Happy 6th Birthday to Jack! Hard to believe that it's been 6 years! Tell him I said hi :]
 
Well this week has been a lot better than the last week! We saw a lot of miracles and I'm feeling better about training Sister Sanchez. I know that I'm not perfect, but I feel like she is learning and things are going well.
 
We always talk to everyone on the streets (especially if they look like they might speak Spanish!!) And this week as we have talked to everyone we have met 6 people that were already members whose names weren't on the records. And I realized that here on my mission I've never really worked with inactive members before. We've always just had so much work with our investigators that we didn't make it a priority. But I'm so excited to work with these people! They have already made covenants with our Heavenly Father and it's so important that they keep those covenants. I also sometimes think about the missionaries that originally taught these people. I would be heart-broken if future missionaries didn't work as hard as they could to help my converts. We met one lady on the street named Laura (!). She was baptized about 5 years ago here in Mesa (but in a different stake). She's in her late 20's but has gone through a divorce since then, and had a lot of trials... and she stopped going to church. We talked to her for while, got her number and address, and set up an appointment to come visit her again. Okay I'm going to try and explain where she lives because it is important to the story... but I am not sure if it is going to make sense! haha. She lives in a gated apartment. But not like a huge complex. It's just like 4 little gated apartments... but the point is that it's gated so you can't even knock on her door. I'm never been back to where the apartments are because it's ALWAYS locked and gated. So we just don't work much there. There's not a code or a way to call back to the apartments... just a key-lock. So when you get there you have to call their personal phone and they come unlock it. Well. Turns out my Spanish isn't as incredible as I thought it was... I didn't get the right phone number. So we were there calling her phone and the number didn't work :[ Because it's only four apartments it's not like people are coming and going frequently. So we waited for a little bit but then just went on our day and didn't have the appointment :[ I didn't know how else to get in contact with her. Fast forward 5 days. I had kind of forgotten about it all. We were working all day (without a ton of success) it was about 8:40 at night and I wasn't sure what we should do. I hate knocking on people doors without an appointment that late because most Hispanics go to bed pretty early because they all work extremely early. So I just turned to Sister Sanchez and asked her if she would say a prayer so that we would know what to do. She did and as she prayed I couldn't stop thinking about Laura.  I told Sister Sanchez that I couldn't stop thinking about Laura, but felt stupid because I knew it was a bad phone number and I knew that those apartments were always locked. But Sister Sanchez is the best. She was like "let's go! Who knows, maybe the lord is telling you that so we go over there and he'll put someone else in our path." So we biked over there. And we didn't see anyone. (I was feeling even dumber by this point). Sister Sanchez walked up to the gate and just pushed on it.... and it opened. Someone left it unlocked. I almost cried when I saw it open. It was something so simple, but confirmed my faith. At that moment I knew that God was conscience of me, and of the work I was doing. And that if I would just follow the promptings he gave me, they would come more frequently, and it would be easier for me to recognize them. Since this experience I have been trying to follow every prompting I receive and it's been incredible to see the miracles we have seen this week. They are simple, but I feel the spirit so strong as we work. We were able to have an awesome lesson with Laura that night by the way. And we got her real phone number :]
 
We are working with another inactive, Norma. And she came to church this week! It was so cool to have her come and to be able to meet all the members. It's so incredible how much faster people progress once they have been to church and have met the members and have that sense of strength.
 
Last night our branch hosted the Mission President's Fireside. Which means the recent converts of our branch spoke :] It was awesome as Miguel, Maribel, Paola and Blanca spoke. The music was awesome, the spirit was there. And Sister McKee was there! (my trainer!) she is working and living in Phoenix and knew I would be at the fireside because our branch was hosting it. It was so fun to see her, but weird to see her not as a missionary! haha. But also fun for her to meet Sister Sanchez.
 
We're having a zone activity today. They're calling it an Arizona Snowball fight. Where they put flour in nylons and then I guess we just fight? haha. I hope Sister Sanchez enjoys it!
 
I love you all! Hope all is well.
 
Love,
Hermana Larson