Hello Family!!
This has been a good but different week here in the Spokane Valley!! I told you about the changes that this area has and so yeah, this week has been a lot of trying to get in contact with the leadership of our new ward....
But first, my new companion, Sis. Young!! :) I love her so much!! She is awesome!! She is from Taylorsville, UT and has been on her mission for almost a year. Her spanish is great and she helps me a ton... We've set a goal that we'll try to talk to each other during the day during spanish, but really after 8:00pm it's total spanish and she won't respond to me if I say something in english. She is very down to earth and always smiling and cheerful and it's just such a joy to work with her everyday. :) She also is very into exercise so everyday we are up and running... :) She is a hard worker and just so awesome!! I really have been blessed to have the companions that I have had. I have also grown a lot in the past week because I've had to show her the area and tell her who is who and what is what so she can get used to everything. I'm definitely not a "greenie" anymore with her and she puts me to work and I love it! Seriously, I can't say enough good things about her. :) I loved Sis. Riggs, but I'm glad to have a "greenie breaker" now. :)
This week we met a lot with the leaders in our new ward. This ward is very missionary minded, especially the youth. It is so great working with them!! We passed around a sign up sheet in young women's and asked them to sign up if they would like to go on splits with us or just come out with us one day. They were so excited about it!! It's always been something that they have gotten to see the young men do but they haven't had a chance to do it themselves and so it was kinda cool to see how excited they got yesterday when they realized they could come out and work with the missionaries as well. This ward, or this stake really, hasn't had sister missionaries in like five or six years so yesterday I can't even tell you how many times we heard, "We've never had sister missionaries in our ward before," or "It's so nice to see sisters here! We've only ever had elders." This ward is great and I love them already. :) The spanish branch is still doing good and we're still meeting with Sonia and Ramiro to give them new member lessons. We've started teaching Sonia's kids, especially her 10 year old Adrian. But, cool thing for the week, her oldest son Jonny is actually showing a little bit of interest now too. He's Sonia's 14 year old and actually he and his 14 year old girfriend have a baby on the way. She is due in August. So cool thing; this week we had a lesson with Adrian and at the end of it Jonny came and sat in on it. We gave Adrian a Book of Mormon and Jonny asked if he could have one too. I was flaberghasted! :) So of course we gave him one and then at the next lesson we taught the Plan of Salvation and Jonny sat in for all of it! We asked Marina (the girlfriend) if she wanted to pray with us at the beginning and she did and then we invited her to stay but she didn't want to and then half way through she came in and listened and participated. I can't tell you how much I love this family and how many miracles we have seen happen in their home. They are all simply amazing!! :)
Well, I think that's about it for the week! I love you all so much and am grateful for the examples you have been to me and the examples you continue to be. I read in 3 Nephi 5:13 today and realized the importance of every member of the church... We are all missionaries and we are all set apart to do this work! :) I love you all!
Love,
Hermana Haws
Sharing the Gospel in the Washington Spokane Mission
