Week 11

Its been raining a lot over here but it sure has been a great week! We have been working a lot with less actives this week. Less active work can sometimes be a little sad but we have seen some real miracles this week. I have never realized what a big problem less active work is. It's a big problem in Paducah so we try to reach out to those families with as much love as possible. This week we had the opportunity to have two very spiritual moments with less actives.

One of those families are the Garcias! Every since I got to Paducah Hermana Garlitz has been tiredlessly trying to get in the door. We would go over and knock as often as we could and their would never be an answer. Many of the times we went we knew that they were home but Hna. G never gave up. She had met them back in December and that one memory of them had haunted her.  A couple weeks ago while we were on exchanges I was in the area with Sis Stucki and decided to pass by real fast as we waited for a member to come home. I told Sis Stucki that they were never home but I told her that maybe this would be our lucky day; they answered the door! We showed Hermana Garcia and her son a short video and we left. Before we left though I set up a return appointment so that we would for sure be able to find them next time. Well it took us a could more weeks to get in the door again but we finally did this Satuday. We read the Title Page and the testimonies in the Book of Mormon. It was such a spiritual lesson and after reading both of them shared their testimonies with us of the Book of Mormon it was powerful. They agreed that we could come over the next week but as we were pulling out of the parking lot Hermana Garcia ran after us and invited us to come the next day for Lunch. It was a true miracle! 

That same Sunday we had dinner with another part less active family, the Caldwells. It was fantastic! Their are such an amazing family. Sister Caldwell is pretty active but her husband has completely left. They are both return missionaries! Brother Caldwell is downright by favorite person on my mission so far. He reminds me so much of my brothers its crazy! He is just so honest and down to earth. He knows that he is less active and he jokes around about it. We can see behind his hooligans though, he is just looking for someone to save him. We committed them to pray (for Bro. Caldwells sake cuz he stopped praying) and we committed them to read as a family. 

Both families have made big progress but of course there are some that still wont answer their door or that wont let us in the door. It can be hard, depressing work sometimes like for example there is a family out in the outskirts of town who after being an active temple going family suddenly sent in their letters to have their names removed from the records. It was a big scandal over here because no one expected it. Its been many years now and Hermana Garlitz and I ran into them while we were trying to find their daughter who's name was on our less active list. You can just see the light that is missing in their lives.

Oh a happier note the missionaries and I came to the rescue of a 12 year old girl and made her birthday pool party happen. We spent all morning on Saturday with buckets trying to get the water out so that we could fix the lining. Doing service is extremely rewarding however, I am still quite sore from it.

Summer is coming and a lot of the field workers who are mostly Hispanic are coming back into town!!! YAY!

We have an extremely talented missionary in our area names Elder Alarcon. He is practically a musical genius and is putting together a choir... I don't sing but we sure have fun trying.

I am going fishing today for the first time in my life! Finally! I am supper exited:) Ill tell y'all all about it next week.

Love,

  Hermana Orellana

PS Hermana Garlitz saved a turtle this week!