6-23-2014: In His Heart Daddy Knows He's Funny... ;)

Buenos Dias!

 

Business meeting: thank you so much for the package!  SIster Cannon (member we live behind) actually just texted us to say that she put the package in the fridge for until we pick it up.  :) 

The Cannons are the best.  Literally.  We had dinner with them last night and we had probably the best Texas Tacos ever--the key? BBQ sauce and cream cheese.  Sounds weird, i know, but SO good. 

 

Also, tell Chris the friend/boarder thanks!  Something that I've definitely learned on my mission, especially being in a zebra, is the love that I have for the Spanish language.  It's something I definitely will keep with forever. 

 

This week has been AMAZING.  We taught lessons like crazy every day, we have 4 people committed to be baptized in the next 2 months and 2 of those people came to church!  It was LA and RW!!  My two black grandpas.  Multiple people asked them if they'd see them next week and they both said, "oh yeah, we'll be here!"  It has been SO cool seeing the change in them.  We actually met RW first, and it was just tracting into him.  We set up an appointment for the next day, so we stop by and see that the door is wide open, and we can hear someone washing dishes, so we knock on the door frame a few times (we were persistent because we knew they could hear us) and RW's roommate LA comes out and we share something with him and then it just went from there! LA has since told us what he thought about us at first, he was very much against letting us "change" him, he would tell RW when we weren't there "nope, them are y'alls people, I am NOT letting them change me, nope, no way."  But, we're pretty persistent ;)  So after we kept coming by and coming by to visit with RW and sometimes with LA, LA opened up to us and told us some things he wanted to change in his life, and here he is, 6 weeks later, coming to church, praying, reading in the Book of Mormon, and preparing to be baptized on August 2nd, 2014.  They are my buddies. 

 

We also went on a really good exchange with a trio of sisters, and I love these sisters SO much, I went with one sister and we just clicked right away.  It was really good, but we made some goals with them to help them out.  Trios are hard for a lot of people, just because it's an extra brain and set of feelings and opinion to take into account.  President Ames doesn't like to put people into trios, but only does it when absolutely necessary. 

 

Cool miracle, we were driving trying to contact a referral and later in the day, we had plans to visit a Less Active near by that is hard to get a hold of.  But, as we were driving away from this referral we had just contacted, the thought came into my mind, well, the S family is super close by, we should just drop by now instead of later.  So we did, and RIGHT when we pulled up, one of the sons was just barely getting out of his car and his dad had just barely opened the door to let him in, so we parked the car as soon as we could and ran up to talk to the dad!  He's really a nice guy, just SUPER hard to get in contact with.  He didn't have a lot of time, but we just shared a quick scripture with him on his front porch (alma 32:21 because it was in the chapter I had just barely read for language study) and afterwards he says, "That scripture, that was exactly what I needed to hear, how did you know that?"  It was pretty cool.  The Lord works in mysterious ways. 

 

It was so great to hear about y'alls VERY busy week!  You are amazing and I am very proud of all the good things you are doing.  Keep being awesome, and make sure to have a wonderful week this week! 

 

Les quiero bastante.  Cuidense y portense bien, ok?

 

<3

Hermana Sangre

 

6-16-2014: It's a New Week!!

Hello Family!!

 

Fun fact: I think my 2nd (or 3rd?) cousin is in my Zone!  His name is Elder Colby Bullock from Lehi(?) UT, we were doing some role plays during a zone meeting and he saw my nametag and asked where my Dad was from, when I said Wyoming, he said that his Grandma is Anne Blood Tanner! And he's Beth's son!  SO, Dwayne/Dwight would be his great uncle, right? Anyways, cool connection!

 

We had Interviews on Thursday with President Ames and we had a great talk about Gainesville.  I've been pondering where Gainesville will be going and it was a very spirit lead discussion, he asked my opinion on some things (which, I'm not going to lie, made me feel pretty cool) and we talked about whether there's enough work for 2 spanish missionaries or if a zebra is what it needs (he doesn't love zebras, but he's willing to put them in when he needs to) and he might be thinking of putting Elders in instead of Sisters, but he described it as "studying it out in our minds" and he will pray about it and see what his keys say are the best things for this area.  BUT I hope that I can at least stay here until the end of July because we have 2 people getting baptized then!  It's LA and RW! They both committed to baptismal dates and that was a legitimate miracle.  They are the black grandpas that I never had, and they are my buddies.  LA's mom died on Saturday so he wasn't up to going to church on Sunday and RW needed to help him get some arrangements together, but they are DEFINITELY coming next week.  :) 

 

We had a training opportunity with the Denton Spanish Sisters, and one of them is a BRAND new missionary so I went down to Denton to be with her and really encouraged her to speak up in lessons, even though her companion speaks really good spanish.  It was cool to go back to A YEAR AGO (i'm in denial.)  and remember how I felt when I couldn't understand the language as well...craziness.  It was a fun exchange and I tried to give this new sister as many opportunities as possible to take the lead in contacts and lessons. 

 

Sister Lewis and I shared a very cool experience this week. I was telling her a story of a Less Active member I taught once--he was a referral from his Parents in the Spanish ward in Hurst and he happened to live in the Highland Station ward, so we got his address and went to try and find him. We got to his street and found out that the number of house we had didn't exist, so we picked a few houses to knock to see if anyone knew a RC. We were on the last house (nobody had answered because it was the middle of the day and they were probably all at work) and just before we were going to leave, we saw a car drive into a driveway across the street so we went over to talk to whoever it was. "Do you know RC, sir?" A little perplexed, he says, "well, I'm RC..." So we ended up talking to him for about an hour about church and we heard his story. We tried to set up a return appointment but for whatever reason it never ended up working out. As I was telling this to Sister Lewis, she mentioned that she had taught that family when she was in Highland Station and she mentioned that Brother C told them how one time he talked with the spanish sisters on the edge of his driveway for about an hour on a day that he was really having a hard time and that what they had told him really touched his heart--that was us. When she told me that, I had an overwhelming spiritual confirmation that we will NEVER fully understand the extent of the influence we have as we follow the spirit and work as tools in the Lord's hands, at least not until we have a perfect understanding or something. What a cool experience.

 

Another cool story, we've been teaching this Less Active who usually lives in Acunya Coahuila (i have no idea how to spell it.)  BUT she lives with a potential/investigator we teach sometimes (I think I've mentioned her before) but she at first was very anti to the church and barely joined us for the lesson, but as we've come by more and more, she asked for a new book of Mormon, a pamphlet, and she said she'll read them and tell the missionaries there what she's learned--and when I suggested she go back to church in Mexico, she said she'll probably go back!  So neat, right??

 

Miracles happen every day.

 

Our Zebra is going really well, we're teaching about half english and half spanish, and we keep track of how many spanish lessons we teach.  Sister Lewis is such a great missionary and she's so supportive of my spanish teaching and it's been a really cool experience.  We've both agreed in that it's a cool way to grow in different ways than ever before.  AND I do a lot of translating, which is neat.  I've heard that translaters at courts get bank soooo that'd be cool :)  haha annnnyways

 

OK So, I had no idea Shawn and Marcie got married!!! Yayy!!!!!!!  Any cute pictures? (I'm sure, especially since she's a photographer and super cool.) Tell them congrats for me! :) 

And I'm so glad Bay Area Baseball is doing well, they've got to to keep me proud! :) haha

 

I hope y'all have a WONDERFUL week and I love you all so much! Do what is right, let the consequence follow, listen to your mother, be true to your school :)

 

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

6-9-2014: Happy June 9! :)

Hello Family!!!

 

It's funny that you ask me what miracles we've seen these past few days, because they have been NUMEROUS. 

 

MIracle #1.) We went on an exchange with the Decatur sisters.  I stayed in Gainesville, but Sister Lewis was out there and while they were out and about, a Recent Convert from another ward comes up to them and says how she just got baptized a month ago and "do you know Sister T?  She is MY missionary.  She came to Texas for ME."  Sister Lewis said that she did know Sister T and actually she was able to talk to her every once and a while so she would relay the message.  (Sister T is in one of the companionships in our stewardship.)  We decided to call that set of Sisters that night and as we start talking to them, we ask them how their day went and from their answer, it was clear it didn't go well.  We asked what was wrong and Sister T continued to tell all the things that just didn't go well, and to be honest, it just sounded rough.  Sister Lewis then told her story about meeting this recent convert and the impact that Sister T had on her life, and it was silent on the other end for a minute.  The spirit was SO strong and Sister T said in a broken voice, "thank you for telling me that."  The Lord is so aware of us and he knew that Sister T would need that affirmation of the good work that she has been doing, especially on that rough day. 

 

Miracle #2.) We were able to see LL on friday, who we hadn't seen in probably 2 weeks because he was out of town.  I put him in the plans because I figured we would give him one more try, and sure enough, we pull up and there he is sitting on his front porch.  This is the man that we stopped by one day and said, "Man, it just made my day that y'all stopped and talked to me.  I see missionaries on this street all the time and it offends me that they have never stopped to talk to me about Jesus before, but it makes my day that y'all stopped."

 

Miracle #3.) Sister F in our ward has been working with this girl JS as a life coach for a while.  We've offered to stop by and visit with her before, but Sister F was a little hesitent and she had said in the past "no, we'll just wait a little bit."  Yesterday before Sacrament Meeting, she comes up to us looking determined and exasperated and says, "you know what sisters, I think it's time we go see J and her mom. Can we go today after church?"  

"absolutely, Sister F!"

She then begins to describe where they live and a light bulb goes off in my head...

"Do they live on ["x" street]?"

"well, I think so, I can't quite remember the street."

"Is her name JS?"

"yes..."
"is her Mom's name FR?"

"yes..."

"we've already taught her!"

Sister F's face was PRICELESS.  She just looked amazed!  Little did we know 3 days before, that we had taught the girl that Sister F was working with AND that we had taught her mom a week before that. 

FR speaks spanish and we started talking to her outside her house one day.  We set up a return appointment but she had just stepped out when we stopped by, so instead we talked to her daughter, JS.  We shared with her about the Book of Mormon, and even though she's just 13, she is very bright.  We told her about Christ coming to the Americas and she said, "wow, I've never heard that before!"  The spirit was SO strong as we visited with her and I felt impressed to tell her that the Lord was/is very aware of her, and that we had been guided as his servants to visit with her that day.  We left her with a Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment for later the next week.  But, Saturday night as we were planning for Sunday, we felt we should talk to her mom FR to make sure she knew that we had taught her daughter, so we set aside time to go and visit with her Sunday at 8. 
"sister F, we already have a time set up tonight to go see them, would you like to come?" 

"yes. absolutely."

We went and visited with FR, I translated for everyone and she agreed to have us come back so that we could teach their whole family. 

 

Miracle #4.) RN was baptized back in the beginning of February, and the Sunday he was supposed to get confirmed, church was canceled due to an ice storm.  That next sunday, he left for Oklahoma to work because that was the only work he could find.  He then couldn't get work off for 4 months because he was working 7 days a week from 4pm to 4am on a racetrack.  Finally, the racetrack season ended and he was able to come to church yesterday with his wife so that he could get confirmed a member of the church, and recieve the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Amazing.

 

Now, these are only a few of the miracles I've experienced this week.  But I KNOW that this work is directed by God himself. 

 

Dad, I'm sorry you haven't been feeling super great lately!  But I'm glad things are getting better.  Now you'll be able to enjoy that guys trip! That will be fun. Tell that Chris internship kid "Hola" and ask him how much he likes "pupusas" (El Salvadoranian food. it's SUPER good.)  Speaking of Thunderstorms, we had a doozy last night.  The thunder was nice and loud and a few tree branches were struck down by lightning.  It was neat, but now it's just going to be raining the rest of the day.  Me and Sister Lewis are getting along GREAT!  She is exactly the person that needs to be here with me in this zebra.  

 

I'm glad the Spaghetti fundraiser went well!  Those are always fun.  And that's so cool that one of Caleb's friends is in the ward!  That was a good fireside.  Thanks for taking care of that Denton Regional bill and for scheduling that Dentist appointment.  Just so you know, In December we'll have a 5 week transfer so that I'll be coming home on December 18th.  Details to come.   

 

AAAAND.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JAKIEPOO TOMORROW! Man, Jake.  You're getting old.  :)  Make sure to eat lots of cake and to watch Modern Family and to do cool things cuz you can cuz it's your birthday/birthweek/birthmonth.  It's cool.  Have a very happy birthday! Feliz cumpleanos!

 

I love y'all SO much!  Have a wonderful week this week and do great things, k? k. :)

 

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

6-2-2014:Amazing Week!!!

Hello Beautiful family!!!!!

Amazing week this week.  I sent off Sister Ram to go to Hurst on Wednesday and then picked up Sister Lewis!  She is an English sister and she's served most of her mission in the metroplex, so this is her first time out into the country (it's BEAUTIFUL out here.)  and she is from Logan, UT aka a loyal Utah State fan.  She is absolutely the person that needed to come here for this zebra because she is so willing to work and she's learning a little bit of spanish (she says parts of her prayers in Spanish!)  and she is just an awesome missionary.  She has been out for almost a year (we go home at the same time) and she is basically awesome. 

 

I still take my language study every morning and she lets me say my prayers in spanish and we keep track of how many people we talk to in both english and spanish to make sure we're keeping a good balance.  But I'm feeling really blessed in the gift of tongues because the Lord is really helping me be able to communicate in Spanish even though I can't speak it 24/7. 

 

But we've seen some cool miracles this week!

 

We had our investigator R.W.  who we've been teaching for a few weeks who's like 64 and the coolest.  We stopped by Saturday and he told us he wanted to go to church that next day, so we called our Ward Mission Leader to see if he could give him a ride (RW doesnt have a car) or if he knew someone who could.  After calling and texting people ALL night (almost) we hadn't heard back from anyone.  So most of my personal study that morning was spent praying that someone would answer our texts (it was too early to call) and pondering trying to think of SOMETHING we could do.  Then at 9, half an hour before we needed to pick up RW, someone responded and said they could do it!!!  So RW was able to come to church, and not only was he ready at 9:30 but he was sitting outside in his vest and dress pants with his book of mormon and pamphlets in hand.  It was awesome, he stayed for all 3 hours and said afterwards, "I'll let you know what I think about being baptized after I think some more about it". !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Best. Sunday. Ever.  The Lord definitely wanted RW to be at church sunday morning. 

 

It was a great week this week and only better things are on their way.  This work is the best and I learn so much every day. 

 

Glad to hear y'all had a good week this week! Congrats to Nat's gradiation, is he a kollege stooodent now almost officially?  Dang.  I guess he's like a big kid now.  Glad to hear he's doing well, and it sounds like it was a fun weekend with Caleb and Michele in town, too.  I hope Dad feels better, too.  Have a great first-full-week-of-summer this week!  I love you tons, remember who you are and what you stand for ;) 

 

con amor,

Hermana Sangre

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