Mis queridos,

I decided, what the hay, why not just share almost my whole letter with Presidente with all of you this week?! ¿Por qué no? Here you go, miracle story and all:
"We have had a difficult time finding new investigators for a few weeks and we really focused on this the past week. We felt like we were talking to more people and contacting in the streets, and we found five new investigators! But none of them were from contacts! They are all member referrals. This is a miracle for me because member referrals are so great to teach and we received blessings from doing our part, even if it wasn´t in the way we thought it would come. We are going to put our faith to the test again this week. We have a companionship goal of helping 4 people be baptized this week but none of our investigators have fechas. We decided last night to prepare for a baptism this week and work hard and put the rest in Heavenly Father´s hands. Because we know that there are hundreds of prepared people here. We talked to the bishop this morning and told him we are preparing for a baptism without a name...and he thinks we are a bit crazy but that´s ok. He won´t after there is a baptism Saturday!
Milena is so strong in the gospel and one of our new investigators is a referral from her. She plans to meet with us every week and helps teach her friend in visits. It is so great to have member support like her and to see her growing in the gospel. Her husband is working on having his membership restored and they are preparing to go the temple at the end of this year.
I am repenting of my attitude toward weekly planning. I really don´t love it, but I understand the importance and we do it faithfully every week. But I have not put all my effort into planning to help people come to church, especially with daily contact. We did this this week and followed through with our plans and all of our investigators were coming Saturday night...and not one of them came Sunday morning. The only investigator that came was a surprise investigator who has been in Peru for 3+ weeks and is now back. But we know this is just a trial of our faith and we will do it all again this week...and next week! And we WILL see the blessings from it.
I gained a new insight into having ¨charla franca¨ with investigators and the power of calling people to repentance boldly and every visit. I felt different after doing this during the week and want to keep that feeling. There really is no power like pure testimony."
So...yeah. A baptism without an investigator. ¿Por qué no? I´ve been rather frustrated with our investigators of late. Who I love SO much but are all just not there yet with what we call ¨fe activa¨ -active faith, maybe would be a good translation, I don´t know. But they just need to take that first step into the dark to see the light and receive their witness. So...we decided we are going to practice what we preach! ¿Por qué no? Heavenly Father loves His children even more than we do, us included, and He will guide us to them or them to us.
Oh, consejo de barrio. I never even knew how ward council worked before the mission-let alone attended one. Theya re so rough here and I want to leave crying just about every time, ok every time. But it is all for learning and experience´s sake. I WILL learn how to work effectively with the ward...I just have no idea how to do it now.

We just played basketball with Fabi. She is so great. (professional soccer player!) She´s gonna get baptized soon. We just don´t know when-but Heavenly Father does :-) haha (but really)

Oh yeah, Mom--I made zucchini bread for the Hinckley´s and it was warm when they got there and a big hit.muahahaha Who knew? I thought you´d be proud. It was so great to see you yesterday! It made me so happy when the video froze on your face at the beginning for like 30 seconds and I just smiled on my end :-) My Mom is so beautiful. You just get prettier every time I see you. Thanks for all the support--I don´t know how I´d do it without you. I wouldn´t be able to.MUAH! Huge hug and kiss through the 'puter.

Enjoy the pics!haha they are silly this week.

HAPPY MOTHER´S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Elder Dalton sent me a Happy ¨future¨ Mother´s day email today.ahahaha so presh! We´ll just save that bad boy for a very distant future... ...ahahaha)

Love always and forever,

Hermana Clarissa Dalton