November 1, 2021
(I forgot to mention that last Tuesday we went to Sally’s concert. She played the violin and it was really good. Hna. Ramirez forgot her glasses so I let her borrow mine.)This last p-day was super fun. We carved pumpkins as a district. I have learned that pumpkins are much cheaper at Walmart than the place we went. My pumpkin cost a whole whopping $12. I am officially broke until next week. I decided to carve Princess Lea from Star Wars😎. Hna. Marvin carved Marty McFly from Back to the Future. It took forever but it was worth it! Later that day we went and visited Maria. We finally got to meet Diego, Diego and Valentina's dad. He is super nice, but is just working all the time. Hna. Ramirez was in the lesson with us and helped out a lot. She is really good friends with Maria now.On Tuesday, we had our Zone Conference!! It was great. Hna. Hanson gave her departing testimony!! That is my third companion so far that has done that. I learned so much. Sad this is that I do not have my notebook with me so I will write about that next week. We ate bbq for lunch. My favorite part was the mac and cheese. We did some role plays and received some other training. After it was over David came and met with President Monson. I was so stressed for what was going to happen. It went really well. David told him all the things that are going on and that happened in his past. The spirit was so strong and I was brought to tears multiple times. President Monson confirmed a lot of things for him. David was really surprised and so happy after. He told us that he wasn’t expecting that at all. President Monson said that David has waited too long to be baptized. It was such an amazing experience! After that we had a lesson with Johany, with Milvian, and then taught english class. My mom being the most amazing woman ordered some things for me at Walmart. We went and picked it up after class. Then I made potato salad at 10pm. It was great! I had never done it by myself before.On Wednesday, we went and had another lesson with David. We talked to him about temples and he really wants to go! Then we went and saw Caren with Brother Bright. They weren’t there which was super sad. Brother Bright wore his missionary tag from way back when. It was super cute and cool. I sneezed while we were with Bro. Bright and he said, "Allergies?" "No, I just sneeze because of bright stuff and the sun." Then he looked me directly in the eyes and said, "I make you sneeze." 😂 That was hilarious! After that, we went and saw Doris. It was an awesome lesson. Bro. Bright helped explain the Book of Mormon and some other things. Afterwards, we went to dinner with Brother and Sister Whitehouse with the elders. They took us to Los Mexicanos. Hermana Hanson and I had vowed to never go back to that place… well we did. I didn’t get the chimichanga this time. I got these enchiladas and it was a tiny bit better. They were super nice and want to set up another time to eat. Then we went and visited Marla and Martin with Brother Bright. We brought them a surprise dinner. Hna. Hanson made Fiesta Chicken, I brought my potato salad, and Bro. Bright brought cookies and this pie for dessert. (Here is some background. We met Marla a while back. She wanted to set up a dinner or lunch with us. We had an appointment set up and she never responded back to us. We were going to be late to English Class, so we didn’t go. This other appointment apparently was set up too. We don’t remember doing that. In the end, things were communicated badly on both sides. We missed two meals that she had made/bought. We felt terrible. We wanted to show her we love her and make up for that. So we brought her dinner. Sorry that was long!) She was super touched and said she will never forget us. We all ate (our second dinner) and got to know them better. Brother Bright invited Martin to watch/listen to conference, he accepted and is excited!! After that, we went over to teach Luis and Reyna. We were able to make a better connection with them. Reyna told us of how she overcame cancer and has kept going. We talked about the Atonement with them and then they gave us pan dulce and abuelita chocolate caliente. It was awesome.On Thursday nothing much really happened. Lots of not answered phone calls and other stuff. It was pretty rainy and dreary. We had dinner at the Mejias and it was delicious as always. They fed us this meat with potatoes and carrots, rice, and tortillas. For dessert we had a cinnamon tamale. Then we went and taught Johany and her kids. She was super distracted, so it was mostly Josue, Daylert, and Albert. They didn’t want us to leave and asked us when we were going to come back. After that, we taught English Class. Then we had a phone call lesson that went really good. We switched the sim card to my phone and the call just kept failing. We called the guy around 9 times, but we were able to finish the lesson.It was super cold on Friday. The weather changed very quickly. It was wet and cold. Sometimes gloomy weather influences your mood. We felt like we had no energy, so we went on a walk. We finished planning for the upcoming week and set off to see some miracles. We prayed for one to happen and we had two. We went and visited Caren’s family. We were afraid if they still wanted to talk and see us. They were home and let us into their house. We gave them brownies and everything was great. We just were overthinking things. Afterwards we went and visited this address we had for a part member family. Hermana Hanson had put it in our schedule. It was dark and no one answered the door. As I was finishing writing a note, a car pulled up. She came out and talked to us. Her name was Millie Sanchez. She told us she was a member and invited us in. She told us while she was pulling up, she thought we were Jehovah’s witnesses. She was on the phone with her sister and her sister said, “It can’t be. They aren’t allowed to be out this late.” Hna. Sanchez opened up and shared lots of things with us. Turns out, she knows Maria Hernandez. The lady that we met with the breathing thing in her throat. She took her to church that one week!! We love her! She is the sweetest person ever. She has such a strong testimony and will not back down. We had been praying hard for a miracle that day and she was our miracle.The Mejia’s daughter has been trying to take us to lunch for a while. She took us out to a burger place called “Bakery and Burgers” on Saturday. I had been craving a nice burger for ages. I got the Spartenburger. It was a double cheeseburger something. I got one of the patties as a veggie patty. Laura likes that a lot. I prefer the meat, but it was good😋. After that, we went to visit Maria. She had signed up on the meal calendar to feed us when she came to church. It was super sweet of her. She fed us this meat, beans, rice, and handmade tortillas. She is from Guatemala but learned to make Mexican food when she worked in a restaurant. After that, we had a lesson with Daniel and Brother Bright. Daniel played his guitar for us! He is the first Hispanic that I have ever seen play an instrument (I think). Brother Bright played us a song called, “The Apple Tree.” Then we went outside to join the Trunk or Treat. It rained and poured, so we were all underneath the pavillion eating chili and sipping apple cider. We moved the kid games inside. Once that we finished, we went and did the trunk or treat. A guy brought some really cool lightsabers. It was awesome. We had a duel! I want to get me one of them because it was so cool and fun. I defended and fought harder than he thought I would have. Even with the rain and cold it was still fun. Alex and his friends came and joined us during it.Sunday was super awesome! David and Esteban came. I was prepping the translating equipment when I saw Hermana Sanchez (Millie) and Maria Hernandez walked in! I was so happy and excited to see them. Then I translated sacrament meeting. I am not the greatest, but I tried. Hermano Mejia spoke in Spanish. Brother Bright translated that into English, so I was happy to sit and watch. We thought it was Spanish Sunday School... wrong. I translated our giant combined Sunday School. It actually went really well! We talked about Light the World. Bro. Bright, being so nice, gave us three bags of cookie dough. We proceeded to eat some of it in the car. The bags specifically said "Do not consume raw" but we ate it anyway. Afterwards, we went and visited Hermana Sanchez again. She made us Quesadillas for dinner. For dessert she gave us a mango and strawberry salad and ice cream! She invited us to come over and do a family home evening with her daughter. She told us that Hermana Hernandez like coming to our ward, so they are going to keep coming!😄After that, we went to a Halloween Party at Bishop Andersen’s house. It was fun. We ate more chili, cornbread, and dessert. We were able to get to know more of the members. Then we raced over to our lesson with Adan, Luis and Reyna’s other brother. We were going to stop teaching him, but we changed our minds. He knows a lot more than we thought. He has met with missionaries before and wants to keep doing it! He told us that he is going to come to church!For my spiritual thought today I just wanted to bear my testimony. The other day Esteban called. He told us he didn’t see the importance of the Book of Mormon. I bore my testimony of it. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It is something that shows me that Heavenly Father loves all of his children. The heavens aren’t closed, they are wide open. I have received so much peace and answers to my prayers through it. How do I know it is true? I know because I have read it and then I asked my Heavenly Father if it was true. I felt and knew that it was true through the power of the Holy Ghost. When I read it, I feel better and happier. I know that we need the Book of Mormon and the Bible together.Sorry for such a long email! I love you all and hope that everything is going well!😊Here are some pictures!:
