This week was great! We've been having a lot of lessons with some really great investigators. Oscar has progressed really well. We taught him the Restoration of the Gospel and he said he believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet! We also taught him about the Book of Mormon and gave him 3 Nephi 11 to read. After the lesson, we were talking to some of his friends who had come over to hear the last part of our lesson, and I looked over and he was already reading the chapter! He is so great and we're looking forward to our next lesson with him later this week.

We also have another great investigator named Nuris from the DR. She has a baptismal date for October 7 (the elders had been working with her before we came), so we have been teaching her a lot to prepare her for that day. She has a lot of trials in her life, but she is so faithful and has such a strong desire to follow Christ's example and be baptized that she is willing to do whatever it takes to get there. We taught her the first part of the Plan of Salvation the other day and when we were telling her that we lived as Spirit children with God before we came here, her eyes got so wide and she just said "Ohh, that makes so much sense!" It was super cool! And before we taught her about the Fall of Adam and Eve, she was telling us that she believed it was big sin of Eve to eat of the fruit. But after we taught her that it was necessary for that to happen so that we could come to Earth, she said "Oh my gosh, I need to repent! I feel so bad, I hope the Lord will forgive me for thinking it was a bad thing all this time! I get why it was actually good now" Haha she is so cute. And she is so great at keeping her commitments and reading her Book of Mormon.

It's great that we are all new to this area because we have been able to spend time with our investigators and even some of the members and really get to know them and their families. I feel so close to so many of them! People here are so kind and willing to listen. My companions and I were talking the other day about how we think we probably have the greatest group of investigators in the world! It's true, they're all amazing. The Spirit is so strong in our lessons and our investigator are great at doing their part of reading and praying and knowing the truth for themselves. It's awesome!

Yesterday was crazy. It was super windy and we had appointments in places that were really far, so I was exhausted from all the hard riding we had. Also, a lot of the roads here are either dirt or have tons of potholes so it's not very comfortable for riding. And then we had to cancel our last appointment for the day because we got lost! We were riding around on all these dark streets, it was so sketchy. And we got chased by dogs twice! The dogs here are so scary, they come out of nowhere and start chasing us so fast and trying to bite us. We try to ride with rocks in our bags to throw at them in case they get too close. I've never been afraid of dogs until now. Now I'm absolutely terrified! But we had two really great lessons, one with an investigator and another with a less active member who is actually our landlord. So those lessons made all the other craziness totally worth it! It's so weird because I could be having a really hard day and be in a not-so-great mood, but then we will have a lesson where the Spirit is really strong and the person is so receptive to our message, that it makes me forget all the other bad or hard things that happened that day. I think that's why missions are so amazing, because the Spirit is so strong sometimes that it makes all the other difficult times totally worth it. Being able to see the desire that people have to come unto Christ and to be willing to change for Him is something that I would never trade! It's my favorite part of being a missionary.

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Davidson