Hermana Childs: It's been a crazy week!

This week we got to go to the beach!!! :) I was so excited! I had always wanted to serve part of my mission (preferably only one transfer) near the beach. It was so beautiful. We had a blast while we were down there. They had a really fun board walk where I bought a few fun things to remember New Jersey and the hispanics. We played on the shoreline finding sea shells and letting our feet get wet. It was a BEAUTIFUL day.

The next few days followed and were packed. Because we now have the ipads, the headquarters of the church have asked us to put our whole area book into the ipad so that we can use the new applications of "Daily Planner" and "Area Book Planner" on them. They are really effective tools, but if any of you have ever seen a missionary's area book, you know how much information is in there. President Taggart wanted all of that in before Saturday night. It was crunch time. To update them, we needed internet and we don't have access to that in very many places, so the majority of the time, you could have found us at the church. After studies, the beginning few hours of the day were spent in the chapel updating. When we could, we would leave for an appointment, and be back at it later that day.

We worked super hard and actually finished!!! It was a miracle!! :)

We have seen a lot of progress with one of our investigators, Raul. We found him not too long ago. He was a referral from our Branch Mission Leader. We meet with him almost every day in the Branch Mission Leader's house. The spirit is always there and often times we leave with tear filled eyes. He is so special. He is running towards baptism. He is on date for the 11th of July, but we are trying to move it up to the 5th because he leaves to Mexico shortly after.

Jose, well.....he broke my heart this last week. We stopped by on my birthday to see him and we could tell that something was up. He had left the appointment because of a phone call but after 20 minutes of leaving us to talk with his neighbors we started to wonder what was really going on. We decided to check and see if everything was alright. We found him arguing with his girlfriend. The night before he had messed up pretty bad. He went to a club, got drunk, started to use drugs again, and sold everything he had to buy more drugs. He even sold his phone. When he told us I was crushed. He had been doing SO good. Just 2 days before we took him out to get ice cream and were talking about the priesthood and how he wants to serve a mission. Words can't describe how I felt that night.

The next day he called us and asked us for help. He got kicked out of his house and was now homeless because of the decisions that he had made. There was nothing that we could do, so we called the Branch Mission Leader.

Things are slowly being patched up with him. He lost his baptismal date, but we are working on getting him another one. He came to church for the second time yesterday and said that he has "really repented". My heart still hurts.

It's been a really crazy week.

My departing temple trip is tomorrow and I will be staying the night, with another sister, at the mission home. I'm really excited to spend time with the Taggart family.

This week, I have also been invited to go to the temple with a family that I served in Jersey City. They will be getting their endowments this weekend and will be sealed shortly after :)

I am so happy for them. :)

I love you all.

Hermana Childs