Gift, Painting Bishop's House, and FIREWORKS

Bye, Hermana Kioa! and Sister Training Leaders

Week 60

HOLAAAA!!!

Well this week was super crazy! Basically my companion finished her mission, so we were running all around! She had her final interview and we went out to eat with the mission President's wife. That was pretty great! :) Then on Wednesday a family invited us to eat PANDA EXPRESS!!! It was so wonderful! Then on Thursday I went with Hermana Kioa to the airport... at 4am. That was pretty sad to see her go. And since then we have been in a trio. We have actually had some pretty neat moments this week, here are a few:

-On Wednesday with Hermana Kioa we were walking, and she stopped me and was like let's go help that Hermana (who was moving a huge mattress). So we went over and helped her and ended up being able to help her move all of her things and organize them in her house. And afterwards she was super receptive! We ended up having a lesson with her, and we are going to go back and visit her this week.

-So on Thursday I was able to work with some of the members of the ward (because I didn't have a companion) And well it went super well! And when I was with Alejandra, my new best friend in the ward :) She is 19 and is getting her papers ready to go on a mission. So, in the evening she had a prompting to go visit a less active, so we went and it was such a great lesson, and the less active was like well I want to start going to church again!! So we are going to work with her this week! We will see if she goes to church! Her name is Cristina.

-Then last night we were in Acatan (the area of the other Hermanas) and we were knocking doors and knocked on the door of a man named Erick. He was nice but was like sorry my wife is asleep and so you can't come in... So we were like, okay, we will come back another day... well we kept walking and we were around the corner when a little girl stops us and asks if we were the ones who knocked on the blue house, we said yes, and she said that her dad (Erick) had woken up his wife, and that he wanted us to come back and visit them. So we went, and ended up having a wonderful lesson!! Too bad they aren't in my area! :) 

Well this week in our reunión de distrito we talked about the blessing of having prophets and apostles. I really am so very grateful for Thomas S. Monson. I know that he is a prophet of God. And we were talking about how important it is that other people understand that in our church we really do believe that God still communicates with His children on the Earth through prophets. I hadn't ever thought what it would be like to think that God had just left us here... or that He didn't think we were important or worthy enough to have a prophet... That would be so sad. But I know that God loves us. That is why we have a porphet.

Ponderizing: 3 Nephi 27:13 I love this verse. Here it is in English and Spanish :)

13 Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me.

13 He aquí, os he dado mi evangelio, y este es el evangelio que os he dado: que vine al mundo a cumplir la voluntad de mi Padre, porque mi Padre me envió.

Love you all!!! Next week I will send pictures of my new comp! 

-Hermana Garrett

Day of the Dead

Week 59

Hola!!

So this week went well! It flew by that is for sure!! Here are some highlights:

-So we went with Wendy and Bryan, and well they are back together now, and have a wedding date for 19 of November!! Please pray that everything goes smoothly with them!! They want to get married and baptized the same day! 

-We had divisions with some other Hermanas in the capital, and they went super well! And while we were in divisions we found Katherine. She is 19 years old. She is awesome! She and her husband have 2 daughters, and they live in a tiny tiny room. They don't even have a bed or chairs. But they are so happy. Her husband sells peanuts on the street. He probably makes about 15Q a day... Which is about $1.75... But they are sure great. They are originally from a little pueblo (town) up north. They have their own dialect. And they feel more comfortable praying in their language... It is pretty neat. 

-So a few weeks back we found Luis and Oralia. They were sure nice to us since the first time we met them. Well after the first lesson, we went back and back and back and they were never there, and sometimes they would answer the phone, but most of the time no. Well this week when we went, we found out why... Because Oralia had her baby!! We were like ohhhh yeah it all makes sense now! :) But the mother in law told us that Oralia had to rest (be in the house, can't clean, basically can't do anything) for 40 days! I was like, I think that is a little extreme... But they are doing well. They are reading in the Book of Mormon, and the daughter Ashley is super pilas (awesome)!

-So Tuesday was crazy!! We had concilio (counsel) in the morning, and then we rushed back home because we had an activity as a zone where we were outside the cemetery singing and contacting people, because it is was Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)! It went super well!!! And after we went and cleaned in the cemetery! But man! THERE WERE A TON OF PEOPLE! Everyone goes and puts flowers, food, drinks, etc. on the graves of their family members. And well it was super awesome. We were able to talk to so many people, and well, I was singing the whole time, so I was happy! :) And well a lot of our investigators saw us that day, and since have been much more willing to let us in and visit with us!  

-On Sunday we had a goal to find a family of 4, and well we were walking past a street, and remembered that we had talked to a lady once that said she lived in this street, so we decided to give it a try. We knocked on the door... and waited... then we knocked again... and waited... and then Angela answered the door, walked us up to her apartment, and what do you know?! A family of 4! And they were sooooo great! And at the end of the lesson the dad said the prayer, and Angela told us that she had told her sons about us and they were waiting for us to stop by their house! She said that God clearly wanted us to pass by that day for them, and that is wasn't by chance.

Pondering: 3 Nephi 15:9

Love you all!!

-Hermana Garrett

Week 58

HOLA!!!!!

Well this week flew by! It is crazy how fast time can fly, right?!

-Well we had divisions this week and it was pretty neat! We were able to go to the area of the hermanas. It sure made me more grateful for my area! It is crazy how a 10 min drive can change so much! The people in their area were very cold.. but nevertheless we found some new investigators with them!

-WEDNESDAY was just a miracle! So we had our ward TRUNK or TREAT. Okay, so considering that this was all 100% new for all of our members, they did really well! Everyone brought their assignments, and they all LOVED the games! Almost everyone came dressed up too! But OH MAN, we were so stressed that it was going to be a fail! Haha BUT IT WASN'T! I will attach pictures!! One of our investigtors (Wendy) helped us a ton with the decorations!

-Well it has been a little rough with Wendy and Bryan this week. Bryan started drinking again. And Bryan doesn´t want to get married to Wendy anymore.. So they are probably going to seperate.. But Wendy is still so great. She is reading in the Book of Mormon, and is just loving everything. She got a priesthood blessing this week from our Mission leader and his son. That helped her a lot. Please keep her in your prayers.

This week I found lots of quotes that I just loved, here are some:

¨How we respond in any situation has to make things better not worse¨

¨My life wasn´t going as I had planned, but it was still going according to His plan, and He was in control.¨

¨Watch out, you´re going to lose blessings, and you have to work anyway¨(That one is to help me not complain)

¨Defend your beliefs with COURAGE and with COMPASSION, but defend them¨Jeffrey R. Holland

¨You never check your religion at the door¨

Ponderizing: Helaman 14:17

¨But behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord.¨I love this. ISNT THAT THE BEST!! Through Jesus Christ we can return to the presence of God. And it is because He LIVES!! That is why we dont focus on the cross, because He is NOT dead. What a blessing.

Love you all!

Hermana Garrett

Random

Investigators at Church

At the Temple

Week 57

HELLLLOO!!

So this week was wonderful! Here are some of the eventful moments:

-Tuesday we had divisions with my MTC companion!! It was so awesome! We had set a goal in the MTC to be companions again, and well at least we were for a few hours! :) 

-Wednesday we found a ton of new investigators! We explored a little more in our area! We found one little old lady who can't hear very well and is blind. We were able to talk (Well it was more of us yelling) with her and her grandchildren. She is a little trooper! 

-We had interviews this week and found out that my companion will be going home a week early because her sister got her mission call and will be reporting on the same day that she would have gotten home. Also the mission president's wife talked to us about making our prayers more meaningful. One thing she talked to us about was that it doesn't say anywhere that we have to pray the moment we wake up. She said that it is more important that we are awake and have a conversation with God. She said ¨He doesn´t care WHEN, He cares HOW¨

-Basically the rest of the week flew by and well we had to speak in church and I had to sing. And we had 9 investigators at church (I will send a picture of some of the kids that came) 

Well today we got to go to the temple!! It was just the best thing ever!!! 

Ponderizing: Helaman 3:28

Love you ALL!!!

-Hermana Garrett