email from 11 January 2010

WE'RE GONNA HAVE A WEDDIN'!!!!!!!!!

Oh how I love my dear, sweet, wonderful family!!!

Thank you so, so much for all your love and support and your great letters each week!

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Oh man...I just got the emails with pictures from Amy and Laura. I can't believe how stinking grown-up we all are! Mission, Marriage, and Mommy! It's really funny to see where we all are right now in our lives -- I never would have expected things to turn out quite the way they have so far, but how wonderful!

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Well, MY exciting news for the week is that (just like the title says...) WE'RE GONNA HAVE A WEDDIN'!!!!!!!!! VAMOS A TENER UN CASAMIENTO!!!

That's right, our wonderful investigator, Rosy, decided that she's going to get married, which means that she can be baptized too!!!! It's such a blessing and a miracle and an answer to prayer, I really can't even tell you! She'd been really nervous/scared of actually committing to marriage with Reymundo, but she prayed a lot about it, and we prayed and encouraged her a lot about it, and now she's going to get married!!! We don't know exactly when yet, but hopefully it will be really soon so that she can still be baptized on the 24th!

It's been a neat experience because we've prayed a lot about and for Rosy, especially that her heart would be softened and opened to a willingness to marry Reymundo; he's really a wonderful "might-as-well-be" husband, and wants to marry Rosy, but she's been scared because of past experiences of unfaithfulness from her former "husband". Anyways, so this last Thursday, during our weekly planning session, we decided to have a special prayer right in the middle of it for her because we were looking over what all we have left to teach and do with her before she could be baptized, and obviously getting married was the biggest obstacle, since she and Reymundo are living together. Anyway, so we prayed especially for her, especially that things would come together so that she could still be baptized on the day we originally set with her (the 24th), and THE NEXT DAY, when we went over to teach her, we asked her again how she was feeling about marriage and everything, and she said that it felt right, and that she would be married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were two VERY EXCITED missionaries, let me tell you! I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but I have a very real, very definite testimony that the Lord hears and answers our prayers!

If all goes according to plan, we'll be having a baptism every Sunday for the next 4 weeks!!! And if everything goes BETTER than according to plan, we might even have 5 or 6 baptisms in the next 4 weeks!!! Corina's getting baptized this Sunday, then Rosy and hopefully Cindy on the 24th, then Patricia and Alicia on the 31st, and Estela on the 7th!!!!!

The Lord is really blessing us here in Marina del Rey, and we've especially noticed it as we've tried to find ways to stretch ourselves and put forth extra faith and effort. Thank you so much for all of your prayers on our behalf, especially those you pray especially for our investigators! I can't tell you how much it meant to me to read that you pray for them as well as for me! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I've been studying the Plan of Salvation a lot lately, and I really, really, really love it and am grateful for it! It's amazing just how simple and beautiful, yet complex and deep and completely all-encompassing it is! Heavenly Father didn't leave a single thing out (of course), and it's just so perfect! The gospel is so incredibly beautiful and perfect, and I can't tell you (that's my phrase of the day, can you tell?) how grateful I am for it, and for this amazing opportunity to be here on a mission, learning and studying in ways that I otherwise probably never would. I'm learning things and understanding and appreciating the gospel on an entirely different level than I ever have (and probably ever will again), and I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's just so wonderful and amazing and beautiful and perfect! God is real, and He loves us; this I know.

The church is true!

I LOVE YOU!!!

I Love Being a Missionary!!!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Sallie