Less active members need some love and attention too

It makes me SUPER happy when our investigators progress, when they keep their comittments and strive to change and improve their lives, but it also makes me SUPER happy when less active members do the same. When they remember the convenant they made with Heavenly Father and feel the need to go back to church. We´re working with Hermana Yolanda´s husband, Roger. We have been eating with her a lot lately and finally got to know her husband. He hasn´t gone to church in years, never received the priesthood, and never really obtained a testimony. We had Family Home Evening with their whole family on Monday night and read a general conference talk about how to strengthen families. On Friday, we were teaching the Restoration and I asked him, "Hermano Roger, do you have the desire to receive the priesthood?" and he said no, because it requires too much effort and comittments. I don´t know what we said (actually it wasn´t anything we said, it was the spirit working through us) that within an hour helped him changed his mind. He didn´t even understand clearly what the priesthood really is and why he needs it. We had to speak to him directly and bluntly, warning him of the eternal consequences of not receiving the priesthood and being sealed to his family. Yucatecos sometimes don´t understand well unless you speak to them very directly. "Do you want to live for eternity alone?" my companion asked..

Obviously not, he responded.. I´m learning how to teach directly but with lots of love :) After teaching the Restoration and the blessings his family and home lack because he doesn´t hold the priesthood opened his eyes. He bumbled himself a little bit, comitted to go to church, and also to start paying his tithing (we taught that lesson on Tuesday). I saw tears in his wife´s eyes. Hope. Hapiness. This is what they need! This is what HE needs. His wife and daughter long for the day when he can give them priesthood blessings. Each experience like this makes me grateful for my family and the way my mom and dad raised us in the gospel. I testified to him on Monday night of Family prayer and scripture study in our home at 6:20 every morning and friday of the MANY priesthood blessings dad has given me over the years, and the comfort and strength they give me. I´m grateful for the restoration of the priesthood, the power and authority to act in God´s name, to the earth by a prophet Joseph Smith in 1829. 

Now, on a silly note (always have to throw in something silly, right?)

As our zone conference this week, our zone leader brought laffy taffys that his parents sent from the US and the latinos LOVED them. However, it´s so humid here that they turn to liquid in the wrapper and are way hard to unwrap. My companion asked as she was eating her´s, "Are they normally like this, all liquidy?" No, I replied, only in Yucatan!! 

The chocolate melts, the gram crackers get soggy if you don´t put them in the fridge, and the ice melts in 30 seconds. When people ask me if it´s cold where I live, I practically shout, YES! It´s like night and day, the difference in weather, but I LOVE it so much. I really do. Every minute of it! That´s all for this week :) 

Love you all!

Seguiré con fe en cada paso,

Hermana Melody Maki

Photo- last p-day we were out of money and super exhausted from going on transfers, so I took advantage of a couple free hours and took a little afternoon nap in the pink hammock I found upstairs in our house.