Mexico Week 65 -- Finding Peace in the Storms

Dear Family! 

Today marks the start of my last transfer! I will be finishing my mission here in Uruapan with Hermana Villa! Does that freak you guys out or what? I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that I only have 6 weeks left.  I’ve been reflecting a lot on my whole mission and how beautiful it has been and how much I miss people from other areas and how much I’ll miss people that are here, but I then I get excited to see y’all at the same time!  Who knows??!!  Too many feelings! 

But to explain my pictures to you! 

This week I had splits with Hermana Peña! She’s too cute and too funny and we had a good time here in Jardines! We taught some great lessons and I have some good goals for my last little bit here. 

This is Hermana Castillo. She helped us in some of our appointments this week and she just hit one year as a member. We visited her last night and she was kind of in a rough spot with some family situations and as I hugged her I just told her to hang in there and not get discouraged. She started crying and it’s the first time I’ve seen her cry. I love her so much and we’re looking for ways to help her. Hermana Maribel is also going through rough stuff right now and last night we knocked on her door and her kids told us she was showering.  The house was a wreck, so we snuck in and cleaned.  We wrote her a note, and were getting ready to leave, but then she caught us!  So, we stayed a little longer and shared a message with her.  She kind of had a moment too.  Hey!  We all have those little moments!

Hermana Caracosa is in our ward here.  Her 18 year-old son died after two weeks in the hospital.  He got sick and two weeks later died as they found an infection in his brain.  She went to church yesterday and sat in the back. She looked so sad and alone, we went and sat with her.  She just started crying.  We have been visiting her this week too.

I realized in the last 24 hours that there are so many people suffering. This life isn’t easy and the only thing that gives us peace is living the gospel. Your heart just breaks in like a hundred different pieces and you start looking for talks or scriptures or something to help, or you start writing a note, and there are just so many people that need us to lift them up or bring them light. I feel like our whole lives can be productive and happy if we are constantly serving and thinking about others instead of our own problems. 

Got to love my best friend Victor. He says that he’s going to invite me to his baptism in about three years and that if I cry, he’ll hug me.  Precious right? 

We went to visit Hermana Karla this week and we found her in bed because she felt really bad.  We started cleaning her house ... sweeping, mopping, dishes, putting her clean clothes out to dry, and then the elders call and tell us that the family we were going to eat with isn’t home and so we start thinking of who we can call. Hermana Karla hears and tells us that we’ll be eating with her. She is precious and we love her, but money is so tight.  She leaves and we see her ask her neighbor for money and then goes a buys chicken and other things and sits us down to eat. I felt the Spirit so much and people that literally have nothing give us everything they have. They are so humble and just give and give and it was special there with her in her house and she’s also getting closer and closer to being prepared for baptism! 

Walking later, we find Hermana Hermila who’s less active and her partner Alfonso who’s Catholic about to wash the car. We decide to help them and it was so fun. Then, on Sunday, they show up at church for the first time in about three months! 

 Claudia and Naty!  Woo! Hoo!  I have some great stories from this last week!! They are progressing so much.  They have been working on the word of wisdom and keeping the Sabbath day holy.  They still don’t feel like they are ready for baptism though.  Hermano Eduardo went with us to teach them and we felt the Spirit so much. We decided to fast with them so that she and we can know if she’s ready. It was such a powerful and she told us that she wants to be baptized because she wants to change and start over and lighten her burdens and she receives every commandment with an obedient heart and they went to church on Sunday and she was taking pictures of the manual in relief society because she liked what it said and wanted to read it again later! Haha! They fasted!! Naty too!! We love them so much and when they found out I was going home in six weeks, they weren’t too fond of the idea and are already making plans so that I visit.  I love them too much!  Oh, and one day we showed her one of Jeffrey R. Holland’s talks and we left YouTube there in her house. She tells us the next day that she watched videos for 3 hours!! General Conference talks, Mormon Messages, but she was there till her son kicked her out! Crazy right? She is so great. 

Talking about General Conference, after watching the talk with Hermana Claudia, I became practically obsessed with Conference Talks, but listening to them. I’m going to download them in English today because I have tantas ganas to listen to their voices! It’s not the same in Spanish. I am turning into a Conference junkie!

This is the Ortiz family! They helped us out on Sunday when our meal plans fell through and they are so great.  Their teenagers are passing through a rowdy stage and we talked a lot about the importance of family home evening, family prayer, and they are so excited to start! 

I was thinking about how so many times in this life, we pass through storms. The winds start, the rain starts, or hail, and we kind of panic.  Ha! Ha!  I have been learning so much about finding peace in the storms. The hymns are my happy safe place. I know you’ll make fun of me for my MoTab CD, but I love the music. It’s one of the first things that instantly helps me feel peace. I love the words of the prophets, just hearing their voices also makes me feel peace. I am learning so much about the enabling power of the Atonement. Without prayer, without the scriptures, without obedience, the storms last so much longer. With the Lord’s help, we are passing by with rain boots, a huge umbrella, and a long rain jacket! 

As I read the emails from today, something totally hit me.  Sometimes it is really easy to get stressed in the mission. I think, well actually I’m pretty sure, my goal for my last transfer is expressing my love for everyone every day ... for the Lord, for my companion, for the members, for our leaders, for our investigators, literally everyone, and my focus for these last six weeks is going to be showing sincere love every day. 

I love y’all tons. I know that the Lord lives. I know that He forgives. I know that He wants us to be happy. I love y’all too much! 

Mexico Week 59 -- With Him, All Things Are Possible

Dear sweet family...I have pretty much no time today!! 

Hermano Lopez was transferred and Hermana Villa is my new companion!  I’m still anxiously awaiting her arrival! She also got here the same time as Hermana Gonzalez and Hermana Lopez! Ha! Ha! I will be companions will all of the Hermanas from their generation! 

This morning began at 2 a.m. so that we could be at the bus station by 4:30am for Hermana Lopez’s bus. Then the sister training leaders, Hermana Guevarra and I headed to their house to sleep a little more, study and start P-Day.  We are all walking zombies! So as we leave the house at 3:30am this morning, Hermana Lopez tells me, no worries, there’s always a taxi here.  Um, except this early in the morning!  We found nothing.  We are walking the streets at 3:30 in the morning looking for a taxi and after about 30 minutes, we finally found one!!  Goodness, the adventures of the mission!

I am excited for my new companion and know that the Lord always has a plan.  I’m learning to trust Him more and more. I know that the Lord needs Hermana Villa and I here in Jardines for some great reasons! 

So I won’t have time to you all my stories until next week, but I just want y’all to know that I’m happy. Sometimes I struggle.  Sometimes I doubt.  But overall, I am happy and learning and growing so much. On Monday I was pondering a lot about some letters I had received and also our President’s weekly message to us as missionaries. I felt the Spirit so strongly and I know that I need to change. I started to talk with more and more people in the street.  We started to look for more new investigators.  I was constantly praying.  The minute a negative thought entered my mind, I started praying. As I read again this morning the talk about consecrated missionaries, I felt inspired and know that the Lord has a plan. I have to be patient and diligent and just keep working until we start seeing results. 

On Saturday we had a rougher day!  We had been giving it everything we had, but just not finding people at home.  We arrived home exhausted!  I showered to just shake it off. I had a good cry and I remember thinking, I can’t do this ... not with my own weaknesses, and with how small the ward is, and my companion .. these things are combining for such a slow progress of the work, I just can’t.  I went to sleep listening to “I Know that my Redeemer Lives” and it was the first thing I played Sunday morning when I woke up.  During church, I felt the Spirit so strongly and as I took the sacrament.  I felt so much peace.

I don´t tell y’all this story so that you worry or anything like that.  I want to share it because sometimes we all think we can’t.  My mom jokes that being a follower of the Savior is hard work, and it is so true.  It is hard and it requires sacrifice on our part.  We all have those moments when things don’t seem to be going the way we want them to, or moving fast enough in the direction we want them to move.  We might even have a good cry in the shower and feel like giving up, like we can’t do it anymore.  It’s not true.  With the Savior, we can. I know it! I feel it even when sometimes I forget. I love this gospel and the peace it brings.  He knows the path and He will guide us along, if we just trust Him.

I hope that y’all have a great week!  Love you! 

Mexico Week 54 -- Life in Jardines

Well I am in Uruapan, Michoacan!  My area is called Jardines 1!  It was a five hour bus ride to arrive here and it is so pretty!  It is very sunny here! Ha!  Ha!  Almost no clouds and lots of hills! Or in other words, I will be brown and buff and thin leaving here!  I have been getting home so tired at night for booking it up and down the hills! Please enjoy my sunburned pic!

My companion is Hermana Lopez. She is from Oaxaca and is an only child. She just finished her training.  We are working well together and getting to know each other more. However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss Hermana Gonzalez just a little bit … or a lot a bit!!

This week I’ve been getting settled in. I’m not very good at changes, and sometimes you just miss people, but I have been working hard and getting to know everyone here. I realized this week just how much I love meeting people. I saw so many members open up and my companion told me that they were members that didn’t really like them too much beforehand. We have a lot of work to do here gaining the confidence of the members! I just feel a strong desire to serve and strengthen the families here. My mission has taught me so much about how much the members too need to be strengthened.  We have a lot of work to do! 

Happy Birthday Mom! 46 years old! Just a little bit closer to 50.  Sorry I didn’t tell you last week, but I promise I remembered the actual day of your birthday! 

Today we had a zone activity! We played charades, fill in the blank from Preach my Gospel, a little basketball, a little soccer, and of course catapulting water balloons.  It was a lot of fun and Hermana Quisbert is in my zone!  She goes home at the end of this transfer ... crazy stuff, right?  It has been so fun seeing her again! 

Church on Sunday was awesome! It’s a tiny ward and about 70 or 80 people attending every week. This week one of our investigators Marisela, went to church! She has twins, Ricardo and Delia. They’re 6 years old and she is just stressed out. We see her pretty frustrated but trying to find answers. We taught her about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy on Saturday and we felt the spirit so strongly as we talked about the sacrament. She says, “I need to go¨ and there she was on Sunday and she stayed the 3 hours and loved it! We are hoping to see her progress a lot. Oh and Ricky was REALLY hungry after three hours of church and had a little bit of bad attitude for the picture!  Ha! Ha!

The other family that went to church is the Espino family. The parents are recent converts from December I think, but the dad doesn’t want to go anymore and the kids never wanted to get baptized. I’m kind of doubting they were prepared before being baptized, but they are also so special. We have a lot of work to do in this house! Their teenagers are kind of nervous and shy and giggle a lot, but on Saturday we also taught about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and we felt the Spirit a ton. The oldest likes going to church and was convincing her younger sister who was scared they would ask her questions and she wouldn’t know the answer. The mom with her three daughters arrives at church and everyone went to their own classes happy! Their youngest is Paola and she is just precious. She almost always says the opening and closing prayer just because she likes too. She loves the church and I think she encourages her whole family! 

There are so many great people here, but I have to tell y’all about Mike. I still haven’t taught him, but this week was incredible. Since Monday we were looking for him … calling, going to his house, everything, and nothing. On Friday we finally found him. He comes outside, in front of his house, and I introduce myself and we start asking how he is and he starts explaining, and then says, “I just can’t express myself in Spanish” and starts speaking in perfect English. He tells us that he is in a deep depression, like it’s just darkness and there’s no light.  He feels like he’s falling and falling and wants to take somebody’s hand but there’s no one there. He says he’s a black sheep that has wandered away from the shepherd but he wants to find Him again. He’s doubting that God loves Him. He’s crying through all of this and don’t forget he is speaking in English!  He says, ”I’m sorry!  I barely know you, and I’m crying so much.  But, I just feel you care, like I don’t know, I just feel like you really care about me.”  This is where I start crying too. I started testifying of our Heavenly Father’s love. He says, “I want to change my life now, not tomorrow, not next week, now. I know I just need to open the book, it’s all there if I just open the Book of Mormon. On Saturday we stopped by to give him a list of uplifting scriptures but only his wife was home. My companion had told me that she didn’t want to listen, but we started chatting with her. She too opened up that her mom died two months ago and it was just hard, that her whole marriage has been hard. She agreed to listen to us with her husband on Tuesday and we are incredibly excited. We see the true possibility of them progressing as a family!

I am happy to be here ... sad and a little nervous as I realize how fast my mission is passing by, but happy. I’m not perfect and I mess up everyday, it is so hard for me to accept the Savior’s Atonement sometimes, but I love Him and our Father in Heaven, and this gospel. I know that I cannot be happy without living it. I can’t be happy without being obedient. I want so badly to make our Father in Heaven proud. I want to live with Him again. I want to realize how short and important our earthly life is. I just want to be righteous, I just want to give the best of me and help everyone here to feel the Savior’s love. I want to represent Him well. I love you all too much and hope that you’re happy! 

Mexico Week 4 -- Colored Pencils and Learning to Love

Hola to my favorite people in the world!!  I can't believe I've already been here a month! Totally blows my mind!

So I had my first heartbreak this week.  I've never had a bad breakup.  I had a good dad growing up and now.  The first man in my life broke my heart.  Ouch!  We had a lesson with Carlos this week and we taught the Atonement.  I always feel the strongest spirit in their home, and so of course I was a flippin baby throughout the whole thing, but the words honestly flew out of my mouth.  My testimony of the Savior is so strong and I think the hardest part is that I saw it in his face a few times.  I saw his face change but then he gets all gruff again.  This week in the Book of Mormon I was reading about King Noah. He started to feel the Spirit, the truth of what Abinadi was saying, and he was going to let him go, but the priests ¨stirred him up unto anger¨ ... Carlos is a bit like King Noah.  I know he feels it, and I know he's unhappy.  I know how much he needs his Savior.  He says all the right things, but at the end of the day, he's not willing to start making the little changes.  Leaving that lesson was flippin hard.  I feel so much love for him and I feel like I promised him before this life.  Imm pretty sure the whole Contreras family teased me before this life about coming to their mission and having to figure out Spanish but they promised to help me out!  I feel like Carlos was just as hard headed before this life too but on the other team!   Haha!  Anywho, as we left, I literally felt terrible.  I felt like I missed a prompting, or maybe we could have planned or practiced more before, or maybe if I wasn't tired that night, or maybe if we had been more diligent during the day, cosas asi.  As we were waiting for the bus, I had this peace come over me.  I literally heard in my head, ¨Lex, I am so proud of you. He's just not ready yet, be patient and keep loving.  I promise I've prepared people for you.¨

It wasn't really until the next morning during studies that the lesson sunk in for me.  I understand the tiniest bit of what the Savior experienced.  People reject Him and His powerful love all the time.  He weeps.  He truly hurts every time this happens.  He understands and I'm so grateful that I get to feel a portion of His love for other people.  I want to stand proxy for Him.  I want to have an impact in people's lives.  I want to have this kind of love for every person here.  I want to be perfectly diligent and obedient.  Most of all, I just want to testify and help people understand His love.  I'm reading Jesus the Christ right now and there's a part where it talks about the apostles.  They were imperfect, they didn't understand everything, in fact they were children.  We're all children.  However, the best thing about children is that they're willing to learn.  They're trying to understand, and they're willing to change and follow.  It's kind of crazy looking back on this experience because I can feel how crazy it was that I let so many discouraging thoughts into my head.  We really have to watch our thoughts!  Satan is tricky!  I promise! 

So I'm using my journal to write this letter and it's kind of funny how everything is in Spanglish!  Haha!!  I'm really getting a kick out of this! 

We also had a lesson with Saira this week.  This is her basset hound and I love him.  I think I might be switching loyalties from labs to basset hounds.  Her mom had surgery and has been in the hospital.  Saira is taking care of her.  She was different that day, not as feisty, not as demanding, more just taking it all in and asking lots of questions.  Saira told us that her mom has cancer and is preparing to die and that all of this just scares her.  So many times in that lesson I just felt the Spirit so strong and then bore testimony.  Saira commented on how beautiful my Spanish has become so quickly, but I just told her that there are things her Heavenly Father wants her to know and so He gives me the words. She reading the Book of Mormon too.  It blows my mind to watch the Savior work in people's lives. I love Saira ... I really just love her. I want to help her increase her faith. 

Fun fact ... We were talking with people in the street and a man read my palms!  Apparently I'm very independent or something like that. I don't know...haha!

I've been reading the Liahona and the scriptures in Spanish during our language time.  I was reading an article about the Savior.  There was a section that talked about the word Atonement.  In Spanish it's not in the Bible at all.  In English, it was in there somewhere between one and three times.  In the Book of Mormon, the word Atonement appears almost 30 times!!  When they talk about plain and precious truths being taken from the Bible...ding ding ding.  This word is so crucial!!  It's everything, and it somehow was taken out of the Bible. My mind was blown.  I have a goal to read the Book of Mormon six times on my mission and the Bible from start to finish once. 

Now for the Reynaga family. In all honesty, I didn't have the strongest love for them the past couple of weeks.  Pedro Reynaga is in his fifties or sixties, I think.  He is less active and always asks the most bizarre questions, but he's been struggling in his faith lately.  His daughter is also less active and has so many kids that are always all over the place.  Then there's Juan Carlos.  He's pretty much all there but he had an embolism and there a few effects.  He's pretty religious, always wears his cross, but he wasn't understanding that there was only one true church.  I was honestly wondering why we hadn't left him.  Not to mention, I can't understand a word either of them says.  He changes his reason all the time for not wanting baptism.  He wasn't progressing, and then ... he started reading the Book of Mormon, and he's retaining what he's reading. 

We arrived at their house for a lesson this week and Juan Carlos tells us that he wants to be baptized.  He wants to buy his own clothes and everything.  His baptism is the 29th of March!  He really touched my heart.  Pedro is changing too.  The past couple of lessons, his questions have been changing and this week he told us he's confident in his testimony. My love is growing!  I was challenged to gain a testimony of my mission call.  I believe I'm supposed to be here but I don't have an unshakable knowledge yet.  This lesson was a time when I felt the Spirit so strongly that I'm helping people here, that the Lord is using me!  

Then comes Sunday ... all morning I had this thought that I needed to bring my colored pencils.  I was thinking what the heck, my bag is heavy enough with scriptures, why do I need my colored pencils?!  Anywho, I brought them.  We got to church and Pedro and Juan Carlos are sitting in the back, but two of the kids are sitting in the front row.  Guess who was pretty rowdy during the sacrament?  Hahaha!  Hermana Valdez and I moved to sit with them after the sacrament and then they colored so reverently!  Isn't the Spirit great? They were honestly so impressed with my 24 pack because there were ¨muchos muchos colores!"  Sometimes we really forget how blessed we are. Just the littlest thing we take for granted and even expect them.  After they colored, they both sat and read my scriptures.  Roxton is 9 and Elisa is 8.  Literally my heart melted.  Kids are so close to our Heavenly Father.  I feel the pure, simple love that Jesus has for kids.  In sacrament meeting, the thought came to me that these are some of the kids waiting for me.  We want to teach them if their mom gives us permission.  I am so excited, especially if they come to their uncle's baptism!  My heart is really opening up to some crazy love! 

I just want to wrap this baby up, one by letting you all know just how much I love you. And secondly, to testify of the Savior. His love is real, I know it.  There are so many distractions, so many thoughts that prevent us from feeling it, but He's always with us. This week I loved the song ¨Gethsemane¨by Kenneth Cope.  In all honesty, we watched the Atonement happen from before we were here.  We felt so much pain, but yet so much gratitude and determination to live this life right.  We wanted to come to the Savior and wipe away His blood, but we couldn't.  But now that we're here, He can come to us.  I just know it with my whole heart. Once we crowd out all the business, we can really feel it. 

I love you all to the moon and back!