New Area - Joyas

 Hola Everyone!

First of all, happy 16 de Septiembre this past week. It`s the Mexican equivalent of our 4th of July. For safety reasons, all of the missionaries in the mission had to be home by 7:00 pm instead of by 9:00 like normal the 15th, but it was still pretty cool to see everyone out celebrating. Everyone has their bright Mexican flags flying, and all the kids were dressed up in very traditional clothing, they were adorable. And I celebrated that night by unpacking and settling into my new casa.

My new area is awesome! It`s pretty big, it was two areas until one transfer ago when they took out the elders and made the whole ward one big area. Like my last area, it seems to have a pretty good variety of rich and poor. But it`s a tad more rural here. I`ve seen a ton of corn fields! It makes me so happy. The barrio here is very friendly, and we have some pretty promising investigators. I`ll tell you all about them, uh, next week. 

My new companion is la Hermana Baquero, and she is so sweet! She is from Quito Ecuador. She just barely finished her training and only has about 3 months in the mission, but she is a super good missionary. She`s the shyest of all of my companions so far, but I think we will get a long great, and have a lot of success here together in Joyas. 

So just two quick miracles for you all:

First of all, this past week in our District meeting, literally my first full day in Joyas, we talked about finding new investigators, because the week before the entire district had only had 3 new investigators. Each companionship set a goal to find new investigators in the rest of the week, from Wednesday to Saturday, and Hermana Baquero and I set the goal of 6. We worked really hard the whole week to find people, and by Saturday we had found 3. Then that day, we went to meet a less-active sister, and found her whole family there, and they all are interested and listened!  She is the only baptized member in her family, so with her husband and her 3 children that are over 8 years old, we got 4 new investigators, for a grand total of 7 last week! 

I know that the Lord didn`t give us that family to help us meet a little goal, He gave us that family because they are prepared to receive the gospel, but it still feels good :) The oldest daughter especially, Alejandra, is dying to be baptized. She was already attending church before they moved, and she has a very bright testimony. 

Second miracle, the day of los cambios, all the missionaries go to the mission offices to find their new companions. While I was there, I saw my trainer, Hermana Gonzalez again! It was great to see her, but while we were talking, she asked me if I remembered Jesus, the son of one of the investigators, Olga, we had way way way back in February. We had been teaching Olga, and she had been progressing very well. Jesus joined us in just one of the lessons, but he had also been very interested, and Hermana Gonzalez and I thought that he was even more likely to get baptized. Then all of a sudden they moved, and they didn`t leave a number or address or anything with us. After Hermana Gonzalez left Mira Azul, I had spent a little more time trying to find a way to contact Olga, but eventually I gave up. 

Well, turns out that they moved to the Izcalli ward, which is in my stake. And just two weeks ago, Jesus got baptized!!!!!! I was able to confirm that with the sister missionaries in Izcalli, but I still almost can`t believe it.

We never really know the affect we may have, and sometimes we can`t see all of the miracles here in the mission in the moment.

Honestly, I`m sure that I`m pretty unaware of most of what goes on here in my mission. The Lord is working miracles, and protecting us from all sorts of trouble that we`re unaware of I`m sure. Someday, after this life, I`ll be welcomed home in the mansions of my Heavenly Father, and I`m sure He will pop in some Family Home Video and show me what really happened on my mission. 

Love you all!

Hermana Herron

PS Pictures 1) Hermana Orrantia and I with the family of our Ward mission leader in la Aurora. 

2 and 3) Some more pics from la Aurora, with the family of Elisa, and some more hermanas from the ward

4) Hermana Baquero and me