"Many mighty miracles..."

Well, this week was long, but we saw some miracles come from it. We were able to talk to a lot of people even though every day it didn't seem like we had talked to very many. None of our investigators ever seemed to be home yet we taught the most lessons to investigators out of our district. Hna Mestre told us she didn't want to get married or baptized or come to church for a while, yet everything was smoothed out and they all came yesterday. We got a young women's program in our ward (finally!!!!!!!!) and there were 7 young women yesterday! There is a family that lives in our ward but goes to their old ward and has 5 daughters, but they came yesterday and we think they will start going to our ward now (which means youth fellowshippers! that is something we haven't had and have needed badly) Claudia Edith went to young women's and loved it, said it was so much better than Relief Society. Now I think she will want to be baptized when her parents finally get baptized, because she feels more a part of the church. We went to visit 2 members last night and they both happened to have investigators over, so we were able to teach 2 lessons with members present even though we hadn't planned for it. When Hna Mestre was feeling like she couldn't be a visiting teacher because she is still learning herself, and nothing we said seemed to help I looked down at the Nov Liahona I happened to be holding open to the inside front cover and saw a picture with the scripture of Christ telling Peter to "Feed my sheep." I remembered my first visiting teaching experiences when my freshman ward Relief Society gave us magnets that said "Feed my sheep" with a little sheep that either said "hungry" or "fed." I told her about it and it helped her to understand more about why visiting teaching is important for all members of the relief society. Those were just some of the miracles we saw last week, so now on the "It's a Small World" story.

Daddy you should especially take note of this story, as it pertains to you, and it happened on your birthday: On Saturday afternoon we were in the VC. It was very slow all evening, and I think this happened when we hadn't been there for too long. We were at the back desk when a father and his daughter walked in. We asked how they were and if they were at the VC for any special purpose. They responded to that "we are in town for the game (packers vs cardinals) and we are already members, in fact, I have a son on a mission right now." Since we don't discriminate against members at the VC as they seem to think we do, I continued talking to them. He began to tell me about his son, who was serving in Maryland right now. He said that his call is actually to India, but that he has been in Maryland for six months waiting for a visa. I guess the last ambassador from India said the church could have as many visas as we wanted, but the week before his son went into the MTC the new ambassador came and he is not giving any right now. Then the man proceeded to tell me a story. He said "a similar thing happened to me. Now this was back in the early 80s, but I was called to Mexico. We also had a problem getting visas so they sent me to Montana to wait for my visa and I ended up serving in Chile." I said that the same thing happened to my dad but he waited in New Mexico and ended up serving in Argentina. He did a double take and then looked at my name tag. He asked "did he serve in Cordoba?" I told him yes. "What was his name." "Well it was Elder Ladd...Joseph." "A real tall guy?" "Yeah! Did you know him?" "He was in my MTC district!" So dad, I met Elder Mike Anderson. He said that everyone in his district was called to different parts of Mexico and when they all had the same visa problem all the elders except for him got sent to New Mexico. He described you as "not a serious guy at all." I laughed. He also says he has some pictures from the MTC that he is going to send me. He is originally from Tuscon, but lives in Colorado now, and just happened to stop by the VC while he was in town. I think that is the smallest world experience I've ever had!

Desde Mesa con amor,
Hermana Ladd