Mexico Week 55 -- Stop and Ask Questions

My dear sweet family!! 

I love you all too much! But really, I am so incredibly grateful for the family that I have and I hope that you’re all doing well. 

It rained the whole week! Nonstop starting Tuesday afternoon! I have never seen rain like this! Some days I left prepared ... the day in green was the day I thought, Nah!  It’s not going to rain, and then I got soaked! Ha! Ha! Not to mention, we had a sacrament meeting attendance of thirty people. 

On Tuesday I had exchanges with Hermana Peña. She has 5 months in the mission and is from El Salvador! She is a doll! We had a good time and leaving our meeting with the bishop, it starts pouring rain. We had umbrellas, but the feet were just soaked as we crossed rivers and nobody was opening up! We visited one of her investigators that was supposed to get baptized last week. As we get to her house, the power goes out. We were giving a lesson with cellphone flashlights and watching our breath because it was so cold! It was definitely an experience I will never forget! 

Today was our deep cleaning day again and so we were home all day and celebrating finishing with pizza!

The beautiful young lady with me is Hermana Lucy. She has been a member for 6 years and she’s about 80 years old. She loves to go with us to our lessons and she is an absolute doll. 

Fun fact!  It’s Friday and we’re walking to an appointment. The phone rings. Hola Elder como está? It was the Zone Leaders.  Hermana Rawe you’ve been chosen to sing on Uruapan Idol.  Wait, what??!!  No that was  a joke, but really, you are going to sing in our Zone Conference with President.  Again, what??!!  Yes Hermana!  With how many people? Three others.  Ummm, that means you can actually hear me sing!  Okay Elder, gracias. This is the part where I ask you guys to start praying for me!  Singing for converts in baptisms is way cool … Singing in front of other missionaries, not so much! 

We visited a member’s house this week.  She’s less active.  Her daughter is a recent convert, and her two sons are also less active. They’re 19 and 20 years old and involved with drugs and well they don’t go to church anymore. I asked my companion if she had ever taught them and she said no.  Being my stubborn, sometimes fearless self, we strike up a conversation and end up sharing a message with one of the boys (the other one wasn’t home).  As we sing and pray and start talking, he gets super nervous. Then he starts talking a lot about how he knows that God has a plan for him, He knows God lives.  I think I´m nervous because I haven’t talked about this with anybody for a long time. It makes me feel things I haven’t felt in a long time. I miss church. I know I need to live the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. We felt the Spirit so much and it was incredible.  He’s a future missionary and future Melchizedek priesthood holder. 

We also visited Hermano Mike some more this week. He’s accepted a baptismal date and it really excited.  He’s reading the Book of Mormon and wants to repent. He says he just feels it’s the truth. He says he feels like he’s found what he’s been looking for. He says he’s the happiest he’s been in a long time and he just wants more. He’s so special!! 

On Friday we had such a cool experience. Well as you saw, I left the house unprepared and at about 7:30 all of our plans fall through, and we decides to look for new people to teach. It is raining so hard and then it starts hailing. We are literally soaking wet and we went to about 11 houses. It’s now 8:40 and we go to another house. The young lady answers and tells us that the person we’re looking for doesn´t live there. We introduce ourselves and ask if we can share a lesson with her. She invites us in and we start getting to know her. I felt like I should ask her if she had a question that she had always wanted to know the answer to.  I felt so weird asking that and she was thinking for a long time. Finally she says, well actually, I have a lot.  For example, is there really life after death? We saw her so interested and we are pumped to work with her this week! 

We found another new investigator this week named Rosy. She has Lupus but she has so much faith that God will heal her. She is pretty involved in the Catholic Church but she decided to listen to us. She has a desire to know the truth and she is so sweet.

This week we just worked hard. I feel a new inspiration or actually I don’t know what to call it but I felt it. I felt urgency as we worked. I felt like I didn’t want to lose even a little bit of time. I have been focusing so much on the questions I ask.  I think it’s a worldwide weak point for the church. I think sometimes we just teach and teach ... as missionaries, as Sunday School teachers, in our homes, in Young Women’s, everywhere.  We are so accustomed to teach and teach and we don’t ask thought provoking, Spirit receiving questions.  It was a lesson I learned this week that my whole life I want to listen, to really listen to what people are telling me, and teach based on their answers. It’s a secret wish of mine to teach the youth after my mission!  Ha! Ha! 

I’m just happy this week. I’m getting settled in to my new area and it’s feeling more and more like home. I love people. I just love them! I hope y’all are doing great and living happy! Until next week! 

Mexico Week 17 -- Let's Get Caught Living the Gospel

To all of my favorite people in this world, 

First things first, HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!  I love you tons and you have always been an amazing example to me!  I hope that our family spoiled you rotten! 

The rains are coming!!  Please enjoy my awesome storm pictures as it storms almost every night! Those are the nights that Hermana Buttars and I buy ice cream as we get soaked! 

Also! Mas o menos, I know the story of Great-Grandpa on dad’s side, but what are the conversion stories on both sides of the family?  I am going to be such a family history nerd after the mission. 

I got Rach’s graduation announcement and she is beautiful!! I LOVE the announcement! 

La Hermana is Vania!  She is so awesome and does such a great job with the young women in the ward. 

We have a new investigator!  Her name is Veronica and she is practically perfect!  We met her outside of her apartment building.  We have had three lessons with her and every single one has been incredible!  She is so prepared and we feel the strongest spirit in her home.  She is reading the Book of Mormon and praying about everything.  She is really sweet and my evidence that the Lord prepares people to receive His gospel!  She has a cat that had 5 kittens about five days ago and they are tiny!!  I definitely thought of Sister Randall and when she converted me to liking cats! Ha! Ha!  If it wasn’t against mission rules, Hermana Buttars and I would have one! 

So this week we visited the Moreno family. We met them in the street and they are so perfect!  The wife and daughter had baptismal dates and are just great, great people.  We went by one night and their dad told us that he just wanted to be honest and that they were never going to change religions. His house is our house whenever we want because we are friends, but they just aren’t going to change.  He told us that his wife had thought about it, but they were going to stay Catholic.  So we enter their home and find the mom and daughter and ask if we can sing some hymns.  They tell us sure and we are all in the kitchen and the dad gives us the same speech again. The look on Brenda’s face is saying that she really does have interest and wants to learn more.  We sang “Yo Se Que Vive Mi Señor” and shared testimony of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon.  Brenda gave me the biggest hug and I just know that she wants it!  Ahh, its hard because you don’t want to cause problems in the family but she also has the desire to learn.  I think that this is one of the reason I am so grateful to be in the Gospel and a big reason I am so determined to be married in the temple.  We just can’t have religious conflict in the home!  We need to all be on the same page! 

So awesome story of the week!  We had a Family Home Evening with the Reynaga family!  I was looking through some Liahona’s for ideas and found a sweet FHE!  So we talked about temples and we all drew one!  We listened to some Paul Cardall music and was just really special.  Paty asked Roxton to draw their family there.  I started thinking about my family and the family home evenings I want to plan and have!  Ahh, I got so excited to be a cheesy Mormon mom!  Haha, but really, it was probably the highlight of my week and I am so grateful to be here with some really special families. 

So we have an investigator named Lupe.  I have so much faith in her, but we really need to get some more friends for her that aren’t her mother in law!  We got to the lesson one night and I was tired and feeling a little stressed and anyways, we started to teach Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.  Their house is always a mad house and then her mother in law starts talking about how important the sacrament is ... then she adds … Well, as long are there aren’t any kids there.  Because if kids are there you can’t feel anything and you might as well just not even go to church.  Here’s me, starting to get annoyed with everything.  I just took a deep breath and started talking.  The spirit was so strong. The words just fell out of me after that.  I got a little choked up and just said I go to church because I need help, that I literally can’t make it through the week without the Lord’s help.  I need my 15 minutes of the sacrament to be filled with hope and healing and love.  The whole room got really quiet and nobody had anything to say.  My companion continued teaching, but whoa, I just felt the strongest spirit. This is what it means to teach with power and authority. 

But truly, I love the sacrament.  Yesterday was the first time we took it in two weeks because of stake conference.  I just feel it, I really feel it when I need to take the sacrament.  Before, I was stressed, I felt like we were working really hard but not seeing any results.  We took the sacrament and I just felt different.  I had more faith and hope in the Savior and I didn’t feel so stressed and negative.  The sacrament truly does cleanse us … it purifies us.  I am so grateful for this opportunity almost every week. 

I ran into Hermana Valdez this week!  It was so fun to see her again and introduce our new companions!  Love this girl!!

Well I would like to wrap this up with a quote this week that I loved from Jeffrey R. Holland. He said, “When He comes, I so want to be caught living the gospel.  I want to be surprised right in the act of spreading the faith and doing something good.  I want the Savior to say to me Jeffrey, I recognize you not by your title, but by your life, the way you are trying to live and the standards you are trying to defend.  I see the integrity of your heart.  I know you have tried to make things better first and foremost by being better yourself and then by declaring my word and defending my gospel to others in the most compassionate way you could.  He will certainly add I know you weren’t always successful with your own sins and with the circumstances of others, but I believe you honestly tried. I believe in your heart you truly loved me. “

Let’s try to be like that.  If the Savior were to come tomorrow, could He say that to every member of our family?  Well, I have some work to do, but I love this vision! 

Love you all to the moon and back!