10-19-2014: Re: Family Weekend in Salt Lake City

Hello Beautiful family!

Man, LOTS to tell this week. where to start.....

First of all, this week we got visited by a member of the 70!  Elder Cardon.  He's pretty cool, VERY intelligent.  We had a 6 hour conference with him on Friday and he explained in detail with lots of scriptures about the abrahamic covenant for like an hour, I ate it up!  It probably looks like it would have been really boring, but I promise it was way legit the way he explained it.  I probably will never be able to do it justice. 

 Want to hear a cool story? I saw Sister Ford at the conference and she told me about someone that we had taught in Arlington. We Met the family of Aracely Garcia because the English Elders in our area referred us to them and the Mother in Law from Houston was staying with them. The two teenage daughters answered the door when we stopped by so we went ahead with the 21 tips service and just as we were about to leave, their grandma from Houston asked us if we could come by again to pray with them! So we did another day, we taught the 1st lesson, got her address and sent missionaries to her house in Houston. Sister Ford told me that she just recently got baptized and that they are still teaching her family in Arlington and they have baptismal dates. Isn't that so cool? I love it when people make covenants.

On saturday we were able to participate in a community service project where we basically did a bunch of yard work for like 6 hours, it was actually way fun!  I am the official bag holder for leaf-raking.  It requires an incredible amount of skill and expertise, i promise.  :)  

Also, I finished the Book of Mormon on Friday and at the conference, President Ames told us that we read the Book of Mormon in about the amount of time it took to translate it.  That book is most definitely the word of God and not the word of Man.  Just over 60 days? A farmboy from upstate New York could NOT do that unless he were directed by God.  

Remember the S family?  They dropped us a few weeks ago and it was really sad for me, but we felt like we should go back so we did and she said that she had been thinking about coming back to church!  We've got an appointment this week so we'll see how they are.  

And we're teaching this super cool 12 year old named Axel.  He's very intelligent and understands the doctrine very well.  He's getting baptized in December!  

We teach a TON in spanish.  I love that language so much!  Hermana Kofe is still learning poco a poco, but it's a good transition, I bet for her to be here before being dropped in Panama.  We don't know how long it will take for her to get her visa, up to 3months?  They don't tell us anything hah SOOOO out of the loop!

Business Meeting:  My former companion says that Pro Witherspoon for spanish 321 is a good choice?  Just sayin for classes and such.  

business meeting concluded.  

I'm glad the gathering for Uncle Lane went well.  And I ditto what Mom said--I'm so grateful for our knowledge of the plan of salvation and the covenants we make in the temple.  

Caleb and Michele--I hope that small studio apartment has enough room for me and a sleeping bag. :) hah just kidding (but only a little)  Good luck michele on the interview and the internship!  

Also, you'll all be happy to know that even though hna kofe is from oakland, she is a niners fan.  :)

Love you all so much!  

<3

Hermana Sangre

10-13-2014: Greetings from Hurst!

Hello!

Yay! I love pictures!  :)  And thanks, Dad, for going ahead and sending in that application for Spain and doing my classes, I appreciate it!  

This week was super fun, as always.  Of course, the weather is bipolar here in Texas so on Friday it was like 90 degrees and then Saturday it dropped to like 60, so we never know what clothes to wear.  It changes every second which makes life exciting.  hah  

On Thursday we had Zone Conference and *gulp* it was my last one!!!  AH!  So I gave my departing testimony (all the missionaries that go home before the next zone conference give a final testimony) and it was sooo weird, I don't feel like I'm going home still!  Well, it's because I'm not, I've still got toooons of time left, right? Well...anyways... :)  During Zone Conference we watched a screening copy of "Meet the Mormons" IT WAS SO GOOD!  I laughed, I cried, I felt the spirit, it is amazing!  If you haven't already seen it or seen a theater it's playing in, I absolutely recommend it.  100000%.  meetthemormons.com  check it out.  It's a documentary made by the church that follows 6 Mormon Families from around the world and their stories and why they believe in God.  It's really a powerful movie.

I also participated in the Primary Program for our ward :)  Man, i love being around the primary kids, they're so fun!  But they needed me to help with a song or something so I sang a little verse to the new song "families are forever" or something like that?  It's a cute song.  It was fun to participate!  

Hermana Kofe says that her mom isn't in the stake YW, she's a gospel doctrine teacher? I think?  But she's in the Oakland East Tongan stake if that sounds familiar.  They meet in the Multi-stake center.  She's super funny, it's fun having her as my companion.  

So a cool experience this week: on Monday I had this impression that we needed to visit with the Flores family from the ward.  But our plans that night wouldn't allow it, and we had appointments the next few days so I made sure to put it in our backup plans for the next few days.  That thought kept coming back to my mind so I made sure to keep them on my mind as a first backup for when our appointments didn't work out, and to make sure to schedule them for the first open opportunity.  Well, Friday night we finally were able to stop by their house and it was neat because both the hermano and hermana said, "man, when you walked through the door we were so relieved, we really needed to feel the peace that the spirit brings tonight!"  Things ended up working out just like the Lord wanted it to.  :)  

Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you mom, that we have a Bike store here in Hurst/North Richland Hills that will take apart and ship my bike.  The box/disassembly will cost about 50, and then on top of that to ship it.  For Sister George to send her bike to Orem it cost about 120, so do you still want me to send it home?  It will probably cost more to send it to San Francisco.  

Also, thank you for still loving me despite my transgression against Texas State Law :)  

Thanks for keeping HM in your prayers!  He's doing well, he came to General Conference last week and we didn't even know it until we saw his family this week for our appointment!  That's awesome.  

I'm glad y'alls week went well, and that Dad won't have to fend for himself anymore. :) hah  

I love you all so much!

<3 Hermana Sangre

P.S. I got my "trunky packet" this week. (hah)  It's the packet with my flight plans and a letter from President and stuff.  I forgot the exact time of my flight, but I'm flying into SFO on December 18th around 10:30ish in the morning. 

10-6-2014: Conference and Marathon Success!

Hello!

Ok, business items first:

1.)  I got the package of papers!  Thanks for the talks and the email and the school information.  I saw President at a meeting on Wednesday and asked him about the ecclesiastical endorsement--he got out his ipad and did it right then and there.  He's so good!  One thing I don't really know about is the study abroad--the two that really stood out to me were the one in spain during spring and the one in mexico where you go and teach for the summer.  So....basically I don't know which I want to do!  I'm going to do some thinking today, but any thoughts/guidance?  Also for classes: I like the thought you had, Dad, to take it slow.  I don't necessarily have to be decided right now on what I want to do for school/major.  But go ahead and sign me up for some classes and I'll go ahead and change whatever I need to when I get back? I don't know, I trust y'all.  :)

2.) How much do you love me? :)  Ok.  So last week I got a speeding ticket in Blue Mound, TX (basically the smallest town in our area) and it will cost about $180.  I'm sorry.  I was going 13 over the speed limit, and honestly I wasn't even paying attention to the change in the speed.  I'll do better, I promise.  I went ahead and transfered enough money to my debit card and then I'll go ahead and pay it this week.  So if there ends up being only like $5 in both my savings and my checking...that's why. 

But onto the fun stuff! My new companion is a brand new missionary named Hermana Kofe, she's from Oakland!  She's Tongan, 20, has 14 siblings (!!!!) and is super cool.  She's actually just here on a re-assignment waiting for her visa to Panama, but I'm really excited to have her!  

We had a great week with lots of success.  We committed H.M. to be baptized on November 1st!  He's been taught by missionaries on-again-off-again for about 2 years and his wife is a returning-to-activity-less-active.  :)  It was a great lesson and he offered a really sweet prayer at the end.  I love that family a lot.  

We also had a really sweet lesson with the G family, a less active family that I was working with the last time I was here.  The Husband--who is normally very quiet and stoic--thanked us very sincerely for our support.  They've gone through a lot but they are ready to come back to church.  We saw them on Saturday and right after we left the Hermana sent us a text saying that they had just started watching the recording of General Conference.  It made me smile :)  

Speaking of General Conference!  I loved the whole thing!  Literally, there was something cool that i wrote down from every talk.  One particular piece of revelation that I received during one of the talks is that during the time I'm home before going to school, I want to go to the temple at least twice--once to do an endowment session, and a second time to do sealings as a family if at all possible, for family names.  I just love the temple and that was an impression of something that I would like to do while I'm home.  I loved all the talks, some that stood out to me in particular were the one from Elder Bednar, from the member of the 70 who's first name is jorg?  and others that I can't remember at the present time...hah.  But it was great!  It's like Christmas but better!  We have a living prophet on the earth today.  I know that he leads and guides our church.  

Glad to hear that the marathon weekend went well!  When is the next marathon scheduled for so that I can join! (JUST KIDDING.)  hah.  Hope you both have a good week ahead of you.  Love you lots.

<3

Hermana Sangre