Happy birthday to All my Sisters!

(Editor's note: LA refers to less active and VC is the visitor's center.)

Hello one and all! 

 

We had a Charla Fogenera (fireside) last night. A Less Active family came to it. His dad is the Branch President of Via Verde, the branch that hosted. They say they go to that branch sometimes and maybe our ward once a month. Bishop has asked us to start seeing them. I don't know how to work with this family, because he was a declared apostate on his mission. And he invites missionaries here that are going home soon to come over and watch movies with him. So, habits haven't changed much since his mission. But that's okay. Because it was so far away, only 5 sisters went: McKenna, Nishiguchi, Sordes, Romano and I. Hartvigsen stayed behind. We sang some songs for the Charla and it was a neat place to hear so many testimonies.

Good news! Myra had her baby last Monday! A boy, named Cristofer. She seems to be very happy. We tried meeting with her last week but we couldn't get in contact with her. We actually found out that she had had the baby from a member who has known her for years (that would have been nice to know a while ago...) The RS has been doing great. They assigned her VT and brought her over meals. Progress for our RS. We are now really focusing on helpin Myra progress. We have a lesson set up with her this week and we'll try to meet her husband and see where he is at on the meeting with the missionaries issue.

Alma, the LA, came to the VC with us and her two kids. Her husband has been asking questions about the temple and sealings. So we attempted to get them all to the VC and talk about it. We ended up teaching the Plan of Salvation with the kids. I don' know how much is getting thru to the kids (ages 11 and 12). They aren't very responsive. But they did indicate that they wanted to get baptized.

We are visiting with a lot of LA families. One we have been trying to get to come to church and she preferes English to spanish and him spanish over english. But she wants him to come back to church bad enough that she wold go to a spanish ward. Its progress.

Maria is still doing well. We taught knowledge to her and her 13 year old daughter elizabeth. We talked about spiritual knowledge and scriptural knowledge. Maria is solid, and still lacks the funds for the divorce.

 

One night, we swaped companions for dinner, Arias and I went to a hispanic family, and Vause and Hart went to an english dinner. We listened to an amazing story of this woman who got baptized after listening to the missionaries for 4 weeks, and then served a 3 year jail sentence, and now is working on going to the temple to be sealed to her hubby, who has already gone thru the temple. It was amazing. Well, I ended up stealing hna arias for the rest of the night.  We attempted to go to a baptism, but Aria's investigator didn't show up. So we worked in my area and talked a lot about the politics of the VC, comp struggles (strong pulling along the weak) and challenges of the area. We did this over a shake at McDonalds because no one was home and it was 830 at night. I love sister Arias. She's a little firecracker.

 

During that night, we went over and taught one of the members how to conduct. She is a sweet sweet woman. She was having a hard time understanding when to move you hand. So we explained it for her, and in the end, she gave us pineapple and gave us some skirts that she had bought for sister Hartvigsen and I. beautiful white skirts that I will only wear on sundays...

 

earlier that week, we had sister vause with us because sister Arias had to go on exchanges. we worked in the VC and had a whole bunch of fun contacting people with her. She is so shy and timid. but hilarious!

 

We contacted a hilarious lady named Ana, and invited her to chruch, but no show. But she seems pretty interested.

 

In the VC, I had an awesome experience. Sister Romrell (one of teh senior couples) gave me a couple to give a tour to. He spoke english, she spoke spanish, and they were in love. Well, that's great. He ended up being an excommunicated member and so he loved her to eternity and back which made him think of the temple and him gettng rebaptized. and so the story begins. But they were both touched as they went thru god's plan and accepted missionaires. It was a good experience.

 

We've spent a lot of time in the VC, but it's been steady. We are working on Identifying the miracles that we see. it will be interesting to see the changes that happen when the new director comes in January.

 

So that's my life! I hope you all enjoy your week!

 

Love, emily

It's getting cold here

Okay, maybe 70 degree's isn't cold but i'm about ready to die. I have the heater on and my companion just looks at me with an "are you serious?" face. Yes. Quite serious.

 

We had a pretty good time with Ivonne and her kids. Carlos is 8, the one we are attempting to teach, so we made a CD of primary songs that talked about the restoration. They loved it. We listened to the CD with them and told them that they needed to memorize 2 songs to get brownies. They did, but unfortunitly they picked Do as I'm Doing and Popcorn Popping (the songs ment for the 4 year old down syndrom son). Regardless, they loved Soy un Hijo de Dios and have that mostly memorized. When we went over to check up on their memorization, the home seemed a lot more happier and they kids actually enjoyed performing the songs for us. They are assigned to memeorize a few more songs, and next on their list is Book of Mormon Stories. It really is too cute to watch. Ivonne is really grateful for it too. She seems to miss some things about chruch. Mainly the music. Hopefully this will provide motivation for her to bring her kids to chruch.

We found a new LA lady, Alma. She was about to go thru the temple years ago and decided to not do it because of too much opposition from her husband. She wants to go with us to the VC but doesn't want her husband to know. So we are still trying to figure out how best to help her on this one. She is a real nice lday tho. All of her kids (3 grown) are baptized too.
We met with Ronaldo and Leticia this week. They are some of the harder ones to find home. Leticia told us how she was feeling guilty for meeting with us and with the Jehovas witnesses at the same time and tried to tell us how Ronaldo was the one who wanted us to come and visit. That's fine. for now. So we just talked about what they planned on doing with the kids for Halloween and how holdays are meant for families. Eventually Ronaldo came home and we continued to talk and eventually the subject turned to death. Hmmm...But overall it lead to Leticia asking what happens to us after we die. Bingo! we had planned to teach plan of salvation too. We taught a real simple plan of salvation and talking about how God has given us the opportunity to be together forever and how life goes on after death. It was pretty good. We invited them to the VC, but they didn't show. I love this family. While Leticia has been meeting with JW for 3 years, she doesn't agree with what they teach. She is thrirsting for knowledge and is afraid to get it from us because of her previous obligation. But we will be here for when she is ready.
Maria is still progressing, we talked about Chasity and Virtue with her. She is worried about her 13 year old daughter that manages to get her way around the boys at school. We talked about the YW program and how it is meant to help and support and how she can do it too. We went to the VC with her; she had wanted to go for a while. We watched God's plan and she loved that and then Lamb of God afterwards.
Myra is going to have her baby this week. She does not look comfortable in the least, but she is estatic because her husband came from Mexico this week! Oh i am so excited for her. When we met with her we talked about forever families and asked if her husband was okay with her learning (yes) and if he had any interest (doesn't know yet). We really hope to be able to teach them as a family. She was the only one that came to church on sunday. Ready to pop and she still comes to church. :)We are going to meet her again this week.
We met with one of the referrals we had (few of those appointments are sticking btw). Her name is Adriana. her main concern was that all Churches are businesses and in it for money. We talked about how Christ's church was established on service and that is how we patterened ours. We taught the restoration and she seemed to like it. She is very receptive, just not so sure about the going to church thing.
We finally met with Jose and Eva together. They've been having issues since a long time ago. They managed to stay civil with us there and not fight, which is what they normally do when people come over (pick sides). So while we had them there we talked about how prayer can strengthen our relationships with God and with each other as we pray together as a family. Jose probably won't go to jail, his daughter who went AWOL about a month ago has an arrest warrent out for her. Another source of stress for Eva. We followed up with them and Jose wasn't there, Eva was, and they hadn't prayed. Sigh. It's okay, we keep helping.

We were excited when another one of our LA told us that her husband was interested in the Temples and being sealed. Good news for us, seeing as he didn't want to listen to us before (he's not a member). The Rincon's, a RC family, met with us in the VC. they told us they were fasting. Oh happy day! they come to church every once in a while. So that was a good sign to me that they are still wanting to come and do what they need.

 

As for the VC, well, we did something called a phone blitz. Object of the game is to get all of the cards that we had called and either confirmed, denied or thrown away so we have space for the Christmas cards. So our shifts were all phones. My companion hates calling and so it was a pain listening to her attempt to not complain but in reality complain.  I wasn't able to confirm but i did get an incomplete address completed so he could finally get missionaries. I have so much to do and not enough time to do it. One of the nights i got a mormon.org call and the guy initially was very argumenative (how do mormons get over 'you shall not add to this book' and that jesus had wine blah blah blah). Well, me, being me, started to argue back with my smarts. Eventually I recognized that i wasn't helping and calmed down and we had a pretty good conversation afterwards. We talked about the Book of Mormon and how it helps us understand the bible and the chruch's position on gay marrage and homosexuality and so on. We ended up being friends, if youwant to call it that. His final question for me was what we believed about cats. Uh, they are animals and we keep them as pets...  Overall, it was a good experience.

 

The Youngs, a senior couple dearly beloved of us, left for home this week. I am going to miss them so much! I love them! they were the cutest couple ever. He always would wait until she got dressed and then pick a tie to match. He was so funny. She was so sweet. I am just going to miss them.

 

I got sick one day this week. Something didn't agree with me too well. but All is well now. I went home early and slept.

 

So that's my week. We work hard and try to find time to rid our bikes. Most of the time we have to many appointments and then they fall thru so it makes it difficult for us. But that's okay. We walk too. 

I Love you all so much!

 

emily

It's October already!

Hello one and all!

 

This was a pretty good week for us, mainly because we were able to get a lot of referrals and conact most of them and the ones that we have had for a while. We were able to set a return appointment with two of the families that we had meet. One was a former from another area but couldn't quit smoking and the other is his aunt. Luis (the former) is really excited to have us coming over. I was afraid that he was spewing information at his aunt because he was so excited. But luckily we have a return appointment set up so we can clearly go thru what he was excitedly telling her.

Some of the referrals are playing hard to get. One hung up on us after we told her we could provide spiritual support and not financial support. We've tried stopping over at her place a few times, but no luck. The other person works night and so we have met his wife but he hasn't been home yet. His wife is a LA. The kids are hilarious. The 8 year old asked us in spanish if we could speak english. we said yes, she said she could to. "puedo hablar en ingles. mire! hello!" It was pretty cute.
Myra is so ready to have her baby. She looks like she's about to pop. She isn't very good at keeping appointments right now becuase she sleeps when she can. Shes probably going to deliver this week or next week. We just try to see her when we can, and when she's awake. she came to about 2 minutes of conference. Dang it! but we'll hopefully visit her soon.
maria came to conference (and it was her birthday yesterday) and she loved it. we talked about how to apply charity to her life as a mother and the significance of it in our daily lives. We had dinner with her afterwards with the other sisters (Arias and Vause) and that was a lot of fun. Maria is such a sweetheart!
We finally found Ivonne (LA) again. life seems to have calmed down for her. She was excited to see us. We hopefully will teach them lesson one this week, in primary songs. Mainly because she has young kids and keeping their attention is really difficult. And one of them had down syndrom. Primary songs have potential, right?
Other than that we've been trying to balance VC and time in our area. The new schedule does allow for more time in our area, but most of it is when people aren't home. So, gratefully, most of the people that we have found this week work night shifts so we can visit them during the day! blessings!

Sister hartvigsen and I had a rough patch the other day. A few things had been bothering me about her lack of initative, and other things. So we had a talk about how to be better about some things. She cried for 2 days but I expressed my love for her and that I wanted to help her be the best Sister hartvigsen she could be. Things have been getting better.

 

elder Ilizaliturri's (elder from my mtc district) dad came in to the vc the other day. I was super excited about it. when i found out who it was i started jumping up and down, while i was shaking his hand. I then dashed off to get Hna McKenna to come and visit him. I guess elder ilizaliturri's doing good. not much of a writter tho...

 

We all watched conference in Spanish! and lucky me I was able to understand it! well, most of it anyway. My favorite was sister Thompson on revelation. It was a pretty mild conference. not extreem calls to repentance at least. A lot about obedience (something I need to be better at) and so it was encouraging, not shaming. Sister Hart listened in english with headphones. But overall, it was fun. during lunch break on saturday all the sister(us and arias and vause) went to get something to eat. Funness!

 

JDs been coming into the VC every day. Kid needs a job. But hes committed to the gospel. He knows that he's going to get baptized regardless of his family. But i found out that he's bipolar and he's going on a down swing, so he moved his baptism to november because of it. sad day! but he wants to get baptized. He was asking me how he could get a sister's address and phone number if he liked her and i said to wait till after her mission. oh gee, kids got a long way to go but he's so funny.

 

I was able to get a couple of referrals called and confirmed. It made me excited at least! I haven't done that in a while. Phones are a big push in the Vc because our numbers are down. it's an interesting battle that's going on. So far, the sisters seem to be getting along, but we spend less time with each other so it's difficult to tell. A lot less gossiping so far. sister Cottrell is still my favorite to talk to because she is down to earth and had a head on her shoulders and knows what she's doing. I'm going to miss her when she leaves.

 

other than that, we've been doing pretty good. We did good on our miles this month. a senior couple in the VC is going home soon. TRISTE! but overall things are happy.

 

I love you lots!

emily

Well it's been under 100 degrees this week ...

I think I left off right before transfers. Because we knew soccer would go out the window, we played pretty much every day for a week. We had a lot of fun and a whole bunch of members come and play with us. Most of them can't believe that I really didn't play before my mission. LOL. I"m getting better!

 

Our week has been crazy. The new schedule at the VC makes it so we have more time in our area and that we can eat with members more. So we've been learning how to balance that out. So we either eat at 430 or 6ish depending on the shift that we have. The VC has been good. JD has been coming in a lot. He's investigating the church and has felt the spirit, but has holdbacks (family and so on) but so far his plan is to quit smoking next week. He said he talked to his mom (who is a strong roman catholic) and she said that shes upset. So I asked him who he wanted to please more. God or he Family. He said his family. alright...

Sister Hartvigsen and I gave a tour the other day to a ward councile. They wanted to learn more about the recourses we have here in the VC and learn more about Mormon.org. So we helped with that. One of my elder friends from the Kimball zone was over that ward and he was a hoot. I have so much fun with people in the VC.

 

Our investigators are slow going. We finally found Eva again. She is depressed and as depressed people go, she doesn't want to do anything about her situation. So its hard for us to teach her. We plan on taking her to the VC to watch a movie or something.

Maria is still wonderful. She wants us to come over every day but we can't we are working on teaching her christlike attributes this week and so far we've covered faith and hope. On to charity! she's feeding us dinner this week too. :)

Myra is still pregant. and sick. We had to move an appointment. We watched a movie called finding faith in christ with her. Her daughters like to come out and watch movies with us but aren't overly fond of listening. But that's okay. they're 11 and 12. I wouldn't want to listen either.

 

We got lost one day trying to find dinner. and i lost my sunglasses. Which depressed me. And my jumpdrive. It wasn't a good day. But I enjoyed the bike ride. :)

 

We had a talent show in our ward! yay for ward activities! We didn't have time as sisters (Arias Vause, Hart and I) to do anything, but i found a CD on the VC Computer that had the accompaniment for the song I know that my redeemer lives from the EFY CD. So i copied the spanish words and viola! a talent! so that was fun. Lots of people came and lots of people participated. we even had nachos as a treat. it was a lot of fun and hopefull we can have another activity in the near future. hispanics love to party!

 

Saddly, I was unable to watch the RS broadcast. I was in the VC that night. But i'm excited to read about it. even still, afterwards, we went over the the Leon family (amazing people who help us with dinners and love us to bits even tho they have nothing!) and celebrated Hna Leons and Elder Santos' bday. The Elders made cake and we got a card. They are going thru tough financial times right now but we love them and they know it. Their kids, Damien and Camila are so cute. I am going to miss them! after they get sealed, they want to move back to mexico. Triste!

 

Sunday night we went to a training for mormon.org that the spanish ward leaderships were to go to. and no one knew about it. So it was about 11 members and 6 missionaries that showed up. Hmmm. Not so good. It's hard to prepare for this because it won't be in spanish. and you can't post a profile up in spanish because it hast be in english. hmmm....but that's okay. we'll figure it out.

 

We have 2 new sisters in the VC. sister Sordes and Mackenzie. Sordes is from France, really spunky and really happy. Sister Mackenzie does not speak english and loves to dance. Saddly, i don't get to talk to them much but they seem great. WE had a prep meeting the other day and for one of my responsibilities as Admin assistant I get to make quizes. So i created a transfer long quiz about how sisters need to get to know each other and get over themselves. I thought it was pretty good and hopefully we can fix this problem that we do have.

 

I love you lots and talk to you later!

 

love, emily

Transfer News

Well, I'm going for a record. My longest companion is now Sister Hartvigsen. We are going on three transfers together. Huh. The only one who is leaving is Elder Isom (really sad day). he's Headed to a Liahona 1st. One of the stakes got dissolved so a lot of the ward boundries (and zone boundries) have changed. There is a lot of change happening. Sister Cottrell is training the sister we are getting from Kenya and Sister McKenna is training the sister from France this transfer. Exciting! Let's see, what other changes, The VC is doing a new schedule, so instead of doing 2 shifts of 6 hours, we are splitting it into a morning shift (9-3) Mid (3-6) and Night (6-9). They are doing this for a few reasons: To have more time in our area. To cut out dead time in the VC. To have us eat more with members (we won't have any more meals being brought to the VC). And so it will be interesting. It will force us to be more diligent in the things that we ahve to do. So that schedule will stay for Christmas Lights - Because stakes don't want to bring us dinners anymore so there had to be a solution for that... We are so loved.   We've been having a busy yet not busy week. We had the opportunity for someone from teh 1st quarm of the 70 to visit us, Elder Chai  and his wife (he gave a talk in conference a while ago about noisy boys or something like that...). It was an interesting conference. One would think that we would get talked to about Preach My Gospel and Missionary work, right? No, We got marriage prep. Actually, it started off about how to develope our relationship with God thru prayer and how to feel more of his spirit. But it very frequently turned to Marrage adivice. His wife was there and so it made it even more funny. But there you go. It was a good inpiring conference. Sister Chai took us aside and talked to the sisters about how the Elders are Simple and Young, no matter how old they are. She talked to us about how we can support the priesthood and help the elders live worthy of it. Sister hartvigsen got pulled into an interview with him (random selection) and she was very confused ast to the purpose of the interview. I wasn't there so I have no more details on that front. :)   On Wednesday, Sister Hartvigsens 23rd BDay, So we played Soccer. The elders got her a Bismark Donut (i'll have to tell you about the transfer long joke about that when I get home). We took her to Jamba Juice cause that's what she wanted, and eventually smashed her head into a cake. She will deny it to her dying day that that is what she wanted, but when she brings it up in every conversation about her upcoming birthday, well, I can put 2 and 2 together. We had district Meeting, and I gave a talk on love and charity. I described charity in levels, Friendship, Discipleship, and Charity. It was a good talk. I learned something so that makes it successful, right? (district picture included - Sister Arias (shortest one) and Vause are going full field this transfer. EXCITING!!   We've had the wonderful opportunity to bike in the rain ( i enjoyed it anyway...). WE had a meeting with the bishop which was just frustrating as he put everything onto our new WML shoulders. Hno Magallan doesn't know anything about missionary work so we are going to have to start with the basics with him. Bishop gave us a lot of less actives to go and visit. So we did, and some of them aren't intersted in the chruch, or stand us up for appointments, or whatever, take your pick. Slightly frustrating.   I've had some awesome people come into the VC. one kids is called JD. He's working on changing his life around. He comes into the VC and likes to talk about various principles. He's got a long ways to go but you can tell that once he gets committed to the gospel, he'll stick with it. He's a fun guy to talk to.   Myra and Maria are still progressing. We are just working on keeping Myra with us, because she is prego and has no hubby. She feels very alone. And so it's hard to help her want to committ to anything. But we keep at it. We got an appointment set up for tonight with her.   Overall, it's been a good week. We've been working a lot and hard. I'm enjoying my mission and can't believe that I am hitting my year mark! dang!!! it's gone by too fast already, and they say it only gets faster! bah.   I love you lots! emily

Mormon.org is hitting the PHX area!

Hello one and all. I hope your week has been treating you well. I have had a pretty busy week. Most of it has been at the Visitor's Center and that has been an interesting thing in and of itself. As I have said before there has been a lot of disharmony in the VC about being dedicated to doing our jobs, where ever they may be. I have been talking to various sisters about it and we all have decided that mianly it comes from us, the leaders, and that we are the ones who have to lead by example and help the other sisters stay on task. If we really want the VC to grow and be the tool that it is supposed to be, then we are going to have to work harder and be more dedicated.   We had a prep meeting on Friday and we talked about how we are the salt that helps other people with their savor. It started with us talking about Ice Cream and what type of ice cream we are (ben and jerry's half baked - just so you all know) and then talked about salt and ice and the chemical story of that. It was pretty funny. But it was true that we have to be the salt to help others be better.   As for our beloved Liahona 4th ward, we are working hard. A lady from chruch came up to us and asked us to start meeting with her husband who has no desires to come back to chruch. She is an awesome lady that wants the best for her family. We started teaching them the member presentations and alked about how important the family is. We had a really good lesson with them. And he ligit just told us that he doesn't want to come to chruch because he wants to watch Football. American Football. Strange for a mexican... but we have started working with Familia Alvarez!   Maria is still progressing. We've worked on bringing some members to lessons with us so she can get to know more preople. We had a really good talk about tithing, mainly because she needs $400 for her divorce. So we invited her to pay her tithing and that god would bless her with the way to pay for the divorce so she can get married and then baptized. She has known about tithing but didn't know that she could pay it before she was a member. yep yep.   We had a lesson with a lady named Eva. She is a basket case. We talked about why we had trials. We go in with a game plan about what we need to teach but it never happens. Right now all she want to do is complain about her life and how horrid her kids are and her husband is. Midway thru the lesson I was thinking, why are we teaching you? So odds are, if she dosen't start doing anything, we will stop visiting with her. It's really sad to me, because we really do want to help this family, but we can't unless they are willing to do things to improve their life. I can't do anything for them but teach the things that the need to do.   We finally found Myra again. I guess she did not go up to vegas like we had heard, but just to phx. Tha'ts all good. We too had a discussion with her about tithing. She ligit has no way to pay, because she does not get money, but we talked about how important it is to be willing to serve in whatever way. We also talked about what ward she would like to go to. She likes both the english and spanish ward and so it's hard to figure out what she wants. She likes the people in the english ward but understands more in the spanish. Imagine that. But we went and watched the Joseph Smith movie with her with a member from the english ward and she really like that. I think. She was crying anyway.   Friday and Saturday we had Hermana Arias with us for exchanges. We kept busy and work hard with a lot of the LA people that we have in our ward. We visited Ivonne, who has the 4 boys, one with down, and talked how she needs to help her kids learn about God because they know Squat! we really did get down to it and her problem is that she just doesn't have the energy too. I can understand that. 4 boys under the age of 8. I would be exhausted too. But hopefully we can get some people to help her. Friends. She needs them.   On saturday we had our useless stake correlation. Really, all it is is breakfast (For which I am greatful) but lets not call it a meeting and not discuss anything. We know that the stake is pretty limited in being able to help us but really, there is more to life than how many people we have with a baptismial date. And I was on day 4 of my headache that day so i was moody anyway. But life goes on.   Sunday was completley crazy. The english wareds were getting trainin on Mormon.org and that messed up everyones schedule for the spanish ward. my poor ward. but we had morning sheft in the VC (i take laps in the art exhibit when no one is around. good exercise. and we showed the special presentation of music and the spoken work for 9/11. pretty cool). Correlation was with bishop this week. and he just want to shove us off to the 'ward mission leader'. So that is getting frustrating. WE have a meeting set up with him to hopefully get on his agenda and figure out what he wants us to do. For the rest of the night we just went out and visited people. Our numbers are getting better, but we've been working hard at it.   So, for Mormon.org. What's going to happen si that october 3, the phx mesa area is going to get hit with back to back 10 second tv spots, billboards, and advertisments all over the area for the 6 months after that. It's going to be awesome. They have already done this in 9 citis and they tested it out there, but now they are doing this for reals and warning the members (something they forgot to do last time). but the purpose of doing this is to help pleople learn that mormons and lds are the same, to dispell myths and help members do missionary work and take iniative. so that's what district meeting and the chruch meetings have been all about. it's pretty exciting. so on saturday, we had time to go to the library and update our profile or create on if we didn't have one. So we are working on helping the members get ready for that. I'm pretty excited. Saddly it wont be in spanish until february but we can work around that. lots of hispanics speak english too. Anyway, that's the newest big thing. We've been talking about it a lot with the members and people that come into the VC. I was talking to a lady in the exhibit that hadn't heard about it and was super super excited and was pretty grateful that i talked to her about it. so there you go. it was awesome.   So that's my life this week. I love you a lot and hope you all have a good week. emily

Hello!

Well, this transfer seems to be going by fast. And everyone says it only gets faster which just gets more frightening. I've had some great company in the VC this past week. I did run into Patriarch Thomas's Son. My comp told him that I was from SD and so the connection was made. he told me a little of his story and how he is now on the road back to the temple. But It was good to be able to visit with someone from home. I also found Garrett (or elder Hamby for those who care). He seems to be doing good. He's in my greenie Zone, MOuntain View. His comp is the DL. Elder H. has grown up a little bit and is happy. At least he seems so. And he is on bike, so that is funny. He works close to where I used to be in my greenie area so all will be well with him. He has yet to have a comp for longer than a transfer tho... And i found....Jaron and Devin Clayborn! They live in Maricopa (which I figured out is south of Chandler which is south of Mesa, so in the Tempe mission). They came to do baptisms and I was starting God's plan and I saw this kid and he looked familiar. So i was like, "Jaron?" He said, "Emily?" WHAT... so we had a happy reunion and talked to them for a while. They seem to be doing good. Life is different here than it is in SD, but that's okay. I got their number just incase I ever needed to leave junk her for when I go home...call in a favor or something....:) Sister Brox called from BYU and i talked to her for a little while. She's doing good. And sister Dewitt came back in. She brought her family. HOw nice. ONe day last week we got locked out of the VC. A rule that the church has is that as sisters, we can't open the VC unless we have Mel. Preisthood there with us. So the senior couple that was supposed to open the VC forgot and so we didn't open until and hour later! luckily the security from the temple noticed us hanging around outside and unlocked it. But we couldn't open it to the public for a while after that. WE finally had someone come to help us around 10:30 or so. So funny. Today was temple day, which made life really nice. We had a pretty good week too. We've been trying to work with the members a lot more, which is what Pres. Ellsworth wants for this mission. We found a new family to teach, who actually has a lot of member friends. THe member that we had out with us that night fixed his computer before his mission (he got home about 6 months ago). So that was a little miracle. We have been having better success. Our numbers still aren't that great, but we are having more quality ones. Myra we are still teaching, but she has been faithfully been going to an english ward for 3 months, but doesn't speak english. Lots of members speak spanish tho. So we talked to the elders and decided taht if she felt more comfortable there, then we would continue to teach her, but she would get baptized into theri ward, (and become their number). Slightly discouraging, but whatever makes her happy then that's what we will do. She is awesome and amazing and we are now working with the members with that ward. We gave a tour to a spanish ward for our ZLs and other elders in that ward. So we prepared what they wanted us to do and then decided that they wanted to change the itinerary. So i'm pretty sure that I didn't make myself better friends with one of my zone leaders when i told him that if that was what he had wanted he should have called us earlier and changed it or come in earlier so we could get it all done. We are more than just tour guides here. But overall, it turned out well. It has been a good week. The other sisters finally moved in. That was a bit of a challange. Its diffenent with roommates now. but that's okay, we can adjust. And life goes on. We have a good week already planned with a lot of lessons. Reward for getting at least 4 member present lessons is a trip to bahama bucks. We haven't had 4 MP in a long time. So we are working hard. Lord really is blessing us with the time that we have in oura rea. We played soccer the other morning. I love it when sister Arias and Vause come. Sis Arias is from El Salvador and is a little firecracker. She cracks me up and is so funny when you play. She gets possessive of the ball. Elder Santos runs in circles around everyone because he's got the energy, sister Hartvigens scores the goals and sister Vause is the goalie because she has no energy to run around. While elder Isom and I play somewhat more competativley because we are the ones with the skills. But overall, we work on having fun and building district unity. Things are getting better between the sisters and the elders. They initially didn't get along, but things are better. Sister Arias loves comeing to play soccer. I love my district. :) Next week, i'll have pretty exciting news for you regarding MOrmon.org. It's gonna be big.... Love emily