Kindness Matters

This week we were walking and there was an older lady in a wheelchair, sweeping in the street with one arm. My heart about broke and we went to help her. She starts almost yelling at us .. No! No! No!  We just helped her anyways.  She starts telling us all about her life and how much she hates things looking messy, but she’s 92 and can’t walk anymore, so it is hard for her to keep it clean.  We cleaned up the whole front yard. She looks at us with tears in her eyes and says, “Thank you!  Thank you!  My family always leaves me here by myself.  I really want to give you both a Christmas hug.” It was the best!  

This should be one of our goals in 2015!
We should also go about doing service .. every single day!

Mexico Week 44: What Would Jesus Do

Dear Sweet Family of Mine!

I hope y’all had the best Christmas! You were all looking so good on Skype! It was such a blast talking to you guys. It was a spiritual high for me and I have been so blessed in my life. Just love y’all too much! 

Keeping it classic with the Christmas Eve PJ´s!

These two hermanas are Marta and Cuca. They are Rachel and I in about 60 years. 

The other one is Hermana Arellano. She has had some surgeries recently but she is never without a smile and a joke to tell and she ALWAYS goes to church. I want to be her when I grow up! 

I wanted to give a big thank you to Emma and Sister Cohen! Letters from them showed up this week and every ounce of support is just the best! 

Christmas in Mexico was a Christmas like never before! We had our district meeting in the morning and as we left at about 8 o’clock in the morning it was completely silent in the streets.  There were like two people and I felt like I was in the Walking Dead! We had our district meeting and then district activity. We ate food and exchanged gifts.  Please enjoy our whole district with our zone leaders rocking the holiday crowns .. a tradition started in England .. being celebrated by an American in Mexico!  How cool is that!! 

  

We had a district counsel and talking about what changes we thought the Lord expected of our mission. As we all reflected, we realized that he wants us to be more converted, more consecrated to Him. He wants us to work out of a sincere love for Him. I want to be a better disciple. As we headed home and were getting off the bus, the thought popped into my head, “What would Jesus do”?  I started to think about how I could truly think this ALL DAY EVERY DAY. It sounds so simple and obvious but as I made a conscious effort to do it, I felt the strongest Spirit. I began thinking in every situation, how would Jesus respond? What would He say? How would He listen? How would He serve? It was just a really special experience and whew, I should do that more often! 

I am really trying to be a more devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. I want to follow Him and be like Him. I am the farthest thing from perfect, but I just want Him to have every ounce of my effort for these six months.  Well, actually for my whole life. I love Him, sometimes I need to better show my love, but I am trying to love Him more every day. I am grateful for my weaknesses and trials, I am grateful for every single person that supports me, and I am grateful for how He is molding me to become better and better. 

I love you all to the moon and back! Behave yourselves and make some Legos for me!

My Christmas Wall From Home

Hermana Gonzalez and I had so much fun putting up our wall of Christmas!

Then two big envelopes and more ornaments showed up!

Thanks to everyone for the love and support!  It means so much to me!!

Feliz Navidad with Hermana Elsa

Hermana Elsa put up her big Christmas tree for us and she gave me a dress for Christmas. How precious is she! 

Feliz "Skype" Navidad

I hope y’all had the best Christmas! You were all looking so good on Skype! It was such a blast talking to you guys. It was a spiritual high for me and I have been so blessed in my life. Just love y’all too much! 

Mexico Week 41 -- I'm a Mom Again

This past week was filled with experiences!! I don’t have much time but next week I’ll send the pictures. 

First things first!  Four LARGE packages showed up last Friday. Imagine me, Hermana Malacara, and four huge heavy packages on a bus, trying to get on and get off, and then the elders making fun of us for having so many packages. Also, I’m prideful so after they make fun of us, they offer to help!  Well, I tell them no and we are about dying as we make it home. However, our house looks absolutely AWESOME! 

I love that all of the Coke products say Haz Alguien Feliz – Make Someone Happy – right now.  Ahhhh, Coke is great. 

Also I say winner, winner chicken dinner to the Princess Goldfish! Those are sweet!!

I want to tell you guys about our investigator Anabel. She is a mom of five, but with three kids already grown up and two younger ones. We have about a month teaching her but she is precious, she is so special and so sincere. We teach her something and she wants to live it, she wants to change. She was involved pretty heavily with drugs but she has two weeks without using anything! Her prayers are my absolute favorite. She literally talks and just pleads with our Heavenly Father. She wants to understand and she wants to be obedient. She says that we are her angels. We taught her the law of chastity last week (because she is living with someone and not married) and she closes the pamphlet and says well, I think this is the end of our time together. I was a little nervous because I thought she was going to get really mad, but she says I just have a lot of sins. You guys are better off saving someone easier, someone with less mistakes. She felt so hopeless and we testified so firmly of the Atonement and how she can repent. It was an incredible experience for me and it was awesome. We are hoping to see her at church this week! 

Hermano Jose just keeps surprising us! He’ll be getting baptized this weekend!  He doesn’t talk much and he likes to keep things to himself, but little by little, he’s opening up more and sharing how he feels.  He knows the gospel is true, he feels ready to be baptized, and he hasn’t been smoking!  He told us that before he knew that God existed but never that he worried about us individually. He said that in these weeks with us, he feels it. He knows that our Heavenly Father worries about him and cares about him.  His baptism will be so pretty!! 

This week we found a new family by showing them the video, “El es la Dadiva” – He is the Gift. El hermano teared up afterward and told us how much the video made him reflect on his life. He tell us that he is an alcoholic and just wants to leave it completely. He looks at us with tears in his eyes and asks us, “Can you help me?”  Wow, they are so special and we’re excited to keep working with them! 

Now for the transfer news: Hermana Malacara was transferred.  Still in my zone, but no longer my companion. I am training a new missionary. Her name is Hermana Gonzalez and I already love her! She is from the Tampico mission (I can’t remember the actual name of where she lives). Yesterday I was in Cruz del Sur all day in meetings and then meeting our new companions and for this reason I couldn’t write yesterday! But we will be staying here in Tlaquepaque.  Woo! Hoo! She is so animated and excited and really focused.

Yesterday I was reflecting so much about my mission and really my whole life. I saw just how many changes I’ve made and how much I have grown. I have passed through hard things but the Lord has delivered me. My relationship with my Heavenly Father has improved so much. I understand the Atonement better. I am stronger. I understand my purpose as I missionary and I know exactly why I’m here. I just want to be a good example for my new companion because she is going to be an incredible missionary and it’s my job to help mold her. I think we are really going to see some miracles here. I love this gospel, and I love the Lord. Our president told us about 50 times yesterday that the Lord trusts us so much, it’s He that called us. He knows we’re not perfect, but he trusts us. I felt the Spirit so strongly, the strongest I’ve ever felt it in these past few weeks. Our president told the newbies that he looks for trainers that are obedient, that are christlike, and that work hard. I just feel super honored, and I am so excited! 

My mission is passing by a lot faster than I would like! Ahhhh, well I love you guys tons!! Be good! Show the Lord you love Him!

Mexico Week 40 -- Tis the Season

Is anybody else super surprised that it’s December?  Where is the time going?!

This week is transfers too.  They tell us on Sunday. Whoa, feels like we just had transfers and they just gave us more time here!!

I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving and missed me lots and ate lots of turkey for me! Ha! Ha!

We ate with one of our less active members this week and she has a Texas mug in her house. It made me laugh and smile and she let me take a picture!

Also, it looks like we are living in World War 3 here! Leading up the big pretty area with the Christmas tree, pretty much all of the streets are torn up and the kids are always playing in the holes.  Totally looks like a movie scene here!

Hermano Oscar gave the ward Family Home Evening this week on families and knocked it out of the park! His wife made all of the decorating poster boards with the little drawing and quotes from apostles and everybody loved it! His brother, Jose, is also progressing a ton! He’s almost ditched the cigarettes for good and is starting to receive answers to prayers!

We are working with another investigator named Jorge. He is the son of a Hermana that is coming back to church but he big time struggles with alcohol.  He is really sick, but wants to change.  It was pretty interesting having him in church yesterday! We have faith in him and we’re going to keep loving on him!

It’s also officially Christmas!  We are singing the Christmas hymns and the trees are up and the church kicked off the ¨He is the Gift¨ campaign. If you haven’t seen the video, go watch it! Then post it on Facebook and share it with everyone! It’s a video that really touched my heart this week and it keeps touching my heart and well as the hearts of everyone we share it with. Our Father in Heaven loves us so much. It took so much love to give us His son so that we could all find peace, love, life, and hope here. We need to discover this gift and then accept it. We accept it by repenting, by coming to know him, by following Him, and it’s so special. I am eternally grateful to our Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ.

http://www.mormon.org/Christmas

This week I am especially grateful for the sacrament. I am grateful for how it truly can heal us. I am grateful that we have this opportunity weekly. Weekly, we can feel of the love of our Heavenly Father and the power of the atoning sacrifice of His son. We can feel of their patience with us, and start to apply this patience to ourselves too. I love this gospel. I love that our Father in Heaven has high expectations for us. I love that He wants us to be great and strong and that He gave us a Savior to be able to it.

Love y’all tons! Find ways to share the love of the Savior this Christmas!