4-7-2014: Conference Weekend!!!

Hello Lovely Family!

 

What a week this week.  I LOVED General Conference, of course! It's better than Christmas it feels like.  We got to recieve tons of revelation and it's always a great experience to hear from the Prophet and the Apostles.  This week something I'll be doing is looking through my notes of conference and make a list of "Action Items" or things that I will do to change based on conference.  I'm excited. Thankfully, we haven't had any experiences like those poor sisters that Elder Holland mentioned with people trying to hit us or even yell at us.  People in Texas are very respectful and while they may not agree with us, they are usually very kind about it.  We've been spoiled, to say the least.

 

We also just had our "Mission Leadership Council" for the month of April on Friday and it was a very inspired meeting.  We talked a lot about how we can plan more effectively and how we can become better teachers so that we can help people understand the importance of the message we share.  It is such a privilage to be a part of this council and every meeting we have is a testament of how President Ames is called of God to lead this mission.  It's awesome. 

 

This upcoming week my buddy R will be getting baptized!  He's a champ.  We're super stoked for him and we'll take pictures at the baptism I'm sure. 

 

This past week we also went on an exchange with the sisters that serve in the Decatur ward, which is SUPER country by the way.  I mean ranches and dirt roads and cows and everything.  It was fun and we learned a lot. 

I'm glad y'all were able to check out Pacific University and see what it had to offer and enjoy a little weekend vacation, but I'm secretly more happy that Nat decided to go true blue ;)  I know that he'll have a great experience at BYU and I'm sure he'll have a blast over in Helaman Halls!  Does he know his roomate already or did he decide to go random?

 

 Glad to hear y'all are doing well and I love you so much!

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

3-31-2014: Spring Break?!?

Hello!

Oh man, y'all are in Oregon and Washington for the next few days??
That sounds like a blast!

This week was awesome, of course!  We went on an exchange with the
Sisters in the Denton 4th ward so I went down to Denton for a night
and got to be there and that was way awesome.  It was the sister's
first exchange so we wanted it to be a good experience and I think it
turned out ok!

We also went to the Women's broadcast on Saturday!  It was AWESOME.
Got to recieve lots of revelation and feel the spirit a ton.  We had a
sort-of-investigator (I'll explain more in a little) come with her
daughter and a less-active come and so that was awesome.  K
couldn't make it because she ended up getting stuck at a family event
all day in Denton.

So our sort-of-investigator.  Her name is E and she is
awesome.  She works at a Donut shop that's owned by a member who's son
is on a mission (aka free donuts and sandwiches and salads every
saturday).  So she knows the missionaries really well and she's
friends with like half the ward and comes to church every once in a
while and comes to activities--she just hasn't been taught yet!
People joke about her getting baptized all the time, so even she
thinks it will happen one day.  She just wants to decide when she's
ready.  So we're working on that.  But she's way awesome and so funny
and promised us she'd come to church if we spoke in Sacrament meeting
so we texted Bishop and got a slot the sunday after conference :)

Glad y'all are doing well.  Have fun in the rain and seeing Pacific
University!

Love you tons!
con amor,
Hermana Sangre

AAAAAND Happy Birthday to Caleb this week!!!  He's gonna be oooooold.
Just kidding. Not that old. But kinda...haha And Michele's is coming
up, too, right? Happy early birthday to her too! :)  Maybe I'll send
them a card, do you happen to have their address? Thanks!

love
Hermana Sangre

3-24-2014: What a Week!!!

Hellooooooo family!

First of all, thank you so much for the package of articles and the Conference Ensign!  It all arrived safely and I've been taking full advantage of my new study materials ;) 

This week was great!  I taught my first English Class with Sister Ram last Tuesday and it was SO FUN!  I didn't realize how fun it would be until we were doing it.  There are some really cool families in that class who vary in their understanding and levels and amount of time they've been in the United States (they vary from 2 months to 16 years!)  and it's a fun service opportunity that we're taking advantage of.   

We taught R this week!  He's a funny kid.  We're really working hard with his Grandma to teach him, but he's not getting a ton of support from his less active brothers and non-member dad.  We're hoping that once his Mom fully transitions into her new job and can come to church with him that he'll really be able to understand the position he's in to be a role model to his family.  He's super cool though. 

We also have an investigator named K who came to church with her boyfriend and two teenage sons!  She wants to get baptized in May and she's super cool.  We found her one day because we were trying to find a referral from another investigator and we stopped her to ask for directions--she didn't know where the address was so we set up another time to teach her instead! :)  She has lots of faith and is a really cool lady. 

I went on another exchange this week, too!  I went down to the Denton YSA ward---what a trip.  But it was way fun and the sisters down there are working with a ton of cool people!  We have 2 sets of sisters in the Denton area which is about a 40 minute drive from Gainesville and then we have a set of sisters in Justin and a set in Decator, and those drives are closer to an hour.  But our ward of Gainesville covers about half of the Denton Stake, up to the Oklahoma border (in fact, Thackerville, OK is in our ward) and if you're looking on a map, some other towns in our boundaries are Nocona, Valley View, Montague, and Muenster.  Craaaaaazy big!  Lots of people that are searching for the truth and know not where to find it! :)

And a new thing in our mission is that we made a new "key indicator" or something that we track--Member Presentations.  That's where we go into an active member's home and help them with their missionary work.  It's pretty cool and we're excited to focus more on that here in Gainesville! Because this ward is AWESOME.  I love the people here.

Sounds like y'all had a busy but great week!  Glad to hear that things are going well in callings and I just learned this morning from Elder Hales that meetings/conferences are an essential part of the Lord's church ;)  Yay meetings! And that thing with the synagogue sounds cool, that's an awesome opportunity. 

I love you all so much and it's great to hear that y'all are doing well. 

Listen to your mother. Do what is right. Let the consequence follow.  Be true to your school etc etc. ;)

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

P.S. sorry i haven't sent a pic with hna ram yet...she says I have to pay to take a picture with her and I'm too poor... ;) just kidding.  We're just so stinking busy all the time! But i promise, this week we'll take a picture!

sorry dad, just got your email!

i know, we have tons of shopping centers and downtown scenery and such over here...oh wait.  :) We actually go running every morning, there's a middle school right next to our "house" and we go on the track over there.  Neither of us LOVE to run super a lot, but we both do it because that's what President Ames says is a good way to wake up in the morning :) We're learning to love it!

love you tons

love,

Hermana Sangre

3-17-2014: Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hello family!

 

Have no fear: I shall not be pinched today because I am wearing my lovely green skirt!  Happy Saint Patrick's Day.  Hope you find some gold at the end of a rainbow and get some four leaf clovers and stuff.  What else can one do to celebrate this holiday...? Maybe I'll ask around :)

 

This week was amazing!  Hermana Ram and I are recieving tons of revelation for Gainesville and we're working really hard to get the members involved in the work.  This area is super cool and I am LOVING it!  We've been able to come in contact with some less actives that are developing desires to come back to church and we're excited for all of our investigators we're teaching!  One of them is a 9 year old named R.  We were teaching him the Plan of Salvation the other day and when we asked him what he understood about the part we had just gone over, he basically re-taught us the entire first half!  He's a smart kid and he's a goof, so it's fun teaching him.  His Mom is less active but hopefully she'll be returning to activity because she recently got a new job that will let her have sundays off! Yay!

 

I also went on my first exchange as Sister Training Leader!  We went alllllll the way to Justin, Texas which is in a newlly formed stake and it was way cool!  I was with a really cool sister and we learned a lot.  We had lots of little miracles that day, including a less active who's non-member son needed some help, and when we were there her Hispanic mother was also there and I was able to talk to her in Spanish!  It was pretty cool.  Man, having a second language is such a cool blessing. 

 

We're also preparing to have interviews with President Ames this week.  He sends everyone a letter every week and it is really cool to see how inspired he is.  He's so cool!

 

It sounds like everyone's week was a blast!  Glad the Hearst Castle trip was successful, and I'm excited to go visit!  Happy almost anniversary tomorrow!  I'm glad Mom and Dad could go celebrate in the city, it sounds like it was awesome.  And I loved the pictures! :)

 

To answer your question, Mom, something that I wish I would have done before I went on a mission as a young woman (and I know that they completely re-vamped the youth program this past year, so they might already be doing this) but I wish I studied Preach My Gospel more, especially the Lessons.  I had always had a testimony of the gospel, but once I read through the lessons in my Mission Prep class, it suddenly not only made sense to me spiritually, but also intellectually.  And I wish I was more involved in the Less Active work in our ward with the young women.  I always felt uncomfortable going over to say "Hi" to the girls that I had never met before as an activity, but it's such a great preparation for the mission because that is a part of what we do.  AND it doesn't have to be uncomfortable/weird, I always made it to be a bigger deal than it actually is (I think that's what all teenagers do with everything...) but any feelings of discomfort or "oh that's weird" in those types of things can be solved with charity: if we love the Savior, we will go outside of our comfort zone and feed his sheep.

 

Something that I've thought of frequently while I've been on my mission that gives me energy and drive is something the Spirit taught me in the MTC: "Why am I here if I'm not willing to go outside my comfort zone?" 

 

And I look forward to seeing Dad's talk from Sunday, it sounds like a great one!

 

I love you all so much!  Have an AWESOME week this week :)

 

Love,

Hermana Sangre

3-10-2014: Wellllllllllllll, Greetings from Gainesvillleeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh man.  So, surprise.  The address I gave y'all last time was incorrect.  We're actually living with members (in like a garage behind their house that they converted into a sweet awesome apartment) so the real address is...

 

227 E. Hird St.

Gainesville, TX 76240

 

Another surprise.  So I got to transfers on Wednesday and met Hermana Ram (who is AWESOME by the way!) and she told me that we were also whitewashing into the English area! Craziness. So Whitewashing is when two completely new missionaries go into an area and take over the previous set of missionaries' investigators.  Summary: Hermana Ram was already in the Gainesville English ward working with the Spanish population, but the day I got to Gainesville, the English elders left and now we're the only set of missionaries for the whole ward (plus the senior couple in our ward, who are super sweet!).  AKA we're the first set of "SPANGLISH" missionaries here.  Probably ever.  The ward boundaries cover half of the Denton Stake and Gainesville the town itself is preeeeeeeeetty tiny.  But there's TONS of Hispanic people, so that's awesome.  Lots of open space and "county roads" and cows and chickens and farms and lots of driving (yes, we still have a car! yessss). 

 

In terms of Sister Training Leader stuff, we went to my first "Mission Leadership Council" this week with all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders for this mission: 15 zones and 7 sets of Sister Training Leaders.  I hear it's grown a ton and it was an AWESOME meeting.  We all counseled together to work on the things that the mission needs to improve and now we get to go on exchanges and tell all the sisterswhat we learned!  We serve 4 sets of Sister in the Denton/Justin/Decatur area and we should be going on an exchange this week.  I'm excited!

 

Hermana Ram is suuuper cool!  She's from Hawaii and she has been out about a year.  She's been in Gainesville for 3 months and we're anticipating she'll be here for a total of 6 but we'll see what happens there.  She's super chill and a really hard worker and does great missionary work!  I'm excited to work with her. 

The work here is crazy, because we can literally teach anyone we want to--we don't have to worry about English or Spanish because we cover both!  But this week we taught more Spanish, and that's probably what we'll focus on more throughout the transfer, because President wants there to be a Spanish Branch in Gainesville eventually, so that's what we're gonna get.  Lots of Hispanic less actives and LOTS of potential investigators, so we've got our work cut out for us! :)  We will never be bored ever because there is literally so much work to do and it's going to be AWESOME.  I LOVE gainesville! I know I'm going to learn a lot (heck, I've already learned a ton and I haven't even been here a week!) and we're going to be eating lots of good southern cookin ;)  I may end up missing my good 'ole Spanish Ward rice and beans :) but I'm way excited for this area!

 

Not a lot of time, but we have a cool story about this guy named "J F" that I'm going to tell y'all next week---remind me!

 

Sounds like y'all had a good week, glad Youth Conference turned out well and that Nat's concert went well!  (Great to Hear from you, Nat!) :) Have a good time at Hearst Castle with Lisa and Riley!  And good luck to Caleb and Michele who officially moved to LA!!!

 

Also: please excuse my frequent use of "y'all."  I swore I would never say it...and here I am all Texan and stuff.  What can I say....

 

I love you all soooooo much!

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

(p.s. President called on me in MLC's to share a thought I had and he called me "hermana Sangre." it was a pretty proud moment.)

3-3-2014: Texas is Bipolar

Literally. Saturday it was 80 degrees outside, and over night it dropped to like 25 and we had snow on Sunday.  Ridiculous!  Apparently Texas is incapable of making up its mind, which makes packing for transfers a little difficult and unpredictable.

 

And I guess Hispanics REALLY do not like the cold, so we got to church at noon (sacrament meeting starts at 1:30) for our Ward Council and basically we got there and our Bishop decided to cancel church since it was too cold and it was supposed to get worse...so all the missionaries were there and we were like "man, we want to take the sacrament!" so we went ahead and drove to the nearest church building in our area (with permission from President, of course) to go to another ward's Sacrament meeting.  And we hadn't exactly made a back-up plan for church when we were planning the night before...so we had 3 hours to fill in our Sunday!  We got a lot of work done and stuff, it was just a surprise.  Gotta love Texas weather...

 

Dad, I LOVED your greatGainesville facts!  It looks like I'll be doing lots of hanging out at casinos and stuff...oh wait...  But I have heard that it is COUNTRY out there, so that will be fun and new! 

 

me and MAGALY. she feeds us every wednesday

So how transfers work for us: the entire mission has one central church building that is designated as the Transfer church building (right now it is in Grapevine) and if we are getting transfered, all the missionaries get a member to drive them to that Grapevine building and the switches are made there, and then you drive to your new area!  Thank heavens we don't have to strap any suitcases to bikes and stuff like you had to do, Mom...sounds like it was a blast! hah

 

I'll confirm my new address when I get to Gainseville. 

 

THE BONILLAS.  They invited me to go hang out with them at their house in Puerto Rico post-mission.  I'm thinking that's a YES. :)

Mom, it sounds like Youth Conference is going to be a BLAST!  I hope it goes really well, and I'm sure you'll be nice and relieved once it's over.  And good luck to Nat at In Concert, I'm sure it will be super dope.  Have fun on that trip to Hearst Castle, take lots of cool pictures and photoshop me in! haha just kidding. 

  

Thanks for thinking of some Conference talks, I personally don't have a copy of the November 2013 Ensign, but hopefully the apartment in Gainesville will...we'll see.  I'll keep you posted on that.

 

Elder Hardy at that meeting i went to!

Well, have a wonderful week this week with all the many things that y'all have planned and have a safe trip to Orlando, Dad!  I love you all soooooo much!

 

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

2-28-2014: SURPRISE!!!

Hi Family,

Sooo...funny story.....we didn't end up going to the temple today....

 

Here's what happened.

 

Monday Night at like 10:34 (approximately...ya know) President calls us, and I was already passed out so Hermana Gwynn answers the phone and he basically says, "Sister Gwynn, your companion is leaving this next coming transfer and I won't tell you where.  BUT you and your new companion will be Sister Training Leaders in Hurst for all the Spanish Sisters in the Metroplex.  We'll have a meeting this Friday for all missionaries that haven't been Leaders before (this meeting happens once a transfer) and I want you there." 

 

WHAT. Yeah.  Basically I found out Monday night that I would be leaving but I had no idea to where!!! So i was freaking out all week until......thursday during our Weekly Planning Session.  Our Zone Leaders gave us a call and said, "uhh...so  Sisterblood....has President called you about Friday...?"

me: "uhhh...he's called sister gwynn but not me....why?" 

them "No reason, let us know if he gives you a call." [here is where my heart starts beating 1bazillionmiles per hour]

*20 minutes later*

PHONE CALL FROM PRESIDENT.

"Sister Blood, you've been assigned as a Sister Training Leader in Denton North Zone in GAINESVILLE with Hermana Ram.  Be at the meeting on Friday"

HOLY CATS! I almost asked President if he was sure about his decision....i decided not to question the whole revelation thing....

 

So basically we couldn't go to the temple because we were at the meeting for new trainers/leadership positions.  I learned a TON and found out that I have a lot to work on...  But basically as Sister Training Leader that means that I get to be a part of the Mission Leadership Council (all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders) once a month to council together and help the mission grow.  And I get to go on exchanges with 4 or 5 sets of Sister Missionaries every transfer.  At first I was SUPER nervous, but now I'm more excited!  I'll get to grow a lot.

 

Transfers will be happening this Wednesday, so I'll give you more of an update on Monday about all that information and whatnot after Transfer Calls Monday morning.

 

B decided not to get baptized this Saturday....a little sad, but I feel OK about it.  After a lot of prayer, I understand more of where she's coming from and I know that she'll be ok.  She's been going through a lot of hard life changes (she canceled the Surgery and everything) and said she needs some time to work things out.  She's still going to meet with us, and she will get baptized, just not right now.  She's still a rockstar and I think this will help her understand more of why she needs the gospel in her life.  I love that lady so much.

 

The S's are doing GREAT! They come to ALL the ward activities basically and everyone keeps asking when they're getting baptized.  They are so awesome, I stinking love that family!

Mom-to answer your question about the temple: we are allowed once every 3 months if we live within an hour of the temple....aaaaand I'm getting transfered outside of that radius so it will be another couple transfers until I get to go again maybe. (assuming after Gainesville I move back into the metroplex...we'll see!)

 

Speaking of Elder Hardy, I saw him at that New Trainers meeting!  (it was also a follow-up meeting for all the new trainees so I got to see his little visa waiter).  I'll attach that picture in another email. He says hello!

 

Happy Belated Birthday, Nat!   It sounds like his surprise party was a success and I'm glad he had a good time.  Kelly sounds like an awesome friend.

 

By the way, say hello to Bonnie Oscarson when you get to basically hang out with her in March! That will be AWESOME. 

Dad-I like your thinking on the bigger portions for the Elders in the ward.  Keep those Samoans well fed! :)  And thanks for the talks/devotionals.  I appreciate it! And thanks for the BYU basketball update...hahaha :)

 

I love you all SOO much and I'll give more details on transfers and stuff on monday.  Have a wonderful weekend!!

con amor,

Hermana Sangre