Andale Pues!

Emily and her MTC District

Time is really speeding up. Well welcome to the world baby Lindsey. I'm disappointed it's not Sally. But oh well. Yeah for a new baby! Since I will have a lot of time when I get home, I will be the only one who gets to hold all of the new babies that will be around! Yeah. I got those nice, up close pictures of her. I'm not sure if she looks like a Galloway or not. She'll have to open her eyes for me to see. Congratulations! Well, we taught a lot of lessons this week, but sure didn't get many new investigators out of it. Oh well! We still worked hard. We also postponed our baptisms. Maybe by then we'll have a couple of more people to add to the baptismal program that day. There aren't many investigator updates to give. No one is really progressing any many than the week before. This week we're going to give a baptismal commitment to basically all of our investigators. So from that we'll be able to see who really gets to have our attention for the next couple of weeks. Our district leader has really been trying hard to work with the bishop and our ward mission leader, in order to get them to really get stuff going. They all have the desire, but it wasn't happening. But I think it’s going to start happening; the whole ward council is going to be much more involved in missionary work and we have a bunch of members coming to appointments with us this week. Hopefully our investigators are really there! We're all also going to ward council now so that's helpful. Before it was just the District Leader and his companion. We really have an amazing ward, and an amazing bishop. He came with us to an appointment last week, and the investigators weren't there, so we took him to visit a less active we've been visiting for 3 months and they were a little surprised we showed up with him, but he ended up giving them both blessings and had a good talk, and they actually came to church this Sunday for the first time in months. I definitely respect the bishop now a lot more than before. What else? Not sure. The weather is heating up and I'm starting to remember how hot and sweaty the fall was and I'm looking forward to the rest of my mission being hot. Yeah! I'm excited for conference this weekend; it will be fantastic to hear some new revelation! Ha ha, just kidding. I'm also looking forward to hearing the apostle voice-overs in Spanish. That should be great! I'm grateful that we can actually watch conference here and that it's at a normal time. The blessings of being stateside I guess! Well everything is still going really well and I'm really enjoying being companions with Sister Lewis and the Hispanic people are wonderful! I don't think I'm growing up at all, but I love being here! Love you all! Have a beautiful week!
Emily and her MTC companion

Spring Time

We have three baptisms coming up this Sunday. Stephanie Mendoza's cousins who are two girls kind of in the same situation as her with a member mom and a non-member dad, and who have been taught on and off for a while, have decided to get baptized. So we're teaching them and preparing them for that. And because they're doing it, Stephanie (and her mom) has finally decided she needs to get baptized, and she's actually going to stand up to her dad about it because the last thing we heard was he didn't want her baptized until she's 18. But if her mom will support her, then she can do it. So yeah! After personally teaching her for almost 7 months, I'm so glad she's going to do it! They're all living like members, just not getting the blessings from being baptized. So this is fantastic. In the mission the goal for every companionship is to have a baptism every transfer; that's the standard and the goal of faith is 2. So we're good to go; any other baptisms are just bonuses. And we plan on having a couple more. We had zone conference this week, and the president always gives us a topic to prepare a talk for and someone's name is randomly picked to talk. That was me. Yeah. “Seeking charity by first loving your companion.” I'm loving, right?

Sister Fatkin took off to her new area last week with her new companion and so we've been a twosome for almost a week now. It's working out really well. Training in a threesome was sort of hard for a while with too many people saying too many things. Sister Lewis and I get along really well and have a lot of fun. She's from Sandy, and has never lived away from home, but she's doing great; I know she misses her family, and that's okay. I'm just trying to keep us teaching. She has a really strong testimony and really cares about people, especially wants to help teenagers. That's probably good, because I guess I feel like I understand the teenagers, or maybe feel like I am one, so I end up being pretty straight forward with them. Sister Lewis is more compassionate. We're a good combination that way I think. Our mission goal is basically to teach 20 lessons a week: 10 other lessons, 5 with a member, and 5 to recent convert/less actives. I love teaching the RCLA probably the most. These are people who either have the fire, or once had it. It's like a little challenge trying to get them to keep or get that fire again. This week we had a lot of those lessons and 5 member lessons and only 6 other lessons. When we don't have someone to teach, or everything is falling through, we try to teach members. We just show up at their house and teach them the lessons. We hope that if they see us teaching them all the time, they'll say to themselves that we should be teaching other people, not them, and then they'll help us find new people. We're working on it. Things are going really well though. It's crazy that general conference is only in 2 weeks. Another conference in Spanish-ah! At least this time I will understand it more. I think my Spanish is still improving. Probably not as rapidly as I want it to, and I still don't sound like a Mexican, but I'm trying. Who knows how long I'll be in a Spanish area;I just want to keep speaking the language and eating their rice and salsa and tortillas. Which by the way dad, I will be able to make you some fantastic salsa that you will love when I get home. I just need some tomatillos-do you think you can grow those? How are all the baby mommas doing? I hope there's a new baby this week! I will celebrate baby Sally's birthday all week, just in case. Take some good pictures for me and send them soon! Oh yeah, and Sprouts, have fun on your cruise!!! Enjoy Mexico---land of my people! Things are going fantastically and I am doing super duper! Love you all!

My New Companion

Emily and the Persimmon Tree


Hi Family! This week was really good. My companion, Sister Lewis, came on Tuesday and we did the little orientation which is actually pretty long. I'm pretty glad now that I didn't do the whole normal orientation. You are just soooo tired and there is waaaay too much info to process.
That night we just had a dinner appointment and a lesson with Leticia, our recent convert, so hopefully it wasn't too much for S. Lewis the first day. She's really nice and willing to give suggestions to me, so I like that. Mostly I just want her to feel like she can say what she does and doesn't like the way we/I do something. She's from Sandy, UT and mostly has worked in a medical office for the last couple of years and taken some classes at SLCC. She's really great and really just wants to be able to share the gospel. It frustrates her that she doesn't feel like she can speak the language. It's an interesting thing to see someone who has just come and kind of see where I used to be. I haven't forgotten how it was frustrating in the beginning, to actually be able to communicate with people, but still, I guess my Spanish is a lot better than where it used to be.
Since S. Fatkin has been here the past week and maybe that was good to ease S. Lewis into the Spanish teaching because she didn't have to do as much. She mostly bore her testimony, said MTC style prayers and shared the first vision. But after Wednesday when S. Fatkin's comp comes in, it will just be the two of us. I'm not worried about her; I know it will take time to learn the language, and lots of patience. This is a really good area to start off the mission I think. This ward is amazing, I really love the people here but then that's what 6 months in one area will do for you.

Emily and her favorite MTC instructor, Sister Alexander

Leticia was confirmed Sunday and that went really well and she just really gets it. She truly is an example of someone who was prepared for the gospel and really wants to learn. I love it! We also found 6 new investigators this week and that was amazing; we didn't find any the week before. And we set a baptismal date with this young guy named Freddy. He asks really funny questions. He asks us where we heard things like living as spirits before we came here. Then we tell him we know from revelation and the scriptures, and he just accepts it. He didn't make it to church though, so he's not exactly solid yet. But we are putting out the commitment to be baptized with a hard date, on the second visit, so not everyone is actually very solid at that point. But if it's right, they will be!
Also, this week the Lopez family came back to church. Silviano (the alcoholic), Nicandra, and the kids. We had dropped them to give them a little time, but were planning on going back this week. But our ward mission leader never understood why we weren't still teaching them, and he called them this week and invited them to his house, and then to church and they came. It's a miracle because that's exactly what should be happening. Members should be involved as friends and continue to fellowship investigators even when we can't be doing the teaching. And it shows that when you have faith to “drop” someone, that you can be blessed for doing it. When Silviano saw us at church, he was very attached to us and kept asking us to come back and that they missed us. You always hope that people notice a difference, but we didn't expect such a reaction from him, because he always used to say that he didn't understand us. He did though. So we're going to go back tonight and eventually start teaching them again. I still believe this family will be baptized, I just don't know when.

Irvine: Shellie's baptism

It's interesting being at the halfway point in the mission; I feel like I finally get it. I get why people love being on missions. It took a while, but I really do love it and also get why missionaries start to think they don't want leave their missions. There's definitely some safety here. Everything's going really well and even though I don't know what will really happen this transfer, I think it will be great! Thanks for everything mi familia!

Greenies and Transfers

Sisters Fatkin, Ochoa and Sanders eating popsicles!

Well we ended the transfer with a baptism. Yeah! Everything with Leticia went really well. We visited her lots last week. She was excited and ready. The baptism was after church, and her son who is a member in the Young Single Adult ward, invited pretty much his whole ward to be there. So the room was full of 26 year old white people. And we had about 15 ward members and ourselves standing out in the hall waiting. So it was a good turn out! She said she feels really good and definitely understands what an important thing she has done. That's exciting! She won't be confirmed until church next week, so in the meantime we will keep teaching. Let's see, other progression. Well, we weren't able to see Stephanie last week much. We finally saw her once and she still kind of wants to be baptized, but honestly she just doesn't have the family support she needs. Her mom is not a very strong member and didn't react much when Stephanie said she wanted to be baptized. And I think she was going to tell her dad last night, but we know he is not at all supportive. So we're hoping and praying we can still get her ready and she can just be baptized this weekend. She's doing everything she should be doing; she's just not getting the full amount of blessings since she's not actually baptized. It stinks
A Hispanic Market

And transfers. Well, S. Dutson has been transferred to yet another new area, with someone who she's already been with, and they're both ending their missions at the end of the next transfer. She was shocked. At least we still live in the same apartment-she so fun. S. Fatkin has been transferred into a new area that hasn't had sisters. And she will be training a Korean sister that's coming from temple square for 2 transfers. But she doesn't come until next week so S. Fatkin will be here for one more week. And I will be training a sister named S. Lewis and staying in this same area. Crazy. So we'll see how that goes! Ha ha ha. At least this way I get to be here for Jung's baptism this weekend. Yeah! And the ward is not losing their piano player, so they're probably not aware of how grateful they should be. Well, I got some fantastic baby news this last week. Yeah baby sprout! Well, I want to say thank you to everyone who is pregnant right now, because all I wanted when I come home is to have new babies to love. Good job! It's all very exciting! Congratulations everyone! Okay, well that's that for now. Things are great and I'm loving it! Thanks everyone, I love you family!
Hermana Sanders with "Big Boy" and Lulu

Hello

Here are some updates on our progressing investigators. Leticia is doing amazing. Before someone has there actual baptismal interview by the DL, the missionaries are supposed to basically do the interview first. That way we know if they are prepared and ready. So we asked her about if she believed in living prophets and President Monson. She said she wasn't sure because honestly, we hadn't done a good job of teaching that to her. Oops? So she immediately said she'd pray about it that night. We came back the next day and shared a little about church organization and watched President Monson's testimony on “Special Witnesses of Christ”. We asked if she had prayed about him and she said “yes, and I felt good.” Honestly we were all saying how we've never had an investigator who understands that they really can pray to get an answer, and then have that investigator also recognize an answer through their feelings. She's amazing! She's just one of those investigators that you don't have to worry about too much; you know she understands everything, even if our Spanish isn't fantastic. She can always reteach us what we taught, but in her own words. That's a first! So she is getting baptized this Sunday and she's invited all her family. Yeah! We finally found Juan Carlos on Saturday-after almost two weeks. It turns out he had been going to a lot of AA meetings. We really hadn't taught him enough to even know he had an alcohol problem. He told us right off that he was going to church and he'd be there at 10:40 and he was taking the bus. But he didn't come. We're pretty sure he just told us what we wanted to hear. And the Lopez family. Well, after stopping by and calling all week-with nothing happening, finally we were walking (stalking?) behind their apartment the other day and the daughter was out on the patio. She came down and let us in. Sounds like they've had a pretty bad week and actually went to a different church. They think their kids like it better there and they just want to go together as a family. We basically let them go. It was realllly hard. The dad was crying and the mom at one point too. But sometimes honestly it is not someone's time. Maybe they're prepared enough for the next missionaries who come by. We had a lot of potential and new investigator that we just didn't get hold of this week. So who knows? We don't have very many progressing right now. One girl we were teaching, Angelica, was doing really well (even though she couldn't go to church because she is always taking care of her 7 month old brother) but we won't see her very much for a while because she is going to go help her 15 year old brother's girlfriend take care of her new baby (ah!) everyday. But we did set a baptismal date with Stephanie Mendoza! We chose March 14, and she said that's her cousin's b-day and she (the cousin) had been thinking of being baptized that day. So it sounds good to us! She basically accepted, and we're going to try hard to get and keep her prepared. Stephanie is doing everything she needs to be doing, everything a member does; she just needs to be baptized to get those blessings! We're doing a whole bunch of exchanges this week-3 or 4 or something. The week is going to fly by. And then we'll get transfer calls this Saturday. I have no clue what's going to happen. We're getting two new sisters and the numbers won't be right for a threesome, and a new area will have to open up, so who knows! I would love to be here for some of our upcoming baptisms (like Jung and Stephanie) but whatever works that will be fine. We've been having a really really good time in our companionship, so it will be sad. I think (?) we are learning a lot from each other and have a lot of fun. Oh well, we'll see what happens! Well familia, things are going fantastic! Good times being a missionary! Happy late birthday Ryan, happy birthday Erin and thank you everyone for the letters and love and prayers! I love you all!