The Lord Truly Works in Strange Ways

Hoy mi querida familia!

Wow, I love my family! As I read your letters right now I felt a sweet spirit and a feeling of gratitude for the family that the Lord has given me. Dad, I’m so glad that you’ve been having success in your business, and I’m even more glad that you all recognize that as a blessing from the Lord. Right now I’m reading in Mormon in the Book of Mormon where the Nephites destroy themselves...just remember not to fall into the pride cycle because even the most faithful of us do it sometimes. I’m so stoked for you Connor that you’re going to turn your papers in! Prepare yourself for the best experience of your whole life...and start preparing yourself NOW. Make yourself into a tool that the Lord can use in any situation. Collin, that’s legit that you got your blessing and that you’re progressing so much spiritually! Remember that the blessings that are stated in it will only be received according to your faithfulness. Also, I got the other package, Mom, with the pictures of the fam, and Aubrey and Ava look like grown women!!! Mom, just so you know, we have such a great family because of your example and your faithfulness. I just want to thank you Mom and Dad for living faithfully and for making the decision to start an eternal family years ago.

The Lord truly works in strange ways. The Lord keeps giving us opportunities to be tested and tried and we’ve been working hard to be able to baptize this month. Oddly enough, the people we didn’t even plan on baptizing at the beginning of the month are the ones that will get baptized this week. One is Carlos, the guy I talked about last week. He is so humble and basically when we got to his house he said he wanted to get married and be baptized. I love how strong his faith is. He said, “Honestly elders, I have a big problem with drinking coffee (he works nightshifts driving an ambulance), but if that’s what He (the Lord) wants to be done, it will be done (to not drink it).” The rest of his family was inactive but they’re all coming to church now. A miracle happened this week because he has to get divorced which usually takes 2 months (huge bummer)...but we prayed a ton that the Lord would prepare a way and He did...we got permission to go all the way to Masaya (my old area) to go get a marriage certificate. Long story short...the last names on his ID and the certificate are different and the lawyer says that his old marriage is technically invalid!!!!!!!! It truly was a little miracle that the Lord blessed us with.

The other is a woman named Francis and her daughter. She showed up to church all by herself two weeks ago and had gone before that. She told us that she never really believed in the church until she took our challenge to pray. She said that she kept thinking about James 1:5 and that she prayed with all the faith in her and later felt a burning in her chest and started to cry. It was amazing to be able to tell her that that was an answer from the Lord. Her little daughter is 9 and reminds me a lot of my sisters. She LOVES saying prayers and they’re almost as good as Ava´s.

Anways...I can’t really talk about all that’s going on right now but the Lord has been blessing us over here too. I love being a missionary. Anyways...random story...this week we were walking and a bus passed by and one of our recent converts (teenage girl) and all of her friends were in it. They all said ¨¡adios elderes!¨ I turned to look and my backpack got caught on a nail on a big telephone pole and I basically just got stuck there like a moron. Everyone in the street thought that was pretty hilarious, especially E. Mejia. Haha. Anyways...I love you guys a bunch and I love this gospel! Stay sweet.

Love,

Elder Ward

PS – Mom, I got the other package and the boots are SICK!!!!!!!!!! They’re a little different than the ones I had. I gave the other ones to E. Mejia and he was way stoked so it was double good. Thanks for the food and posters and all that too. It’s perfect! Love you!