Rachael: No hablo Español... yet

One of the best parts about being a missionary is being able to see how God helps you out when you exercise some faith!

As I mentioned before, I was originally assigned to be an English-speaking missionary. During my entrance interview with my mission president, we had a really spiritual experience and he told me that he felt impressed that I should start learning Spanish so I could eventually work in Spanish areas. Well, I was eventually switched to working in Spanish areas and I spent my first two transfers learning with amazing companions from the Dominican Republic and Argentina! Love! After two transfers, however, I was certainly not feeling fluent in the language yet. I could communicate, but it wasn't too pretty!

Hna Thomas and me - our first week together!

So, I thought I'd be staying in Chula Vista with Hermana Zaldivar, but instead my mission president (and the Lord) surprised me with a new assignment to a little place called Santee. Little did I know I'd be spending over four months there! All I could remember about Santee was that I had heard that there just weren't any baptisms happening there and that it was a difficult area. Much to my surprise, I was not assigned with fluent Spanish speaker, either. Hermana Thomas had been speaking Spanish just about as long as I had. We were really going to have to exercise some faith, to say the least.

She and I have maaany stories and I'm sure I'll write about more than one of them in the future. The short one I wanted to talk about today, however, is about a little man named Miguel Angel and how I believe that he was a direct answer to prayer and acts of faith.

It was our first full day together and Hermana Thomas and I were a bit nervous to go out and start talking to people on the street. We, unfortunately, did not have a very big "investigator pool" and really needed to go find some more people who wanted to hear about the Gospel of Jesus Christ! So, we got up, studied really hard that morning, spoke to each other only in Spanish so we could feel warmed up, and headed out to the street. We decided that we would demonstrate our faith in God and His ability to help out His two Spanish-challenged missionaries. Our goal? To talk to and extend an invitation to learn more about the Gospel to every person we came into contact with. No small task. After praying realllllly hard, we started the adventure. I remember that we got a phone call right before we went out to start working and it was someone speaking Spanish and we could barely understand what they were trying to say. Not very encouraging to say the least :/ Anyway, we knew God would help us and so we worked.

First person we met? Miguel Angel. Did he understand what we were saying to him? Probably some of it (we were very good at testifying of Jesus Christ and inviting people to learn more), but our conversational Spanish needed some work. Miraculously, he said that he did want to learn more (we were pretty sure that's what he said anyway). We got his number and made plans to meet the next day at the park. We worked so hard for the rest of the day talking to people, practicing our Spanish, and sharing our testimonies the best way we could. As far as I can remember, Miguel was the only new investigator we got that day. I remember feeling rather frustrated... little did we know that it would turn out to be a huge blessing!

We studied the lessons we wanted to teach him extensively and were so relieved to find him at the park (we weren't sure we understood which park he was referring to). We sat down at a picnic table and had a beautiful, simple lesson about God's love and where Miguel fit into the Plan of Happiness. He was so eager to learn and so patient with our Spanish!

Miguel's baptism (he's the one on the left)

It took about a year, but eventually Miguel Angel was baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Teaching him over that year was both a challenge and a blessing (again, many more stories to come concerning Miguel!). We later asked him if he could understand what we were saying that first day on the street and he said he couldn't understand much except that we had a message about Jesus Christ and it could help him be more happy. That is really what it's all about.

Moral of the story? When we have surges of faith, miracles happen. God makes us able and makes up for our inadequacies. This was not the only instance on my mission that this happened. I believe that when we have surges of faith in our lives, we will see miracles. God is a god of miracles... and I am so grateful for that!