Farr Along The Road I Traveled: Did you know that water can start a hay fire?

Hello Family and Friends!! So I've been learning a lot of cool things on the mission... like if you get hay bales wet, they can totally combust, because when they start to decompose they get hot, and in 110+ weather, boom! flames happen! Crazy right? Anyway, this last week has been pretty crazy, it rained SO much last night, and it cooled of to a nice 82 degrees today! Mom, I can now understand why it's so hard for you to handle 60. :P An update on the crazy house we moved into... well, it leaks... a lot, and the celing in our kitchen kinda ended up on the floor too (when it rains here everything floods becasue I don't think the ground knows what to do with all the water lol), but we are moving out tonight/tomorrow morning into a house that used to be a Methodist Parsonage! :P Opening up a new area is hard work! It's so cool to get to know the members of the branch we have here, there are quite a few less active members that we have been able to visit, and invite to come back to church. As for new investigators to teach, we've had a couple lessons, but people are really busy, so it's hard to get return appointments here. Our days start with us waking up at 6:30 and exercising for 30 minutes after our morning prayers. Then we get ready and eat breakfast, and have personal scripture study time from 8-9. From 9-10 we prepare for our day's lessons by doing companionship scriptures study (with all three of us) and we role play how some of the lessons will go, and then we go over some of our training packet from 10-11. At 11 sharp we are out the door and talking to everyone we can about the gospel. We have a quick lunch sometime in the next couple hours there, and try to have dinner before 6 (if we don't have a dinner appointment scheduled). Then we try to have a lesson sometime in the evening before we return home at 9 to plan for the next day, get ready for bed, and get to sleep at 10:30. The schedule seems pretty reasonable, but there seriously just NEVER seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done, even when appointments (and their back-ups) fall through all the time! We've had 2 great lessons the past week, and I realized that I am so much better at listening than teaching when it comes to the gospel! Sister Hoover (the other baby missionary in our trio), who is secretly shy like I am, did SO well teaching the restoration to a really amazing Catholic woman, Felipa, and I was just amazed by how strong her faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is, and wanted to hear more about her life. I was able to bear my testimony to her that the message we are sharing with her will increase her faith, and the joy that she has in her life, and that even though she already knows so much, and sees Heavenly Father's hand in her life, that accepting the fullness of His gospel will bless her and her family even more. After the lesson, I turned to Sister Johnson and asked her how I could possibly learn to teach some of these people who know Him so much better than I do, about the restored gospel, and her answer surprised me. She said, "Sister Lagrosa, we are in the bible belt, people here, they know their bible, they know their Heavenly Father, and they are good Christians. But we aren't here to teach what they already have, we are here to teach about what they don't have, and that's the fullness of His gospel." After thinking about that for awhile I realized that I think I learned about the restored gospel backwards... I never knew Heavenly Father, but I got to learn from the Missionaries, and the Hamm's and the Brambleton Ward, about what the restored truth is. Then when I knew that, and I finally decided to ask God if it was true, once I knew Him, then it all just made sense... and I've always questioned things, like I've mentioned before I ask myself questions every day. If I'm living what I truly want. I have to cut this e-mail short, but enjoy the pictures! We made cookies in our car because it's been so hot!

Love, Sister Lagrosa!