october 28,13

hi!!!

this weeks was crazy my companion got sick so we were out for mostly the whole day for two days. On Saturday we didi a four hour long service project , cleaning alleys in Arizona , it was fun! after that she felt worse, we studies for only two hours then she went to sleep as i cleaned the house and started making us some thai food for dinner :) thanks to Sister Hicken for sending me some delicious curry paste! then i woke her up made her some tea and served her some dinner, i love serving my companion :) Afterwards we got ready to go to t he Trunk or Treat, we were in ccharge of a game, we decided to play musical chairs, the kids absolutly loved it!! they all looked so adorable!! and a lot of less active members came with their families, that made us super happy!!!!

we borrowed an english sister on friday night because her companion was sick, so we got to go teach english people. One of my wishes came true, around 8:30 pm we went to go teach a house full of Saudee Arabian Muslims that were here just going to Ariziona State University on scholarship. it was intresting as we conversed about religion. all 12 of us were in the kitchen ( we wre able to go inside because there were three of us) me and Sister Cole starting conversing with one of them because he looked really sincere and not as agressive, he was really close to us because the house was pretty loud. I testified of The Book of Mormon and how if we read it and pray about it we can know that it is true by the power of the holy ghost, he asked what the holy ghost felt like. I explained it as a feeling like happiness and peace.

"but you dont have any physical proof that it true?"

"no i dont have any evidence only the spiritual confirmation that it is"

"but you need proof"

"God isn't going to come down himself to tell us it is true, that is why we need faith."

"why wouldnt he, you only had a feeling?"

"ok, let me ask you this, have you ever been in love?"

"yes"

"how did you know you were in love?"

" i dont know it just felt different"

" how did you feel?"

"i dont know"

" did you feel happy when you were together?"

"yes"

"did you want to learn more and more about her?"

"yes"

" did you have any phisical evidence that you were in love?"

"no"

"can you see that feelings are very powerful?"

he was reallly pondering what i had explained to him.

" This is how i feel when I read the book and when i hear the words of our living Prophet today, and i know as you read it you will have those same feeelings, so will you read and pray about The book of Mormon?"

"yes i will read the book, but do you have one in Arabic?"

"yes, we would be more thatn happpy to get you one"

we told him how cool it was that the Book of mormon is translated into 92 different languages.

So that was fun.

 

We recieved a refferral!! it was as tho we had recicved an early birthday present!

His name is Javier Guttierez, he is such a tenfer sweet man, we love him. the first time we met him we couldn't find his adress and we saw a man outside and asked if he was Javier and it was :) we were all talking outside, he was explaining to us what had just happened. His girlfriend left him and took their daughter, she has been really unfaithful ot him and did not take care of the house or their kid as well as she should have and before she took her he was outside with his daughter waiting for her to come home, and every women that walked by she said"mommy?"

that broke his heart eveytime. He is super super sad and misses them, he expressed how hard he worked to maintain them and how much she loved them. We felt so much compassion towards this man, and wanted to stregthen him in hte Lord. He acknowledges that He needs to get closer to his Savior and his Father in Heaven, and he is so thankful for all the loving peopple that advice him to come unto them and he is so thankful that we are teaching him, he is so so so sweet. we read this verse with him "Ether 6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that ^afaith is things which are ^bhoped for and ^cnot seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no ^dwitness until after the ^etrial of your faith." we also shared a story about a women that we teach that is goin through the exact same thing, except she knows nothing about her missing  baby boy, but because she has the Gospel she keeps pressing forward and she know that as she prays for him he will be safe. she sees this trial from an eternal perspective: that as she has had him that she was a great mother and that God will reward her according to her devotion as a mother, ans that one day she will see him again.  this story really stregthened him. we left him with a prayer of comfort.

 We texted him one night and asked how his reading was going. He said that those chapters were exactly waht his sould needed that they strengthened him a lot. Since then he has been reading every night, but he didnt come to church, but he does want to!

oh one more thing we had a Mission Tour on Wednesday where a 70 came by and gave us a training or inspirational talk Elder Tah :) it was wonderful. here are all the missionaries from the Arizona  Scottsdale Mission.  I learned to not be caught up in the current, that is easy and almost brainless, we have to work with all our hearts, mights, minds and stregth!

Big Surprise This Weeked

first of all yesterday we went over to dinner and it was at the Wrights house an American family, i figures tehy just wanted to feed us becasue they have a daughter on a mission. We love that family. So this child opens the door and Sister Wright was videos recording me, suddenly out pops Lindsey Walch!!!!! i could not belive my eyes!!!! i was so surprised and we hugged and nothing else was more importatnt than that hug that was filled with love! we both started to cry i missed her and i love her so much truly she brought with her the love from everyone in Santa Cruz, that love i felt was TOO STRONG i know it wasn't only the love she had for me and the love i had for her, but it was the love that she transferred to me from all my friends in Santa Cruz!!! or as Meredith Barton said " oceans of love" :) my body was on fire, it was more than just  a burning in my bossom it was a burning in my whole body, thanks for the Trader Joe's treats Barton Family we will surely enjoy those over here!

we alsio made a silly video and i guess you all have permission to make fun of me. that is so fun all of you families should do these family music videos they are a blast! and then send them to me! :D

 

ok back to missionary life!

so we are teachign this ten year old boy named Ezra and his paretns are less active and he isn't a member yet. All we needed to do is go visit this family and be thier friend and encourage them to live the gospel. They know it is true they jsut stopped going becaue they got offended. Anyway after many years they are starting to come back to chruch!!! and their son is getting baptized!! we have to cutt all of our lessons in hald or in thirds becaue this boy needs us to tach it as simply as possible and make it as fun and applicable to him as we can, and i love that . we taught himt the AbC's of repentance A admit B be sorry C confess D dont do it again E evaluate and see how you can make it better next time F Forgivness!! that is the pattern that we should live our lives and that will strengthen our families and make us happier!!!!

 

we are teaching this amazing women named Fatima, o i love her to death she has three beautiful little children and she is working so hard in living the gospel she finally cam to church this sunday and her kids loved primary! she got baptized at eight but stopped going at age 15 and got pregnant ans now she is 24 and she is so excited to learn more and more because she knows this is the way to raise a wonderful eternal family. The bummer is that her husband is a thug and likes to have parites, but we are doing all we can to motivate her to be a great example and hopefully her husband will come around. We are having FHE today with a great family in the ward and also with our other darling investigaator Estefani! i am so excited!!

 

we are having a lot more help from the members which is such a great thing, i hope you all are doing your part in letting the missionaries help you with your missionary work! offer them your homes so they may have family home evenings there with thier investigators, have your children invite thier non member friends come over for dinner or FHE and have those woderful islander missionaries to sing beautiful music. :)  

love you all see ya i cant remenber much of what happened this week , next time ill bring my journal :) thanks for your love and prayers!

Music video #8: Time for a little throwback... With a few guest stars

Emotional Roller Coaster

we went to go visti this activish lady that is supposed to come to our branch, that is right across the street, but perfers not to becasue she is so close to everyone in her old ward. We brought a member with us so that she can start making friends and to feel welcomed to the Mesa Grande Branch. It was going well she is super nice and beautiful. the member asked about her children and she said she had two but one isn't with her right now. the member asked wehr the other one was, so she told us her traggic story. Before she got married to her now hubby she had a boyfriend and they had a baby together, they seperated while she was pregnant, a year later this man came and stole her child and to this day (2years later) she hasn't heard of him and does'nt know anything about her child. She started top sobb and so did all three of us, she said she fell into depression by this point she was already married and baptized and she realized that she had a husband and then God sent her another blessing as a child even though she didnt want any more kids, He knew that she needed motifvation. she said that if she didn't have the gospel she didn't know where she would be. Her faith is so strong. She exp[ressed that because of her prayers she knows Heavenly father is looking out for him ans that he will come back. She said it's really impressive how much patience and hope someone can have during the midst of such trials, i doont know where i am getting this peace and pateince from, well i know, it's coming from God. She said that thanks to this it has strengthened her matramony and that she is so happy tha twe are out there preaching the word to those that need it. We thanked her for shareing that, for it truly increased my faith.

 we had dinner that evening and got to meet our new elders, so now there is 6 missionaries in our small 120+ members branch, it was so fun, i love the Hernandez family, their two daughter are like my little sisters, we always take them out on lessons with us. After dinner we took them with a progressing investigator Estefani to teach her the Law of Chastity and the word of wisdom , it was fun and funny ,  we had them share their testimony of the law of chastity and how it feels to know that they are an eternal family, they did so well. We gave her dating tips as well on how she needs to wait till she is 16 and how it should be with a herd of friends to avoid temptation. She re-taught us both lessons and committed to live them :) so happy for her because its going to such great standards to learn early in life, so she can enjoy the blessings for all eternity. she's 12

WE had correlation meeting, where we meet with a mission leader and we were discussing our are being split and the inverstigators we will be taking over. We had some news the new Elders were given the area where we have worked so hard in, where we have labored unceasinlgy and have been so loving and persistent with these part memebrs families and we had three less actives come to church that haven't been in  a long long time, where we've had spiritual expiriences with these people, mostly women that are stay at home moms and has been really hard to get them to open up. Last sunday we had 10 people at church!!!!! 3 really inactive members and 7 investigators! it was so glorious, my heart was swelled with joy as i saw more and more come in through that door i was so greatful, i know that all the hard work we've done has been paying off, and we still have tons more work. It is fabulous to have members present because when they come to chruch they can snatch them up and take them to class and they feeel like they haev freinds and are welcomed by them, it made me feel great when the young men did do this to our teenage boy investigator and the Primary President invited Ricardo's grandkids to come to class, otherwise my companion and i would be running around like chikens with their heads cutt off. Anyway back to Correltaion meeting, the Elders looked really excited to teach the people that we made appointments with for the next day and a list off all the members who were going to help out. When Mission leader mentioned that they were going to start visting our recent convert Jesus insted of us, i said no, covered my eyes with my hand and started crying wobbley jaw and everything, my nose was runny and he said "she isn't crying she's strong" since everyone was quiet and felt as though they were staring at me  i went to the bathroom to cry it out, then my companera came to cry with me. my eyes were so red. we went back out there to end it and we left. We called President when we got home and asked if it was truly divine interverntion or was it just placed, becasue if it was we would be willing to take the other area. He said, he had no part in it, so today we swiched areas again. yay!
well i love you all and we gotta go!

this week of conference

hi frends and family!
how did everyone like conference write me back and tell me about it. :)
Well this week was a lot more successful, all of our progressing investigators attended or watched some sessions of General Conference! it was so great.  I loved conference!
We have two new progressing investiagators they are son and father, the son is 29 nine  hsi name is Genaro, he is a single parent of four kids, his wife left them. His dad helps him out a lot. They were never religious, but they  are very open to the gospel. Wwent over to share a spiritual thought with them and to follow up we asked him how their prayers and reading has been he said he hasn't had time because he is too busy with the kids. Therefore, we promised him that if he sets time aside to study and pray he will find energy he didnt even know he had and gain more wisdom to teach his children so they can have guidence in thier lives, as they put their trust in Heavenly Father. It is truly amazing how in reality the scriptures, when understood and applied, we can genertate that power to face any trial, overcome any sorrrow, attain a hope and a joy through any obstalce and know how to rear the family to walk uprighlty before God. As Paul said,  all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for instruction in righteousness that we may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
 We invited the Dad to be baptised at the second lesson, then later we started teaching the whole family, so we asked him if he has prayed about that invitaion, for he does not feel ready but we promised he will be by that time if he is diligent in keeping the commandments, however he hasn't prayed about it. mi companera invited him ,Ricardo,  to pray and Genaro to do CPR for the soul, church, pray , read, indeed it will revive our sould if we do these things :)
I hope that those talks helped them.
Our investigator Estefania, came to two sessions and she looked lovely in her sunday dress :) since we haven't had luck teaching her family, since they are never home , we are going to see if we should baptize her without her family, even though it will be harder for someone so young(12), but in a way she reminds me of me, when i was investigating the chruch, diligent and always trying to be better, and although her family doesn't come with her she still does what she needs to do to strengthen her realationship with her Savior: like pray , read The Book of Mormon everyday, strenghtens her home and loves her family. I love her so much.
today we went to camelback with my zone, it was a blast

here they are!!

yes i did out ion a few pounds... and apparantly so didi my companion ;D

random mission pictures : here is me updating the area book, here is me and my companion about otgo to a zone activity from like a month ago!

this is my mission leader! he is so cool and this is one of his four sons :) he also performed a RAnchera at the latin night! ans he is super compassionate his name is Angel Moroni :)

this is me and all my house mate sisters! love them

you know its a missionary house when.... classic

how many sisters does it take to put some bikes on the bike rack?

at the sisters meeting!! super fun!

my mission Presidents wife  Sister Sweenie, love her!

here they are!!

cooking it up choclate chip pancackes and bacon with eggs

we just took this picture today at the mission home, fun preperation day breakfast!  don't i look fabulous

riding in the rain! to stake conference!

the young women dancing flocorico! i really wish that i can send the videos!