Final Words From Mom

Dear Hermana Rawe,

So I went back to the beginning and read a lot of the first letters Dad and I wrote.  It was a lot of "you can do this" and "trust the Lord" and "be patient" and "focus on loving people" and "give it 100%" ...

Well sunshine, you have done all that and more.  I know you have struggled to feel content with your service and sacrifice to the Lord.  I want you to know that He is well pleased.  You have truly loved every person you came in contact with on your mission as the Savior would have loved them if He were there.  You have been obedient and consecrated to the work.  You have learned how to rely on the Lord and strengthened your testimony into a rock solid foundation for the rest of your life.  You have loved and served your companions and tried to continually build each one of them up.  There is a piece of your heart and soul that will forever live in Guadalajara, Mexico because you left it all on the table.  The Lord could not ask for more than you gave.

I am so proud of you!  Overwhelmingly proud of the missionary you are and will continue to be long after you come home.  There is a light in you that will continue to draw people to you because you simply radiate joy.  I am so excited for you to come home, but I'm not going to lie, I'm a little sad too!  It has gone by so fast .. it almost feels like you're coming home too early!  I'm going to miss those Monday emails and your stories!  About like the people there are going to miss knowing you are no longer in Mexico!

Enjoy the last few days .. soak up all that is beautiful and wonderful about Mexico and its people.  Take a minute and quietly ask the Lord for His final approval of your mission.  He will speak to your heart and let you know just how pleased He is.  

I love you and am incredibly blessed the Lord allowed me the blessing of being your mama!

Love,
Mom

Mexico Week 70:

Dear Family, 

Can you even believe it’s my last letter as a missionary??!!  I feel weird, but I also don’t quite believe it yet...I can’t believe it has already been 18 months. 

So let’s get the pictures explained first! This is a baby bunny. One of the families we’re teaching has 3 rabbits and they all had about 10 babies.  Holy bunnies!  She wants me to bring one home. 

Hermana Lucy was working hard with us this week. She is literally the sweetest and we get together one morning to go visit people and she brought us conchas. So cute! 

This is Hermano Hector. He is 30 and single and he’s gone to about every single church that exists. He loves to learn and has been reading the Book of Mormon and we just hope we can help him progress! 

This is Hermana Yannete. She is probably the sweetest person I know and believes in God so much. She always wants to say the prayer and loves to read. She just wants the best for her kids and we’re going to be FB friends and stay in touch. She’s special too. 

Hermila and Alfonso are the sweetest people in the whole world. I feel like I have an extra set of grandparents!!  Saturday they invited us to eat with them for my goodbye meal.  They made carne asada with guacamole and I felt like Uncle Brad wanting to lick myself it was so delicious!  They are just too sweet and Alfonso went to church by himself on Sunday!  We were so surprised!!  They are too special and they both start telling me that I can’t go home yet and that I have to call because they fell in love with one misisonary that doesn’t call and I have to call and they want me to visit, and they are just sweet.  Yesterday Hermana Hermila tells me she wants to give me something.  Her hand sewn napkins and table runners are really popular and she gives me a gorgeous white table runner and says that it’s for the day I get married. She says, I would love to be there, but if not, I can feel good that you have something from us that will always be in your home. Yesterday I started feeling super sad.  My companion is already packing my bags and yesterday I really did start to feel sad. Such a HUGE part of my heart will always be here! 

These two pictures are of Hermana Cristina, Hermana Lupita and Hermana Azucena. They are the ones that we had the family home evening with last week. They too are too sweet and have been special. 

This is Eva! We have only taught her like twice because of her crazy schedule but she is super sweet and really wants to learn. Her daughter warmed up last night and I hope the missionaries here can keep working with them. 

And this is Hermana White!  The sister training leaders came to study with us today and turns out I won’t see Hermana White anymore! She is a great missionary and she’s super sweet. 

We visited Hermana Claudia last week and she said the closing prayer and she prayed a lot for me. She thanked Heavenly Father for me, for sending me, for all of the blessings they’ve received through me, and for all of the unselfish and selfless love I’ve given. It was one of the moments where I felt the spirit so strongly.  I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, where I’m supposed to be. Missionary work is so rewarding. 

So I’ve been printing pictures and writing letters to the families here and on Sunday I gave an hermana a letter and a huge hug. Her name is Elba and she’s a returned missionary who is like 40 years old. She never marrried, takes care of her niece and nephew, works, and studies, and she’s the only member in her family. She is funny and we just get along well.  I gave her a letter and a picture of Christ and she just gives me a big hug and starts crying. I was so surprised! I think sometimes I underestimate just how much we can help and influence people.  I was literally stunned and just felt peace again, knowing that every little effort counts. We are Christ’s hands here on earth. 

I got to give a talk again in church!  Something weird happened with the bishop and he’s not bishop anymore and he only had one counselor that’s in charge of the ward now.  He said that nobody wanted to give a talk and was a little stressed and asked the missionaries to help!  I was pumped! I love giving talks.  I started thinking about the members here and what they really need.  I was praying and just thought about happiness and how we can be happy and have peace even when we are in the middle of crazy trials.  As I shared my testimony I got a little choked up and just told them how much I loved them and how much I wanted them to be happy, that they really could overcome and bear their burdens.  I felt the spirit so strongly and I realized how much I really have loved every single one of my areas. 

I have to tell y’all a story.  So Sunday night we decided to have Family Home Evening with the Castillo family.  Dad is inactive and has been a member for a year.  Mom is kind of active and super stressed and has been a member for a year.  Angel is also kind of active and also has a year as a member, and Leo is 6.  As we thought about what to share with them, we thought about love and the importance of showing love in our homes.  We sang “The Family is of God” to start but it was pouring rain and we were having to yell, and the minute they turned the TV off, Leo starts hysterically sobbing.  We started with the Proclamation and did an activity where we wrote situations and they answered how they could show love and be like the Savior.  Leo is still crying, the dad is being sarcastic, it is still raining and we were feeling like it was a disaster.  Then I had a revelation. I remembered those times when we were a little more contentious then normal and we all sat at the table and said the positive traits of every family member.  We put down the planned activity and told them what we were going to do.  It started out with ... Angel is good at drawing, and stuff like that.  Then it is Leo’s turn (he’s still crying) and Angel says Leo, you’re really a good brother.  His whole face changes, he stops crying, and says I love you too brother.  Then we all started crying and the whole night changed.  We all ended up in tears and you could feel the spirit so strongly.  I love Family Home Evenings!! 

So I was meditating a lot about my mission last night and remembering so many experiences. The Lord has blessed me so much as a missionary.  I know I still need to grow so much more and be so much better, but I feel like I have grown and learned so much.  I just love the people.  I have to call, skype, visit, all the good stuff because they are such special people and they really do miss us.  It is so incredible that the Lord gives us the opportunity to sacrifice, come on a mission, and be His hands even though we’re not perfect and even though we mess up, He still gives us the chance to do it.  It is awesome.  I have such mixed feelings.  Sometimes I feel so excited to see you guys, and other times, I just feel straight up sad.  What am I going to do all day at home??  Ha! Ha! You’re all going to get so tired of my stories and pictures and videos because it’s all I will want to talk about, and I’ll probably speak Spanglish.  But really I love you all so much and I’m pretty sure we’ll cry in the airport.  Let’s take the pictures without tear stains.  But really, I love you guys and I will never stop being grateful for the family I have. 

See y’all in six days! 

Mexico Week 68: Love is Always the Answer

Dear sweet family!! 

You are headed out to girl’s camp and I have been praying all week that all will go well!! You’ve all worked hard and now just let the Lord work, I know that it will be great. 

So first things first...the pictures!! This is Hermana Dayana. She’s less active and this past week she was going with us to our appointments and she went to church! It’s the first time she’s gone to church since I’ve been here!! 

My companion celebrated my 17 months with balloons! 

Hermana Karla was feeling bad the last time we visited her and Hermana Lucy was with us and so we helped her get the house tidied up! Hermana Lucy is a doll!  We love her too much! 

This week was my last zone conference! Crazy stuff right?  I am going to miss President and Hermana so much! We talked about the importance of the Sabbath Day using a training from General Conference. It was AWESOME!!  We talked about the church has the purpose of uniting families for eternity, but the chain usually breaks between baptism and entering the temple and it’s because of weak gospel teaching in the HOME.  We talked about the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy and how it will help families. This day we send a sign to the Lord with everything we do. How are we applying in our families what is taught at church? What are we teaching our kids that we should do on Sundays? It was so good!  We also talked about the Book of Mormon and I just loved it!  We sang the song “The Family is of God”.  Not going to lie ... I got a little teary eyed! Who makes missionaries sing that song??!!  Ha! Ha!  But, it was so pretty and honestly my new favorite song. 

President counseled us to study until we complete a Doctorate, if we can. He told us not to wait for all of the luxuries of life before we get married.  He said, “Now do you understand why faith is so important?” …  I love my President!! 

I had the opportunity to give a talk in church yesterday. I LOVE giving talks. I was praying and thinking a lot about what to talk about and I couldn’t get the idea of love out of my mind. I started talking about what is love and how much our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us and how I came to know that that’s true. I used a lot of Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk, “The First Great Commandment”.  Once we’ve felt their love, there’s no going back, we have to love them too. I talked about how we show them our love and how we have a life of devoted discipleship to give. I felt the Spirit so strongly and I love this topic. We have to love, love our Father in Heaven and love everybody else. 

Last little story, yesterday we visited Claudia and Naty to see how they were doing and how it went in their baptism and confirmation and it turns out Brandon stayed at the table to chat.  He almost always leaves, but yesterday he stayed there! We started to talk about prayer and I felt the strongest impression to tell him, “I know you need a Dad. You need someone to listen to you and to help you and to love you and our Heavenly Father can be your dad. He is your dad. He will listen. He will help.  He will support.  He will counsel.”  He just looked at me and we kept sharing more.  He wants to start praying. We’re also going to start teaching him more and more! He asks us, “If I join your church, do I have to go on a mission?  Like it’s not my choice, I have to go?”  We told him he would make the decision and no one would force him.  A teacher at church always talks to him about a mission and I think he scared him! That’s why he hasn´t been hanging around!  Goodness!! 

Ha! Ha!  Well, I love you and hope that you’re all happy and not too stressed.  I want to see you all happy and in one piece at the end of Girls Camp!  I love y’all tons and can’t wait to see you soon. Keep praying for me! 

Mexico Week 46 -- Serving Others is the Key to Happiness

To the best family in the whole world!  This week was a great one!

Is this the cutest puppy ever or what?! 

I found a Dr. Pepper here! They pretty much don’t exist, but I found one!  What a special night!! 

Saturday we walked for a million years.  It was the day of not finding anyone at home and all of our plans falling through, and we were with a member!  Poor thing, we walked so much but we found some tender mercies that day. These would be our pictures we took that night ... seriously exhausted! 

Hermana Elsa had us over for lunch on Thursday, or well, the day I hit one year in the mission and she bought me this bracelet. She is the cutest. 

Fun fact: Hermano Jose showed up to church this week with a white shirt, a tie, and he blessed the sacrament. We are so proud!! 

Okay, I´m going to tell you guys a funny story. Last night we were street contacting and as we were crossing the street, Hermana Gonzalez tried to talk with a lady and she made a face and says, “You scared me!”  She kept walking and Hermana Gonzalez follows her and says well we’d like to introduce ourselves and kind of tries to talk with her and the lady totally takes off running.  I was dying laughing after and Gonzalez says “What, you’re the one that taught me to be persistent!”  Ha! Ha!  It did make me laugh, but it also made my day to see her fearless and trying the best she could and it was just awesome.  I love her to pieces and she is such a great missionary. 

This is Hermana Z.  She’s a returned missionary and well, she’s getting divorced. She always puts on a tough face and tries to be happy, and her kids are amazing!  She invited us to eat yesterday and, well, she started to cry.  She said she just really needed to be with us, and we shared a really special message with them. We truly need to serve inside our wards and just be a family.  We never know what trials people have and sometimes, you just need someone to talk to and be your friend. 

 I SAW HERMANO OSCAR AND HERMANA KAREN THIS WEEK!! They went to ward FHE and ahh, just warmed my heart!!  They started talking about how their ward was so different than this one and how much they missed it and then Hermana Karen, looking me in the eye, says, “But we do things the right way, right Hermana?  We have to be obedient and we know the Lord has a plan and will bless us.” How AWESOME is that?!  They are two converts that are obedient even when it’s hard, even when it’s not what they want. Hermano Oscar was called to be the Young Men’s President and he is so excited to have a calling.  He was already telling us about all of his plans.  I am going to cry my eyes out in their temple sealing in December. 

Hermana Gonzalez and I hosted FHE this week and it was a hit!  We played the human knot and also put ourselves in circles and played the game where you have to pass the hula-hoop all the way around the circle, but it was a competition. We talked a lot about unity in our families and in our ward. The Lord says that if we’re not one, we’re not his. We need more activities like this to excite the ward and help our investigators to get integrated. 

Wednesday we walked for hours and also struggled to find people.  I started praying and thinking Heavenly Father please just help us find someone, tell us where to go.  I had the thought to look for a person that we met in the street about 3-4 months.  I just remembered where she lived and we went to look for her.  We found her and her 19 year old and they accepted baptismal dates!  They are really looking for peace and feel like it’s time to be closer to our Heavenly Father.  We are so excited to keep working with them! 

This week we also visited the Velazquez family.  Grandpa is exhausted.  He works all day, and takes grandma to the hospital three times a week, and helps with all the kids.  He told us that he feels such a heavy load, especially regret for past mistakes and sometimes his thoughts torment him.  As we talked, he just commented how a fresh start would be so nice.  Ah, we just have to get him to church!  Four of his grandkids went this week and I was dying.  They are too precious and they go by themselves!  The members help us by picking them up and taking them home.  We have faith, but this family needs a lot of help! 

We also found another new family this week.  It’s an unmarried couple with six kids.  They are too cute and also accepted to prepare to be baptized.  The young boys are wild and the mom just wants peace in her home. Her partner didn’t come home one night and the next day it was a real battle to get her to open the door, but she did and just started crying and gave us the biggest hugs.  We talked about the Atonement and the Sacrament and the Spirit was so strong! 

We had a blast finding new people this week!  I love you all so much!  On Thursday, I was thinking about exactly one year ago: Staying with Janille; eating at Zupa’s; the curb drop at the MTC; the snow; how nervous I was; Dad’s blessing; being so excited but having no idea what to expect.  I just want y’all to know that serving a mission is the best decision I ever made.  It has tried me, stretched me, made me grow, and more than every thing else, it has helped to me to come to know my Savior and my Heavenly Father.  I know them and I love them more than any other time in my life.  I am the most grateful I have ever been in my whole life for all of the blessings I have received.  I know who I want to be and I know what kind of life I am going to live here.  I am happy.  I know that we can only truly be happy by serving others and thinking about them more than ourselves.  I can’t believe it was a year ago, but I am so grateful for every opportunity and the six months I have left.  I want my sisters to read and ponder on this testimony.  I will support you Rach and Meg in whatever you decide, the most important is that we love the Lord and truly rely on Him.  It’s hard.  It’s really hard for us stubborn and independent Rawe/Henderson’s, but if we rely on Him, it all works out and we’re never really scared. Love you all to the moon and back! 

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!