Jehovah's Witnesses, the Flu, and Thanksgiving Plans

Hola Familia! Mom, thanks so much for the package that you sent me!! That was way more than i was expecting, thanks so much. I LOVE those boots that you sent me they are so cute and theyll be put to good use. Those came right on time because I just found out that i wore my black flats out. I love the bracelet, its so cute! I saw Amanda's at conference and was happy to get that. I have already put all of the other stuff to use so thanks so much for sending all of that too. My companion and i were talking about how we missed shopping this week because everyone we are teaching is making plans for black friday haha so that was nice to get a early chirstmas present :) I was so excited to hear all about the missionary service that you are doing in the ward. I know that the missionaries really really appreciate all of your efforts and that everything that you are doing to help them doesnt go unnoticed by the Lord. The blessings our family is receiving are clearly a result of the service that we are giving to the Lord. He really is grateful that you are helping Him to fulfill His work and His glory. I was so excited to hear about Lydia, that is so wonderful. During the week, follow up with her on her BOM reading. If she hasnt read, maybe put aside some time to read with her. If the missionaries are thinking about teaching her the second lesson then maybe you could read Alma 34 with her or Alma 40 is a good one too. Mom, i was so excited to hear that you went and did baptisms for the dead with that recent convert. Helping her to get to the temple is a sure way that she will remain active as she is making the transition between being a recent convert and an active member. I know that she will never forget you for helping her out. Mom, you are the cutest mom ever! I cant wait to get those christmas lights and stockings haha. Ill probably save them for after transfers though because im pretty sure that they are going to transfer me to another area. One of the senior missionaries was talking to president winn because he wanted me to stay in the area and president winn said that that probably wont happen haha. but you never know, so well see what happens next wednesday. Thanks for the contact solution, i actually did need that. And as for Paolo's letter i actually havent gotten it. Its weird how i never seem to get his letters haha. ill keep an eye out for it this week. This past week was kind of slow. It seemed like a lot of people decided "not to be home" when we stopped by so that was a little rough but despite all of that we also had some pretty cool experiences. On Tuesday night we decided to contact a referral that we had received from Sister Varo ( shes the member that sent us to Juana who got baptized). We knocked on the door and she answered (her name's Daime). We expected to just have another doorstep lesson but she said "oh its cold out here, do you want to come in?". I guess one advantage to the winter is that people feel sorry for you so they let you in haha. So we sat down on her couch and the first thing that she told us was "I just want you to know that the Jehovah's Witnesses are visiting me too and i have been listening to them for a while" So we just smiled and said that that was fine but that we had a message that would bring her more peace and happiness and direction in her life and that we wanted to share that with her. She agreed to listen and then we taught her the restoration, invited her to pray to know that the BOM is true and invited her to be baptized. She accepted the baptismal invitation. It was really cool to see the Lord send us to this prepared person and to see her whole countenance change as she learned about the truth. So ive been taking those vitamins that you sent me but on wednesday I think i got the stomach flu or something awful like that. I was kind of dying haha. It was like a super bad stomach ache mixed with back aches mixed with every muscle in my body hurting haha. So that wasnt a fun experience but luckily the Lord blessed me and it only lasted one day. Dont worry Im completely fine now :) Saturday night we had another amazing experience. We were visiting this less active family and then they gave us a referral right across the street. Its a guy from uruguay that we had visited 2 months ago that was super anti but we had heard that he said that he wanted to get baptized. So we knock on his door and he opens and says "oh its you" and i said, "Carlos, i heard you want to get baptized" He said yes that he did and he invited us in ( we were with a senior missionary couple too). So we all came in and had an amazing lesson and invited him to be baptized and he said yes. One problem he is moving back to uruguay on Thursday haha. Hopefully that doesnt actually happen. But one cool thing that he said as we were leaving " I was thinking a lot about you today and i was hoping that you would come by, and you did" IT was such a neat experience. As for this week, they moved our Pday to Thursday since its thanksgiving but they gave us an hour to do emails today. Wednesday we have Leadership training. THursday is going to be crazy haha. We have 2 thanksgiving dinners (12-3pm and 3-6pm) and then from 6-9 we will just be visiting less actives, investigators, and recent converts all night. I tried to get bday cards out for amanda and tash but we didnt have time so those are coming but probably a week late, lo siento. I hope that you two have an amazing birthday!! I love and miss you all so much and hope that this week is a good one! Happy Thanksgiving!! Sister Adorable

October 22: Wedding and Richard G. Scott

So this week was pretty good! I decided that id tell you about our little miracle family this week. We received a referral about 3 weeks ago from one of the less active members. We went by and visited her and she didnt seem that interested and she was very quiet. She lives in a trailer home that is covered with branches and leaves so it was kind of difficult to figure out how to get in the first time we passed by but we got in. So we have been teaching her for about 3 weeks now. We committed her to baptized the first lesson we had with her and she accepted. She will be baptized on nov 3. we went to temple square with her entire family and they loved it. Juana came to church and then when it was over she asked if she was allowed to bring her whole family next week. Love her! We taught her the word of wisdom and she just handed us all of her coffee and said she was done drinking it. The next day we brought her hot chocolate :) She has 2 beautiful kids and is due in march with another one. Her husband is becoming more responsive. yesterday juana came to stake conference and loved it! Then we went over to their house and talked about the family proclamation and the importance of marriage so today we are going to the marriage office with them to get their license and theyll probably get married on saturday. we already have the entire relief society on top of planning that wedding :) Anyway they are our little miracle family that i love so much! Another cool thing that happened yesterday: so by looking at the pictures that i sent you, you probably saw that i got to meet Richard G Scott!! he came to stake conference yesterday and then he held a special meeting afterwards just for the spanish ward. I sang in the stake choir and he turned around to watch us. He told me after that he liked my smile and that he is proud of the work that we are doing. we also had the chance to introduce our investigator to him so that was sweet. I love this mission! My companion is great! Im so glad that ive had the chance to serve in this area for so long :) Hope you are all having an amazing week! I love you! Hermana Adorable

October 9: Conference Weekend!

Hola! So due to Columbus day yesterday we are emailing today :) This week was kind of a stressful week because we were getting ready for conference. This year we could only go to the conference center or be on temple square if we had an investigator with us. we had planned and committed at least 1 investigator for every session but only had one show up. Thanks so much for the tickets that you found for me. We took one of the recent converts in our ward with us and she was so excited to have that opportunity to sit so close to the prophet. We spent most of this past week just trying to get investigators to come to conference with us or at least watch it at home. Conference is usually one of my favorite times of the year and although it was stressful, it was a great experience to get to attend conference with one of our investigators. Cris Martinez and his member wife came with us on Sunday morning. We stopped by early around 8 to make sure that they were good to go. Cris had been in an accident about a month ago where he broke his pelvis and right arm. He uses a crutch to walk right now. so we stopped by on sunday morning and he looked like he was in more pain than usual so we asked him if he was still ok to go with us. He said that he was good and that he was excited to go. So we all piled into his car and he drove to the conference center. He was doing a great job walking and i know that heavenly father was helping him to have the strength that he needed to be able to make it to conference. Our tickets were in different places so we left Cris and his wife in their seats and made our way to our seats. It was amazing to me how heavenly father answered our prayers through the speakers at conference. walter Gonzalez's talk was exactly what we needed for cris. i loved the part when he said that we all need to come unto christ, repent and be baptized NOW. After conference we met back up with maria and cris and walked them to their car. cris was in a lot of pain so we didnt want to hold them up too much longer so we said we would stop by the next day to see how they were both doing and to pray with cris for a baptismal date. So that was good. Other things: It is freezing already! its perfect during the day but nights are pretty rough but we're doing great. Going to the conference center made me feel like i was back at byu for a while, i saw way too many people i knew haha.

It was super good to get to see amanda! Seems like she is doing well and that she is enjoying her time at byu. Crazy how she can go on a mission now right?? Im excited for her, i think its good that they changed the age for sisters to go on missions too. This week is the last week of the transfer so we are going to work as hard as we can to try and find those who are ready to accept the gospel and be baptized. We were trying to teach a couple, Angelica and Alex, but they have been really difficult to contact. We just found out that they are already members but their 13 yr old daughter still isnt baptized so we will be working with the relief society president, who is their next door neighbor, and see if we can help their daughter get baptized. We are also going to keep working with cris and help him to be able to pray to know when he needs to get baptized. Right now we have one person on date to be baptized on nov 3. Her name is juana and she is super solid. She loves reading the book of mormon and everything about the doctrine of christ and baptism makes so much sense to her. She committed to come to church with us on sunday and is committed to prepare for her baptism. She is also the most patient person i have met on the mission so far. She has 2 autistic kids under the age of 6 and they are always running around and climbing on the walls of her trailer home but she is so good with them and still tunes in to all of the lessons. We love her and she is great!

October 1: Riding her Bike with No Handlebars & Hiding in Trees

So this week's is going to be a short one, lo siento. Nothing too eventful happened this week. But can you believe that it's october already?? these months are flying by. And winter is coming haha its already super cold in the mornings and at night when we are biking home. No worries, ive already figured out how i can wear sweatpants under my skirt for winter :) My biking skills have continued to improve this week, my companion can now ride one-handed and i can ride with no hands! it was pretty exciting and you have to do things like that to make the day more entertaining haha. But dont worry we are still being careful and safe :) This week we had a YM in our ward come up to us and tell us that he wanted our help baptizing his friend. we were super excited and said yes that we would help. he said that he wasnt sure if he had already been baptized or not. so the next day i called into the office to check his records, turns out that he was baptized two years ago. So that was good :) On thursday we went by and tried to contact this referral that we had received a few days before. We came over and knocked on his door but no one answered and then after a while we look up and the guy is hiding in his tree haha. so we talked to him and taught him while he stayed up there in his tree. i thought it was pretty funny. The first thing that he said was that he was a sinner so we should leave haha. we taught him a short lesson and well probably go back early this week. On friday was had zone meeting and had a training on "planning to find". our goal is to find not just a new person but a new family everyday. so we went over how to do that and then planned for this upcoming week. Saturday was the relief society broadcast. we couldnt find anyone who was available to come up with us to the conference center so we just stayed in our area and thought we'd watch it at the stake center. so e went to the stake center and no one was there. turns out that they were only broadcasting it at another stake center. so we were on 3300 s and 600 e and we had to bike over to 2280 s and 300 e. I think we set a new record cause we made it over there and into the broadcast in like 13 minutes. The broadcast was super good and helped us a lot for the people we are currently teaching right now. I am really excited for conference this upcoming weekend! We are only allowed to go up to the conference center or be on temple square if we have investigators with us but my companion and i have investigators coming with us for every session so we wll be there all day on saturday and sunday! Im sure there will be a ton of protestors outside this year especially but i am so excited to get up there. our mission president told us in our last meeting that any investigator that comes to conference is promised to get baptized so im excited for these 4 people that we are taking up this weekend :) I hope that everything is going well at home and that you are keeping up in our reading of the Book of Mormon. I love you! Sister Adorable

Septemeber 25: Miracle Baptism and Trek

everythings going great here, its starting to get colder!! bikes when its cold is not fun haha but im doing alright. my biking skills are excellent, i actually prefer bikes because it keeps us in shape. i cant think of anything that i need right now...hmm ohhh do you still have that red skirt that you were going to send but then found at home? orr maybe tash will have some time to make me another one? wearing skirts every single day...i need some more variety haha. well, youll never guess what happened this week. we had a MIRACLE BAPTISM!!! this week was was a little bit crazy but really cool too. Nothing really happened on monday so ill skip that one. Tuesday we just had leadership training where they basically told us how we can step it up because we need to if we are going to reach our goal of 3500 baptisms for the year. so that was good and we learned a lot there. Wednesday we tried to apply the things that we learned in training. so heres where the miracle starts. we were thinking and praying about where we needed to go for the next day in nightly planning. for some reason i really really felt like we needed to go stop by hermana casteneda's house first thing the next day. i kept thinking that was weird because she is the young womens president and her family is super active but i suggested that and my companion agreed. so next day we went over and knocked on hermana casteneda's door and guess who opens the door!!?!! ALEXA! (i dont know if you remember her from my older letters but alexa is her niece and she was supposed to get baptized 2 weeks ago but then she suddenly disappeared and we could not contact her, so we just accepted it and moved on) so we set a return appointment for her for 4pm that day. we came back at 4 and just talked about what happened to her and apparently she had been staying in west valley with her dad for the last two weeks and her phone wasnt working. then we asked her how she felt about being baptized still and she said yes and asked when. then i said how about saturday? and she said ok lets do it. so i called the district leader and he came over and interviewed her and she passed. then i called the bishop and he supported us and said that she could be confirmed there too because the brigham city temple dedication was on sunday. i called the stake and there were no other baptisms so we reserved the font and set up her program and we were good to go. saturday, she was set to get baptized at 2pm. she ended up coming about an hour late but thats pretty typical of baptisms in the hispanic community ive learned so it was a perfect service and so great!

Hermanas Adorable and Bragg with Alexa So things that i learned from this experience is that the lord puts prepared people in our path when we are prepared servants. when we are exactly diligent and exactly obedient and exercise perfect faith/trust in our heavenly father then he is bound to bless us and help us out. I like how everything is in the lord's time. we never wouldve found alexa if we had not received the revelation to do so in our nightly planning session and we wouldnt have received that revelation if we hadnt done eveything that we possibly could to be exactly obedient and diligent that day. So that was our cool little miracle that happened this week.:) Yesterday we went on a trek as a mission for our pday. it was a really fun experience to be able to learn and to grow spiritually with the missionaries we are working with. we went to This is the Place Heritage Park. it was overcast and rained some but other than that it was cool that we got to do that. for the women's pull we were definitely given the steepest possible hill to climb and it was hard but super rewarding when we reached the top. it helped us to appreciate all of the sacrifices that our pioneer ancestors did for us. my favorite part was definitely the pony express that came to the top of the mountain. it was a really special treat for all of the missionaries to receive and read letters from their families there :)

Rinna's district on their mission trek Well thats all for this week, i cant believe october starts next week! ive been out for almost 5 months! time goes by fast. my companion is great, her spanish is getting so much better and i love serving with her. mom just remembered that the only thing that i would love is tickets to a sunday session of general conference. if you could get me those that would be amazing!!!! maybe you could ask president wilding if he has some. ive asked around her but no one has any. i love you so much and hope that you have an amazing week! hermana adorable