Mexico Week 29 -- No Cambios

To all of my favorites!

Well first things first...no changes this transfer! Hermana Malacara and I will be working our tails off here still in Tlaquepaque!

Also, did you know that I opened my mission call about a year ago? Where in the world is the time going?

For September 11^th this week we said a special prayer and we sang the Star Spangled Banner.  I taught my companion the song! :)

Also, we bought so much fruit today! I live off this stuff that we buy so cheap in the little markets! They’re called tianguis.

This is Hermana Zulem. She’s an ex missionary in the ward and she absolutely loves us!

Funny story ... so people actually think I’m talented!  What is that about?  One of our less active members asked me if I ever sang in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  Ha! Ha! Sometimes these people here really crack me up.

I hope you love this BEAUTIFUL shirt. One of the recent converts in the ward is from Pueblo. She is adorable and we eat with her a lot. Her mom makes these shirts and one of the ones she sent didn’t fit her so she gave it to me!

Oh and we also got SOAKED this week! Ahh! We were working with a member and it starts sprinkling a little bit. Sidebar, I’m the only one with an umbrella. We are visiting a family and they’re not home. All of the sudden it starts pouring. Us, the member, and her 4 year old daughter are all crowded under one umbrella just getting soaked. We decide to make a run for it and then the family shows up! We are all laughing and just soaking wet!  What a night!  Then it starts hailing and wow, just crazy for a couple hours!

Mom, I wanted to thank you for the talks you sent me about hymns. They truly are sacred and powerful and I have felt it in my life. I set a goal to begin every spiritual experience (family prayer and scripture study, FHE, visiting teaching visits, Sunday school, everything) with a hymn that focuses on the topic. I am also going to study music after the mission, maybe some easy classes in BYU or something! Sacred music has power and I am going to fill my home with it and sing to my kids and everything. I have already witnessed the power this week. We started planning hymns for our lessons and also sometimes we sing during the lesson if we feel it. We have had some amazing spiritual experiences in lessons this week with hymns.

We also went to the temple this week! YAY! I truly have missed the temple. I think I was teary eyed through the whole session, I felt the spirit so strong and Heavenly Father told me that I get to be a wife and mom so that was exciting! At the end we were in the celestial room. Well before that, I loved doing a session in Spanish and Heavenly Father helped me understand just about everything. I felt the most incredible spirit. It truly is a little piece of heaven. I started praying to my Heavenly Father and I made Him some promises. He testified to me where I can improve but He also told me He’s proud of me because I love people.  He’s proud of my desire to obey and do what’s right. He will always be by my side because He’s my Father. Everyone else from the session left and it was just our zone there. One of the temple workers tells us we have five more minutes and then we need to leave.  I wasn’t quite ready for that!  After the mission, I will be a regular temple attender.

Remember our single mom from last week?  Well she just keeps blowing us away! We taught the whole Restoration this week and she says ¨how beautiful, I just feel such a peace.¨ My testimony just flooded out about how much this was going to bless her family She is so incredible. She sleeps three hours a day and she just looks absolutely exhausted! She got the kids settled watching Frozen and Genes starts dancing around with a white blanket on her head singing, ¨Let it Go, Let it Go¨. We were all about dying laughing. As we were leaving, her husband called to say he’s bringing a pizza over. She starts telling the girls to clean up because he gets really mad and she gives me the saddest smile and says ¨Yayy, Daddy’s coming over¨. She just blows my mind. She has such a pure heart and I just want to help her. I want to help her find the blessings of the gospel.

This week ... more real talk with my companion.  The truth is, I wasn’t feeling so hot at the end of this week and the frustration came a little quicker than usual. We start talking it out and she said a few things basically that she thought I would get mad. I think it was the most sincere apology I think I have ever given in my life. I told that I was sorry if I ever made her feel like I would react like that. She gets really quiet for about 5-7 minutes and tells me that she feels like a burden for our mission. We started talking some more.  What a pep talk! We talked about confidence and trusting in the Lord and learning how to depend on Him now because we can’t start a pattern for our lives of giving up. I gave her the Heidi, “What can you learn from this?” and “How can you use this experience to become stronger?” talk. You would be so proud of me!

I felt flooded with so much love for her. She hasn’t always been treated the best at home, and she just needs so much love. My love has grown so much as I thought about this past transfer. Sometimes it’s really hard, but I know that my Heavenly Father is teaching me so much. We have to look forward and not backward, we have to have faith, we have to learn from everything that happens to us and keep moving forward. I thought I knew it, but I am learning even more how important it is that we watch how we talk to each other. We can either build a person up and help their confidence grow, or we can destroy them just by the words we use.  It starts when we are just kids.  We know when we are loved and we know when we are scared of the people who should love us.  I am learning how to help build confidence through showing love .. and more love .. and more love.  

I love my mission. I have never been more frustrated, tired, or happy in my entire life. It’s the hardest and the best thing I’ve ever done. I love my Father in Heaven and how much He teaches us every day. I want these changes I am making to be permanent. I love you all as my family. I thank my Father in Heaven every day for the blessing that you are and the way that I was raised.

Keep pushing forward! Don’t throw pity parties! Confide in the Lord and become stronger every day. I love you and I’m praying for you all!

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!