Week 29

March 25, 2013

Well, well, well, another week over. It is just crazy how fast time is flying; I cannot believe that we are already to the end of March. This week is the start of a new transfer and I have been STRESSING! that I was going to lose Hna Redondo but because Heavenly Father loves me (or really all His children here and doesn't want to leave them to me) we are staying together!! I am so excited! The sisters that live with us are leaving this week though so that will be sad to have to say good-bye to them and go back to living in a quiet apartment.

Well we have 2 baptisms set for this weekend we are very excited about. One is on Saturday and his name is Hno Paez, missionaries have been teaching him for a very long time. His wife was baptized back in Oct and now he is all ready to go. He has been ready since before I got here so we are excited to see him make this step!! The other is on Sunday and it is for Yancy!! I love Yancy a lot! Her conversion also happened before I got here but she wasn't able to go to church because of work until recently. Now she is all ready to go! I am so excited for her! She is really so amazing! I love watching people change their lives for the better!!

Today I am very excited because we were asked to help out with the new missionaries again. I got to do it last transfer and I just loved it! We get to take a couple of new missionaries that arrive today, out for their first contacting experience. It was so awesome last time and I am really excited to be able to do it again! One of the best parts is that we are doing it in North Hollywood!! I am so excited to see NoHo again. I just love that place so much!

Anyway all is well here and we are working hard! I love you all so much!!!!

PS. if ya'll could keep Gregorio in your prayers that would be great. He is going through some hard stuff right now. He is still going strong though!

Week 28

March 18, 2013

Heyyooo Familyoooo,

We have just had a week full of smiles around here this week! First of all it’s getting hot which just makes me supa happy. I also had a really special surprise this week that got me all sorts of pumped!

This week our investigator Yancy has been going through a lot of rough stuff! She had to quit her job because she had to take care of her kids. It was a really scary thing for her at first but turned out to be a tender mercy because guess who can go to church now!!! She was all set and ready to go to be baptized for next week but her son got really sick so she was unable to come to church yesterday. :( But she will be ready the following week. When we asked her about her baptism she was said “Yes of course”. She has been really excited! Then she said to her son "do you want to be an elder someday" aww, she is so amazing! I am so grateful that I have been able to meet her! She has taught me so much!!

This is the last week of this transfer already and Hna Redondo and I are really nervous that she is going to be transferred. I do not think I can't handle this giant area without her showing me still. I am really praying that I get to stay with her. She is such an awesome missionary! 

Anyways this week has been sooo great and I love you all so much! Please keep sending your prayers this way! We need them :)

Week 27

March 11, 2013

Hello, Hello!!

I can't believe it is already Monday. I wish I could remember my weeks better but every time I sit down to email I can't remember anything.

We have still been working hard to get out investigators to church. It is not easy. But we have faith that everything will work out for them. We have been teaching a 60-year-old lady named Delfina.  She is so awesome! She loves to learn! She really loves everything we have been teaching her. She has been to church once with her husband and he also really liked it. It’s hard not to love the truth. Anyways please keep her in your prayers.

One other investigator that we have been teaching is named Yancy. I LOVE Yancy. This woman has so much faith. She is so amazing! I learn so much more from her than could ever teach her. She is one that has to work on Sundays. She is a single mother of 3, doesn't have a car or a phone but works so hard to make sure her kids are taken care of. She has so much patience and is so humble. I just love her! She has really been trying to get Sunday’s off of work because she has such a huge desire to be baptized. The only time she has ever been to church was a couple months ago in North Hollywood. I actually met her that day she came. She came with a friend and her friend introduced us and asked us to send the missionaries that live near her to visit her. The Hermanas here have been teaching her ever since. I am so grateful that I have this chance now to get to know her. I love to see the way the gospel really can change lives. She is such a perfect example of that! I love being a missionary.

Things here have been just swell! I love my companion and I am watching everything I say around her now because she repeats EVERYTHING. haha Her English is getting really good though.

We heard more about the mission being split this week and I am just trying to not let it stress me out. I know that God is taking good care of me and is going to put me right where I need to be.

ANYWAYS I love you all so darn much!!! Have a wonderful week!

Week 26

March 4, 2013

HEY FAM HEY!!

Dang it is always just so good to hear from you all! I am soo pumped for Ashley and Andrea and their race! You two are so awesome! There is no way in this world that I could do that, I don't think I could even have a desire to do that!

This week has been a good one here! We got some pretty crazy news today from President. They are splitting our mission! It is going to be so tiny! It will only cover the valley I am in now and the valley I was before. The split will happen July 1st. All the missionaries in any area outside of those two valleys will be in the new Bakersfield mission! That is just a tiny bit stressful! We went to the office this morning to drop some stuff off and the APs were showing us the maps and just then President Hall walked in and explained it all to us. I asked him if it would be necessary for me to start brown-nosing him now so I could stay in this mission. We'll see what happens. The Lord really is hastening His work and we are just in the heart of it. It is so awesome!

I have still been trying to get to know the area. Its coming along alright, I got a GPS last week, Paulina (she speaks Spanish) and she tends to be more lost than I am most of the time but its all good we are making it.

I have had a chance to meet a lot more of our investigators and I just love all of them! They are all so awesome! The thing that is holding almost all of them back is work on Sunday, so they can't come to church. Satan is such a butt-head (you don't have to blog that if my blog is classier than that). We are working hard with them though, we had a couple of them fasting this week to be able to get Sundays off so we will see how that went for them this week.

My companion is so great! I have a watch myself around her though; she said "eww what the flip" the other day. Poor girl. She is really helping me with my Spanish though. Its kind of been a battle to get a word in sometimes because Latinos can really talk A LOT so when the whole room is filled with them I have to work hard to fit in my two cents! haha but that's good for me.

God has been so good to me here! I just love Him a lot! I have loved getting to know this area and the people and my companion. Its been great too, because our roommates are so much fun! Life here in Canyon Country has been great. I am learning a lot! I love you all so much and hope you all have a fantastic week!!

Week 25

Feb 25, 2013

SHALOM!!!

Hello my dear family! I hope you have all had a stupendous week! It sounds like you all had some fun time together this week! I am glad to hear that all is well!

It has been quite the adjustment here for me. I am loving it though! I LOVE my companion! Hna Redondo is so awesome! She is such an amazing missionary! She is learning English and has the best accent when she is speaking it. I am teaching her a lot of very valuable phrases in English. She said "gee-dang-it " the other day; I am a really good teacher! She is so great to help me with my Spanish! She is helping me to sound a lot less like a white girl.

The area we cover is ginormous! It is so huge! Compared to my little mile by a mile and a half in North Hollywood. The members here are super great! Its odd because a lot of them speak English and it throws me off just a bit when I am talking to them but it definitely makes my life easier.

So we have 13 investigators with baptismal dates and I have only met a few of them but they are all really awesome. There are a lot of them that have problems with getting to church because of work or family stuff so we have work to do in that area. The investigators I have met are so humble and have so much faith. We saw one last night and she is a young single mom of 4 I think, and she was telling us how she was really having a hard time the other day so she said a prayer and opened the Book of Mormon and she came across a verse in Alma. As she was sharing it with us she was just crying and she was saying that it was a perfect answer to her prayer. She has so much faith! I was about in tears just talking to her. It made me realize I need to have more faith. I love the things that I can learn from the people we are teaching.

Our apartment here is a bit different because we have roommates. We have 2 English sisters that cover the local YSA ward living with us. They are a lot of fun. One of them is only 19. I actually took her out last week for her first knocking experience. She is really sweet. It makes me wonder what I would have been like as a missionary at 19. I'm pretty sure it would have been a train-wreck. haha She is awesome though.

I love it here. I am just trying to get the hang of things and figure out where the heck I am. I love you all!!!

P.S. Hna Higley just told me that the investigators that we were teaching forever, the family that had to get married ARE GETTING MARRIED!! I am so excited I am dying!!! Also the couple that had me over for dinner for my birthday got married this weekend!!! BAPTISM ALL AROUND DOWN THERE!!! I am so excited for them!!!!!!!!!

                                          Me and Hna Redondo