A Child's Hands: An Orange Fence

So last week we were out knocking on a street and I my eye kept being drawn to an orange fence. I thought it was just the color, but as we were getting ready to leave the street we had the opportunity to talk with the man that lives there, I call him Marlin. He was super interested in learning and took two Books of Mormon. One in Spanish for him and his wife and the other in English for his son.

- I will take a minute here to answer Dad's question. I do get to use Spanish quite a bit, though I use a lot of English as well. In some families the Grandparents speak only Spanish, the parents speak a mix and the children speak purely English, so depending on where we are we give lessons in both.-

We set up a return appointment that they had to cancel, but we finally got to visit them on Saturday and what an incredible lesson. Both Marlin and Claire (the parents) really just want to know how to raise their son, Nemo (sorry about my cheesy names). The were thrilled to find out about young mens. At the end of the lesson we invited them to church and they told us they have to work Sundays, like so many here, but they were going to talk to their boss and see if they could get their schedule changed. We did not prompt them to take this step. I must have looked ridiculous I was smiling so big. The closing prayer was given by Marlin and it was precious and humbling. He asked for help in getting his Sunday schedule changed. They invited us back for next week and told us that they would be making us dinner, we were thrilled. They are so kind and so welcoming. Their love and acceptance of all is evident. They kept thanking us for talking to them. Oh another thing we were thrilled about was when Claire said she wanted to learn how to read the scriptures. I was crying on my bike ride home that night. It was such a beautiful experience.

Saturday we also had the opportunity to participate in Stake Youth Conference. We went on splits with the youth and took them out. The picture is one of my companions and I and the girls that week took out. We were able to return to our area so I took my sister to check in on some investigators, then I thought that we should go see one of our previous investigators, Duro (he admits it), that had dropped us on Thursday. We had a wonderful conversation and he agreed to meet again on Sunday. I am learning to be so patient when I teach him. It is interesting to see the contrast between him and the Esperanza family. He wants to turn his life around, he has had many problems, but he won't do the things we ask. He says we are going to fast, but we are being to understand him better and better. Like I said it is a trial of patience but it is good and I can see him changing, I can see light gradually, very gradually, coming into his life.