Hello everyone!! Another week has passed by in the blink of an eye! I can't even believe I just finished my 12 week training program and transfers are NEXT WEEK!!! Whaaaat?? This transfer flew by! Lots of super exciting things happened this week!!
On Monday after we finished our P day stuff we went out to the Mink Farms to teach some former investigators. We taught them the Restoration and their neighbor (and our faithful Fellowshipper), Brother Black came with us! It was awesome, and I felt so comfortable with my Spanish, I was able to easily teach with clarity and it was a super good feeling. I also finally got to say the First Vision I spent so long memorizing at the MTC! It was great, and we have another lesson with them tonight.
Tuesday was a pretty interesting day. We woke up early and carpooled to Provo with the English Sisters, Sister Diuguid and Sister Funaki. We were lucky we drove with them because on the way there it was snowing pretty bad, and Sister Ricks isn't used to driving in snow, especially on highways. We had a mass mission conference thing, which was all about iPads and changes they were making with the technology in the mission. It was actually really cool, and apparently it would be a really historical event, because we as the Utah Provo mission were finished with the pilot phase of the iPads. One cool thing about this mission is that we try out everything before the church allows it to be sent all around the world. So basically the Lord has lots of trust in the Provo missionaries. Anyways, so the meeting focused a lot on hastening the Lord's work. It was about using the tools we've been given properly in order to enhance missionary work. There will be some interesting changes happening, we will all be getting new iPads (that we're paying for) and unlike the policy we have now, where if you are being disobedient with the iPads the leaders will just take them away, they will not be taking our iPads away and we will have our own lock passwords on our iPads. Wow. Talk about trust. It was very interesting, the way they explained it, they shared a quote from a missionary media conference by elder Nelson, he said "In this ever more technological world, the way to prepare these missionaries for their future is NOT to quarantine them from, but to prepare them for technology...Now is the time for them to avoid temptations and snares that they will surely encounter when they return home...if we can IMMUNIZE our youth by engraving the doctrine in their hearts, we can raise a strain of sin-resistant souls!" In a Zone Training meeting on Friday we talked more about the conference, and our Zone leaders compared this change to the change in the bible from the Law of Moses to the Higher Law Jesus gave. We are past the "law of Moses" phase and now we are being given the higher law. We're expected to just be obedient and we are not going to be quarantined from the "snares" of technology, such as wasting time, then be thrown back into the real world back to our old habits. It's amazing, how the Lord is preparing future generations and future families by preparing missionaries to be able to combat the modern problems we face. It was overall just a really cool experience to be a part of this "reset." Lots of people are going to say that iPads are a bad idea for missionaries, but the truth is that iPads have proven to be useful and they're going to move forward with them.
Also at that meeting I was able to see Sister Gonzalez!! She found me and gave me a huge hug and started crying. I missed her so much!!
Armando, I also met Elder Terrón!!! He's super cool! Haha I was introducing myself and he was like "speak Spanish!!!" Hahahah but Sister Gonzalez knows him and she was like, you have to meet Sister Segle cause she knows Armando! He's very nice!
After the conference, we had district dinner back in Eagle Mountain at.....FOOD TRUCKS!!! It was awesome! So every Tuesday a bunch of food trucks come and they're all suuuuper good. And the best part was that all of them are free for missionaries! So we tried out several places, I got a super good burrito and tried some pizza and tried some French toast! Luckily it's kind of a far drive, because we would gain lots of weight really fast if it was closer to us haha I also got a t shirt from the waffle truck, Waffle Love, which is apparently famous in Provo.
Anyways, what I really want to get to is talking about Vero's baptism on Saturday!!! It was SO AWESOME!!!! I got to play piano and since I had been able to practice I didn't totally bomb it!! And I now have 2 more hymns under my belt that I know :) The spirit was so strong at that baptism, it was incredible. All of the precious sisters who had taught Vero were there (including Sister Gonzalez and Sister DeJesus!) it was awesome! Sister Gonzalez gave the talk about baptism, and Josue (Vero's husband) gave the talk about the Holy Ghost. Both talks were so touching, and even Brother Otero got emotional when he was talking later on. Josue was able to baptize Vero, which was a beautiful thing to see. Sister Gonzalez told me later that she talked to Vero and Vero told her that because of the little sign we made her that said "¿pensaste en orar?" she began truly praying every night and that's how she received her answer about being baptized. It was so touching! While Vero was getting changed, Sister Ricks and I taught the group about baptism. At first I was super nervous because of all the sisters that were there, but I think I actually did really well! After the baptism, one of our STLs, Sister Mills came up to me and said "Sister Segle! Your pronunciation is so good! While you were talking we were all on the back row saying 'dang, she sounds so legit!'" Sister Rucker (Sister Gonzalez's companion) also came up to me and told me I had improved enormously from how I was at Josue's baptism in December. It made me feel so good! I have met some truly amazing sister missionaries out here. It was such an awesome day. I actually wrapped up a new trio and bible for Vero and the week before I had bought her a necklace with the temple on it and I gave it to her. Vero will always hold a special place in my heart because she was my first investigator on the mission I saw baptized. She's an amazing person and she's an example to me of someone who is so committed to this gospel. I'm so excited for their little family, and I will be back in a year to go to the temple and see them be sealed as an eternal family. I feel honored to have had a small part in that.
It was a pretty eventful weekend, because yesterday, sacrament meeting was all about missionary work! (In addition to Vero's confirmation and a baby blessing!) Sister Ricks and an English elder, Elder Shields did a special musical number (Sister Ricks sang, I turned pages, and Elder Shields played piano hahaha) and we both gave talks about missionary work. I talked for a solid 10-12 minutes in Spanish! I was soooooo nervous but I made it through! Sister Andrews and her daughter even came to our branch to hear us speak, even though they can't understand spanish. They are just the sweetest! Anyways, after sacrament meeting our high councilman, Hno Romero, came up to me and said "wow, I have really seen a change in you since you were made senior companion! Your spanish has really improved!" He walked away before I had a chance to tell him I was actually junior companion, but it was kind of cool to see that maybe I have improved since I first got here.
Today I got a haircut finally!! And later today we should be doing another district activity!
My spiritual thought this week would be the power of prayer. Heavenly Father really does answer prayers because last week, I had felt so incredibly down about my Spanish and just generally about everything. And I had been struggling a lot with my companion, as we know. But this week was like a night and day difference. Heavenly Father sent some confidence boosters my way this weekend, and I've done a lot better with my companion. She's been a lot nicer to me, and has stopped correcting my Spanish. This past week I had been praying every night, please help me gain some confidence in my Spanish, please help me learn to love my companion, etc. and I have received such help this week. I feel so refreshed and ready for anything. I'm still nervous about transfers though, because I have a feeling I will be transferred.:( but we will see come next week I guess!
I could write so much more about this week, but my time is short so just remember how much I love you!! Have a great week!!
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