11-18-2013: Hello Beautiful Family!

Hello beautiful family!

Drum roll please........my hand has been unwrapped!  At my appointment last wednesday Dr. Tasneem came in and we all jumped for joy and shouted halleluia and whatnot because my hand just looks so dang beautiful.  She said I needed to let it breathe and I no longer need to go back to check up with her!  As much as I think she's a rockstar and such a cool person, ain't no missionary got time for going to the doctor!  SO i am officially healed and 2-handed once again.  Opening water bottles is soooooooo much easier and now everyone thinks I'm the coolest person ever. It's no big deal, really.

Thank you so much for the package!  It arrived in safety on Friday and I immediately devoured the banana bread, don't worry :)  I figured it usually takes about 3 days for packages to get from CA to TX, so have no fear.  ALSO: I thought that the boatneck shirts would be in my box set aside for winter clothes, but if they are nowhere to be found, really do not worry about it!  I'm sure you have muuuch more important things to do than run around looking for some shirts, so really, no te preocupes.

This week was great, of course.  We taught some lessons, we saw some members, we ate some Mexican food.  It's like missionary heaven!  This week we had a lesson with one of our Investigadoritas, A.  She is young and her mom is a recent convert of 2 years.  They come to church basically every week, and she even had a part in the Primary Program.  She's suuupper cool and wants to get baptized, but her dad, who works out of town for weeks at a time, is a little hesitent.  He wants her to be able to make this decision for herself with the right amount of information, so we're going by and helping her understand the principles of the gospel. 

We also had a fiesta for Thanksgiving with the ward on saturday!  It was super fun and we cooked a turkey!  The food was DELICIOUS and they even mixed in some American casseroles in the midst of the rice and beans :)  Everyone (except the missionaries) danced their hearts out to some Spanish music and gave thanks in their awesome Spanish-ward way.  I wish I had pictures of the craaaazy amounts of food, but alas, I forgot. I will, however, attatch a picture of our in-house-chef Elder Taylor preparing the turkey that we cooked.  Preparing a turkey does NOT look appetizing, but the finished product was delish. 

Elder Taylor dominating that sick-nasty looking raw turkey.  It was delicious.

AND this past week we had Zone Conference!  It was super good and spiritual and all the missionaries in our zone got to talk with our Stake President specifically about his plan for how he wants our stake to participate in the work of salvation.  He's an awesome guy and so excited for the missionary work we are doing in this area.  A quote that someone said in the meeting that really struck me was

"Softened Hearts do not soften the blow"

I'm pretty sure some famous person said that, but since I don't know who, we'll just say it was Elder X.  Anyways, it was a call to repentance for me to be even more bold.  We're asking people to make changes in their lives and we need to do it unapolagetically because we KNOW for a fact that their quality of life can be better if they commit to follow Christ.

Also, I think I've seen Sister Ram before, but I haven't officially met her.  I'll make sure to say hi the next time we have a big meeting!  SisterGomez knows her and gives a glowing report :)

Man.  I love being a missionary.  We get to wear cool nametags and everything!  I'll send some pictures for this week in a few minutes.

Me and a ginormous armadillo.

I love Texas and I love you all so much!

Love,

Hermana Sangre

11-4-2013: It's November--already!!!

hello my lovely family! 

we're doing well, we actually just got back from a doctor's appointment and they said that my stub is healing pretty well :)  my doctor is dr. tasneem and she's super cool. we're basically bffs now because she has me coming in twice a week to look at my hand just to make sure that everything is healing ok, which so far it is!  the burn is technically called a partial thickness burn, because they dont refer to them as 2nd or 3rd degree burns anymore, but it basically means that i had blisters for a few days and then they drained and i'll just get some rad scars :)  it will probably be a month until i don't have to wear gauze on it out in public.  i've been telling people lately that i got into a fight with a mob of pirates and they chopped off my hand in the struggle. for whatever reason, nobody believes me... :)

thanks for the emails! i'll send my full update in the mail soon enough!

much love,

hermana blood

But wait--there's more!  This from her handwritten, received by snail-mail letter.  She responded to mom's questions re: her burn,then more info about her week:

Well, I already told y'all that my burn is a "partial-thickness burn" which is inbetween 2nd and 3rd degrees, so not too bad.  The treatment involved taking antibiotics and applying silve sulfidine (?something like that?) every morning and wrapping it with gauze and an ace bandage to protect it.  The bandages weigh like a billion pounds so I also get this dope sling.  I look pretty cool, I gotta say.  ;)  The healing process should be done in about a month-ish, so not too long. 

It sounds like the inter-faith choir was super fun!  I wish I could have seen the church--I bet it was absolutely beautiful!  Bummer that Aragon lost to Half Moon Bay, but I'm sure they'll have a rockin' game this week!  We also loved Daylight Savings time ending--we got an extra hour of sleep! Heavenly.  :)

Thanks to Sister Hardy for following up on that Spanish expression!

This week was REALLY good.  One of our investigators, RG, is getting baptized on Saturday!!! She's basically a member already because she's been coming to church since January and in June she called up the sister missionaries saying, "So, I guess I need to be taught by the missionaries before I get baptized.  When can you come over?"  The only thing stopping her from getting baptized right away was she wanted to wait for her previously less active husband to get his priesthood back.  It's been a process, but she's finally getting baptized! She's super cool and we're really excited.

Aaaand we set a baptismal date with ByA!  We go over there for dinner and a lesson once or twice a week now and this lasat time  made us "mole" which is super delish and super Mexican.  We're hoping they'll get baptized together the first weekend in December.  

Fun fact:  I had pozole for the first time on Sunday!  That's a Mexican soup and the 2nd counselor in the bishopric and his wife made it for all the missionaries.  It was pretty dang delish.

We had transfers on Wednesdy and we got 4 new missionaries in our ward/district!  A new Zone Leader to replace the one that just went home, and 3 Elders in the Southside of our district.  Of those three, one is Elder Gutierrez back!  Then we have our new District Leader Elder cook and they're training a newbie, Elder Christiansen.  Our district is now really young and no one has been out for more than 13 months.

Another fun fact:  I've discovered that I love $5 sweats at Walmart.  Also:  I can open up a water bottle (a plastic one that's never been opened before) one-handed.  I dare y'all to try and do that.  It takes some practice AND I can put in my contacts one-handed!  I am evolving into a one-handed mummy, day by day! ;)

Wellp, I think that's all the news I have.  It's getting a bit colder now over here, a wet cold so it's nice and nippy! Who'd-a-thunk that Texas gets cold-ish?  Anyways, we've got lots of work to do this week and we're excited.  This will be an awesome transfer wtih Sister Gomez in the Hurst South Zone!

Thanks for your love and prayers!  I love you all so much!

Hermana Sangre :)

10-28-2013: Halloween/Mummy hand post!

Dear Family,

don't be alarmed....but this email will be on the shorter side. 

this past week was a great one because..........i got to visit the ER for the first time! yay! :) we had a very small grease fire in our kitchen saturday morning (i'm alive, our apartment is fine, it sounds worse than it was, i promise!)  and the only casualty was my left hand.  i just got burned pretty shallow on my thumb and first two fingers, but the ER gave me some cream to put on it, bandages and gauze.  really i'm just getting an early start on my mummy costume for halloween :)  i'll be following up with a normal doctor tomorrow and they'll be able to give me some more information.  it doesn't even hurt, but the ER gave me some light pain meds as a precautionary type thing, but i didn't even cry or pass out, so that should tell you how it's not even a big deal. (i'm just letting you know cuz i had to use our insurance card there, but i'll be sending all the paperwork to sister ames and she said missionary medical should be taking care of it.)  overall, i'm doing fine and my hand should heal pretty good!

if you have any questions, sister Ames says feel free to call her;

unfortunately, i have only one hand to type with, and that takes like a gazillion years so for the next couple weeks i'm gonna need to stick with hand-written responses to your emails.  we'll still be coming to the library every week, but it would be easier if you had a few q's i could answer briefly via email and then i'll do the majority of the update via snailmail.  i still havent gotten an email from emma watkins, but i'll get working on an email to send her in the next little while, it will take some time with one hand out of commission... :)

pic 1--see, i'm just fine!!

pic 2--i found a street with a super cool name... :)

i love being a missionary! i love you so much! i'll send you a letter shortly!

[Ed note: But wait--there's more!  From Kate's handwritten letter received on 10/31...]

Well, This week was a pretty exciting one!  On Monday we got to talk to B & A after a little while and they'e still doing aweome.  B will probably be getting baptized within the next few weeks.

On Wed. we decided to try and save miles in our car by biking to and from district meeting, and on the way back...we both got flat tires!  Haha.  It was a nice walk and thankfully we didn't have any appointments for a little while that we had to miss.  AND i FINALLY got a good tan!  Someone else even told that I looked tan, that proves that it's true!  ;)  Thankfully we were pretty close to our apartment when it happened so we didn't have too far to walk.  The Bike Elders in our District will be helping us out with the tire repairs in the next little bit.

Then on Saturday morning we were on an exchange, so Sister Gomez was out in Arlington while our Sister Training Leader was here in Hurst with me.  She wanted to heat up some oil for frying potatoes, but I noticed it was a little too hot, so right as I went to move the pot, the oil caught fire and I was a little too close.  We got to the ER and they said I'd be fine, really it's not too bad.  At least now I get a cool story and a super dope bandage! 

Thankfully, I can still eat most Mexican food with one hand.  I can actually do most things with one hand!  Sister Gomez and I keep a running list.  I can:

   wash my hair

   shake hands!  That's a must!  ;)

   Text our investigators

   Draw stick figures (hand drawn artwork included in letter...sorry blog readers)

   Eat yogurt

   Eat beans and rice

   Extend the baptismal invitation

   Read Preach My Gospel.

That's basically all I need anyways, right?

Things I CAN do one-handed:  

Sister Gomez and I will be staying together in Hurst for at least one more transfer so we're super excited!  We're losing 3 missionaries from our ward who have finished their missions and are headed home.  Our ward will miss them tons!  But Sister Gomez and I are really excited about spending Thanksgiving (Dia de Accion de Gracias) here!  :)

Love you lots!!! :)

Hermana Sangre

10-21-2013: This Week Was a Whirlwind!

Hello, my beautiful family!

First order of business, I'm pretty sure I have the best mom in the world.  The package arrived safely and everything inside! :) Hermana Gomez and I devoured the cookies in seconds.  And I plan on showing off how cool my family is to everyone that I meet since I have those sweet pictures! Thanks so much! 

This week was a whirlwind!  We had Elder Pino from the first quorum of the 70 come and it was basically the coolest thing ever.  On Tuesday night he did a fireside in our Ward building for all of the Spanish speakers in the DFW metroplex, and that's when we did our musical number: Fuente de mis Bendiciones.  It ended up being Hermana Gomez at the piano, Me singing with members Jason, Debahni, Michael, Melissa, and Magaly, and investigator D (a member's sister) with Elders Atack, Brueggeman, Wood and, Taylor.  Basically it was a choir and it was so fun!  I was impressed that we could involve so many of the members and even one of Elders Atack and Brueggeman's investigators who is super golden.  Elder Pino was able to instruct us in his native tongue of Spanish and it was amazing.  He talked about how important it is to create good habits in the home, because we will reap what we sow. 

If we plant tomates, we will get tomates. 

If we plant papas, we will get papas. 

If we plant good habits like reading and praying, we will be blessed. 

He also talked about la obra misional (missionary work) and said the following about asking our friends to learn about the gospel:

"Esta persona que usted y yo mismo conocemos, puede cambiar. Aun la persona que conocemos."

"This person that you and I know, can change.  EVEN the person we know."

That struck me.  People change, and that's cool to see.

So Tuesday night was a night full of spiritual nourishment, and then Wednesday morning we had a mission conference with a few zones and Elder Pino.  Because he was born in Venezuela and doesn't know much ingles, he needed a translator, so good ole Elder Atack got to stand up for 2 hours and translate for a member of the Seventy.  Our district was so proud of him.  Elder Pino talked more on Wednesday about how we need to raise our standards of understanding: When we hear from our leaders about being obedient, are we on a spiritual level trying to understand the blessings that come from obedience, or are we on a lower level trying to justify our disobedience?   "Be ready and attentive to rise up to the level of your calling.  Our invitation is to rise to the level of what we're teaching, and we're teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ." 

Basically this week was super dope.

Also: Hermana Gomez and I went over to a less-active's house this week to learn how to make "hueraches", which they only eat in the DF (i don't know what that means, but everybody says it...) and they're basically really thin fried tortillas with beans in the middle. She also made some green salsa and I almost died it was so good. Now I can cook 1 type of hispanic food, I need to increase my wife-able attributes for when I meet Bubba from Waco...oh wait...

Also I went to Ward Council in Spanish.  That was exciting.

I'm over my cold!  And we are seeing B and A tonight to talk to them, that's exciting!  The work is progressing and we're staying busy :) 

Stink, dad, I would have waved "hi" back to you if I had known you were flying over my area the other day!  And that's great advice about member homes, we were actually just talking about how we need to focus on that more.  I'll let you know how that goes this week!

Bummer about Nat's game, better luck next time!  He looks like a ladies man next to all them girls in the pictures you sent me. Keep it up, Nat!

In terms of traffic Haltom City is a bit like San Mateo?  A little more spread out, though.  And the area we cover is pretty huge, other cities we cover include Saginaw, Watauga, Hurst, North Richland Hills, so we get a bit of everything.  Pretty Suburb-y, but we try to avoid the freeway for the most part because there's basically construction all up and down the flippin countryside with that... :)

Also: thank heavens, but I have not encountered any enormously big, grotesque bugs yet. PHEW!  But i'm sure I will by the end of my mission...haha

Sorry this letter is like 10,000 pages long...haha

Glad the stake temple day food thingy went well and that all is awesome with Uncle Lane being there!  It's always fun to hear about what's what and such :) I hope y'all have an awesome week this week!

I love you soooo so much!

Love,

Hermana Sangre 

10-14-2013: Hellooooo!!!

Helloooooo!

 

Man, this week was a dooozy.  I had a bit of a cold on Thursday and Friday, but the work went forward regardless! :)  I felt heavenly assistance as we taught lessons even though I wasn't feeling my best.  Asi es.  And we had a Zone Training this week where we focused on taking members with us to lessons, or getting "exchanges."  So that's what we've been focusing on as a companionship and we're improving a ton on that!  We also had a surprise transfer this week.  President felt like Elder Guttierrez would have some more success in Stephenville so he left on Tuesday and Elder Wood's new companion is Elder Strang!  Hermana Hansen served with him in Arlington and he was in like all of her stories so I felt like I already knew him...haha but he's from Star Valley, Wyoming (isn't that where they're building the temple?)  and this is his 2nd time being in Hurst.  AND him and Elder Wood  AND Elder Atak are going home at the end of this transfer, so that will be a big change in our ward. 

 

AND Hermana Gomez's birthday is today!! She turned the big 2-0, so basically she can follow all the rules for "senior Sisters" in the white handbook :)

 

We taught O y M this week again and they are so sweet!  They are always super busy so it's been hard to teach them for the past little while, but we finally fixed a time where we could stop by this week and it was AWESOME.  When you read in Doctrine and Covenants about what is required for baptism, it's basically just a description of them.  They are so sweet and have so much faith.  We're hoping they'll be able to get baptized in the next few weeks. 

 

The work is progressing and I'm just loving every minute of being a missionary!  (especially since it's cooled down a ton in the past week.  It's raining right now, I'm pretty content.) :)

Way to go Nat!  He is a rockstar, as usual, on the football field...and say hello to Hattie and Kyle for me!  It's been forever since we've talked to them, send them my love :)

 

and I didn't know that matt and angela were having another baby!!!  Or maybe I did...Regardless, Congratulations to them! That's awesome! I'm sure she's a cutie.

 

Have I mentioned how much I love being a missionary?  Sometimes I realize that what we're doing is "hard," but we never think about it during the day to day work--we're just happy and loving what we do!  Seeing the joy that the gospel brings people makes everything worth it. 

 

Thanks for the Love and support.  I love you so much!

 

Love,

Hermana Sangre

P.S. congrats to Courtney!!! :)

10-7-2013: I Stinking Love Conference!

Oh my heavens.  This week was just chalk full of AWESOMENESS.

First of all, we practiced our song for the Elder Pino conference on Tuesday night and I'm feeling pretty good about how it will turn out! 

Second of all, we had Interviews with President Ames this week and while we were waiting, we got to get trainings from our Assistants to the President: aka the two Elders responsible for the amazing amount of nerves we have acquired regarding the Elder Pino conference....haha just kidding. Elder Border (If he were a spanish elder we'd call him Elder Frontera) and Elder Henderson are really cool and both like 10 feet tall.  But Hermana Gomez left for her interview the second they wanted us to do a short role play between companions, so I had to practice with Elder Border, which was the 2nd most terrifying role play I've done in my life.  The first was my first night in the mission with the very same Elder, except for in front of all 25 new missionaries. Sooo that was great...  But we learned a ton!  And President is so great, he said he feels really good about me and Hermana Gomez as a companionship so we're even MORE ready to get some work done here in Hurst. :)

THIRD of all, it was General Conference Weekend!  Which, as a missionary, is just about on par with Christmas in terms of coolness.  The talks were all so good!  And, I'm pretty proud of myself because I watched every single session in Spanish :)  I got most of it, though, of course, I got lost in a few of the stories, but I found it was easier for me to listen closer to the Spirit and write down what I needed to learn as apposed to a page full of direct quotes (and Elder Packer emphasized the importance of what the Spirit tells us rather than the exact words they say, so I felt good about watching in Spanish).  I feel like so much of the topics were about Member Missionary work, but that may just be because I'm a missionary right now...But I realize now that I could have been a better member missionary when I was home--I'm glad I felt like I could live my standards no matter what, but we can always take a step further to invite a family over for Family Home Evening with the missionaries, or something of that nature.  Something I thought during conference is that it's hard to live these standards sometimes, but the blessings make it so worth it. To take it one step further, to ask someone else to listen to WHY we have these standards is even harder, but it's even that much more worth it.  The worst they can do is say "no," right? But seriously, though, Conference is so awesome.  I am coming closer and closer to the reality of how absolutely important it is to rely on our Savior in every little thing we do. 

Fourth of all, and this may or may not be social suicide to admit to but I'll do it anyways, my district went to Cici's Pizza this week.  It was my first time, and I am pretty proud of myself because I may or may not have eaten 12 pieces of pizza. :)  It wasn't as much as one elder's 20....but it was so fun!  But Hermana Gomez and I made sure to go on a REALLY good run the morning after...haha

B and A are doing well, we still have to re-set B's Baptismal date, but she's so golden that we're not so worried about her.  But we've been thinking about A a lot and trying to think of how we can help him feel a sincere desire to repent, and of course with Conference, we found that we will probably show him a few clips of President Uchtdorf's talk.  And in the beginning of Elder Oaks' talk when he started talking about the 10 commandments and how we shouldn't adore other Gods about our Father in Heaven, I pretty much had a heart attack because that's what A needs to hear!  He still is worried about not being able to pray to his saints...So we're going to show him parts of that talk too.  But they're such a cute couple and we're so excited for them to progress in the gospel.

We also have still been working on the 21 tips program and we've met some really golden families through it!  We're getting the hang of how to start talking about the gospel from the begining (versus awkwardly transitioning from "hey we can help your kids get good grades in school" to "oh and by the way we also teach the gospel...") and most of them are way open to hearing more from us!

It sounds like the Marathon went really well!  In the picture, Jake and Dad look dang skinny.  It must have felt super awesome to accomplish that together after all that preparation.  I'm excited to hear how the next one goes in 2 weeks... :) And way to go Jake with sharing the gospel! (Flirt to convert...?haha just kidding.)

Oh my gosh!  Send my congratulations to the future Hermana Watkins!  That's so exciting!  Make sure to inform her that PuertoRicans talk super fast, but I'm sure she's probably so excited to go.  She'll have a blast! She's going to be such a good missionary.  And it's so awesome that she has 2 fluent spanish-speaking parents to practice with until she heads out!

Which actually brings me to a thought: it's starting to get "colder" (aka it's like less than 90 degrees sometimes) so could you send me some of the winter clothes I set aside in a package sometime? Please? Muchas Garcias :)

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers and don't forget how much I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Sangre

9-30-2013: It's a New Week!

Why, hello my lovely family!

 

This week our beloved Sister Hansen got to go up to Gainesville!  She was so excited to get out of her "transfer limbo" and left on Thursday.  She's going to do so well up there. :)  So now Sister Gomez and I are solitas aqui in Hurst as the Hermanas. 

 

These past few days we've been having citas (or appointments) up the wazoo!  A few weeks ago we participated in a service at a school where this group gave out school supplies to struggling families, and quite a few there were spanish speakers.  Our part of the program is "21 tips to better grades" and people could sign up for us to go and teach their kids these tips.  We've just barely been getting these referrals now and following up has been crazy! There are nights when we have appointments every 30 minutes because of this program.  I like feeling busy and the families that we've been visiting are super cool so hopefully they'll be interested in hearing about the gospel, too! 

 

This week we got a call from the Assistants to the President (we just about had a heart attack, they hardly ever call us!)  and in a few weeks the Hurst Stake Center will be hosting Elder Pino of the 70 for a fireside for all spanish speakers in the metroplex.  AAAAAND, since that's in our Zone and Sister Gomez and I are both trained in Music, we've been asked to put together a musical number!  I'm a little bit nervous but the good news is that we're making some other elders in our district sing with us along with 2 members and an investigator (she's 15 and the coolest girl you'll ever meet. She's in a similar boat as Shawn Fajardo, in that she'll be baptized the second her parents give the go ahead.  Our Zone Leaders are teaching her, btw so she's not our investigator).  But I'm so stinking excited!  We're singing "Fuente de mis bendiciones" or Come thou Fount in spanish.  It'll be dope.

 

B and A are doing alright.  They had their baptismal interviews this week and B's already to go, but A isn't quite.  So they're going to wait a little bit and we'll keep teaching them and preparing him.  That night was one of the most stressful nights of my life, I never expected to be so worried for someone's salvation!  B is so rock solid, though.  We have a cita with them this Friday so we're going to review the Restoration with A to strengthen his testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. 

 

Yesterday President Ames and his daughter came to our Fast and Testimony meeting, so that was a surprise!  And President doesn't speak spanish, but he prepared a short and simple testimony in spanish and it was so cool!  He is such an awesome leader and even though he struggled a little with his broken spanish, the spirit was definitely there to testify that what he said was true. 

Question: How are Emma Watkins' mission papers going? Any updates? 

 

MOM.  That Apple butter was SOOOO stinking good!  I loved it! I'm not going to lie, I just about finished it in 3 days... :) I couldn't hold myself back!  I completely approve of your idea to start a cooking show.  I'd watch it!

 

I look forward to hearing from the ward through emails!  So far no one has done it, as far as I can see.  But then again this email isn't super reliable...haha  I'll let you know next week once people have had some time :)  Debra Carlson is a rockstar because she writes me every few weeks.  It's always fun to hear from her about her family.

 

I absolutely love that clip from Elder Holland's Book of Mormon General Conference talk.  I keep meaning to find it in Spanish one of these days so that I can show it to some members and less-actives.  That reminds me--I'm so stinking excited for Conference this week! 

 

Also: I completely approve of the use of "obispo smith" :)  Spanglish! Yeah!

 

Thanks for the constant prayers and support.  I love you so much!

Love,

Hermana Blood