Lo Siento, No Photos!

Hey everyone! 

I apologize in advance because I don't have any pictures to send home. I left my camera at our house today so I'll tell you the jist of my week!

This Wednesday is the MISSION SPLIT! This past week we had a ZTM with President and Sister Ware on Happiness and how we can better bring this happiness into people's lives. It fit so well because, well...  It was a big cry fest.  This was our last time with President and Sister Ware.  I have truly enjoyed serving with him and I will greatly miss him.  He's been such a great role model to me for the past 4 months.  He and I have truly grown close since I've gotten here. 

President and Sister Lewis will step foot on Yakima soil on Wednesday, and we will have a 'meet and greet' with them after they arrive.  We also have a ZTC Conference this Saturday.  We are just swarmed with meetings! We've also found 2 new investigators in Orondo, which is about 30 minutes away.  We attended the ward across the river, which will be the ward they will soon attend.  We had a great chance to get to know the bishopric and pitch in on the work in Wenatchee!  

We also did some phone OYMs this week (Open Your Mouth).  Our OYM goal every week is 70, which means we try to talk to 70 new people every week, whether it is knocking on doors, talking to old investigators on the phone from old records, or tracting from house to house. We did our phoning OYMs a bunch this week and we've set up multiple return appointments with them!  But we also scheduled one on Pday by mistake... #Woops!  We have it at 4:00 today and then we have a member dinner at 5:00, which isn't too bad, oh well!  We are stoked to meet them! 

We also hit a rock this past week. Our investigator Miguel dropped us because he doesn't have the time to get baptized or come to church.  It was super sad, but we know he will be prepared in the future for the gospel. 

That's all I've got. 

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Summer's Coming...

Howdy Ya'll!

This week has been amazing!  I received Hermana Alcocer on Wednesday night, and we returned to our house to help her unpack.  We had plans to go to a meeting in Kennewick the next day, but we received some late news that it was canceled for the second transfer I've been asked to attend.  Merp, not too fun, but it's been a blast teaching a ton of lessons with Hermana Alcocer.  She is from Redlands, California and she's native Spanish. She and I fit like puzzle pieces, we have already grown some strong testimonies of why we are both put together this transfer. 

We had an awesome lesson with Miguel this past week on Friday, and he seems to be struggling with believing the whole Restoration.  We have plans to bring a member to teach him this week and get him on date to be baptized.  We are extremely excited!  We have Wendy on date for July 3rd, and she is amazing!  She's 15 years old and she has down-syndrome.  She and her family, (she has a less active mother and 2 sisters) moved here a few years ago from El Salvador. (Salvadorian spanish is FAST)  We've received special permission from our mission president to teach her and help her become baptized.  She and her family are excited to see her grow more in the church.  She has taken a little longer to understand the gospel, but she has great faith to become baptized.  We've taught two lessons and we have a member present lesson with her on Wednesday.  Not every person with a syndrome has to become baptized unless they have a desire to.  She is very excited each time we come over, she's sure been a light to us for the past few weeks!  We are looking for more members to come out with us.  That's been a struggle lately, but we sure are excited to find more people.

Another great blessing that has come since transfers is that we have four new investigators, two in Orondo about 45 minutes away. and two here in East Wenatchee.  Angelita and Elizabeth in Orondo are very curious and we left them English and Spanish Book of Mormons the first time we visited them a few weeks ago, and we had a sweet lesson with them on Saturday night.  We've set up return appointments to visit Carmina and Juan who are both also interested.  Juan's interested in the Plan of Salvation, and Carmina is interested in prophets.  We are extremely excited and have set some sweet new goals for this week!  We even found old progress records while cleaning and we've planned to visit some of them.

 

That's all for now, Gotta go shopping!  Love you all and hope you have a great week!

OH!  Other great news, I have a new Sister-In-Law! :)

Congrats to my brother Brady and Lindsay on getting married this past weekend!

Members gave us a watermelon this past week!

Transfers, Doctors... Yakima Missionary!

Hey ya'll! 

So the biggest news is....

I am staying in East Wenatchee!  Which means with the mission split in the middle of the transfer, I will be staying in the Washington Yakima Mission!  I'm very sad I won't have President Ware in my mission after July, but I have truly enjoyed serving with him! 

Hermana Wortley my trainer is headed to the tri-cities to become a Sister Training Leader, which means she will be staying in the Kennewick mission, unfortunately.  She and I have truly grown so much together and have gone through so much together.  We are sad she will be leaving, but we will be able to email later together anyway. :)

So this past week was a REAL roller-coaster.  Tuesday we had our last Zone Training Meeting.  I sure will miss my zone, every single companionship has changed this transfer.  Very sad, but exciting! 

Then Hermana Wortley caught a virus... She started having bug bite-like bumps all over her body.  It was so sad to see her in pain from itching and the burning, but it was only on her arms and legs.  Super STRANGE!  We were serving a less active on Wednesday, and wait for it...  She asked us to help her make TAMALES!

I have never been in heaven before after eating the amazing tamales she taught us how to make, It was amazing!

But after we finished at her house Hermana Wortley started feeling more sick.  We went back home and ate some lunch and called Sister Ware.  EVERY one has told us it's bug bites, but our beds and our room are clean of bugs and any creepy crawlies.  So we headed to the doctor and she was given some prescriptions and a good allergy pill.  It was some kind of Rosea virus.  It was horrible to see her in pain, but the bumps and symptoms are going away more and more.  I am so happy she's been my companion and my trainer.  She's amazing and I will never forget this amazing sister!  I sure do love her!

Later that night we both received blessings from Elder Hacking and Elder Cataldo.  I was feeling a lot of stress about training a sister, and feeling not ready yet.  I know now that the Lord knows my desire to train, but the desire I have to learn even more.  I know he knows everything I feel, and every stress I have within me.  Elder Hacking gave me a profound blessing I knew I needed, it was perfect to my needs and my sufficiency. 

I am so thankful I am staying in East Wenatchee, and I am extremely excited to be getting Hermana Alcocer, and to meet my new mission president in a few weeks.  I will be returning to Kennewick for one more meeting in the next week or so for the newest missionaries, so I will have a bit more time with President and Sister Ware. They sure are amazing, and I will surely miss them so much!

That's all for now, but here are Sister Wortley and I on our last Sonic P-day Run before she heads out :(

High Low, High Low Weather....

Zone Sistas

This week has been hard, but soooo worth it.  We had a combined Zone P-day this past Monday, which was a blast!  Scatter ball and Chair soccer for dayzzz!  We then had our last District meeting of this transfer, with Elder Hacking in our District, who will be heading home next week, and who is one outstanding missionary.  My trainer and companion, Hermana Wortley, and Elder Gleed, one of our zone leaders, may also be leaving.  It was quite a district meeting, our district is so wonderful.  I love them all lots!

We also have been helping our less active Veronica come back to church and get into better habits. We helped her start making tamales this past week, and she's started selling them. We've spread word to our ward to help her out! 

Our biggest blessing this week was yesterday - our mission wide fast for our less actives and investigators.  We had our newest investigator Miguel, attend church, just for sacrament meeting.  He's a former investigator, so it wasn't too new for him, but he loved it.  We also had 3 less actives attend church as well!  What a MIRACLE!   Two stayed for sacrament, one was late to Sunday School, but enjoyed every minute of it, and also brought his two sons, who absolutely LOVE primary!  And I was also able to bear my testimony to our wonderful ward.  We not only see miracles in our investigators, but with our wonderful ward family.  We have such opportunities to help serve and eat meals with our ward.  They have such great strength!

Hermana Wortley was teaching Concepcion, an older Hispanic woman before I came out, and she left for Mexico when she and her past companion were teaching her.  We recently called her to see if she had returned, and she is in CA for this week, but she will be home on Thursday, and we set up an appointment with her!  It was an amazing week and experience to hear that. 

As you can tell from the title, this week has been extremely hot too early.  Yesterday was not only fast Sunday, but it was up to 104... I don't know how I was able to live through that heat AND fasting...  It was a miracle for both Hermana Wortley and I!  We finished off our fast Sunday with a wonderful member dinner and downed about 5 glasses of ice water.  Such a worthwhile week!

Love you all, have a fabulous week!

Our awkward, sweet, amazing district

Columbia River Temple week!

Buenos Dias you all!   What a week! 

This week we had a definite struggle with our golden investigator, Manuel.  We received a call from him about a month ago, but neither of us knew who he was, and Hermana Wortley had never taught him before. His number was already in our phone, so we knew he would have a teaching record somewhere in our area book. Turns out he would sit in on the lessons that his identical twin was taking (and when I mean identical, i mean.... SUPER identical) and has been looking for a church to go to. YES!  We had a church tour with him and invited him to be baptized, and he said he would.  We didn't set a date with him because he wasn't ready to set a date. Unfortunately this past Monday and Tuesday we have been worried sick for him.  We haven't been able to have a second lesson with him, and he finally called us last Monday night that he is "going back to mexico..."  He's being deported and he doesn't know when he will return, or return, period, for that matter....  He was so ready, and we are very sad we won't be teaching him anymore, but he promised he would call the missionaries in our area as soon as he returned.  He thanked us for all we've helped him with, especially teaching him the gospel. That was definitely not a single lesson gone to waste.  He still has a Book of Mormon and he says he reads frequently during the week.  We sure will miss him. 

We also have a recent convert that was baptized in February who has been struggling.  He was attending for 6 MONTHS before he took the missionary discussions and was baptized.  He has really struggled since his Mom and sister moved in with him this past month.  Working more for more paychecks.  He has also completely lost his testimony and treats the church like a joke...  We've invited him to come every week, and he laughs and says, "yeah, we'll see.." SALVADOR. NO!  He has completely lost his desire to attend church and has lost his sight of the importance of church attendance. 

The sisters in my zone

I also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with one of my Sister Training Leaders, Hermana Capi.  She's originally from Mexico, so she's totally a native, and she only had to spend 2 weeks in the Provo MTC.  She's most recently from outside of Los Angeles, CA.  This time, I was able to take over our East Wenatchee area and drive us to our appointments and investigators.  I was able to learn more ideas for planning days out.  We struggled trying to figure out when to go where because of miles and not wanting to backtrack, haha!  But we followed the spirit, and we had one great lesson with Concepcion and his wife Esperanza.  Let me tell you, they are the CUTEST Mexican native Abuelo and Abuela you will ever meet! (grandpa and grandpa)  Every time we visit, they offer us apples, just as most of our investigators and our less actives do.  They are such a wonderful couple!  We have invited them to take our "Tendreis Mis Palabras" learning program, but they refuse to ever learn how to read or write Spanish...  We thought they would love it, but we have great plans to give them the Book of Mormon in Spanish on tape for them to listen to.  We are very excited to keep teaching them!

We also went to the temple this week, HOLY COW!  It was amazing, and I am so grateful I was able to go this transfer with my trainer and companion, Hermana Wortley.  As I sat in the Celestial room, I prayed to my Heavenly Father to help me cope with my stress and anxiety, and as soon as I felt like tears would start rolling down my face, a wave of calmness came over me as if it was a cool breeze on a summer day.  I know I am here for a reason, and I know that certain people need me, and each and every full time missionary in the world right now.  I can testify to each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that I know that His grace, and Our Heavenly Father's grace is SOOO sufficient for each of us who will ever live on this earth, and there is no way we can comprehend how much that is.  Christ's atonement and grace and blessings are overflowing our daily buckets, and we must try to recognize them every single day.  He pours daily blessings upon us every day, do not look past them!  He needs each of us, every single day in his vineyard, just as the whole section of Jacob in the Book of Mormon testifies.  I invite you to read Jacob, and to look for the things we can do as members and to be Christlike examples to do our part in the vineyard in every change we get. 

Love you all, tenga un buena semana!

My wonderful zone!