This week!!!

Well, this week was pretty fun! Luckily, a lot less eventful than last week. 

Monday we had a very interesting start to our day. We were both super anxious to find out about transfers, and at around 8 in the morning our phone starts ringing. Both of us are freaking out cause usually president calls us when we are receiving a leadership position or if we are training. So, I answered the phone in English assuming is was President. However, on the other line was this hysterical Mexican woman who was crying and it was super hard to understand her Spanish (I have a hard time understanding Spanish on the phone anyways buuuut I was completely lost on this one.) what we got from it was that basically she was needing something to eat and she had some sort of injury. So, we frantically called the first person we could think of (Sister Berta) and gave her this woman's number to call her and figure out what was going on. Sister Berta understood about the same amount as us, so she put some food together really quick and we all went over to this woman's house. It turns out, this woman's name is Sarita and she was one of the former investigators in our area book. However, when we were going to try to knock her door about a month ago, there was a huge sign on it that said "THIS IS A CATHOLIC HOME. We do not need any other literature." We got a super bad vibe and went and tried another door. Anyways, we brought the food over and she was so grateful. She had just had surgery and all she had to eat was sweet food like fruit and such and she really needed something savory. She was super old but I think the medicine they had her on kinda messed with her emotions so while I was making small talk with her she just randomly started crying haha it was super awkward! 

Then later we found out who was getting transferred (Elder Shields and Sister Diuguid) and we decided to do a super fun district activity for their last one. The English sisters had a member rent those huge inflatable ball things that you get inside of and push people around in. We were supposed to all play soccer with them, but ended up just running around knocking people down and flipping around. It was SO MUCH FUN. Funnest district activity yet. After that we finally got around to doing weekly planning and that took up most of the rest of the day. 

Tuesday we went and brought more food to Sarita and this time we actually taught her a small lesson! We shared a scripture about faith and she talked to us about what faith was to her. She said she knew God never left her alone because He sent her us to help her when she needed it. It's so amazing how Heavenly Father works because maybe earlier she wouldn't have let us in her home, but she needed help and she just happened to find our pass along card and called us. Hopefully she'll be more open and we can touch her heart through more service. I think this is one of the miracles we're seeing after having gone through that car accident last week.  On Tuesday we also went over to the Andrews house to help Jonelle pack for her mission because her mom was up all night sick and Jonelle was super stressed out and was supposed to report to the MTC on Wednesday. It was fun, but man I am so glad that part of my mission is over (the packing and saying goodbye and stress). Later that night we taught Mariana a small lesson and recorded some funny videos with Leilani and Bryanna. 

However, that night when we got home I got very sick and ended up staying up all night with some sort of stomach flu. It was not fun and when we woke up in the morning I told my companion and we decided it would be best to stay in that day. We were supposed to have a correlation meeting with Brother Otero but we told him I wasn't feeling well and he ran to the store and got me lots of Gatorade, herbal tea, and saltines. It was so sweet! I slept a lot of the day but the English sisters had transfers that day and on the way home, Sister Funaki with her new companion Sister Edstrom stopped and got lunch and dropped it off at our house. I couldn't eat any of it, but it was very sweet of them!

Later that night, I needed some fresh air so we decided to go find our lost hubcap that was up the mountain. We found it, took some pictures, and came back down. We called the Elders to help put it back on and met the new Elder, Elder Fenton! 

Thursday I was feeling a lot better, we began teaching Vero the new member lessons (I know, it's been a crazy few weeks). I think she's a master at the Restoration by now :) 

That night we had dinner with Alma (we had Alfredo pasta and chicken-Having a white companion means having less Mexican meals for some reason :(((()  it was still amazing, but we haven't had authentic food in awhile. Anyways, then Alma had to run to a karate class she put Junior in after the bullying situation so we left to go teach Mariana. We talked to her about General Conference :) (by the way-I can't believe that's coming up in a few weeks!!! I might get to go!!) that evening we found out Sister Funaki's birthday was on Friday sooooo we rounded up the Elders and we all went to Sister Andrews' house and made rice Krispy treats and cards for her :)

Friday was really good because.....we got to go to the temple again!!! The new missionaries hadn't gotten a chance to go yet so we drove the sisters up there and met the Elders there too. Also that morning we went to the church and had a district breakfast for Sister Funaki's birthday :) Elder Smith is super healthy (he doesn't eat sugar) and he made us flax seed pancakes with some sort of peanut butter-ish syrup. It was good! I'm actually surprised, I've been pretty healthy this transfer-we stopped buying snacks and if we get hungry during the day we eat apples (and I have mine with organic peanut butter!!). I've also started loving smoothies and yogurt. In fact, I asked Elder Smith where I could buy granola for my yogurt and he just made me some! So on Friday morning he gave me this container of granola! It's super good and I actually sometimes eat it as a snack! Anyways, we had a great trip to the temple (no accidents-thank goodness!) When we got back, we did lots of finding. It was weird though, there's this family we've been trying to find. They're part Hispanic and from what we've been told they're less active. Anyways, so we knock on this door and there's suuuuper loud music playing and the husband finally comes to the door. (He's white by the way) and so we introduce ourselves as the missionaries and he got super defensive and was like "well we're members already" and my companion was like "yeah we teach members too!" And he was just like well we aren't interested so we left but it was such a weird feeling. Some people just have weird vibes I guess. 

Saturday was a day full of service!!! At 10 we helped the West Stake YW Presidency set up for an event they were having that evening. Each year they have this YW Medallion fancy dinner thing to recognize the girls who have gotten their medallions this year. (UTAH.) Anyways, that was super fun. After that, we went to the Otero's house and signed our names and put our handprints on their new cement! It was awesome!!! I am forever in Eagle Mountain now :) 

Then, we went to the animal shelter for the first time in forever (since this week/past weekend have been kinda crazy). It was awesome, there were so many volunteers there! Someone that morning had just tied a dog up outside their house saying they didn't want the poor thing so we played with her, then helped a lot with food preparation for the animals and then brushed out the horses. From the animal shelter we went and changed and went straight to the YW dinner (we were invited and they really wanted us to come). It was so fancy! They had our names on the table and everything!! Haha so we sat with the English sisters and listened to the talks about personal progress and ate a fabulous meal (actually to be honest I didn't eat much of it haha). It was cute, the little deacons were the "waiters" and they served our food hahaha. The dessert was the best part though-I've fallen for chocolate covered strawberries!! Yuuuummm!!! 

Sunday was pretty good, we had an awesome branch council. Sometimes it still blows my mind that I'm a missionary and that I'm almost 20 and I'm participating in branch councils. That's crazy. It also sorta blows my mind how much I've grown to get to know and love each of the members in our little ramita. I'm going on my 3rd transfer here! Wooooah! Mariana was at church-with her boyfriend and chamacos! And she stayed for 2 hours! I was so happy! 

We spent the third hour in Primary helping out again. I sat with Alma's daughter, Alize so her mom could go to relief society without her hanging on her arm. That night we had dinner with the Querales family aaannnnd I'm starting to think my appetite has shrunk down like 2 sizes cause I could hardly finish my dinner for the second night in a row!

We have a super busy week this week, president interviews, our branch talent show, and lots of other stuff! But something super exciting that's going to start happening this week is training for the Payson Open House! ALL sisters in our mission will be involved with that and we are getting a ton of training for it. We will all be tour guide-ish people and I'm sooooo excited!! The Payson Temple is beautiful and it's not every day you get to show non members around the temple! It's the first of 2 temples being opened in my mission this year-that NEVER happens! What a time to be alive :)

It's been a little bit of a difficult few weeks but it's amazing what just powering through and trying to have a good attitude and an optimistic outlook can do. So keep your head up and keep smiling!! :)

The One With Friday the 13th

Well this has certainly been an interesting week. It was full of a lot of miracles and a lot of crazy things happened. The whole thing actually feels like one big blur!

On Monday we had our Mink Farms appointment cancel, so we went over to the Otero's house for FHE. It was SO fun!! We talked about how heavenly father answers our prayers (Brother Otero taught the lesson) then we split up into teams and played pictionary. My team was me, Bro Otero, Hailey, and David against Sister Ricks, Mariana, Sis Otero, Leilani, and Christopher. Our team totally won though :) After that, we left to do some finding and we had the distinct impression to go to the animal shelter and share a message with Karen and her husband. It was really strange going out there when it was dark and Karen was very surprised to see us. It was weird being there in church clothes! Haha but it was awesome, we showed them a video about Christ and talked to them about their history with the church (they're inactive). They were very open with us and it was a great discussion. Karen was so sweet, she said she appreciated the help we gave her each week and said she feels different when we're over. We bore our testimonies and I think it meant a lot to them that we stopped by. Though we won't be teaching them, because they're not Spanish, it was a good experience. 

On Tuesday we helped the Otero's clear out their backyard cause they're putting in a patio. It was fun, and we went out to the dump (THAT was a first for me!) and then Tania (Sis Otero) took us out to Cafe Rio. We had dinner with the Taumoepeau family again, then when we left Sister Ricks was like "let's go get that candy you wanted to give to Junior and stop by Alma's house and drop it off." We didn't think much of it, we just went and got the candy and drove to Alma's. Well, when we got there Alma was outside with the kids. We got out of the car, and Alma did not look very happy. She asked if we had some time, and we went inside and talked. Junior apparently was being bullied on his way home from school and Alma was fuming about it. She was crying and very upset. We just listened to her vent, and I think having us there calmed her down a lot. Needless to say, we were in the right place at the right time. Then we went over to the Otero's and taught Mariana. Hopefully she'll start progressing again, we're seeing her a lot this coming week. 

On Wednesday we....got our new iPads! Woohoo! We had a zone meeting and they gave them to us and we returned the old ones. Then we all went to our DTM chapels to get them all set up. They're super nice, I love mine! On Wednesday we also were finally able to teach a part member family! We'd been trying to find them for forever and we finally were able to teach their daughter, Amy. We taught her the Plan of Salvation! It was great, and definitely a miracle.

Thursday was SUPER awesome because we went to the temple with Alma for the first time!! She's been baptized since September and FINALLY we were able to take her! It was a super great experience. Though I do feel like the workers were a little judgmental with her, because she has bright red dyed hair. But that's okay, it was still a wonderful experience. Afterwards we went to In n Out (yeah....I just got a milkshake and fries hahahah) and then we went back home to teach Mariana again, and then we just had stake correlation meetings the rest of the evening. 

Now....Friday the 13th began quite an interesting weekend. We got up early and went to the temple again as a district. We drove to Mt. Timpanogos and did an 8:45 session. There were soo many elders there! It was like all the missionaries decided to go on the same day. Anyways, it was fantastic and after it was over we went outside and took some pictures (there were like a billion weddings going on that day-a ton of brides everywhere). Then we decided to go get lunch as a district at this awesome place called Culver's! It was yummy and everything was half off for missionaries, and in addition some random man gave each companionship a $20 gift card! People are so kind!!! But anyways, so we were taking the other sisters (sister funaki and sister diuguid) back to eagle mountain with us but before we left one of the sisters wanted some frozen yogurt so we stopped and she got some, then finally we were on our way home. We were driving on Main St between Lehi and American Fork. We were driving West, and there was traffic on the opposite side of the road, but no traffic where we were driving. Everything was fine, we were driving the speed limit and everything when all of a sudden we see a Cop car shoot out of nowhere on the opposite side of the road. He didn't see us, and T-Boned us. Sister Ricks swerved and we hit a fire hydrant. We were all in shock but Sister Funaki couldn't breathe. Sister Ricks looked at me and was freaking out and was like "was that my fault? Was that my fault?" Luckily there were lots of police cars near us and they immediately saw what happened and came to help us. They got an ambulance for sister Funaki and talked to us. We called Elder Pratt, who's in charge of the mission vehicles and told him what had happened. While the other sisters were in the ambulance we talked to the officers and filled out some paperwork, called our District Leaders and then our mission President. Sister Funaki was okay, so they took her out of the ambulance and Elder Pratt picked us up in one of the mission vans and we drove to the place where they towed our car. We emptied our car out, then drove with him back to the mission office. While Sister Ricks filled out accident reports we loaded our stuff into our new car, then me and Sister Diuguid helped Sister Caldwell out in the mission office and shredded lots of paper. I gotta say, the mission office is such a nice place to be cause everyone is so sweet and loving and it's just nice to be in there. When we were finally finished in there we got in our new car and all decided we should go visit the policeman who hit us and bring him some balloons and candy. So we drove to the grocery store and picked up some stuff (we all got him our dad's favorite candies since we didn't know what men like haha) anyways, while we were at the store, a woman who worked there was talking to us and asked if she could take our picture and send it to our families, so she did, but we told her to not tell them about the accident so they wouldn't worry. So we drove to the hospital, but the police,an wasn't there so we drove to his house. We gave him the stuff, met his wife and family and talked for awhile. He felt extremely guilty and he definitely got it worse than we did. His airbag burned his arm a little but he said he was doing fine. We took a picture with him, then finally drove back home, around 5:30. On the way home we got a call from President, who told us to stay in, take it easy, and call our parents. Sooooooooooo I got to talk to my family!! It was AWESOME. Unfortunately, my parents were in a movie and didn't get a call until my dad got up to go to the bathroom and as he got up he saw that President was calling. So, they found out from President first. My dad said that they talked for awhile and President told him how great of a missionary I was and that I was super enthusiastic and sweet. Nonetheless, it wasn't the best way for my parents to find out. But finally they called me back and I talked to them. Then we went to bed early.

On Saturday morning we helped a family in our branch move (yeah, not the best idea for us). It was fun, but we are really feeling it today. The Zone Leaders and our District Leaders were there to help out too. Then we went over to the Andrews house and helped out with her daughter's farewell preparations. After that we went to the Sisters apartment to sign a card for one of the senior couples that is finishing their mission. When it was dinner time, Vero dropped off some food for us and the plan was that we would go back over to the Sisters apartment and relax there for a little while but plans changed and while we were waiting for some dumb reason we drove up to take some pictures of the sunset on the mountain, and it went well until we were driving back and hit a huge rock. Unfortunately it popped our tire, so the elders had to come help us put the spare on and today we're going to get it fixed in Lehi. It wasn't very fun and honestly if I didn't like cars before I reeeally hate them now.

Everyone's been really sweet to us, the elders are going to bring some homemade ice cream by and everyone has just been so nice. To be honest, I'm still in a lot of pain from whiplash (I think I've gotten in one car accident too many in the past few years) My neck is just sore and I feel like I've been beat up. Sunday was actually worse than Saturday as far as pain goes. It's just weird, even though I've gone through this before this time I'm having pain in my chest and I'm getting short of breath easily. I hate being broken though soooo part of me just wants to power through it. But we might call the nurse tomorrow. My companion is in the same shape.

This morning we got up and went to see Jonelle's  (sister Andrews daughter) farewell talk, then we went to our branch. Her talk was amazing, and the whole sacrament meeting was about the Atonement which was awesome. 

Overall I have to say, we were really blessed this weekend. Looking at the damage of the car, things could have been so much worse. Though we're all sore, if the police had hit us in a different spot things could've been a lot different. The Lord does watch out for his missionaries, and now I know it from experience.

Yesterday we had a lesson with Sister Libertini and it was AWESOME. It was about how to recognize the Holy Ghost and discerning the spirit, and we both shared experiences where we've received answers to our prayers. I explained that often our answers are not what we expect, and sometimes we have a "wrestle" with God because we want to do things our way and he has a different plan. I explained the wrestle I had with my mission call and how much Heavenly Father blessed me, even when I very much did not want to do what he wanted. We also talked about how she needed to be reading the Book of Mormon with faith that she'll find answers to her prayers. It was actually cool, she said when she read that she felt like she was just reading a history book but she explained that she found a Book of Mormon in one of the boxes of books she sells, and she was flipping through it and reading some of it and there was a ton of stuff marked and some wonderful annotations that made her think maybe she should be reading her scriptures differently. It was like Heavenly Father just handed her an answer hahahah a. But the spirit was really strong during the whole lesson and we left feeling really good about it. 

Then, we had dinner with Presidente Perez!! It was the most fun I've had all weekend for sure. I ATE MY FIRST HAMBURGER. Haha they made some sort of special famous hamburger for us and we had a blast eating with them. They are such a hilarious family and we spent awhile playing with his baby daughter, Emma (she has the biggest cheeks I've ever seen!) we also had some pretty awesome cheesecake. I honestly haven't laughed that hard in a long time, their kids crack me up. (Except laughing kind of sucked cause every time I laughed my chest and my back hurt :/) 

Then we went to Jonelle's drop-in and later the Elders came too and it was a fun time with everyone. 

We're supposed to have a Zone Activity today but I'm not sure we'll have time to go cause we're driving up to Lehi.

I hope all of you have had a wonderful week. My time's out so I have to run but I love you all so so soooooooo much!!!

Edit:
Update--I'm not getting transferred, and neither is my companion.

A couple more pictures from this week.

The One With All The Food Trucks (and Vero's Baptism!!)

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!! 

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 :)