5-26-2014: Happy Memorial Day!!!

Hello!!!!!

 

Yesterday was Memorial day (as you know) and so the library was closed.  But here i am today!  :)

 

OK, this week was a good week!  We got transfer news yesterday morning and here's the scoop... I am staying in Gainesville for another transfer!!! :)  BUT, Hermana Ram is going to go serve in Hurst (!!!!) and my companion will be Sister Lewis!  But here's the interesting part--Sister Lewis is an english sister!  We'll be serving in what we call a zebra (one spanish one english), so that will be really interesting!  We'll stay sister training leaders, so that will be cool.  I've heard great things about Sister Lewis so I'm excited to serve with her!  And President is telling me to keep taking my language study every day and I'll have to use my spanish daily and make sure we're teaching enough people in spanish.  He also mentioned that this assignment is temporary and that next transfer I'll have a spanish companion (whether that means I'm leaving Gainesville after this transfer or if a spanish sister will come to Gainesville we're not sure, but I'll do what the Lord wants me to do!). 

 

We're teaching lots of lessons in spanish and we even had a spanish investigator come to church on sunday!  He didn't want us to translate for him, he understands about 60% of english, but he said he enjoyed it.  He's come a couple times with the other spanish sisters and he can feel the spirit at church, so we're just trying to help him work towards baptism.  BUT, something cool happened.  The sacrament meeting speaker was Brother Davies, who served a spanish speaking mission.  So when he got up to speak, the bishopric saw our investigator, and asked Brother Davies to bear his testimony in spanish at the end--when he did that I almost started crying I was so happy!  M. our investigator tapped both me and hermana ram on the shoulders and started saying, "Look!  He's speaking spanish!!" He was soooo excited!  It was awesome and it made that sacrament meeting experience that much more special to him. 

 

We also went on an exchange with the sisters from the Justin ward! Fun stuff, it's always a blast to do exchanges with the sisters in our stewardship and we always learn a lot from them. 

 

And teaching seminary went well!  Of course, the kids were mostly struggling to stay attentive that early in the morning, but there was a good 8 or 9 kids there.  We have a good youth program in our ward and they're good kids.

 

We're doing a good amount of teaching in spanish, we usually talk to at least one person in spanish each day and it's going well.  There are so many hispanics in this area!  We just need to meet them all and get them to church :)

 

I'm glad y'all met Elder Ah Hoy!  That's funny that he's serving in our stake.  And I'm glad Nat's feeling a little better!  

 

Hope y'all have a good week this week, I love you so much and I'll talk to you on Monday! :)

 

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

5-19-2014: Happy New Week!!

Hello my beautiful family!

 

We had a great week this week!  Gainesville is so stinking fun.  I got the package of talks and articles this week, and they are awesome!  Absolutely perfect. 

 

Lets think of some highlights from the week....On Friday I was down in Denton with the YSA sisters.  It was way fun because we basically walked around all day talking to people.  UNT is out on break in between terms so the institute is also taking a break = lots of contacting and lots of tracting :)  I got a little bit tanner and it was fun to walk around with some fresh air just telling people about the restored gospel  of Jesus Christ!  Good day. 

 

Then on Saturday we went biking and it was lovely as well.  At first I was nervous about it because I haven't been biking in a while, but Gainesville isn't that big or scary so it ended up being very pleasant.  We were biking to an appointment with an investigator, and on the way we saw this really cool old looking house with a bunch of people walking through it.  We stopped and asked what was going on and these cute old ladies told us that the woman who owns this house opens it up once a year kind of like a museum and just shows off all the cool old antiques she's collected over the years!  I guess it used to be the house of the mayor of Gainesville (margaret hayes? maybe?)  and so it was way awesome.  We stopped for a second and took a look inside (contacted a few people on the way, saw some members of the ward there) and it was way cool.  I love the cool old victorian looking houses in this town, there's so much history!

 

Teaching lots of people.  I'm starting a nice watch tan and flats tan on my feet.  Good things all around :)  We're even subbing for the seminary teacher in our ward!  We're excited to teach the class, it will be fun.

 

Glad you were able to celebrate your birthday all week, Mom!  :)  And glad it's been fun having Jake around, make sure he does some chores or something to pay for his stay...haha (p.s. I look forward to a summary of Michele's scoop on the visit with Kristin... ;)  Sounds like even though the fireside was a surprise that it ended up going well.  Yay for listening to General Authorities!  Send my love to Stacy!  And i'm glad that things are going well with the start of Girls camp planning season :)  I always loved going to camp, and it looks like this will be a great opportunity. 

 

I love you all so much and I hope you have a wonderful week this week!  I'll keep Nat in my prayers, that champ. 

 

Con amor,

Hermana Sangre

 

5-12-2014: What a GREAT Mother's Day!

 Hello Lovely Family of Mine!

It was so great to talk to y'all yesterday!  I basically filled you in on everything going on, but here are some extra things that happened this week:

we had zone conference!  I gave a training (i was so nervous!) on how to balance our time between all these resources that we have to do missionary work (doing missionary presentations with members, finding through our own efforts, etc.)  and it went pretty well. 

Last night was a good night, after we talked we were able to go and teach some really cool people.  Being a missionary is awesome, because we get to talk to all sorts of people from all walks of life and tell them about the coolest thing ever.  AND I get to do a lot of it in Spanish.  Something that I've learned while I've been here is that I really like learning another language, maybe next I'll try learning French? or Finish? who knows!  haha :)

Dad-I was thinking about your Mission Prep class, and I'm sure you've got tooons of awesome ideas and that you're going to do great and such, but some ideas came to mind that you may or may not want to use in your classes, mostly about some things that I wish I had known before my mission:

-I wish I had read from the White Handbook more than once.  We read 3 pages every day as a companionship during our Companionship study, and something I'm doing individually is really studying it and reading all of the "additional scriptures" and such throughout the book.

-I wish I had known how to study Preach My Gospel.  It is gold.

-sometimes we'll go through commitments that we leave with people at each lesson and then go through their possible concerns/reasons for saying "no" and then try to resolve their concerns

-I wish I had known how to "role play" which is basically just practicing teaching a lesson/commitment/principle

I'm sure you'll do great teaching the class, these were just some thoughts that came to mind after we got off the phone. 

I'll look for the package this week, thanks for sending that to me! And good luck to Nat on his AP Physics test.  AND (drumroll please) Happy Birthday to Mom this week!  :)

Well, I love you all soooo much, I'm glad y'all are doing well and I hope you have the best week this week!

Con amor,

Hermana Sangre

5-5-2014: Feliz Cinco de mayo!

Buenos dias familia,

 

Exciting week this week! 

First of all, I went to Hurst this week for a "sleepover" slash exchange.  Here's the thing:on Thursday we had the Spanish Conference with the Spanish Training Leaders and President Ames with all the Spanish Missionaries in the mission (73!) It was way cool.  Recieved lots of revelation for how hasten the Spanish work here and we're super excited.  Then afterwards instead of driving an hour and a half back up to Gainesville (because we also had a meeting friday morning), we just planned for the next week in Hurst and then did splits  with the Hermanas in Hurst to visit some of their people.  It was SO cool to be back, but it was also super weird, because I felt like I didn't "fit" there, for 2 reasons

1.) I didn't know all of the people that they were teaching

2.) I have grown SO much since I've started my mission, I am not the same person I was when I came out (in a good way).  It was a really cool experience to be able to see how much I've grown and also to see that the work goes on because it's the LORD'S work. 

 

So then Friday morning we had the Mission Leadership Council and it was inspired, as always.  We planned Zone Conference (which we'll be having this week) and we discussed what we can do to help lift the mission. 

 

Other highlights from the week:

-We went biking for a little bit on Saturday morning to visit some people and I FINALLY got chased by a chiuaua while riding my bike.  Status as a "real" missionary finally achieved :)

-We passed by a restaurant (called the Woolf Den) and it's sign caught my attention:

 "The Woolf Den: Family Restaurant, Tanning, and Internet Access" What a weird combination....that's Gainesville for you! :)

The weather is warming up: it was 94 yesterday!  I'm pretty proud of myself and adapting to the whole heat business, because I didn't even think it was too bad. :)  I'm becoming a Texan!

 

I'm sorry to hear that Nat hasn't been feeling so great! :(  I'll keep him in my prayers as he recovers.  But he sounds like a champ, trooping through all sorts of activities even though he's sick.  Glad that the Mission Prep class could go well, I can't say enough times how awesome that is going to be. 

 

I'm doing well on Supplies, but thank you for checking.  Soo.....MOTHER'S DAY CALL!  So, I was hoping to plan when to call around when y'all have church but I can't really remember.... Our church ends at 1 Texas Time, so if y'all have church at 1 California time, then I'll call you before your church ( 10ish your time) or in the evening around 5ish your time?  Not really sure, but if I call and it's not a good time when you pick up, I'll just try another time. :) 

 

Love you tons, Can't wait to talk to you on Mother's Day! :)

 

Con amor,

Hermana Sangre

4-28-2014: HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

Greetings from Zion, aka the Denton Stake aka the Gainesville ward. :)

 

This week was awesome.  We had this really cool meeting on Friday in Hurst, it was a training meeting for all the Sister Training Leaders and District Leaders.  We basically discussed how to improve our exchanges and it was awesome.  President is so inspired and we are working even harder to hasten the work of salvation.  AND one of the members that gave us a ride from Denton down to Hurst (from a different ward) said that they were sealed as a family in the Salt Lake City temple in 1968 by a Brother Blood, sound familiar?  AND there's an Elder Espinoza in our zone from Southern California whose Grandma's maiden name is Blood soooooo turns out we're related to everybody! Probably super distantly but still :)

 

Something really cool that we found out at the meeting on Friday was that President Ames has assigned two Elders to be "Spanish Training Leaders" and they are basically two elders that have a proselyting area (it's in the Hurst stake!) and are assigned to go on exchanges with ALL the spanish elders in the whole mission!  craziness.  President had to call Salt Lake to get permission and he is the only mission president to have done something like this.  It's really cool and we're going to recieve training from them this Thursday at a Spanish conference.  We're stoked. 

 

I also went out to Decatur for a day for an exchange, it was way fun!  It is such a blessing to be able to go on these exchanges, we learn and grow so much from them and it's amazing. 

 

Also, random thought, but one of our recent converts has worked in the horses/racetrack business for basically her whole life until now and she says that she knows personally the people that the new movie "50 to 1" is based off of!  So if it looks like a good movie (i know approximately zero information about it) then know that I know someone who knows those people!  (how many degrees of separation? I guess somewhere around 3...? who knows...)

 

Dad, to answer some questions:  Yeah, Gainesville isn't too big so it took a whole 3 days to get to know the 2 main roads...haha It's really helpful because both Hermana Ram and I have driving privilages so we switch off driving, which makes it even easier to get to know the area.  The people here are very courteous, we haven't been yelled at as far as I can remember, but they're very polite, southern, and honest.  There are also a ton of hispanics in the area so we have lots of opportunities to teach there.  We do lots of "tracting" but not really, because we're not just knocking on random doors.  We have been really fortunate to have very thorough records from past missionaries and so we look through their potential investigators and we try to go see them.  We also have great members that share the gospel with their friends and even bring them to church!  We've met some people that way.  I'm looking forward to a town parade or something like that where we can just go and contact people, that will be fun! :)

 

Man, it sounds like y'all were nice and busy this week!  I'm glad that the AHS jazz concert went well and that Nat could go with Julie V to Mormon prom!  She is such a sweetheart, tell her I miss her too :)  And that's cool that you could talk to an Elder from Uruguay/FT.worth/other places at Mormon Helping Hands, it sounds like there was a great turnout there.  And when does that mission prep class start? There's going to be a great turnout it looks like!

Wellp, looks like this week is going to be nice and busy, we'll be in Hurst for 2 days for some meetings and I'll let you know how those go. 

 

Love you so much! Have an amazing week this week

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

 

P.S. There's an Elder from my MTC zone that just sent me an email and says he's in the San Francisco stake!  If you see an Elder Ah Hoy at any stake things, tell him hello. 

4-21-2014: Happy (late) Easter!!!

Happy Late Easter!!

 

I got the Easter package, it was perfect!  All the chocolate and goodies and cookies survived :)  Including the more substantial "food" (aka conference talks ;) Thank you so much!

 

What a week this week.  We met this really cool girl at the local Mexican Store, we'll call her J.  She works at the cash register and we ended up talking to her for about an hour about her religious beliefs and we have an appointment to go to her house and visit with her and her husband!  She's in her early 20's and isn't really sure what she believes in but we've decided that she's pretty open.  She's really cool and already acts like we're best friends so it's awesome :) 

We also went on an exchange this week with some sisters in Denton--I stayed up here this time in Gainesville and Hermana Ram left to go see their area.  (Yes, I'm still in Gainesville and it's still awesome!)  But that day we got to see soooo many miracles!  We talked to all sorts of people that just happened to be home at the exact time that we showed up and  some of them were people that we hadn't been able to see for a long time...it was crazy.  Miracles surround us daily. 

 

And Easter was so fun!  Easter morning we woke up and got ready and did our personal study as usual, but then the Cannons, the members we live with, knocked on our door!  We answered it and their 4 cute little girls handed us this letter and a plastic bag--we started reading the letter and it basically said whoever collected the most eggs wins!  They were so cute and set up this awesome easter egg hunt for us and it was awesome.  We felt super loved :)

 

We got to spend Easter with a few families and it was so fun.  After we had visited with the families in our ward we drove 45 minutes out to Nocona to contact a media referral (when people go onto Mormon.org they can refer their friends to the missionaries and we get a text telling us who and where.)  He was really nice!  But it turns out that he hadn't asked for missionaries, so he nicely accepted some pamphlets and let us leave him with a prayer.  I'm glad people in Texas are so southernly and nice.

 

And to answer your question, our ward is really awesome.  The members are so sweet and are really excited to have sisters in their ward.  They are so willing to do missionary work and it's just been a blast being here. 

 

Sounds like y'all enjoyed your Easter and I'm glad to hear everyone is doing well!  So...who's this Kristin girl you speak of...? ;)  Haha Hope y'all have a great week this week! Love you so much!

 

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

P.S. go look up "Because of Him" on mormon.org!! Best. Video. Ever.  I've been showing it to everyone and their dog.  I love it.