Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Meet Hermana Joanna Salas

Hermana Joanna Salas is a sister missionary, serving in the Scottsdale Arizona mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am a good friend of hers, and she is having me run her blog. This is her latest letter home, which are her blog posts.






















Hi everyone!
Interesting week this week
so we prayed for inspiration on what to teach one of our investigators, she is the one with 6 children and a husband in jail. We went over to help her clean the house and then taught her about tithing and read Elder Bednar's talk on "The Windows of Heaven" and it was a bit strange. we thought that it would strengthen her faith and she will have the desire to live it, but she isn't putting her trust in God as much as she should , plus she would talk over me and  talk to her daughter as my companion bore her testimony, and towards the end of the lesson she went out to answer a call, we waited and waited, turns out she ended up watering her plants outside, leaving us inside. we know she has a lot on her mind and its sort of hard to focus, we love her but sometimes we feel she is not interested. She did however, said she wanted to wait for her husband so they can get baptized together, but she isn't coming to church, she is still going to the catholic one and after she goes to sell things. We did invite her daughters to come to church and she said that she wanted to so we will have a member pick her up and hopefully through her kids we get Erica to come and really see. ( i am also realizing that we cant do this alone the member need to go and offer a helping hand as well) I am learning a lot from this women. just how simple gospel principles bless our lives and how we need to put God first above all things and that faith will keep us strong and dedicated to work hard for a brighter future, plus showing children to love Heavenly Father and live his commandments, under any circumstance, is super important so we may receive those blessings poured out from heaven.

We are starting a Preach my gospel class every Thursday night that we are all super excited about. We need to prepare these members to know what the lessons are and how to be more involved.
WE had the best lesson in the whole wide world!!!!!!!
we have another family that we are working with they are perfect the mom always invites us over for food and loves us and we love her, her two daughters and son are so reverent during lessons and they loved church, they went on fast and testimony meeting and those testimonies we so powerful! i loved loved loved them.
there is a blind sister in our branch, she talked about how imperfect she was and how she is so grateful for the gift of repentance and the atonement because through that she can take off her loads and be happier, and she i will one day be able to see her Father in Heaven and hug him, she knows it takes a lot of work to be worthy for that honor. I think she had everyone crying. before sacrament meeting started we asked her kids how they liked class, they said they loved it and looked so excited, momma loved it too and she even offered to come clean the chapel on Friday! and she also saw our other investigator at church with her 7 children her name is Blanca and she was moved with compassion towards her, she told me that if she ever needed anything that she would love to help and even come out when we visit her, wow she is already feeling the missionary spirit. her charity impressed me!
anyway about he lesson we taught them all The Plan that Heavenly Father has for the Salvation/happiness of his children and her husband was there because he works a lot so that was a miracle. The Orozco's came out with us he is the young mens president and she is the Relief society president , the lesson was so sweet, they did a great job. i loved what that brother said at the end, that if if the sisters say that what they are teaching you comes from God, who better to ask if this is true than God himself? i loved how eager they looked and the spirit of gratitude that was felt in the room. We invited them to follow the example of the Savior by going down to the waters of baptism. she looked at her husband and then looked at us and responded "well don't we need to be married first?"
we all giggled and the family  that came with us talked about how after his mission he went to go pick her up in Chile and two days later on a  Thursday picked out a dress and got married on Saturday at the Mesa Temple. she said that all she want is her loved ones there and have a simple wedding, we told her that can be arranged, so we are feeling a wedding coming on soon!!! she did look really excited. the one thing that planted a seed in her heart about the church was the example of a friend and how she is so strong and she wants to be like her. What a blessing ! 
I love you all thank you very much bye

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