement and allowed us to get their information so we can send missionaries to their house :) We visited with another less active family that is moving from the Spanish branch to English, because the kids like English better. The oldest son loves going to church and is planning on going on a mission in a year :) After a wonderful day we drove from the bottom of our area back up to our apartment with a beautiful sight of fireworks going off all over :)

Saturday we had a HUGE branch BBQ and we had tons of food, members, and games. :) One of the families we talked to on the side of the road a couple weeks ago, who ended up being in the elders area, came to the BBQ!! I'm telling you all the work we do blesses all the other missionaries. At least the work is getting done :)

I love you all with all my heart. 

Hermana Watkins