Caminando cada dia (Walking every day)

Hola everyone!

I wasn't able to email yesterday because we had a Zone Conference with President Taggart and his wife and also Elder Anderson from the Seventy spoke to us! It took like all day, so our Pday this week is Tuesday instead of Monday! But it was awesome! So many great speakers and I learned a lot!

I'm so glad I'm in a walking area! Literally 90% of the people in the city are Hispanic. It's so fun to just walk down Bergenline (the main street in the city) and talk to people as we walk and ask them where they're from. We never know what the answer is going to be because the people here are from everywhere!

On Saturday we had a service activity in Passaic. Like half of the missionaries in Jersey came and we were all wearing the Mormon Helping Hands yellow vests picking up trash and pulling weeds. I've never pulled so many weeds in my life! It was for like 4 hours straight! It was awesome though because a lot of people saw us as they walked by and would say things like "I really respect you Mormons because you always do big service projects like this. Thank you".

We had to drop Pablo, one of our really solid progressing investigators. Long story short, he fell in love with us. And obviously we can't continue to teach him if he is meeting with us for the wrong reasons. So we gave him to the Elders. If he really does want to learn about the Gospel, he will listen to them.

The most memorable lesson of the week was last night. Martha is this super awesome Ecuadorian lady that was inactive for like 20 years. We found her and got her to start going back to church and she LOVES it. She loves us and she loves going to church and she wants us to start working with her family (she has a husband and three daughters and none of them are members). She also has a nonmember sister who has cancer. Last night we went to their house and we took the Elders with us so that they could give her sister a priesthood blessing. After the blessing, we talked to their family (but it was mostly for the sister with cancer) about the Atonement and how Jesus Christ knows what she's going through because He suffered the pains and afflictions of everyone. Then we had everyone share their testimony. When it was my turn I totally cried (it was pretty embarrassing) but Hermana Galvan said it was good because it really brought the Spirit and let Martha's family see just how much I love my Savior and this Gospel. It was a lesson I won't forget! I am so grateful we found Martha because, in addition to how happy she is to be coming back to church, her are now teaching her family as well!

-Hermana Harris