The Week We Almost Burned the Stake Center Down

Well, yet another week has flown by here in little Eagle Mountain, Utah! It was a week full of service, pranks, and bringing souls unto Christ! 

By the way, just an FYI so I asked for the legit emailing policy aaaaaand unfortunately I can only email for an hour and a half, from 10-6. You guys can send me all the emails you want but I only have an hour and a half to reply/write to everyone :( sad day. 

This week definitely had its ups and downs though. We had lots of appointments cancel on us, and lots of rejection, but que sera, sera I guess! This coming week is sure to be fun because we're headed to Provo today for a doctors appointment my companion has (soooo many miles on the car aaaahhhhhhh) and we'll be back in Provo again on Tuesday for a mission conference regarding iPads! We'll all be getting our new iPads (the ones we're paying for) which should be good. This week we also have VERO'S BAPTISM!!! Eeeeeek!!! I'm so very excited for her!!!

Anyways I'm getting ahead of myself. 

So, this week started with a trial game of marshmallow spit guns we played as a district. It was pretty fun! On Tuesday we had a very off day. I woke up feeling like that day was just gonna be sorta weird. We taught Vero in the afternoon, and had dinner with Sister Biscupovich (she's a high school spanish teacher and she always makes me feel so good about my spanish so I adore eating at her house) but the rest of the evening consisted of several cancelled appointments, nobody answering the door, etc. In our plans that evening we had the Anderson family. I don't know if you remember them, but we visited the wife a few weeks ago and it was a sort of frustrating lesson with her because she was offended by Utah church members and her husband is now Atheist so she's just sort of given up, she also told us that our mission call kinda sucked because where they "really need missionaries" is in South America and Mexico. (Little does she know that Utah needs missionaries because of people like her!) she's nice, but when we had left that lesson a few weeks ago we both agreed we should give the Anderson family a break for awhile. So, on Tuesday night when we saw their name for an appointment that evening we decided to pray, and ask if we really needed to go back there that evening. Obviously, the answer was yes so we drove to their house and knocked on the door, expecting a dramatic scene where we arrived just in time to comfort Sister Anderson, blah blah blah...but alas, we knocked on their door and she explained to us that they were busy doing taxes so she didn't have time for us. We left, and after trying all of our other doors in our plans (with no success) we just felt pretty down. I wasn't feeling too bad, because I was used to slow days since I've only been here since I've started my mission. My companion felt super down though, and we went to a members home, the Berta's. The Berta's are a super cool and sweet family from Uruguay and they're just simply amazing. Anyways, my companion wanted a blessing from Brother Berta but when we knocked on their door, he was the only one home with the kids so we couldn't come in, and he couldn't give her a blessing. So we waited in our car for awhile for his wife to get home, and when we found out she wouldn't get home till later we just ended up heading back home. I know the Berta's felt horrible for not being able to give her a blessing, and I felt horrible because I didn't want them to feel horrible so it just wasn't a fun situation, and it gave me all sorts of anxiety. 

But then Wednesday was lots better. The elders asked if we wanted to help paint a members living room, so we spent a lot of the day over there at the Andrews house. Sister Andrews is literally an angel. She was so sweet to us and fed us lunch and eagerly introduced us to her daughter, who was just called to serve in the South Dakota Rapid City mission and who will be leaving this month. (Fun fact, she'll be serving exactly where my brother lives in North Dakota!!) We had dinner that evening with Alma (ALWAYS THE BEST FOOD) and after teaching her again about the Plan of Salvation and the importance of temples we went back over to Sister Andrews house to help her daughter figure out if her shoes and clothes would be okay for the mission and to talk to her more about what the MTC was like and all that. It was kind of refreshing to be able to share my MTC experience because at every Hispanic house we go to, my companion is sure to mention her time at the CCM in Mexico and how great it was there and how she really felt like she learned the language well there. I always assure her that, we got the same lessons, same quality of teachers, etc here in Provo. Because she is always saying how she feels bad I didn't get immersed in that completely Spanish experience. Sometimes that stings, but I wouldn't trade my time at the Provo MTC for anything. ANYWAYS that was a tangent, my bad. But yeah, it was awesome to talk to Sister Andrews daughter about missions and I actually felt bad because I know how hard those last few weeks at home are (especially for the mom!!)  

Thursday we volunteered at the animal shelter! Karen was soooo happy to see us because she was afraid since we couldn't come Tuesday that we would stop coming! We helped her prep the food for the animals and just talked to her, and it was a very relaxing afternoon. That night we had dinner with the Familia Lara (we had carne asada-suuuuper yummy!) and later taught Mariana and her kids. We also got a surprise gift from the Otero's 10 year old daughter, Leilani! They had gone on vacation to LegoLand last week and Leilani brought us back souvenirs!! She got me a super cute tiny little turtle made out of shells that had a hat on it and little glasses! When I told brother Otero about it on Sunday he was like, yeah we all saw that little turtle and said look!! It looks like Hermana Gaviota because of the glasses, so naturally she had to get it for me :) it was one of the sweetest gifts I've gotten here in the mission, I love it so much!!

Friday was very interesting. We had our district meeting and were supposed to have lunch with our less active, Guindi, but....it fell through. So we went home and did our weekly planning then we met the Elders and Sister Berta (our translator) for Vero's baptismal interview!  While she was in her interview we played with the plan of salvation cut outs (thank you, carlos) with her daughter Bryanna :) Then......we stuck Oreos all over the elders car. But quick backstory about that: on Thursday we discovered that the elders had sabatoged the inside of our car, popped up our windshield wipers, and most importantly stole one of our dashboard animals, a cute little dragon we found on our car at transfers. As a ransom, they asked for 200 goldfish in a plastic bag, but we don't give up that easily so we told them they had a few warnings. One of the warnings was sabatoging their car windows by sticking Oreos and streamers all over their car while it was snowing. That evening, Sister Andrews was kind enough to have us over for some dinner, and while we were there we got a text from the elders saying "have fun at the Andrews!" So we ran outside and discovered that they had put the Oreos back on our car. It was pretty hilarious. 

OH also on Friday we went to the stake center to heat up some food (our basement doesn't have a stove and we didn't have time to chat with our landlord while we used her stove) and anyways, we were warming up some water in the kitchen and while it was warming up my companion wanted to go find a chair to bring into the kitchen to sit on so we both left and idiotically let the door close and lock. It was a bad situation, because our phone was in there, and the stove was on!!! LUCKILY I brought my iPad out and we messaged the English sisters asking if they could come rescue us before we burnt the chapel down. They came, BUT didn't have keys! So finally after lots of freaking out and the smell of burnt water seeping through our nostrils Sister Ricks was able to pick the lock and turn the stove off super quick. It was such a random and potentially horrible thing to happen! 

On Saturday....we drove to Payson!!! Well, Hermana Berta drove us to Payson for a baptism Sister Ricks wanted to go to. It was fun, but I felt bad for making Hna Berta drive us. But we got to know her a lot better and it was overall a fun trip. We passed by the new Payson temple and I took a picture-it's beautiful!!! ( Not as beautiful as Manti though) The Payson temple will open in June and the sister missionaries will be the hosts for the open house! Hopefully I'm close to Payson in June so I can help out with that!! That night we had dinner with the Taumoepeau family! He's from Tonga, but served his mission in Costa Rica and she's from Ecuador!! They decided to go to the Spanish branch so she could learn Spanish and so their little daughter could get a feel for her mom's culture, since they'd been going to Tongan branches for a long time. They're such a cool family though, she served in Hungary!!! We had some sort of white sauce with pasta and homemade breaded chicken it was super yummy!! 

Sorry this was such a long email full of silly stories! But that's basically all that happened this week!! I'm unfortunately battling a gross cold right now. I'm all congested in my head and nose and I've had lot of trouble sleeping because of it, and I usually wake up feeling like death. So that hasn't been too fun but hopefully it'll chill out this week. 

Anyways, my spiritual thought is a quote from Elder Holland that's in a mormon message about taking the wrong road after praying and feeling like it was the right road. Towards the end, he says 

“I have absolute certain knowledge, perfect knowledge that God loves us. He is good. He is our Father and He expects us to pray and trust and be believing and not give up and not panic and not retreat and not jump ship when something doesn’t seem to be going just right. We stay in, we keep working, we keep believing, keep trusting, following that same path, and we will live to fall in His arms and feel His embrace and hear Him say, ‘I told you it’d be OK, I told you it'd be alright.'"

I dont know about you, but my first instinct when something isn't going right is to panic and jump ship. I don't like feeling like things aren't going perfectly, and man have I learned that nothing in this life will ever be perfect EXCEPT this gospel, and the perfect love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for us. I can't wait to fall into His arms and hear him tell me that I made it, that everything worked out, and that He loves me. It reminds me a lot of my own parents, after I've gone through something really, really hard, or I've made it through something I thought I would never make it through (such as my second semester of college, or music theory, or countless performances and auditions) and after I completed each of those hard things, I remember my parents saying "see? You did it! You made it! I told you things would be okay." And I know Heavenly Father does the same with us. Because He does love us, and wants us to grow and learn from these experiences in life. We just have to put our trust in Him. Trust has become sort of a tricky thing with me, because of certain personal experiences I've gone through in the recent years so I'm really having to let go of all my doubts and distrust and put my complete trust in my own Heavenly Father. And it's so hard, but I know in the end He's going to hold me and say "I told you it'd be OK." 

Love you all more than ever!!! 

Tabasco is against the Word of Wisdom.

Este Semana:

To say this week went by quick would be an understatement. I can see why people are always telling me that the days seem like weeks and the weeks seem like days because it seriously feels like yesterday was last P-day!!! My trainer would always tell me, "after your first transfer HOLD on because the rest flies by." And it's SO true. Next week I'll have been out for 4 months!! What the heck! It feels like I just barely left home for the MTC! Holy wow. I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing that time is flying by. 

Anyways, to be totally honest not much happened this week. It was the calm after the storm of all the exciting things that happened last week I guess! I have had some interesting experiences though, as usual. :) 

The first would be a certain less active/part member family we've begun teaching. Well, I should say we've just been teaching the wife (less active). Sister Libertini is from Honduras and is married to a man from Argentina and they have a sweet little 2 year old. The first time we stopped by, the 2 year old answered the door with a shirt and no pants on (something we've surprisingly become accustomed to hahaha), then grabbed his mom to talk to us. After we introduced ourselves and set a return appointment with her, her son ran back out and said "wait! Hold on LADIES! I'm gonna go put some pants on I'll be right back but don't go anywhere!!" We explained that we were coming back another time and it perplexed him and he just kept saying "okay, okay ladies." So, fast forward to this week. We had our 2nd lesson with Zaida (the mom) and its been my first situation where I've been faced with adult problems and am expected to have a solid answer. She became less active  when she moved here to Utah and found out a lot about church history, and found some things she didn't agree with (we all know what.) but she had also had a serious problem with her bishop back in Honduras so has lost complete trust in church leaders. We tried just simply explaining that the people in the church aren't perfect and that we need to focus on the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but she said it's hard for her to attend a church that she sees as oppressive. She says she respects us, but is having a hard time with some small issues here and there. The whole lesson kinda stressed me out because she basically was questioning our testimonies and telling us how we could believe in something that had been brainwashed into our heads. By the end all we could really say was to pray. Pray to know what the truth is. Pray for comfort, etc. Just simply pray. Because there's only so much we can do for her. Now, as stressful as that lesson was, we aren't giving up on her because she did express to us that she was missing a big piece of her life without church and was confused as to what she wanted for her son. So we're visiting her again this week. She's honestly so sweet and her doubts are common ones, but to anyone reading this my question is how to address the issue of someone who has completely lost all her trust in church leaders because of a horrible mistake one bishop made. I'm not equipped with those answers and I'm only 19 for goodness sake! Hahhaha but she is truly a sweet woman and I can tell she really doesn't like contention (I think her and I relate in that way) she just has lots of unanswered concerns. 

We also had a lesson this with Mariana and her chamacos, Christopher and Hailey. We talked about the Word of Wisdom and when Hailey was trying to read the word "tobacco" she accidentally said "Tabasco" hahaha so the running joke with her now is that Tabasco is against the word of wisdom. Which pretty much sucks for me cause I put hot sauce on everything!!!! Hahaha it was hilarious. That was Tuesday, and that evening we had dinner with a white family (the Blacks) that are neighbors with a family that we've been trying to teach out in the Mink Farms. They're teaching the kids how to read, which is pretty cool. Brother Black has also been coming out with us to fellowship during some lessons even though he doesn't really know Spanish. But anyways, we didn't have a dinner on Tuesday night so their family invited us to have dinner with them at their gun club! It was a beautiful cabin out in the middle of nowhere but it was HUGE and the sunset out there was just simply amazing. I wish I took pictures. 

 

On Friday we spent the majority of the day handing out fliers for Stake Conference this weekend! It was a great way to really get to know the area and neighborhoods even better. We did a lot of walking that day because it was so nice out!!! 

Of course, weather is completely unpredictable because on Saturday....IT SNOWED!! Like, a lot!!! But that wasn't until the afternoon. That morning the central stake asked us missionaries to speak at a missionary day they were having for the youth. They provided breakfast and lunch so naturally us and the elders were most definitely there :) It was a very strange feeling though, when we walked in because here was this huge group of youth wearing their pretend missionary name tags and here I was, with my real name tag on a real mission and it kinda just hit me in the head again that I was actually on my mission right now. It hasn't been a dream or anything! There were actually more girls there than boys. Crazy. And a lot of them were wearing heels (I promise you won't want those on your real mission ladies!!!)

Anyways, they split the girls and guys up and my companion and I were given half an hour to try to explain how to teach the Restoration to a family. We went over the basics and sent them on their way. But man, it was so weird to teach these girls what I'd been taught only a few months ago. We expressed to them our excitement for them and that wherever they are called to serve is where they're supposed to be. However we also told them it was kind of a bummer they couldn't be called to Provo, because obviously....it's the best mission to be in ;) just kidding, but yeah it was a great experience!!  That afternoon we went back to our beloved animal shelter and it had gotten quite cold. We brushed out the horses (my companion got bit by one of them haha ouch!!) for awhile, then went inside to help with food preparation for the animals. When we went back out to help the elders with the horses again, it started snowing so hard!!!! We took shelter in the shed where they kept the hay and had some fun with them and the other volunteers there :) the snow was so beautiful though, I loved it!!! That evening we had adult session of stake conference (for the West stake) which was pretty good but I was mostly struggling to pay attention cause I was so exhausted. 

Sunday was pretty good also, for stake conference we sat in the room where they were translating except....it wasn't really needed cause only a few members from our branch came and those who did can understand English so despite our fliers and efforts, still not many people came from our little rama. I was a little excited because there was a possibility I could have seen my aunt and uncle who are in the west stake, in fact when they thought they needed translators I asked the english sisters to get in touch with my uncle who served a mission in Argentina, buuuut it wasn't needed, so I didn't get to see them :( 

Anyways, stake conference was awesome! Our recent convert, Pedro spoke!!! He talked about his conversion story which was super cool. Our English sister, Sister Funaki also spoke and she did a wonderful job. I was just glad I wasn't asked to speak cause I probably would have passed out from anxiety! Towards the middle of conference, one family came in and sat with us. They're a new family that might be moving into our branch! The wife is totally white but served in Houston Texas and is totally fluent in Spanish. Her husband is from Veracruz Mexico and doesn't know any English so she was translating for him. They have two little girls and one on the way! The little girls are sooooo cute and we entertained them during the rest of stake conference. It was a great time. They're trying to figure out if they wanna go to the spanish branch or English ward because he wants to learn English. So I guess we'll see! We also had a lesson with Vero Sunday evening. We finalized her program for her baptism and her interview will be this week :) She's asking Hna Gonzalez to speak sooooo I'll get to see my dear trainer again which I'm SO excited about. I've missed her more than anything. We also set a date for her to go to the temple! I'm nervous though, because transfers will be that week and my companion keeps telling me I'm gonna be transferred cause that's usually how it goes. So that might suck a lot. That's also around the time we should be finally moving back into the Stake President's house! I've heard it's huge and I'm hoping I get to stay for that too! I can't believe how soon this transfer will be over already!!

That's basically all that's happened this week. I've been trying really hard to keep a positive attitude, but to be honest the language continues to be incredibly hard for me. I used to feel like I was doing okay, but now it kinda sucks cause I'm afraid to say anything in spanish because I know my companion will correct something and not let me finish my thought.  I don't even like saying prayers with her because after every prayer I say I hold my breath waiting for which correction she'll give me this time. The same goes for in lessons. It just gets old sometimes and when you're not getting any kind of positive feedback it damages your self esteem quite a bit! But other than that our relationship has improved a lot. I've learned to just let some things go and try to be her friend, no matter how much she may annoy me....I know I'm a very easy person to pick on though so maybe I should try doing something different. I'm just not quite sure what yet. But overall, things are good here in ole Eagle Mountain. 

I think we've also started getting a lot tighter as a district. We play dodgeball with the elders and sisters some mornings for exercise, and I believe today we're shooting marshmallow guns for district activity so that should be interesting!! Sister Funaki and Sister Diugud (do-good!! Hahaha) have been awesome and have really been there for me since the beginning of this transfer has been kinda hard so that's been really great. 

Fun fact though...I now sorta like strawberries! We went over to Presidente Perez's house last night and his wife gave us cupcakes and then a full thing of strawberries and told us to try it with this sweet whipped cream stuff she made and it was AMAZING. The Perez family is so awesome. Also, my new favorite food is dark chocolate covered blueberries!!! I also had Él Salvadorian tamales on Saturday! It was pretty good but I prefer Mexican :)

For my little spiritual thought I wanted to talk about something we talked about in Zone Training Meeting this past week. This month we've really been focusing on how to recognize and listen to the spirit. Something interesting that was brought up was trying to listen after prayers. So often we kneel down to pray and it's just us talking to Heavenly Father, then getting up and not finishing the conversation!! We wouldn't vent to our best friend then just get up and leave without waiting for their response! So I've really been trying to listen after my prayers. Just taking an extra minute or two of just silence. It's been a little hard but I'm working on it :) we also talked a lot about promptings and how if it's a good prompting, don't overthink it just DO it. 

But I did want to leave with a quote (or two) I found in my personal study from a talk given a few years ago by Uchtdorf (Forget Me Not) 

"Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself.

You are not forgotten.

Sisters, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you with an infinite love.

Just think of it: You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious Being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time! "

Be patient with yourselves. I know I'm trying my hardest to be. 

I hope everyone's doing well, have a great week!! Sorry this was a super scattered email!!

Some pictures :)

A roller coaster week!!!

Hey everyone!!!!

Ahhh this week was full of ups and downs!! I've learned a lot about what it really means to be a missionary.  The week started out pretty crappy, on Tuesday we had another lesson with a family that are investigators, the Gaminos. We were pretty excited because our first lesson with them went pretty well and they seemed really receptive to what we were teaching. So we went into the second lesson super ready with the Restoration. The lesson started out well, Brother Gamino had lots of questions and we were able to answer them all and he seemed to like it a lot. Brother Gamino asked the question, in your opinion which is better: someone who is well read in religion and reads all the books and is knowledgeable OR someone who walks by faith and leans on their trust in Heavenly Father. I told him that I would like to imagine a 3rd person who is both knowledgeable AND walks by faith. Because, as we know, we can pray as much as we can but sometimes it takes action, and action often comes from reading and studying the scriptures but faith is the first step. I invited them to try to read the Book of Mormon because you can't dispute something until you've actually read it/tried it (including food, yes I know mom....) but Brother Gamino said straight up, no if we're being honest we aren't going to read it, and we aren't going to go to church. So we thanked them, left them with a prayer, and left.

Something good that happened though was that on Monday night we had FHE with the Morales family (sister morales is from Honduras!). It's kind of a sad situation, her husband got into some anti mormon stuff and is inactive now so she's struggling a lot. We played a game with them and talked about the importance of keeping our foundation strong through trials. 

Anyways, we've also volunteered a lot this week at the animal shelter. On Tuesday we and the Elders helped Karen (the owner) get a sheep back up on its feet. Curly, the sheep, had been laying on his legs for so long that his joints got locked up so he hadn't stood up for about 3 months (can you imagine that??) so we went in there and got him up in a hammock and Karen massaged his legs for awhile, and the Elders have been going over there every day to help her do that. It's incredible to me that the elders make time for that, even though they're completely busy they make time every day to help this sheep! Karen's a less active, but the Elders cover that area so I think it's really good for them to be getting to know her. On Saturday we went back over there and mucked out horse stalls (haven't done THAT in awhile......) so my arms are basically killing me right now haha but it's all good. 

On Tuesday we had dinner with the Berta family, who are from Uruguay and they are SOOOOO cool haha they have 5 kids I think and during the whole dinner they were cracking Nacho Libre quotes so I fit in well with them :) On Tuesday night we got a call from the STLs wondering if we could do exchanges that night, so I went to Lehi with Hermana DeJesus and Hermana Mills stayed in Eagle Mountain with Hermana Ricks, which she was super worried about cause she doesn't know the area very well (been there done that!). But it was super cool to go to Lehi. Exchanges are 24 hours, so I spent the night there on Tuesday and came back Wednesday night. Sister DeJesus was "born" in Eagle Mountain and stayed here for 7 months so she's super close to lots of the families here and knows the area super well and loves it so much, so it was nice being around her and telling her about how everyone was doing there. I also got a sneak peak of what it's like to be an STL...lots of drama and running around everywhere hahaha but we got Costa Vida (half off missionary perk!!) which was wonderful. It was weird being in a "city" again. But we taught a few lessons, it was cool cause we found a new investigator who seemed super interested in eternal families. We also had a Fellowshipper come with us to a few of the lessons which was cool cause she was getting ready to go on a mission and it reminded me of me a few months ago! I'm so excited for her! Anyways the cool thing was that we had an appointment not show up that evening, but as we were walking down the apartment steps we ran into this girl who was getting into her apartment and she saw us and said, oh you're missionaries! And we were like yeah, and started to walk away but she said "honestly I've been struggling a lot with my faith lately" like just out of the blue! Not many people would do that! It was sooo random but so inspired, so the Elders are going to start seeing her and helping her out. But if that appointment hadn't cancelled, we wouldn't have ran into her! Super chido. Anyways on the way home Hermana DeJesus and I talked for awhile about my struggles and she assured me I was a fantastic missionary and that if I ever needed anything to just text her and she could come do exchanges and help me out. She's such a sweet person so I felt a lot better going back to Eagle Mountain.

On Friday we had Zone Conference in Alpine! (Alpine has suuuuper nice houses by the way). Anyways it was pretty cool, President talked a lot about the importance of having the goal of going to the temple with our investigators. Because we don't just teach people to baptize them. It's just the first step in eternal progression. We also learned how to clean up our area books and learned how to do a chapel tour, which was awesome. Then the ward in alpine set up a cute Valentine's Day lunch for us and all the primary kids had made us Valentine's Day cards which was soooo sweet!! Then we left and drove the hour back to Eagle Mountain. That evening we ate with the Leon family, who are less active but starting to come back to church. I found out that sister Leon is from Puebla Mexico!!!!!!!!!! I was so excited I told her that's where my dad served and that I've been there and it was my favorite place in Mexico! 

On Saturday we did weekly planning and volunteering AND we went around heartattacking people's doors. We did Presidente Perez's door, Alma's door, Vero's car, the Morales' door, the Torres, and the DelLago family's door. It was so much fun!!  We had such a blast. We also did Karen's door at the animal shelter :) so we spent the majority of Valentine's Day doing service which kept us busy from thinking about the fact that we couldn't really do anything for Valentine's Day haha BUT for dinner that night Vero and Josue took us out to Saratoga to eat which was super fun, their little daughter Bryanna finally got my name right!! (Except she calls me Mister Segle instead of Sister Segle hahahhahahahaha) then we went and got ice cream. It was a good night and I'm so thankful for them, they could've gone out on a date for Valentine's Day but fed us instead. Except on the way home Josue began talking about how he thinks people who are sent on their missions out of the country must be stronger than those who are sent to the states. That seems to be a trend with people on the last few weeks. We love being told as missionaries that we aren't strong, but I wasn't offended because I know I'm in the best mission in the world right now.

The BEST NEWS IN THE WORLD though is what happened on Sunday. We had church, and we had all of our investigators there and lots of less actives came! Then we had dinner with Presidente Perez and his family and we had pulled pork! Haha I think she thought we didn't like Mexican food cause both of us are white now, but we assured her we love Mexican food. That evening we had an appointment with Vero. We were planning on showing her the mormon message, Testimony of the Book of Mormon which is basically Jeffrey R Holland bearing his testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. It is AMAZING. Go watch it right now. But anyways, when I was gone on exchanges they had a lesson with Vero and had her pray about March 7 for her baptismal date and she said she would try it out, but she wasn't sure. So for this lesson we were prepared to help her understand Joseph Smith more because that was her only doubt really. So we asked her if she had prayed about Joseph smith and she said she had. We asked her if she was ready to be baptized and she was like ahhhh I don't know, I feel like I have a lot of faults. So we decided to review the baptismal interview questions with her. She aced them all, and when we finished she looked at us and she was smiling and she was like well.....I think I'm ready. I was like REALLY????? SO VERO IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON MARCH 7!!!! She's been taught for months and months and months an pe she finally decided that she was ready. She's been ready all along though. She's an incredible woman and I told her she'll be my first investigator to be baptized and she was like awwww Hermana I am honored. She also said she's excited to do baptisms in the temple. Her husband will baptize her and she's still trying to figure out who she wants to speak. Gosh it was just amazing. I've never been so 

happy for someone else since my best friend got baptized last year. It was an amazing feeling. It was one of those moments that was like OH okay I'm doing some good here and I'm a missionary for a reason :) 

Oh, one more thing! That referral we got, they had a lesson with the family while I was away on exchanges and we have a lesson with them tonight!!! That's 6 new investigators!!!! SO AWESOME.

I guess my message this week would be about the importance of keeping your head up and looking for the good in every day. Some days are hard. Some days are soooooo so so hard. But there's always something you can learn from those days. And the sun will always come back up in the morning. The important thing is to keep your faith and trust in the Lord, and no matter what's going on to always smile. No matter how hard it is. No matter if you feel like your crumbling under the weight of everyone's problems. No matter if you feel like you can't speak the language. No matter if you feel like you're responsible for the salvation of every person you come across. It doesn't matter. As long as you stay positive and remember whose hands you're in, things are going to turn out okay. 

I love all of you so much and I appreciate every email, letter, and package you give me. I miss you all SO MUCH! 

Hermana Segle

Happy 3 months to me!

So this week was....well it was very, very long to say the least. We had transfers on Wednesday, and my dear Sister Gonzalez left me and I was assigned to my new companion, sister Ricks.

On Thursday after her blessing and after finishing up studies we went out and did some finding, and we had a lesson with Araceli, a less active woman who just had a baby and has 2 other little girls. Her husband is a nonmember. So we went over there and taught her a lesson and we're going back there this week hopefully. Her kids are sooooo soo so cute. Then we taught another less active family, the Leon's. They actually ended up coming to church on Sunday, which was fabulous! Then we went over to the Otero's house (my home away from home on my mission) for dinner. I think Brother Otero could tell I was struggling a lot with my companion cause he made eye contact with my and his eyes just sorta said "I understand." Haha and then while my companion was talking to Tania, bbrother otero was like "sister Segle. How can we help you with your spanish." They are really pumped about me learning and I think they're disappointed that my progress has reached a stop because my companion hardly knows more than me. (Sigh) After dinner brother otero let us try his drunk glasses on which was hilarious and SUPER hard, why do people choose to feel like that???? The kids also tried them on which was super funny. After that, we taught Mariana. We read with her because she hadn't read her scriptures yet that day, but she's doing well and really progressing. She wants her family to be eternal and she really loves the gospel but she struggles a lot with the not drinking coffee thing. She also needs to get married to her boyfriend but it's tricky cause he needs to get divorced and sometimes she doesn't know if she wants to really be with him. Those are the only things really holding her back from being baptized. Then we had stake correlation which was awkward cause my companion has all these plans for eagle mountain and she's basically just tearing down the setup here. 

Friday was basically the same, but we didn't have any lessons, just lots of people telling us they weren't interested. One family gave us all the pamphlets and Books of Mormon back which was awkward haha we also had an interesting meeting with one family who are less active because the husband got into some anti mormon stuff...so we actually got in and talked to the wife for awhile. I felt bad because she seemed so scatter brained and her house was an absolute mess but when we offered to help her she said no. She was super sweet but basically told us the gospel wasn't for her anymore. She said it was too clique-y and the members were super judgmental. 

So something frustrating about being in a Utah mission is that the church is often a social thing. And a lot of the times the women here tend to make groups, and shun anyone who isn't under their classifications of perfect mormon household with perfect kids and a beautiful house and Pinterest wardrobe. Soooo so many of our less actives are less active because of this, or because someone offended them at church and I just feel like shaking the whole state of Utah and saying "HEY wake up!! This is NOT how this church is supposed to work!!" It's so frustrating. This mission is hard for that reason. We don't have people crawling into our baptismal fonts because the gospel is so new to them and is what they've been waiting for FOREVER. Nah, here it's like you have to remind them and convince them that this is the true gospel but it's hard to convince people to come back when they've been offended. I think that's what often makes this mission different from others. This woman also basically told us that our mission call sucked and that it probably would have been a lot more fulfilling to go to a third world country which kind of stung a little bit, to be honest. We weren't really sure what to say to that. 

Saturday was pretty interesting, we went to an animal shelter in our area and volunteered there for a few hours. It's interesting, it's like a farm animal shelter so we brushed out the Pygmy goats for awhile and then hung out with the horses. It was super peaceful and we're gonna be volunteering there a few times a week which I'm excited about. Saturday night was interesting because we actually had people answer the doors to us! One family that my trainer and I had been looking for forever, the Villalobos actually answered their door! We introduced ourselves and invited them to church and he asked me in English where the chapel was and I thought he was speaking Spanish so I was like???whats he saying??? And when we got back in the car my companion was like, ummmm he was speaking English hahah so that was embarrassing. Then we tried another door, the Gaminos. They answered the door and invited us in and we taught them! They smoke a lot though so when we left I had a headache from the smell, but they invited us back later this week is great. Oh, I forgot to mention we had someone call us with a referral! Woohooo. That's super rare here so that was super cool. It's a family who lives out on the Mink farms so we're seeing them on Wednesday, and we have a Fellowshipper! Yay. Super cool. 

Sunday we had branch counsel which I had to attempt to take over...it was rough. Church was alright except Mariana didn't come because she was sick and Vero left early cause she was starting to feel sick :/ bummer. That evening there was a stake missionary fireside where 3 return missionaries spoke about their mission experiences. It was super cool, and I learned a lot about how to be a better missionary. Oh also we had dinner with the Torres family , the YW president in our branch. Their family is incredible and I love them soooooooo much. They're from Colombia and they fed us steak and funeral potatoes hahaha (it was super good though!) 

Overall this week was alright but at the same time really, really hard. I'm starting to know what it feels like to be lonely even though you're with someone 24/7. It's been really hard to keep a smile on my face and continue to be happy when my companion is so harsh. It's going to be a really long transfer. It's hard to keep my confidence in my spanish when my companion is correcting my pronunciation and everything. I wouldn't mind, except her pronunciation is horrid and she barely knows more than me anyways. The work goes on, though and this will just be one of those transfers that really sucks I guess. I'm trying my hardest and that's all you can really do I guess. 

My message to you this week would probably be charity. I've been studying that a lot this week, and I've learned a lot about the pure love of Christ. In 1 Nefi 19: 9, it says 

"Y el mundo, a causa de su iniquidad lo juzgará como cosa de ningún valor; por tanto, lo azotan y él lo soporte; lo hieren y él lo soporta. Sí, escupen sobre él, y él lo soporta, por motivo de su amoroso bondad y su longanimidad para con los hijos de los hombres." 

 

It's incredible to me that Christ faced people who spat on Him, who humiliated Him, and eventually killed Him, and He suffered it all simply because of the love He has for us. So I challenge you to try to increase your charity towards others, no matter how hard it is. I know that's what I'll be working on this transfer....

Week 6 Pics!

Week 6....one week till transfers!

Hey everyone!!

This week was one of the greatest weeks on my mission so far!! It was
SOO good!!! I can't believe that I've been here for a transfer
already, time is going by really super fast and I'm not sure how I
feel about it haha.

Anyways though, this week we had over twice as many lessons as last
week!! It was so great!

On Tuesday we went to visit Vero, Josue's wife and have a
lesson with her. She's one of the sweetest girls ever! She'd been
having some doubts about Joseph Smith so I had the idea to watch the
full length Joseph Smith movie with her and we went over the
restoration with her. It was a fantastic lesson, and I think it was
good to review everything with her because it had been awhile since
she had been taught that. It was cute cause she got all excited about
the movie and made popcorn and got us drinks and set up a table and
everything (including hot sauce! I think I'm meant to be Hispanic
cause hot sauce on popcorn is the bomb.com and I've been doing that
since I was little!). Anyways, unfortunately we had to watch it in
English but she still understood it. The spirit during the movie and
during the rest of the time we talked to her was so strong and I was
reminded again of how beautiful early church history really is and the
amazing sacrifices so many people made because of their firm faith in
Jesus Christ and in the restoration. After the movie, I was super
emotional for some reason and though I contribute in every lesson we
have, this time was different cause this time I bore my testimony of
The restoration and of Joseph smith as a prophet in Spanish and I
couldn't get through it without getting choked up. It was crazy haha.
Vero is a special person and I can tell she's close to being able to
truly accept this in her life which makes me so happy.

On Wednesday we had a trainers meeting up in Provo (it's like an hour
drive) and it was pretty good! President talked to us and our trainers
about how things were going and what not. He's such an amazing man but
sadly in July we'll be getting a new mission president (or I might be
in the Orem mission, I guess we'll see!) anyways though, after the
meeting we grabbed something to eat at this super yummy burger-ish
place in provo called tommy's burgers. While we were getting our food
a woman asked us about where we were from everything and then she
asked for our parents' numbers so she could call our parents and tell
them how great we're doing. It was really sweet of her, but kinda
random. After we got our food the cook told us that missionaries don't
have to pay there (my first freebie on my mission! Provo is a lot
different from Eagle Mountain haha).
The best part about Wednesday though was when we got back home, and
had a lesson with our recent convert Alma. We wanted to talk to her
about temples because we want her to go to the temple soon. She was a
little nervous in the past about baptisms for the dead, but the more
she learns the more comfortable she is. So in this lesson we decided
to show her a video with different families talking about how the
temple blesses their lives and it was a very powerful video. After the
video ended we talked to her about how we can be with our families
forever through this gospel and through temples. Her husband is less
active and she has two children, Alizé and Junior, and she loves her
family a lot. As we were talking, I looked up at her and saw that
tears were running down her face. She explained to us that she lost a
baby a few years ago and for a very long time had guilt about it
because she told Heavenly Father that she didn't want another baby so
she felt like it was her fault. We explained to her that it wasn't her
fault, that some souls just simply need to get a body and then
heaven,y father wants them back with him. We told her she will be able
to raise that baby and that the baby will be with her family forever.
She seemed like she was hearing the comfort she had been needing to
hear for years. It was so powerful. I remember we got back in the car
and as I drove up to our driveway back home both me and Hermana
Gonzalez just looked at each other and teared up and started crying
because we both felt how important that lesson was to Alma. I had a
renewed sense of gratefulness for the knowledge I have that my family
who I love so much will be together forever, and how absolutely
perfect heavenly fathers plan is. He loves us SO much.
That evening, our dinner appointment cancelled but our landlords
somehow figured it out that we didn't have dinner so they fed us
lasagna haha which was super sweet.

We also taught Mariana and her two kids, Hailey and Christopher. We've
been doing a lot for her to help her remember to read her scriptures.
We made them brownies and dropped them off at her house, and on
Saturday we wrote in chalk "don't forget to read!!" It was such a
blast hahaha

On Sunday my companion and I were asked to share our experiences of
why we went on a mission in sacrament meeting. I wrote mine out, and
it was really scary but I made it through haha then I had to teach
music in the primary again (I think it's like my second calling now
haha jkjk) but it was still fun.

So some food adventures this week......
I ate some delicious enchiladas at the Dushane house. The Dushanes are
a family in our Ward. Sister Dushane is from Mexico City and her
husband is totally white and they have two little boys (one of them
had a ski accident the other weekend which is why we had to teach
sharing time the other Sunday) but anyways her husband is so funny he
is fluent in Spanish obviously and he's the young men's president and
they're just such a cute family!

I also had some sort of Argentinian pie thing at the Villegas house
which seemed a little sketchy cause like boiled eggs and green olives
in it BUT I powered through and ate it and it was pretty good!

We also had chiles rellenos at Mariana's house which was....well it
was a struggle cause it was really slimey but I ate more than half of
it! Hahaha

Oh I also had some fantastic chicken and rice and horchata at sister
Serna's house! MMMMM so yummy.

Oh something else cool-I was able to message Anaid (Josue's 17 year
old daughter) on facebook and see how she's doing. She's meeting with
the elders in California which is AWESOME!! I got so excited talking
to her, I miss her so much haha

Anyways this week was just really fantastic and I love everything
about being a missionary!!
I love this gospel and I love you all.

Love,
Hermana Segle :)