Invitation Sunday

Hola a todos, como estan?

Everything is going really good out here, transfers went down without affecting me, but we're thinking that as of these next transfers, Elder Witham will be becoming an AP and I will stay here with a new companion. I'd like that, I'm really getting attached to this place. I really love the people of the ward, they are so awesome. I don't know if I've said this enough but the Hispanic culture and people have really grown on me out here. I love these people. They're hard workers and are willing to do everything. I've become very much awakened to how wrong the stereotypes that you hear back home are backward.
We had what we called "El Dia de Invitacion" on sunday. In spanish this is The Day of Invitation, but the guerros (white guys) called it Invitation Sunday. It was a really cool day. Since the beginning of February we've been extending invitations to the Branch Members to invite their friends to a special church service that we had this past sunday (March 14). A lot of people got really involved and enthusiastic. In fact, we had 14 non-members at church that day. That was really good for our little branch, but we could have had a much better turnout, so we're doing another one al fin de mayo. We're aiming for 50 baptisms, and having a ward-wide fast so that we can find people to do it. We're doing the fast on April Fast Sunday. I'm really excited. The services were amazing during this last one. I gained a real testimony of how God will put people in your path if you try, and pray, and fast about who you can bring unto him. I've also experienced that throughout this month. I fasted at the beginning of the month for our area. I wanted to see more success and find more people to teach so that we could bring more unto Christ. Well I'm sure Dad understands how difficult it can be at times to find people whom are interested. Well, over the last couple weeks I've seen that number increase steadily, I'm sure due to my fast and continual work, God is blessing us with exito. We have had two people let us in, teach them lessons, and wanted to know more, just from knocking this past week. This is a big miracle for us, because it is very rare in our mission to have someone actually let you in and have interest. We're working really hard out here and are searching for our next baptism. We had two lined up, but they both are having problems. Luis is a kid, so he doesn't really understand the eternal significance of it all, and wants to keep going to church with his dad and aunt because it's easy for him and I think he's scared that he could create conflict within the family if he doesn't. And then Nicasio aka Father Time is no longer meeting with us. He's dodging our calls and then setting up bogus times and not being there when we show up. We're praying for a way to reach his heart. So currently the good news is there is a constant influx of new interest, the bad news is that we don't seem to see a lot of progress from these people that we've been working really hard with. I'm sure that as we teach with the spirit more and continue to learn how to improve our teaching skills and apply that, we'll definitely find more success in these areas.
But things are going really well. The weather is warming up, and we're almost to the point where we can go short-sleeve without jackets! I've survived the Chicago winter! Oh and we had a tornado touch down in Addison (or at least we heard the sirens going off while we were tracting). That was cool. We were miles from our house, outside tracting. So we just prayed that the tornado didn't come further this way. It didn't, and we were fine and finished tracting.
Something that has really struck me this week is the hymn, "I Need Thee Every Hour". It's very true. In Spanish the words of the chorus read, "Senor, te necesito. Si, te necesito. Bendiceme o Cristo, vendre a ti". I love those words. Lord, I need thee. Yes, I need thee. Bless me oh Christ, I will come to thee. To me it shows something: we can say, "Lord I need thee." but we should feel in our hearts as well, "Yes, I need thee." This has become my favorite hymn on my mission so far.

Well I need to go now, but it's been fun writing.

I love you all,

Jordan.