What? Three months already.

April 8, 2013

HELLO MI FAMILIA!

Can you believe this past week I hit my three month mark! This is CRAZY! This transfer has just flown by! Probably because my companion and I work so well together! She told me that some transfers will just fly and others will drag on forever depending on the situation of your companionship. I have been truly blessed with companions so far on the mission. She has been such a perfect trainer for me! She seriously is one of the hardest workers I know! She is ball of positive energy (which I need a lot of the time)! I just love her! The thought of her leaving me here by myself is terrifying so I'm frantically trying to learn all the streets, bus system, how to get to investigators houses, and so on. My new companion will most likely be new to this area so I'll have to teach her all about it! SCARY! haha I am also finishing passing off my lessons so that I can drive. In our mission we have to memorize all five lessons with lots and lots of scriptures before we can drive, so I'm trying to finish that all off this upcoming week. It's crazy to think I haven't driven in over three months now! I think that's the longest I've ever gone without driving. Let's hope I remember how to drive!

 I don't know if I've ever told you guys this, but our mission is currently the largest mission in the whole church! I know, I'm sure you're thinking this is so random, because when President Keyes told us I was in complete shock. I thought for sure some huge cities in like South America would have more missionaries than us, but nope we have the largest number of missionaries in our mission (hence the reason they are splitting it). I think there are almost 300 missionaries! Can you believe it! President and Sister Keyes have so much on their shoulders right now it's unbelievable. They are so wonderful though and I feel so grateful to get to serve with them. President calls this the Alpha and Omega mission because this is where it all started, and this is where it will all end. There is definitely a special spirit about this area!

Well, for the week...... this week we actually had quite a few appointments that we set and the people were actually there! It was a miracle! We met a family (the Stauch family), I'm not sure if I've already told you guys about them, but we taught them about the Plan of Salvation this week and committed Mike (the dad) to baptism. YAY! We invited them to church this Sunday but Mike was hesitant because they didn't have any clothes that they felt comfortable wearing. So Hermana Thorne and I went and did a little shopping for them. We went to the thrift store and for twenty bucks we got three outfits and three pairs of shoes! We were pretty proud of ourselves! I guess in this ward, the bishop told us the ward will refund us if we need to go buy church clothes for investigators because this type of situation happens so frequently. We are teaching another family also! We met them about a month ago when they were first moving into their house. They were in such a sad situation but they had just got their kids back the day we met them and were running around trying to get lights and everything set up in the house. They just barely got lights and heat in their house this week. So they have been living there for over three weeks without any of that. It's so sad, but we did have a tiny party with them this week after we shared a message because it was Mateo's 17th birthday. Hna. Thorne and I brought some candy bars and Juan (the dad, He's from Mexico) and Hna. Thorne played the guitar. It was so fun! I can't tell you how much I love this family! Of everyone we have met here, I feel such a love and strong connection to them. They are so great! It was so neat, I was sharing the first vision with them in Spanish, and afterward Toni said with tears in her eyes, I've heard that many times (I think she meant the part that says, "this is my Beloved Son, Hear Him"), but never have I got the goosebumps like I did just now. We gave them all copies of the Book of Mormon and have invited them to begin reading it.  Victor is doing okay. It's been a little bit of a hard week with him. Lately, Hna. Thorne and I have been feeling like he wasn't being completely truthful with us when he's been telling us he hasn't smoked, and we got a phone call on Saturday from a ward member that we are close to  and she told us she was over there today and he was smoking. We were completely devasted, but kind of saw it coming. So we went over and talked to him last night and discussed that we would have to move his baptismal date back because you have to be living the Word of Wisdom for at least two weeks beforehand. Hna. Thorne and I were so nervous for this conversation, but we prayerfully decided we were going to do it in a loving way. We talked to him about being here for him as a support system and that we had complete confidence and patience in him as he is trying to give up this addiction. He tells us he still wants to work towards baptism so we are just going to be there for him. We are going to be calling him every day now so we can see how he's doing and know how we can help him. 

 Another thing we did this week is Family History Work ( I had to put this in because I know Grandma will be so excited! :) hahah). Honestly, never did I think we would do this on the mission, but Grandma you have trained me well! We are helping a recent convert (that Hna. Thorne taught) prepare family names to go to the temple next week. I'm so excited! We are going to the temple next Wednesday to do baptisms with two new converts! It's going to be such a neat experience!

Conference was so amazing! It's like Christmas for missionaries! Hna. Thorne and I were looking forward to it all week! We went to the church to watch all four sessions. It was such a weird feeling to know that we were all doing/watching the same thing just a few miles apart! So, Cedar City is going to have a temple! Can you believe it! No more having to drive down to St. George Ashy! How exciting! I loved Elder Holland's talk! So powerful, like always! And President Monson's talk about the fire! So funny! We are so incredibly blessed to have a living prophet and apostles today that guide us. When ever we are teaching investigators about prophets, we always ask them a simple question. We aks, "If Moses were on the earth, would you want to hear what he had to say to us?" And about everyone always answers YES! We proceed to talk about President Monson and the more I have taught and testified about this, the more I have come to realize what a blessing it is to have a living prophet. Yo se que tenemos un profeta hoy en dia se llama Thomas S. Monson. Yo se que esta iglesia es verdadera y tiene la plenitud del Evangelio de Jesucristo. Se que Jesucristo es nuestro Redentor y Salvador y El vive. I love you guys so mucho mucho mucho! LES AMO!

I just love my companion Hermana Thorne!