Trainin’ Two Sisters

September 1, 2014

 

Hola!

So this week I officially adopted my second daughter. We got put in a trio for the week, and I got to finish up the end of Hermana Nicolosi’s training.  So we’re were 3 gringas right now, just until tomorrow morning though :)  She’s super sweet, and we went and stayed in her house because it’s close, a lot bigger, and has AIR CONDITIONING.  The most amazing blessing ever.  It’s actually the house I lived in the first month of my mission when Hermana Sanchez and I were homeless, so good memories.

So this past week we’ve been working in both areas, La Pastora and Guadalupe, and it’s been fun to teach some different people and also interesting to teach in a trio.

One of our investigators, Lupita, is doing sooo well, we’re pretty excited/happy about her.  She came to church the past few weeks, participating in the classes, has a few friends at church now, is reading the Book of Mormon, and should be getting baptised this month if everything goes well.

Here’s something I really liked from sacrament meeting yesterday.  There was a talk about prayer that really made me think about my own prayers.  Sometimes we get into the habit and don’t really remember that we’re talking with God; it’s just like if we’re ordering at McD’s.  Or like talking to ourselves.  He shared the example of Enos, how he had hunger to talk to God and had so much faith that he prayed for the whole day and night.  So, just a little invitation for the week to make our prayers a little better, more personal, and remember that we’re actually talking to our Heavenly Father.  I know He always listens and answers us and loves us.

Have a great week!

 

Gainin’ Strength

August 18, 2014

Hola!

This weeks been great, probs talking a little too much english with my new comp, but we’re having fun. We have a few great investigators we’re working with, and I know the Lord’s guiding us and strengthening us, even though it’s been a kinda tough lately.  I know all our trials are to build our faith :)

I’ve been studying and thinking a lot about the story of Job this week.  He was a righteous good guy that had pretty much everything going for him, but in like one day he lost all his animals/property, a house fell on all his kids and they died, he got boils, his wife rejected him–pretty much the worst luck ever. And what was his reaction?  He fell down to the ground to worship the Lord and thanked Him.  Wow.  Sometimes I feel like a have a lot of trials, but I need to be grateful for everything, grateful for the good and the bad!  I know the Lord’s blessing us a ton, and I’m so grateful to be sharing His gospel everyday.

Funny story from the week.  We were walking to an appointment when this car stopped next to us, and a guy hopped out and started to talk to us.  He said he’d seen us and felt something inside him that he needed to follow us, that he couldn’t explain why but and apologized that it was weird.  So we told him who we were and talked to him about our message, and he said he’d come to church Sunday, and we wrote down his address to visit him.  So I was thinking holy cow the Spirit prompted him to come talk to us, what a cool experience.  But then he told me that it was something in my eyes, and that “tus ojos me mataron” hahaha.  Kinda creeped me out!  Luckily it’ll be the elders that go visit him, not us!

 

 

 

Gettin’ Soaked in One Way or Another

August 11, 2014

 

These past few weeks have been great!  I’ve got a gringa companion now, which is lots of fun, but it makes it a little harder to communicate sometimes when people don’t understand me.  I can’t look at my companion to translate, but we’re working really hard.  She’s awesome, from Texas, and eats tons of spicy food, which I still haven’t quite worked up to.  I feel like I’m learning lots from her!  We have some great investigators and are finding new ones every week.  The hottest part of the year is almost coming to an end, thank goodness, and it’s actually been raining hard this week. I’m having lots of fun, and can’t believe I’m going to hit the 8 month mark.  I wish time would slow down!  Hope everyone has a fantastic week. :)

 

Meltin’ in Monterrey

July 14, 2014

July 21, 2014

Hola!

Well on July 14 the famous “canícula” began– 40 days of extreme heat up to like 115/120 degrees.  I. Am. Dying.  But one week down, 5ish to go.  There are seriously no people in the street to talk to, because they’re all hiding from the heat.  Ahhh.

Also tomorrow I’m getting a new companion!  Super weird because I’ve been with Hermana Sanchez forever, but I’m excited to learn something new from a new companion.

We’ve been organizing lots of ward activities, so that’s been fun.  We have a FHE for the whole ward tonight, had a “Mormon Marathon” last week, and in a few weeks we are having another game show-type activity.  We’re working hard to find new investigators and have a few that are coming to church every week and progressing and preparing to be baptised.

That’s about all the news I have, I’m loving the mission, even when I’m dying from heat!  Hasta luego!

 

Celebratin’ by Myself

July 7, 2014

 

Happy 4th of JULY!  Not gonna lie, I was missing my country this Friday, but I wore all the red, white and blue I could find :)

The last few weeks have been tough, but I know my Heavenly Father’s always looking out for me. I was really discouraged one morning when I read this scripture in 1 Peter 1:7:

 

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

We experience hard times so that we can grow, and I know our challenges are opportunities to build our faith, opportunities even more precious than gold. So I’m trying to see the positive side of everything! The past few weeks we’ve been walking and walking and walking. And honestly have a lot of different challenges in this area, and haven’t seen a lot of the fruits of our labor these 5 months. This week we’ve just been looking for new investigators trying to find people that have been prepared by the Lord.

A general authority came to the mission and talked about green tomatoes. We can try to convince an unripe tomatoe to turn red and we can help it and pray for it but it’s not going to ripen any faster. And it’s the same with investigators. There’s a lot that aren’t quite ready to accept this gospel and in their time the Lord will touch their heart, but we as missioanries need to look for the red tomatoes. We waste a lot of time with green ones.

Anyways, so we’ve been searching for red tomatoes and they’re hard to find and we’re walking a whole lot. We have people we could teach if we just wanted to have more lessons but they aren’t progressing and it’s wasting the Lord’s time. It takes a lot of faith and patience to do things the Lord’s way even though we can’t always see the results yet. But I know the Lord always does His part and when we exercise our faith.

Yesterday was probably the best sacrament meeting I’ve been in and I felt the Spirit strongly, and 7 investigators came! I was honestly so happy yesterday at church and know the Lord puts everything in place when we trust in Him. We went back out to work in the afternoon and are still having a lot of challenges but I know we’re doing His work and He’s working lots of miracles here.

Hope everyone has a great week! :)

Visitin’ the Temple

June 19, 2014

 

The temple in the morning!  SO beautiful!

 

 

 

 

The hermanas in our district had a baptism that we went to.   We were actually the ones who contacted him, but he lived in their area.  He was super happy!

 

Keepin’ Super Busy

May 26, 2014

 

Hola!!!  This is Francisca our investigator who is 91 years old!

Things are going so well here! Hands down best week so far of my mission. We had 7 investigators come to church yesterday and had a really successful week. A few new people we’re teaching that are really excited and prepared to accept the gospel in their lives. I’m learning soo much and and so happy here! This really is the Lord’s work and He’s in charge, He’s answering our prayers and blessing us with lots of miracles in our area.

Last week we hiked cerro de la silla again, but went all the way to the top, and I’ve never been so exhausted. But definitely worth it, the view from the top was amazing!  When we got to the top, there were these weird animals called tejones, I have no idea what that is in english.  There was also this cave we went in, and there were hundreds of giant spider (EW!!); they were like daddy long legs but their legs were literally like 3 or 4 inches long and the bodies black with bluish purple. I’ve never been so claustrophobic. But super beautiful hike and good exercise :)

One of our investigators bought these candy things for us. People always feed us–it’s awesome.

 

By the way, the cockroaches are starting to come out of hiding and into our house!  Super nasty, but I’m a pro at killing them. The big ones are literally 2 inches long and FLY :/ ahhh so gross!

 

Explorin’ the Wilds of Monterrey

May 19, 2014

I’m sooo sore!  We hiked like crazy all the way to the very tip top of El Cerro de la Silla today.  We left at 6:30 in the morning and got back around 2, ate McDonalds super quickly, and then we were running around trying to get everything done.  We went to like 4 different cyber cafes, and all of them were full so we ended up having like 30 min. on email.  But everything’s good here, we’re working really hard, it’s hot and I’m burnt and so sore, but were busy and that’s good!   Love you all so much!

 

It was honestly such a crazy view from the top and definitely worth the pain.  Never again though!

These furry creatures were at the very top–we really don’t know what they are!   That centipede was 6 inches long too!  Below is my favorite picture–thousands of ladybugs all over this grass!

 

Perusin’ the Monday Market

May 5, 2014

 

Happy 5 de Mayo!!!

Just kidding, nobody actually celebrates that here.  My companera thinks it’s really weird that in the US we all eat tacos and wear sombreros and have fiestas on 5 de Mayo.  Good thing I get to eat tacos everyday anyways!

My week’s been really good, pretty normal.  Lots of sun and lots of work to do!  One thing we’ve been doing on Mondays lately is contacting in the mercado.  There’s a really cool street fair-type thing every Monday night, and literally everyone is there, so it’s the perfect opportunity to talk to people and find people to teach!  And buy food.  I’m always a little distracted when we’re there because there’s jewelry, clothes, and lots of sparkly things so I want to buy it all.

We we’re talking to a guy in the street the other day, and mid-conversation I noticed he was wearing a Washington hat!  It had the names of a few cities, I think Moses Lake and Royal City, and I don’t remember the rest but he said he found it in a store here so who knows!  But I felt a little closer to home.

That’s pretty much all for this week.  We had a few investigators come to church yesterday and are seeing slow but steady progress in our area and in our tiny ward!

 

 

 

 

Pronouncin’ like a Gringa

April 30, 2014

This week has been sooo stinkin hot. But everythings going good.  I’m going to be super brown by the time I’m done here. Actually somebody thought I was Mexican the other day,, and I was pretty excited about that, but the moment I open my mouth it’s pretty obvious I’m not from here.  Pronunciation is probably the most frusturating thing right now because I actually know the words now, and I’ll finish saying saying something that I thought was really good and at the end they’re like “no le entendi” como en serio??  I need to work lots to get rid of my accent!

On monday we didn’t have p-day because the new missionaries flew in the from MTC, and two of the hermanas accompanied us for the day before they got their real comps on tuesday.  It was pretty fun to change it up; I was with an hermana from Republica Dominicana who is super nice!  Also, I’m officially done with my 12 weeks of training, so we leave an hour earlier in the morning to work, and we can do splits now!   So we’ll be able to double our efforts and share the gospel with more people.  Woohoo!

We have an investigator named Victor who’s honestly so prepared by the Lord–it’s crazy.  We found him looking for a different house, and we asked him for directions, and he said he was looking to find a different church.  He’s preparing for baptism, watched conference a few weeks ago and loved it, and knows this is true!   He always feeds us, and the other night he gave us these pens with flowers that his daughter makes, and it was so cute because he’s a 60-something year old man.  But it’s been really cool to see him learn and have his prayers answered!  The Lord is preparing lots of people and working right alongside us!