4 more weeks.

We are getting so excited to see Shelly in a few short weeks. Until then here's a little snippet of her last letter. I thought it was a great, although kind of sad, glimpse into a lot of the issues Shelly has been faced with over her mission. And of course there are pictures. Enjoy!



....Speaking of Lucia, she made me cry yesterday. Some of my most spiritual lessons in my entire mission have been with her. It is just amazing to teach her. She gets it. She repeats back her assigned reading with actual phrases from the scriptures, and she applies it to her life. At least verbally. She is not married, and her husband does not listen to us. We hardly even see him, which makes it really hard to try and persuade him to join us. This impedes her progress so much. She has come to church twice, but not for over a month. We have done everything under the sun to try and get her to church. We´ve gone by to get her, helped her get appropriate Sunday clothes, had Family Home Evenings with really great members so they could fellowship her, we´ve talked really directly about it with her. But she will not act. We have tried to teach her that if she shows faith by at least obeying the commandments she can, God will help her, and she will be able to have the family she wants someday. Her husband will never change if she doesn´t show him how, and give him a reason to. But she chooses not to. We left her house for church yesterday without her and I couldn´t help it, I just started crying. I don´t understand. Maybe it is just not her time. I love her so much though, and I would love to see her progressing. Someday I really hope she will be able to take those leaps of faith, with or without her husband....

Today Dr. Weidmer, our Area Medical Advisor arrived here! We are going to have dinner with him and then off to Otavalo to do shots and stuff tomorrow! It is going to be another crazy week. At the end of the week we have our own Zone conference, and have to set up appointments for Dr. Weidmer to meet with doctors and yada yada....but I love it! Being busy is just what I want right now:)