¿Cómo estuvo su San Valentín?

¡Hola Fonzfam!

Thank you for your last email about your crazy fun-filled week! I'm glad to hear that Cheerleader Senior Night went well for Mary and that her and Meghan had a great time at Sweethearts Dance. I'm so excited for all you guys and the snow that you received. And you won't believe it but we too went from beautiful 50's and 60's to low 20's and a blizzard last night! Although waking up this morning and seeing that there wasn't too much that had fallen, it was still cool to drive home in it last night. Elder Montague is always mesmerized over the falling snow since he doesn't get too much of that in Arizona.

‎We got news last week that our mission is going through the temple again this week! On Thursday at 9am my zone will be able to go through together. I'm so pumped for this and the chance to go through for the first time since August. The temple is never something that we should take for granted. We are told time and time again that we should be frequently going, and why not? When we go we receive a "spiritual recharge" that is quite different than what normal church attendance gives. The blessings we receive from going are different, more specific, and we are able to recognize God's hand more in our lives because we are more aligned with Him. As a missionary with a temple in my mission, let alone right next to my zone, I am so blessed to not only have it so close and to be able to go through it quite frequently, but that we can bring people and show them. We can bring them to the visitor's center and teach them about eternal families and baptisms for the dead. It's a great experience and one I am truly blessed to have.

‎This week has been jammed packed with lessons and service opportunities. During an exchange with a companionship in my district, we were able to find 2 new investigators, one of them has actually committed to be baptized before but needs to get married to her boyfriend after living with him for quite some time. Another actually waved us over in a parking lot and wants to meet with us relatively secretly because it's something her husband doesn't want. So we met up at McDonald's down the street later. Now we are working with a new family who has peaked interest in our faith. In our lesson this week we talked about baptism and why 8 is the magic number. We taught them about how all children under 8 who pass away go straight to the presence of God because they are perfect. They have a 7 year-old who is getting excited about the idea of baptism, all we need them to do is to come to church!

‎There is this one neighborhood that is nicknamed by the people who live there as "Méxiquito" or little México. There are probably almost 500 Latinos who live in this little area and so it is a prime area for us missionaries. We don't know why our zone leaders, who's ward boundary this is in, are always in there trying to talk to and teach Hispanic people in there. But anyways, they were in there a couple weeks ago and found this little taco business who sells amazing street tacos. They only do it every other Saturday so we all went together to grab one or two and wow they were good! So many people come to try these tacos so now we've turned it into a finding activity because we can talk to so many Hispanic people.

‎On Valentine's Day we were able to have nice dinner with an awesome young family. Hermano Andrus went on a mission to Argentina and he married his wife who is from Chile. They are such a wonderful family and they bring a lot of light into our branch. And for dinner that night they fed us the best dinner we could've had, Heart Pizza from Papa Murphy's! So lucky for Elder Montague and I who got to enjoy a few of those this month because of you guys.

‎One last thing I want to write about that I've meant to talk about is the church building that the Spanish branch attends. If our family remembers back in June when we went to church at a ward here in Portland, I've been going to that same church building every week now for 2 months! There are 2 other English wards that go here and I'm trying to figure out which one we went to last time. I didn't realize that it was this specific building until I walked out the side door to help a family come in and I totally recognized everything like de-ja-voo. So now every time we go there I imagine our big van parked outside and our large family sitting a few rows in where we were all together 8 months ago. Its a cool thought and just wanted to share it with you.

‎Although it may have snowed, spring is in the air. Before we know it April will be upon us and all our family birthdays will get rolling again. Keep it up with everything you're doing and blessings will come pouring in like the rain(or fall like the snow). I love you so much!

Con Amor,

Elder Fonnesbeck