Dear Family and Friends,
This week started with exchanges with the hermanas in Barrio 3. This time Hermana Sweet came to spend a few days with me here and Hermana Hobbs went with Hermana Medero (from Uruguay!) to Barrio 3. Hermana Sweet is from salt lake and she is very tall and blonde and blue-eyed. She played college basketball before her mission. I guess in Argentina they would call me tall and blonde too, but she is the real deal and, if it´s possible, I think we got even more stares and yells and "que hermosa" comments than usual. Anyways it was fun to switch things up for a few days.
On Wednesday it was POURING rain and it came down the hardest right at 10 AM when we were just leaving the apartment. We went out, tried to go to our first appointment and they either were not home or couldn´t hear us clapping because the rain was so loud. I was soaked within minutes and we went back to our apartment to change and I brought out the heavy duty rain boots and raincoat. The streets were rivers and even with my tall rain boots the water was high enough to spill over them and soak my feet.
My Hobbs came back Wednesday night and the poor girl got really sick and was throwing up all night and we stayed in Thursday so she could recover. She was all better by Friday though so no worries.
Sunday afternoon we still needed to find a lot of new investigators so we decided to do some good old-fashioned tracting. It is still really hard to get my timid self into a tracting mood...but if I can get myself in the right mindset it can be sort of fun or at least interesting. Clapping doors is like opening a kinderegg--you never know what surprise might be inside! So I was trying to be optimistic and help Hermana Hobbs feel optimistic too, so I was giving us a little pep talk. Right before we knocked our first door I said "Just remember, there are people out here searching for this!" We ring the door bell and in a moment a woman opens it, and, looking quite grumpy she just wags her finger at us and slams it shut before we can even say a word. SEARCHING!
But we continued on and did the whole block and actually got to meet some really great people. Including the uncle of one of our less active members. He was really nice although he said from the beginning we would "never convince him." We sat down and started to share anyways and right in the middle of our lesson his daughter came home from the hospital where she had been visiting her 1 month old sick baby. We introduced ourselves and said a prayer together for the child. They seemed really appreciative for our kind words. There are little tender mercies even in hard weeks or hard transfers.
That´s all for this week. After the rain the weather cooled down considerably. It has been beautiful this week. I am so grateful. I want to be just as vocally grateful about good weather as I was about the unbearability of the heat. Transfers are coming right up. I will let you know what happens!
Love,
Hermana Parker
26 March 2012
19 March 2012
Happy Birthday Jade and Happy St. Patrick's Day! - March 19, 2012
Dear Family and Friends,
HAPPY JADE´S FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY!!!
And also, Happy St. Patrick´s Day. We celebrated by wearing green, and by staying in our apartment for the last 3 hours of our usual proselyting schedule because the soccer game in the stadium near our house was getting so out of hand. I don´t think that had anything to do with the holiday though. Our District leader described the rival teams that were playing as the local BYU-Utah equivalent.
It was an interesting week. I mentioned last week that our investigator showed up drunk to church. A few days later we were going out to visit some people and started cutting across the large open field next to the church when we noticed a man standing there alone smoking and drinking. Hermana Hobbs said "wait, is that Matias?" and sure enough, it was! We saw him before he saw us and we called out to him. He looked up, startled, and then dramatically hurled the bottle of beer into the ditch at the very sight of us approaching. I love that the very sight of me and my companion can cause such a reaction in someone. Anyways, he threw out his cigarette too and gave us his lighter and began to invent some story about a birthday party and his uncle and the beer being thrust upon him against his will, but, he assured us, that he is still trying to quit but that it is just hard. We feel sad for the poor guy. It was 10:30 on a Tuesday morning and he was drinking alone in a field by the church. it seems a bit like a pathetic cry for help.
Another quick anecdote from the week before I go: The last month or so our district has really been struggling with getting any investigators to attend church. I have mentioned this in past emails. We have all had weeks where no one shows up at all. Every week at district meeting we talk about what we can do to do better and to be better and to get more of our investigators to actually come to church. Last week, after feeling like we had hashed and re-hashed every single thing we knew how to do (testify, promise blessings, call them, go by to get them, have members go get them, etc.) we were struggling to figure out what more we could do. Finally we decided that this week we would do everything we had already been doing and then add on top of it a combined district fast.
Well, what can I say? fasting and combined faith and prayer truly brings blessings! I don´t think I had ever experienced the blessings of a true, focused, meaningful fast before my mission. This week before our fast Hermana Hobbs read the scripture in D&C 123:17 that says "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." New favorite scripture. That has kind of been our mantra all week and especially during our fast. We can do all we can do and then we must stand still and stand back and let God work.
On Sunday we had 4 investigators show up to church which is the most I have had during my entire time in Barrio 4. It was just a small miracle but I am grateful.
Gotta go. More next week.
Love,
Hermana Parker
HAPPY JADE´S FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY!!!
And also, Happy St. Patrick´s Day. We celebrated by wearing green, and by staying in our apartment for the last 3 hours of our usual proselyting schedule because the soccer game in the stadium near our house was getting so out of hand. I don´t think that had anything to do with the holiday though. Our District leader described the rival teams that were playing as the local BYU-Utah equivalent.
It was an interesting week. I mentioned last week that our investigator showed up drunk to church. A few days later we were going out to visit some people and started cutting across the large open field next to the church when we noticed a man standing there alone smoking and drinking. Hermana Hobbs said "wait, is that Matias?" and sure enough, it was! We saw him before he saw us and we called out to him. He looked up, startled, and then dramatically hurled the bottle of beer into the ditch at the very sight of us approaching. I love that the very sight of me and my companion can cause such a reaction in someone. Anyways, he threw out his cigarette too and gave us his lighter and began to invent some story about a birthday party and his uncle and the beer being thrust upon him against his will, but, he assured us, that he is still trying to quit but that it is just hard. We feel sad for the poor guy. It was 10:30 on a Tuesday morning and he was drinking alone in a field by the church. it seems a bit like a pathetic cry for help.
Another quick anecdote from the week before I go: The last month or so our district has really been struggling with getting any investigators to attend church. I have mentioned this in past emails. We have all had weeks where no one shows up at all. Every week at district meeting we talk about what we can do to do better and to be better and to get more of our investigators to actually come to church. Last week, after feeling like we had hashed and re-hashed every single thing we knew how to do (testify, promise blessings, call them, go by to get them, have members go get them, etc.) we were struggling to figure out what more we could do. Finally we decided that this week we would do everything we had already been doing and then add on top of it a combined district fast.
Well, what can I say? fasting and combined faith and prayer truly brings blessings! I don´t think I had ever experienced the blessings of a true, focused, meaningful fast before my mission. This week before our fast Hermana Hobbs read the scripture in D&C 123:17 that says "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." New favorite scripture. That has kind of been our mantra all week and especially during our fast. We can do all we can do and then we must stand still and stand back and let God work.
On Sunday we had 4 investigators show up to church which is the most I have had during my entire time in Barrio 4. It was just a small miracle but I am grateful.
Gotta go. More next week.
Love,
Hermana Parker
12 March 2012
A Psalm, a Prayer - March 12, 2012
Dear Family and Friends,
Last week on P-day we had the great privilege of going with the stake patriarch to the local university to look at a meteorite. It was a lot of fun. Jaqui, a girl from the ward around our same age came with us and Amutio took us in his car. The meteorite was taken from a place called Campo Del Cielo here in Chaco where many thousands of years ago a HUGE meteorite storm hit. It was just sitting there in an entryway in the university—no casing or ropes or alarms. I probably could have just climbed atop it if I wanted.
We also just walked around the university campus and took pictures with various murals and statues. Afterwards Amutio bought us all ice cream. It was a nice day.
This week has also been good. We had one of our investigators show up drunk to church! We have been meeting with this man for over a month now and he has been progressing pretty well in the sense that he has been coming to church and showing up to all our appointments and reading the Book of Mormon and he even says he wants to be baptized. However, he has big problems with smoking and drinking and even though he committed to living the word of wisdom weeks ago he doesn´t seem to be making any progress despite all our best efforts. I wasn´t sure before whether or not I would call him a legit alcoholic but now I believe his problem is big enough to call it that. He showed up to church looking pretty disheveled and reeking of alcohol. He would put his head down in his hands one moment and the next he would perk up and sort of smile and laugh to himself. He tried putting his arm around Sister Hobbs a few times during the meeting which was uncomfortable and he had a very hard time following when we sang hymns even though our friend Luis was guiding him along with his finger, pointing to every word. Then, Sunday School was a DISASTER. He turned very argumentative and everyone in the room seemed irritated with him and it turned into this huge debate about the nature of God and the Trinity. He must have repeated a thousand times “Wait so is there just One God or are you saying there are THREE Gods?!” and we would explain that the Godhead consists of three distinct beings but that they are one in purpose. But then we would just go in circles and keep arguing and it was very hard to feel the spirit. Anyways, it was a little discouraging because his baptismal date was coming up, but he is not showing very strong desires to quit drinking anymore and he was so disruptive this Sunday we are not sure how wise it is to continue teaching him. And he was, pathetically, probably our most promising investigator of late.
Oh, well. Upwards and onwards. It is still VERY hot here. I will probably tell you that every week until it stops being very hot. I was trying to think about how I could even more vividly convey to you the heat when Sister Hobbs thought to take a picture of a daily ritual and I have to say, it captures it perfectly. I hesitated to reveal it, and I hope you will not judge us, but will find it as funny and outrageous as we do and appreciate what it means about the weather here. So, during the summer our schedule changes so that we come home and study midday when the sun is hottest and everyone is sleeping anyways. And just about every day after we come home from a morning of work the FIRST thing we do upon entering our apartment is… take off our clothes and hang them up to dry. That is how sweaty gross we are. We have talked about it and Sister Hobbs and I both agree that before our missions we really weren´t these sweaty gross kinds of people, which makes it even that much more amazing and ridiculous to us that we have stooped to this level . But there you go. Now you know more about our daily routine!
Also a little shout out to Lauren Laws again: the green skirt in this photo is the very green skirt she sent me from Italy! That skirt has been all over Italy and now it is going all over Argentina! And then I think I will send it to someone serving a mission on a different continent so it can continue to globetrot. I will make sure it is thoroughly washed before that happens.
This last photo is from today. We went to Centro to mail letters (finally! Hello friends! I am finally sending some of you letters!) and this is a very grumpy statue in a park nearby. I tried to make his same face.
Lastly, this week I decided I wanted to learn more about prayer and how to say betters prayers and in the Bible Dictionary it says that the psalms breathe the very spirit of prayer so I decided to start there. I have been reading the psalms and I am finding them very beautiful and a little tragic all at once. David is a tragic character and I am not sure how to feel about him.
That´s all for this week.
All my love from Argentina,
Sister Brooke
Last week on P-day we had the great privilege of going with the stake patriarch to the local university to look at a meteorite. It was a lot of fun. Jaqui, a girl from the ward around our same age came with us and Amutio took us in his car. The meteorite was taken from a place called Campo Del Cielo here in Chaco where many thousands of years ago a HUGE meteorite storm hit. It was just sitting there in an entryway in the university—no casing or ropes or alarms. I probably could have just climbed atop it if I wanted.
We also just walked around the university campus and took pictures with various murals and statues. Afterwards Amutio bought us all ice cream. It was a nice day.
This week has also been good. We had one of our investigators show up drunk to church! We have been meeting with this man for over a month now and he has been progressing pretty well in the sense that he has been coming to church and showing up to all our appointments and reading the Book of Mormon and he even says he wants to be baptized. However, he has big problems with smoking and drinking and even though he committed to living the word of wisdom weeks ago he doesn´t seem to be making any progress despite all our best efforts. I wasn´t sure before whether or not I would call him a legit alcoholic but now I believe his problem is big enough to call it that. He showed up to church looking pretty disheveled and reeking of alcohol. He would put his head down in his hands one moment and the next he would perk up and sort of smile and laugh to himself. He tried putting his arm around Sister Hobbs a few times during the meeting which was uncomfortable and he had a very hard time following when we sang hymns even though our friend Luis was guiding him along with his finger, pointing to every word. Then, Sunday School was a DISASTER. He turned very argumentative and everyone in the room seemed irritated with him and it turned into this huge debate about the nature of God and the Trinity. He must have repeated a thousand times “Wait so is there just One God or are you saying there are THREE Gods?!” and we would explain that the Godhead consists of three distinct beings but that they are one in purpose. But then we would just go in circles and keep arguing and it was very hard to feel the spirit. Anyways, it was a little discouraging because his baptismal date was coming up, but he is not showing very strong desires to quit drinking anymore and he was so disruptive this Sunday we are not sure how wise it is to continue teaching him. And he was, pathetically, probably our most promising investigator of late.
Oh, well. Upwards and onwards. It is still VERY hot here. I will probably tell you that every week until it stops being very hot. I was trying to think about how I could even more vividly convey to you the heat when Sister Hobbs thought to take a picture of a daily ritual and I have to say, it captures it perfectly. I hesitated to reveal it, and I hope you will not judge us, but will find it as funny and outrageous as we do and appreciate what it means about the weather here. So, during the summer our schedule changes so that we come home and study midday when the sun is hottest and everyone is sleeping anyways. And just about every day after we come home from a morning of work the FIRST thing we do upon entering our apartment is… take off our clothes and hang them up to dry. That is how sweaty gross we are. We have talked about it and Sister Hobbs and I both agree that before our missions we really weren´t these sweaty gross kinds of people, which makes it even that much more amazing and ridiculous to us that we have stooped to this level . But there you go. Now you know more about our daily routine!
Also a little shout out to Lauren Laws again: the green skirt in this photo is the very green skirt she sent me from Italy! That skirt has been all over Italy and now it is going all over Argentina! And then I think I will send it to someone serving a mission on a different continent so it can continue to globetrot. I will make sure it is thoroughly washed before that happens.
This last photo is from today. We went to Centro to mail letters (finally! Hello friends! I am finally sending some of you letters!) and this is a very grumpy statue in a park nearby. I tried to make his same face.
Lastly, this week I decided I wanted to learn more about prayer and how to say betters prayers and in the Bible Dictionary it says that the psalms breathe the very spirit of prayer so I decided to start there. I have been reading the psalms and I am finding them very beautiful and a little tragic all at once. David is a tragic character and I am not sure how to feel about him.
That´s all for this week.
All my love from Argentina,
Sister Brooke
01 March 2012
Cyber Zeus and Other Adventures - Feb 28, 2012
Dear Family and Friends,
I am writing this email at the last possible moment of P Day because our usual cyber (argentine word for internet cafe) was FULL of preteen boys playing first person shooter games and every time we checked back to see if one of the computers had freed up, they were still all full. So, then we walked a few blocks down the road to our back-up cyber and it was closed. Then we wandered around these apartment buildings in our neighborhood until we located one that had this sign outside we always half-noticed but had never investigated that says CIBER ZEUS. We asked the first person we saw where this mysterious "Cyber Zeus" was located and they informed us it had closed years ago and no one ever took down the sign. Then this little shirtless kid wearing little orange shorts named Nico told us he would show us where another Cyber was and he walked with us for about 10 minutes through back streets and little random roads until we got HERE. But I have to say this is one of the best cybers I have been in yet. Life is always an adventure!
A similar thing happened the other day when we were out tracting. It was a kind of cloudy, gray day and nothing particularly inspiring or amazing had happened yet (lots of walking and knocking and waiting) and it was nearing lunch and we were starving. Hermana Hobbs said that all she wanted was a single empanada. Just one hot empanada and her day would be all better. We thought about that talk last conference about the man who only wanted a piece of chicken and he prayed that he could find a nickel to buy a piece of chicken and he found it! We decided it couldn´t hurt to try it out and said a little prayer that we could find a place that sold empanadas. Then we started walking, we were in a very residential zone, just dirt roads and houses but I asked a woman at a little corner kiosk (people run these little kiosks that sell gum and cigarettes and candy and stuff out of their houses) and she said "go talk to those kids over there" and she gestured to a gaggle of kids sitting in the walkway on the second floor of an apartment building. We shrugged and decided to try it, so we walked over and I yelled up to them "hey do you sell empanadas?" they nodded and 10 minutes later we had 6 hot empanadas in our hands (turned out they only sold them by the half dozen, so we got more than we bargained for). These are just the types of things I love about being in Argentina. This would never happen back home.
Anyways I have a little story for you this week. Lately, as a zone, we have been trying harder to get our church attendance up because we have been greatly lacking lately. So, Hermana Hobbs and I worked really hard especially Friday and Saturday to do everything we could to get our investigators to church. We taught lessons on the importance of Sabbath day observance and church attendance, we promised specific and individualized blessings, we arranged for members to pass by, we wrote letters and little notes reminding people and inviting them just in case we didn´t catch them in their house. We made reminder phone calls. We took a mother and several of her kids to go meet one of our investigators and her kids so they would feel more comfortable coming to church. We even had a special companionship fast because we realized that church attendance this week would effect whether or not several baptism would come through later on in the month and whether or not many of our investigators would progress.
Saturday night we went to bed feeling really good. We felt like we had really done our part this week and we told our district leader excitedly on the phone that we were expecting at the very least 5 in the chapel the next day. Sunday morning we woke up early and went to pass by for several investigators and less-actives to get them up and to walk with some of them to the chapel. We did everything we possibly knew how and...
In the end, not one person we passed by for came. So, we kept up our hopes that someone else had made it to church with a member or even by themselves and we raced to the chapel to see.
We finally walked into the chapel, sweating and tired and hungry, and we sat down on our bench and glanced around. No one. I am not going to pretend we weren´t a little discouraged in that moment. I almost felt like crying.
But, we picked up our hymn books and sang. A few minutes later Hermana Hobbs caught my attention and gestured a few rows back. "Ramona´s here with Jimena!" she whispered. We finally noticed that a mother and her 9 year old daughter who hadn´t been to church in years and who we had invited to come back that week were there. And then Marcela, a recent convert who quickly slipped into inactivity after her baptism, came through the doors holding her toddler son and sat next to us! She was another one we had visited and invited back to church the day before.
It wasn´t what we expected. But I can´t even describe how happy we felt when, after thinking that not one person arrived despite all our best efforts, we saw these two women in the chapel. We still had to answer with ZERO when our district leader asked how many investigators we had in church that day but we tried not to let that get us too discouraged. Sometimes in the mission it is a bit of a ridiculous numbers game but I know and God knows that these women count too.
Anyways I´ll admit it was a blow at first to have done everything we did and for hardly anything to come of it. At first I wasn´t sure how to think about what happened and it caused me to ponder a lot about faith and doubt and disappointment. Sometimes it is easier to doubt and to only put in 75% and never expect too much, then you won´t feel as devastated as we did this Sunday. But as we have had a few days to process it we have had some great conversations and moments in personal and companionship study.
Hermana Hobbs pointed out that we had been praying and fasting specifically that we could have more faith. More faith that there are people who are prepared to hear the gospel. More faith that the Lord would provide. More faith that baptisms are possible here in Barrio 4. And in some unexpected ways what happened on Sunday was an answer to our prayers. I know that, like it says in Ether, miracles happen only after the trial of our faith. "I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." It would have hardly been a trial of our faith if things worked out immediately like we expected them to. I was reminded also of the scripture in Isaiah which reads: "Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God."
The plan now is to continue working as hard as we can to improve our church attendance and we know that eventually the blessings will come.
I hope all is well at home. The heat should let up here in about a month. I have never been so excited about winter.
All my love,
Hermana Brooke Parker
I am writing this email at the last possible moment of P Day because our usual cyber (argentine word for internet cafe) was FULL of preteen boys playing first person shooter games and every time we checked back to see if one of the computers had freed up, they were still all full. So, then we walked a few blocks down the road to our back-up cyber and it was closed. Then we wandered around these apartment buildings in our neighborhood until we located one that had this sign outside we always half-noticed but had never investigated that says CIBER ZEUS. We asked the first person we saw where this mysterious "Cyber Zeus" was located and they informed us it had closed years ago and no one ever took down the sign. Then this little shirtless kid wearing little orange shorts named Nico told us he would show us where another Cyber was and he walked with us for about 10 minutes through back streets and little random roads until we got HERE. But I have to say this is one of the best cybers I have been in yet. Life is always an adventure!
A similar thing happened the other day when we were out tracting. It was a kind of cloudy, gray day and nothing particularly inspiring or amazing had happened yet (lots of walking and knocking and waiting) and it was nearing lunch and we were starving. Hermana Hobbs said that all she wanted was a single empanada. Just one hot empanada and her day would be all better. We thought about that talk last conference about the man who only wanted a piece of chicken and he prayed that he could find a nickel to buy a piece of chicken and he found it! We decided it couldn´t hurt to try it out and said a little prayer that we could find a place that sold empanadas. Then we started walking, we were in a very residential zone, just dirt roads and houses but I asked a woman at a little corner kiosk (people run these little kiosks that sell gum and cigarettes and candy and stuff out of their houses) and she said "go talk to those kids over there" and she gestured to a gaggle of kids sitting in the walkway on the second floor of an apartment building. We shrugged and decided to try it, so we walked over and I yelled up to them "hey do you sell empanadas?" they nodded and 10 minutes later we had 6 hot empanadas in our hands (turned out they only sold them by the half dozen, so we got more than we bargained for). These are just the types of things I love about being in Argentina. This would never happen back home.
Anyways I have a little story for you this week. Lately, as a zone, we have been trying harder to get our church attendance up because we have been greatly lacking lately. So, Hermana Hobbs and I worked really hard especially Friday and Saturday to do everything we could to get our investigators to church. We taught lessons on the importance of Sabbath day observance and church attendance, we promised specific and individualized blessings, we arranged for members to pass by, we wrote letters and little notes reminding people and inviting them just in case we didn´t catch them in their house. We made reminder phone calls. We took a mother and several of her kids to go meet one of our investigators and her kids so they would feel more comfortable coming to church. We even had a special companionship fast because we realized that church attendance this week would effect whether or not several baptism would come through later on in the month and whether or not many of our investigators would progress.
Saturday night we went to bed feeling really good. We felt like we had really done our part this week and we told our district leader excitedly on the phone that we were expecting at the very least 5 in the chapel the next day. Sunday morning we woke up early and went to pass by for several investigators and less-actives to get them up and to walk with some of them to the chapel. We did everything we possibly knew how and...
In the end, not one person we passed by for came. So, we kept up our hopes that someone else had made it to church with a member or even by themselves and we raced to the chapel to see.
We finally walked into the chapel, sweating and tired and hungry, and we sat down on our bench and glanced around. No one. I am not going to pretend we weren´t a little discouraged in that moment. I almost felt like crying.
But, we picked up our hymn books and sang. A few minutes later Hermana Hobbs caught my attention and gestured a few rows back. "Ramona´s here with Jimena!" she whispered. We finally noticed that a mother and her 9 year old daughter who hadn´t been to church in years and who we had invited to come back that week were there. And then Marcela, a recent convert who quickly slipped into inactivity after her baptism, came through the doors holding her toddler son and sat next to us! She was another one we had visited and invited back to church the day before.
It wasn´t what we expected. But I can´t even describe how happy we felt when, after thinking that not one person arrived despite all our best efforts, we saw these two women in the chapel. We still had to answer with ZERO when our district leader asked how many investigators we had in church that day but we tried not to let that get us too discouraged. Sometimes in the mission it is a bit of a ridiculous numbers game but I know and God knows that these women count too.
Anyways I´ll admit it was a blow at first to have done everything we did and for hardly anything to come of it. At first I wasn´t sure how to think about what happened and it caused me to ponder a lot about faith and doubt and disappointment. Sometimes it is easier to doubt and to only put in 75% and never expect too much, then you won´t feel as devastated as we did this Sunday. But as we have had a few days to process it we have had some great conversations and moments in personal and companionship study.
Hermana Hobbs pointed out that we had been praying and fasting specifically that we could have more faith. More faith that there are people who are prepared to hear the gospel. More faith that the Lord would provide. More faith that baptisms are possible here in Barrio 4. And in some unexpected ways what happened on Sunday was an answer to our prayers. I know that, like it says in Ether, miracles happen only after the trial of our faith. "I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." It would have hardly been a trial of our faith if things worked out immediately like we expected them to. I was reminded also of the scripture in Isaiah which reads: "Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God."
The plan now is to continue working as hard as we can to improve our church attendance and we know that eventually the blessings will come.
I hope all is well at home. The heat should let up here in about a month. I have never been so excited about winter.
All my love,
Hermana Brooke Parker
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