Buenas Tardes darling family!
How are you all? I hope
you’re doing well and smiling and all that jazz! First things first ... the
pictures!
The food is a chile reyeno.
It is a chile stuff with cheese basically and I just love them! One of
my favorite things here!
Our electric stove finally arrived! Now we eat more than cereal! Ha! Ha!
Hermana Gonzalez and I ate an unnatural number of quesadillas this
week!
Hermana Irma has been making so many piñatas and they are just
getting better and better!
I have decided to better live the Word of Wisdom and that
includes less coke. Now just every once
in a while, there is a mini one!
This is Hermana Pamela. Probably
one of the toughest people I know. She’s had some pretty rough times these past
few months, but she is so sweet and tries to serve the best she can at church.
We love her!!
Sunday night was a party!
Our Zone Leaders call and ask if three sisters can stay with us one
night. We tell them no problem. We arrive at the bus station and there are
seven sisters and four of them have no idea where they’re going. We are calling
all the leaders, nobody knows anything, and well, we slept all nine of us in
our house last night! The good news is that I got to chat with Hermana Valdez
for a while! I love her too much! She is training right now and goes home in seven
weeks! Crazy right?! Ahh, she told me to
tell you all that she loves you so much!
Thanks for her package … and she is just a little bit sad that you
forgot to send her the promised iPod! LOL!
I also got to see the MTC Crew! They also slept in our house and we went to
the city to sign Visa documents today. It
was fun to catch up and see where everybody is at! We all just sat and thought … WOW! Time is flying.
I also got to see Hermana Buttars today! We had a special conference early this morning
to watch Meet the Mormons. It was SO
good! I may have had a little moment at
the end when the missionary is leaving and the whole family is crying, and then
the little sister starts sobbing, but it was just a feel good movie. You all should really invite people to see it!
I realized just how blessed I am to be a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We know the truth. We’re happy.
We know how to find strength and comfort in our trials. We enjoy this life. We have felt the pure
love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, now we just need to share it! Long story short, I loved the movie and it
reminded me of so many blessings.
This week we also had another special training with President
Camarillo. It was so good! I felt
excited to work and like the batteries had been recharged. We talked about how much the Lord is preparing
people to receive us. We worked with
some members and practiced how we can practice with them to help them share the
gospel. I felt a hope to be able to
increase and strengthen my faith. Our
President is so powerful and I know that he’s a servant of the Lord.
Leaving our training, we go visit Hermana Elsa and Hermano Jose
to put into play what we learned. We
asked them to think about someone that they loved a lot, someone they worried
about, someone that isn’t a member of the church. They both thought of a few names and we
practiced with them how they could share their testimony and invite their
friends and family members to learn more. At the end, we knelt in prayer and Hermana
Elsa prayed for every single one of those people. She prayed for us that we could find people to
teach and that all of us could have missionary experiences. It was the best and wow, what an experience! Visiting them another day, Hermana Elsa starts
to talk about how one day on the bus she started thinking some of her friends
who go to church and show their devotion few times a year. She thought about the true gospel of Jesus
Christ and how it requires a constant effort. She says, “these people just don’t understand
what Christ did for us.” Leaving their
house Hermana Gonzalez and I were in shock! She has changed so much and wow, it just warms
my heart seeing her like that! In Gospel
Principles we talked about faith and Hermano Jose raises his hand and says,
Bishop, I just want to invite those that are here today to pray and fast to
week, to really ask to see if they believe this is the truth, to ask our
Heavenly Father for a confirmation. It
was so awesome!!
We visited Hermana Judith this week and ahhh, what an
experience. She has been having a pretty
rough time and Satan is really going after her. About a week and a half ago we
felt impressed to give her a Word of Wisdom pamphlet so that she could read it
before we taught her. About a week and a
half later, we felt like it was time to teach her. We went and visited her in the store they’re
working in and we start teaching about the Word of Wisdom. She tells us that the first time she read the
pamphlet she was kind of skimming when she was at work and she said, “NO
COFFEE??!!” The Hermanas lost me with
that one, this game’s over! She said in
order to read better with more attention, she hides the pamphlet in her shirt
and goes to the bathroom at work. She
started looking up all the scriptures and started to understand. She said her coworkers started teasing her for
wanting to be Mormon and one of them says, “How are you going to be a Mormon if
you LOVE coffee?!” She says, in this
life we have to make sacrifices in order to follow Christ. She’s so brave and just shares what she knows
and feels with people. She wants to be
baptized with her son! She tells us, “I
just feel so privileged that you found me and that I know the truth.” She is so special and her prayers are the
best. She knows Joseph Smith was a prophet and in her prayer she says, ¨I know
I’m on the right path.¨ We love her!!
We also visited Hermana Irma this week. It was an incredible experience. She had a lot
of questions about the Atonement. At
first, they were cooking and we in the kitchen sharing a lesson, but as we
testified and as the Spirit came stronger and stronger, everyone stopped what
they were doing and it was silent, the looks on their faces said everything. We just testified of Christ and what we need
to do in order to receive all of the blessings of the Atonement. It was a total wow moment! We felt the Spirit so strong.
We have some newer investigators that live with Hermano Victor. They are Suleina and Miguel. This week we taught them about the law of
chastity and the importance of families. They are praying and went to church and want
to form their family right. They loved
church and we have a lot of hope in them! They have a beautiful 2-year old daughter and
she has blue eyes and is too cute!
This week we also kept working with the Moreno family. We are
looking for a family that can help them and just keep them in your prayers
okay? They need so much help. On Fridays, we have our service project and
this week we decided to work with their two kids that are really struggling in
school. Well, actually, they don’t go a
lot and can’t really write or read. Only
one of them knows the alphabet. We went
all kindergarten teacher on them! These
kids just need a lot of help and they’ve stolen my heart!
Just one more thing! This
week, I realized something really important. At the end of our weekly planning, Hermana
Gonzalez and I had our companionship inventory. We worked some things out that had been
bothering us and I realized how many times in my life mom and dad, you’ve tried
to have companionship inventory with me … I guess that is what happens when
both of your parents served a mission! LOL!
I was kind of too prideful to accept it. When we talked about priorities, or taking
care of Cody, or whatever, I just got defensive and didn’t listen and didn’t
want anybody else telling me how I could be better or improve. I was too prideful and wanted to realize
myself in where I was falling short and fix it myself. I realized that in the mission, my companions
and I have listened to each other, we accept suggestions, we try to be better
and we work together. I am so incredibly
grateful for my mission and all that I am learning. I truly feel like I’m getting better and
better and preparing myself to form my own family. Life is great! Humility is key!
I
love you all to the moon and back and I’m here for whatever you might need!
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