End of March already?!

Hello my friends and Family!

I’m so glad to hear you all is getting snow while I am sitting pretty here around 80 degrees. Yes, we were making referral calls and Sister McKenna talked to mother. I hope you enjoyed that. So as for the doctors thing: I have had a problem breathing with my nose since I got ‘sick’ in the MTC so I finally (at hna mckennas request)  went to the doctor for that. They put me on antibiotics and a nasty nasal spray that will hopefully take care of it.

So last p-day we kinda had a hair cutting party over with Hnas Rodio and Vause. Sister Vause is a beautition and has missed not doing hair, so we went over. Hna McKenna got her hair cut and colored and I got a trim and some little bangs. The next morning we played soccer as a zone and then I remembered why I didn’t want bangs. But I still like it. So it was a lot of fun hanging out with them.

On Tuesday we had the RS celebration and that was a great success for the relief society. It was hilarious to watch a whole bunch of Hispanics dressed up as pioneers, doing a line dance. But President Smith gave a great talk about the importance of the sisters and how HF protects us as we live the gospel. So I enjoyed it. And so did Irma. She had a lot of fun meeting new people. They fed us alfredo pasta with chicken and that was awesome.

Wednesday was amazing because we finally had our transfer temple trip! We were able to go altogether as a zone, even tho there were quite a few of us that were sick and dying. Okay, not really, but they probably should have stayed home.

Thursday we had a district meeting where I gave a talk on forgiveness, which turned out awesome. Mainly because I had found out that our fellow Valencia Branch missionaries, Hnas Scott, McKinney and Withers, were going thru some hard times. Mainly because Hna Withers wants to be in brazil and thinks she knows how to do things best. Other talks that were given were about faith and temperance so it turned out to be just what they needed and they eventually had a good comp inventory. As for now, they are treading carefully around each other but have some sort of mutual agreement.

On Saturday we had an Easter Pageant meeting. The rehearsals are starting and so it was a whole bunch of fun watching people on stage dancing and practicing. The first part of the meeting was with the ZLs and VC sisters from Mesa Mission and the ZLs from the Tempi mission (somewhat interesting, because 8 or so years ago the Mesa mission was created and the pageant used to be their territory, so they feel they have rights to have a major part of it. That and Tempi missionaries wear the badge on the wrong side) and with all of the cast and crew. For the first hour or so they talked about the missionary aspect of the pageant and how all the cast and crew needed to work toward inviting people, answering questions, getting referrals and so on. It was pretty good and I’m getting dang excited for the pageant.

Not only did we have the meeting but we had a Baptism! Irma was baptized and it went awesome. A lot of the families that she cleans house for came and supported her and Bro Huish was able to baptize her. It was up in the air to see if it was going to happen or not because she has been sick. She was unable to go to her baptismal interview on Thursday so we had to do it Friday, and it took forever. But she passed and is so ready. She was so happy and touched by it all. If only we could get her home to Guatemala to be with her family. We had a good turn out from the ward for it being a Saturday night (it being a sore spot with Pres smith who wants to do it Sunday after church to have more attendance but Press Ellsworth says no so that they don’t have to wait a week to get confirmed.) but all went well.

So we had a pretty darn good week. We finally reached our goals for number of member present and other lessons as well as recent converts. It was so much fun. One family that we work a lot with went out with us together as a family Sunday night. We met a referral we had received from the ZLs and they were able to have a really good conversation about how the church has helped their lives (they joined 3 or so years ago). Hna Lupe Sanchez is awesome and has us over for dinner Tuesdays and Hno Emilio Sanchez has made a lot of changes in his life to be a member so they are awesome. They have a couple of boys and brought one with them Sunday night. His name is Max and he has selective mutisim. Therefore, he is pretty cute.

Last night we had a great FHE about the Armor of God. Hno Pimienta had a RM from Mexcio, Rocky, put on a whole bunch of I don’t know what, to protect him. Each person at FHE got a little ball. Hna McKenna and I were ‘angels’ to protect him (we had little tennis racquets). Hnos Duarte and Sanchez were devils that attacked. Eventually it got to the point where every member was to say something that the devil does to try and attack us, throw the ball at Rocky, and Hna McKenna and I were to block it. It was highly entertaining and I suggest that you all try it some time. There are a couple of videos on some members cameras that I’m going to work on getting to you all.

But over all we had a great time. Shocker of the week, Beatriz said she wanted to be baptized. We have been meeting with her not very consistently for the past 2 or so transfers and she has never come to church recently. She has been investigating for 2 or so years tho. Originally we planned to start from the beginning with her, but she asked us about God’s plan, seeing as there are so many things that are going on that aren’t too good. So we talked about that and about midway through the conversation she says something along the lines of ‘I wanted to be baptized into the mormon church…” and continued on talking. Hna McKenna got a word in and asked for clarification. She said yes she did, when could she do it. I asked “when?” and Hna McKenna says, how does April 9th sound? She agreed and so we now need to work with her. She has no teaching record so we need to give her all the lessons. Fun Stuff.

We finally met with Leo. We first started seeing him when I first came to mesa but we never worked hard to get him taught. So Hna McKenna and I talked about what he expected of our visits and how we could help him with his family (he now has a gf with 2 boys). We invited her to join us be she declined. But it went really well and he seems willing to give it a try. Leo is such a nice guy and he would be awesome if he worked for it.

We met a new family in Falcon Glen. It was  referral from the Elders and we caught them leaving Sunday night and the Sanchez talked to them. They have a way cute boy about a year old and they seem really nice. There are called Victor y Natalie and Byron. But they couldn’t come to the FHE but seem really interested.

Also on Sunday, we had a mission wide fast for the things that we needed help with in the mission: health, missionary work, members catching the spirit of missionary work and for the Lord to accept our obedience. It was awesome thinking that every other missionary in Mesa was fasting for the same purpose.

But other than that we have been doing good. I love you all a lot and hope you all continue to do great yourself. The bedroom looks wonderful!
Love emily

It's cold here...

Hello my family!

Well it is raining today and I have been freezing for the past couple of days so I’m ready for summer. And of course, every here says that I am going to regret that. But whatever, I want to be warm.

So, this week has been very low key. A lot of nights in the VC and a meeting with half of the sisters in the mission. Hermana McKenna was sick on Saturday so we were at our house all day. I read my scriptures for the whole day (not as fun as it sounds) while Hna McKenna slept. She slept for a about 10 hours, woke up, ate, and went to one of the baptisms in her last area, and went back to sleep. So I kinda went a little crazy. Remember when I was inside the MTC res. Hall for 3 days? Yeah, kinda like that.

One day in the MTC, Elder Romrell, one of the senior couples, came up to Hna Mckenna and I and said that there was a man up front that wanted a discussion. So we’re like, alright. So we get him into one of the teaching rooms and talk to him for about an hour. It was an awesome experience. His name was Jeffery and he has been inactive about 20 years. He wanted to get back into going to church but didn’t know where to start. He was covered in tattoos, is bi-polar and was very open. We didn’t know exactly where to begin (because it’s not like we have ‘discussions’ anymore as lessons) so I asked what he remembered about the church. He remembered there being a lot of rules. Awesome, we can start with that. So we talked about the purpose of the commandments (and where he is at this point in his life). We talked about what the Savior did for us in suffering not only for our sins, but for our pains and sufferings. Which branched into how God answers prayers. It was an awesome ‘lesson’. Hna McKenna and I worked well with each other and we weren’t afraid of silence to let him sit and think. We watched a mormon message (Hope you know, we had a hard time) and used scriptures that I normally wouldn’t have thought about. At the end, he was very grateful for us talking to him and asked if we had had a discussion. Well, yeah… Later on, Hna Mckenna said that she thought that I was the perfect person to talk to him. Well, there you go. Lucky me. 

One other experience I had in the VC was a while ago actually, but I think I forgot to tell you about it. A man came in and I started talking to him and I was trying to figure out his religious background. It was so confusing because he said he was Christian and then said that he believed the Bible and read the Koran and didn’t believe that Christ was the literal son of God because God didn’t sleep with Mary. What could I do. I testified of what I know to be true and then had him listen to the Christus. A little before that, a couple of ladies had come in to the room too and were listening to this ‘discussion’. I had to take a time out to make sure they were members before I scarred them for life. After the Christus, he said, Yeah, it’s all true. I got fed up with him and sent him into the book of Mormon exhibit. As the ladies walked out one of them gave me a hug and said that I’ll be an awesome missionary. 

This week, the sister missionaries gathered together with the Ellsworths and Whites and we talked about Christ like attributes and so on. It was kinda like a womens conference. We had talks from a lot of people about not judging, meekness, charity, a talk based on the talk called The 4^th Missionary. It was really good. I was able to see with Beth Tanner and that was fun.  So it was a great experience. Originally, I think the purpose was to address the issue of full field vs the VC sisters. Which has died down a lot! There really is no problem except with the disrespectful elders (the other day and elder came up to me and asked if it was nice to just sit and read my scriptures all day. I asked, “Is that what I do all day?”  bah).

Because of daylight savings time, which we do not follow, all of the other VC’s close at 8 PM our time. Which means that we now get all the MTC calls that come in. So this past week, I have confirmed 3 or 4 people who called in and requested a BoM, DVD or whatelse. One conversation was funny. This guy calls from Canada and I’m like, so why did you call. He said he was just curious about the card he had found in his apartment. So I told him a little about the church and said that missionaries could come by and explain more. He didn’t want that so I said that he could go online and talk to missionaries there if he wanted. I offered to send him a BoM but he said that he liked reading online so I said that he could read them on lds.org. I would offer, he would say no, I would give an online option. Goof.

I’m not exactly sure where most of our time goes, but our area is slowing down. So the other day I went through our potential investigators list (which hasn’t been updated since July) and organized it by street and apartment complex. Part of our area was given to the other Hnas so over half of the potentials went to them in one apartment complex. Sigh. So Hna McKenna and I have been going through the list. So far, most of the people don’t live there anymore.

We were walking in one of the apartment complexes and invited some people to the Easter Pageant that is coming up. One of the two men that we were talking about started asking us how Jeffery was. I’m like, who is he? Hna McKenna figures out that he is talking about the Prophet for the reformed church, so we clarified that and again invited him to the pageant. He got very cold and said that he didn’t believe that there would be prophets on earth today because that’s what Catholics believe. Okay. Fine. His friend was slightly embarrassed.  We were walking back to our car and passed by him again and said that this was a free country and we could do what we want. I replied with a, “Yeah, and we got to thank God for the freedom to choose. You just so happen to be choosing what is wrong.” as we walked away.

We had a Family home evening with the ward, which is looking to become a regular activity. It was a lot of fun and Irma was there. She is an awesome lady. She got up super early to clean a house so she could come to church yesterday. We are getting ready for her baptism on Saturday and she is super excited. She is inviting all of the people of the houses that she cleans. We also had a really good fireside last night where we (as in the sisters of the branch – Scott, McKennie, Withers, Beu McKenna- and sister Nishiguchi and Hartvigson) sang a poor wayfaring man of grief in Spanish. Harder than it sounds actually. One of the ward missionaries said that he didn’t know we could sing. Then after seeing my face, he said, apparently you didn’t either.

Cristina finally called us and informed us of her new address (Ricardo got her an apartment). So I called the missionaries in her area and informed them of her. Still haven’t seen Adrian. Last I heard, his mom was sick in Mexico and he was working over time to get money to go down to see her. The Ledezma family didn’t come to church. Fernando (11 yr old son) was upset that he still has to be in primary until May so we don’t know how to get him to want to come to church. They seem very so so about the church, and we can never find them home long enough for a lesson. Miguel and Denise stood us up for a lesson (even when we reminded them about it) and so it was just not a lesson filled week. But that’s okay. We will be diligent, and hopefully find some new investigators. 

We also got a batch of Visa waiters. They will hopefully go to brazil eventually. They will be here for 3 months minimum. We have one new sister in the ward, sister Withers, and she is gung ho about everything.

So that’s the majority of my life. I love you a lot and hope you have a great sunny week!

Love,

emily

PS, the pictures is of some bread pudding that some members made. It wasn't very appetizing. 

Beware the ides of March

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all doing great and having a wonderful time enjoying the cold weather. We are just now in the 80's and going up to the 90's next week. :) lucky me!

So this week was quite slow. Not much went on with me because I was at a leadership training from tuesday until friday. Apparently this training is training that missionaries in the MTC will start getting. So to make sure that we all have it, they give it to us now and then hopefully all of us will be on the same page.

The first day I was to drive, since the mission office is in Scottsdale, that's where we go. We are supposed to be in our seats at 8:30 and because of traffic, we needed to leave around 7:45. But because of mis-to no communication, people didn't show up until 8. So I was not happy and everyone was highly entertained with my unhappiness. We finally go to the meeting and it was great. Over the next few days, we talked about how we receive revelation through scripture study, prayer and church attendance, which is the 3 biggest commitments that we have investigators do. It was a lot of fun because we focused a lot on having good discussion.

It started off with Pres Ellsworth asking what people thought of the idea that we baptize every month. A lot of people had opinions all over the board with that. Some were all for it and others felt that it was unattainable. I stated that I felt that if I didn't get that baptism then I was a failure. Pres Ellsworth stressed the fact that he didn't want anyone to feel that they were a failure and then went on to tell a story of how a general authority and his wife had faith that they would have a natural birth, and continued to have faith that it would be natural until the needle pierced her skin to induce her. Somehow that related to the feeling like a failure if you didn't baptize every month. I get the faith part.

We also discussed how important it was that we taught people not lessons and how we should, from the get go, state our purpose with the people we teach. That is something that I would like to work on because I know that a lot of the relationships that we have with the people that we teach are more buddy-buddy instead of friend and teacher. So it's something that I would like to go over.

Of course, these trainings entail practices and that was good. I got to work on my Spanish and I got a lot of compliments. :) Sister McKinney, Elder Dursteller (ZL) and some other elder and I were picked to go up front to do a practice to extend the invitation to come to church. We pretended we were Nancy and Manuel. So that was enlightening.

We also played some pretty fun games that involved tic tac toe and scripture chases, baseball and oatmeal cans and other fun games. After lunch we all wanted to sleep so it was a good thing they decided to wake us up. :) So overall it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed spending the time working on helping myself and learning more to apply it. They had taught it to the senior companions and apparently they were supposed to share it with us, the junior comps, but I hadn't learned anything from the senior comp. So i'm glad I got the training.

As a result of the training and VC, we had very little time in our area. Our numbers reflected that... but that's okay, because the lessons that we did have were really good. We finally met with Nancy and Manuel and it was such a great lesson! But was interesting was that we had already been through most of the people we had planned for the day (seriously, if no one answers, you can go thru your day in an hour) and so I wanted to try them one last time. So we stopped by, no answer, and as we turned around to walk away, someone walked out of their house so we were able to get in! Fernando (11 yr old) wanted an english BoM because he had started reading in spanish and wanted to understand it better. We talked of how the BoM would help their family, but when we teach next time, I want to start from the beginning because It's been such a hit and miss with them. They did come to church on Sunday but wanted to leave for sacrament meeting. So Sis Mckenna and I had to work really hard to get them to stay. But they DID! So that was great.

We have also had a great lesson with Miguel and Denise, but they went to Mexico so they are hopefully coming back today.

So, as for the branch. Apparently it was 2 branches that quite recently came together. And that is what is causing a lot of the conflict between some of the members. That would have been nice to know. So we had stake correlation and the other sisters and I discussed some of the concerns we had with the stake pres and he said that he would talk to Pres Smith. One of the main concerns we had is that we were supposed to have an FHE for the branch today but because someone (will remain un named) didn't want to plan it for this week but for next week, rescheduled it and didn't let us, the hnas, know. So we invited our investigators and LA to it and didn't know it was canceled. So we have been scrambling to get something together.

So during our meeting with the ward missionaries, a concern was brought up about having baptisms on sunday for the spanish branch, because it is more difficult to do them on the weekends after a whole lot of i'm not exactly sure, we finally had the meeting we wanted with Pres Smith and Hno Pimienta. (SIDE NOTE: we have been trying to have this meeting with them for over a month and they just wont. We were going to sneak it in by having a dinner at pres smith's home but he was going to be out of town (guess not) so it didn't happen. Pres ellsworth has asked for us to have this meeting with our bishop and ward mission leader.) Anyway, we talked with pres smith about how we need to be more organized and coordinated in our efforts, the goals and plans we have for the branch and activities and so on. It was so great to have that communication there. Most of the time we all go our own way because the others don't to listen to us. Pres Smith described Hno Pimienta as a shot gun that goes all different directions at one but his energy just needs to focus. Yep. That's our Pepper (SIDE NOTE: pimienta is pepper in spanish)

Also, as a result of the Leadership training, I haven't been in the VC as much as I would like, but yesterday, I Top Boxed a cute family that came down here for spring break. They came in and saw the Walter Rane pictures of the Book of Mormon and Loved it, so we talked about how all the stories are in the book of mormon. So they wanted one (and thereby accepted missionaries) and got a BoM in tagolog because they are from the Philippians. They are so cute! I'm excited. Not only that, but I looked on the program we have to keep track of the people that we Top Box (TB) and Confirmed Referrals (CMR) that one person has been baptized and about 4-5 are being taught. Granted 95% of the people I TB or CMR are dropped, but I love seeing that someone got baptized.

So that's my week. Not incredibly insane or busy but enough that I learned new things. I love learning new things. :)

I love you all and hope you have a great day!

Love,

emily

I have less than one year...

Good morning people!

Just so ya’ll know I have had a 3 day headache, lots of Excedrin, and hiked Camelback Mountain today. So it’s been great. We did Camelback for a VC prep meeting where we meth Kathryn Holyoak (or something like that) and she played the piano for us. She composes a lot of music for the church so it was a lot of fun. The hike was ridiculous. Think of Harney Peak. Except worse. It was straight up. By the end when we were going back down, my knee was about ready to give up on me. And I skinned it pretty  good. You’d all be proud. I got really sick going up and If I didn’t know any better I’d say it was because of the elevation. But it was a lot of fun. Sister Vause has skinned her knees on the bikes so I helped her out on the way down. Elder White made it to the top and Elder young almost did. The rest didn’t make it to the ‘Iron Rod’, of which you had to hold on to to make it from one ledge to the next. It was rock climbing, not hiking. You should look it up on the internet and let me know the stats on it…

But the rest of the week has been Fantastic! We have had some crazy success with: IRMA! Irma has a baptismal date for March 26, because she wants the husband of one of the lady’s house she cleans to baptize her. Apparently she had a dream last week that he baptized her, so she’s going for it. It was amazing. She has just opened up and is so happy. What’s funny, is that she was expressing about how she wondered how she had never heard of the Church in Guatemala. Hna Mckenna’s dad was serving there while she lived there so hna Mckenna feels this strange connection that he missed her but now Hna Mckenna’s got her. Make sense?

Beatriz is getting flaky on us. She reminded us of our appointment for Saturday and then she wasn’t there. Odd. But she came to church last week.

We have not seen Nancy and Manuel since last transfer. I’m not exactly sure what is going on with them, but we are taking the stance that those who want to progress get more of our time. There we are shifting on who we are focusing on.

The most random experience I have had so far on my mission was completely bizarre I don’t think that I will fully be able to describe it. Mainly because I don’t know how to express how I feel. Anyway, there is a family we are meeting with. Claudia was baptized when she was 8 but isn’t active. Her ‘husband’ Jose is catholic. He has a daughter and they have a son together and they are getting ready for another baby. Anyway, Claudia randomly leaves him for a week or so and then comes back. Apparently she is gone but we had a lesson with them on the Proclamation to the Family and invited them to church where we were pretty much told that they are catholic and don’t want to go to the mormon church. We are welcome to come and talk about God but not about ‘John Smith’ so we were not really going to go back and visit them. The odd thing was that their normally insane 5 yr old daughter was quite for the whole lesson. This was sometime last week. Friday (weekly planning) we get a call from Jose. At first we were like, is this the Jose we are thinking about? But he said that he really wanted us to come over. We couldn’t Friday but we set up a time for Saturday. We go over Saturday, no one is there so we go back out into our area. We get a call after dinner telling us to come back so we do. For about 15 minutes he tries to get us into the house (no can do) and so eventually we go out by our car because he doesn’t feel comfortable talking on his doorstep. Outside he tells us freaky things going on around the house about, well, it doesn’t matter what but know that it was not right. So we were like, we can get Hno Pimienta over to bless your house…and he liked that idea. So we called but alas, adult session of stake conference was going on. Right then, our Zone leaders drove by (they live in the same apartment complex.) Sister Mckenna and I looked at each other and said, “Elders. Priesthood.” So we got them to come back to the house. Elders Green and Dursteller do not speak Spanish so we played translator. And eventually we had them bless and dedicate the home. During the prayer, Hna Mckenna had the hardest time keeping the door shut (it physically would not shut at all and there was a force pushing against it) and it got so loud outside I was crazy distracted. Really, I don’t remember much of the prayer except that Elder Dursteller prayed that whatever was in that home would understand its purpose. Odd. Afterwards, I was talking to him and he said that he felt that there was something resisting him in his ability to pray and he felt that it was the image of the Virgin that they have dead center on their wall. So he told me to tell them to take it down and to put of pictures of Christ in every room. That’s going to go well with a Catholic. So I kinda danced around the subject when we were saying goodbye. Really, what is the verb for ‘remove’ or ‘take down’? My brain failed me. Jose felt really good about what we did and we left because we had another appointment. Which we ended up leaving because they wouldn’t turn off the new Robin Hood movie. So we decided to go back to Jose’s to tell him to take down the picture of the Virgin. We both felt sick anyway. So we went back and told him, and I don’t think he completely understood what we were talking about or why we wanted him to take it down. He just nodded his head and said, “Si, Si”. Sigh. All I know is that night, I was so grateful for the power of the priesthood and I know I am not going to do anything to not have it in my life.

On the brighter side of things, we have had a crazy amount of member present lessons, the most I have ever had. Mainly because we go out with Hno Pimienta. One night we were to go out and bless homes with Hno pimiento but ended up meeting a new family that wanted us to come back! Yay for new Investigators! And according to hno Pepper I was mad that we met them. No, I was mad because he wanted go out and meet investigators at 9:30 at night. But going out with him (and a RM from Chile, Blake) was a lot of fun. It’s so nice to have RM’s to go out with because they know what to do. We ran into Elders Armour and Whaley (they cover the same area in English) a lot that night and found Christina who was living with a lady friend. She is driving us crazy and I don’t know if she will be in jail here by the end of the month. Sigh.

The other day was stake conference, which was amazing. A lot of the focus was on the “For the Strength of Youth’ and how important it was for the parents to know and live the standards of the book. Kids are smart enough to realize when parents are living a double standard. It has been amazing because Sister McKenna and I are on a roll learning about how the book of mormon really is made for the family. We will eventually share our discoveries with you when they are written out. I don’t know if this is becoming a theme for my mission or just for this area but we really are teaching quite a bit about how the gospel blesses families! Interesting…

The other day at sports I really rolled my ankle and it wasn’t happy with me for a couple of days (I’m just starting to fall apart now). We were playing ultimate Frisbee and it was a lot of fun.

Other than that I don’t have much else. The branch is having a crazy time finding people to feed us but they have been great. And the food has been, interesting…

Love you lots!
emily