A Mexican Wedding and Baptism

Buenos dias! Let's see. The week went pretty quick after I wrote the last e-mail. We had plenty of time to do some door knocking and found some good people, but are going to have to work hard still to get back in the door and teach entire families.
One week we were walking down the street and this guy, Juan Carlos, in his car stopped us (this has happened a few times before). He used to live in Logan, with a brother, so knows a little about our church. He gave us his info and we said we'd call to set up an appointment. So finally last week we saw him on Friday and brought this girl who's a recently returned missionary in our ward (in Spanish they call them “ex-missioneros” I don't really like that. Why “ex?”). We taught him and his nephew and it went really really good. It's funny because there were four of us teaching, but I really like having this RM with us because we flow really well together. The nephew has grandparents who are members in our stake. I don't know them. But it's just another connection. They say that statistically it takes something like 7 contacts with the church before someone accepts and is baptized. Hopefully this is the seventh time.
After our appointment with him we went to this little taco/pupusa place for dinner, and in walks Juan Carlos to get some pupusas. Funny. He wasn't able to come to church, but I he truly seems interested, or at least has the desire to understand.
The best part of the week though was Alma and Paulo. We taught them and they had their baptismal interview Thursday night. Alma told me that her mother, Maria, isn't too happy with her deciding to get married. That she wasn't really talking to her. Luckily she did come to the wedding, though she didn't come to church or the baptisms the next day. Too bad. I believe she knows the church is true, and knows she needs to be baptized as well, but as a mother, she doesn't want to see her daughter be hurt again (because Alma's already been married and divorced) and so now she's upset and we think that's why she didn't want to get baptized too. Because in the past she said that when Alma could get baptized, that she would do it too. So now we still will be working with Maria, trying to help her.
But, the wedding and baptism were wonderful. It was so great Saturday when they got married. Alma almost never wears dresses to church, but was all dressed up; she's teeeeeeny, so she looked like a dolled-up 13 year old. And Paulo had bought a new tie and white shirt (still had the fold lines in it). It was just a little marriage. Hermano Montiel and his wife were there, bishop and his family, Hermana Acosta (teaches gospel principles and husband is stake pres) was there and another counselor and his wife. They just looked so happy. Of course!
And, we had been able to get in contact really fast with one of the missionaries who taught them when they first moved her last year, and he flew out the next day to be there and baptize them. So it was really special for them. And the baptism was even more amazing. Everyone was just sooo excited for them. They've been waiting so long to do this and you could just see them radiating happiness all day Sunday. I was able to blow up a nice picture of the temple that I have with a frame it for them to have in their house because this is definitely one family that will be going to the temple in a year. I don't doubt it.
And what else? We had some really good fish this weekend. Fish tacos!
Yesterday we had our mission conference. It was good. Elder Packer and his wife were mission presidents in Malaga, Spain a couple of years ago.
There were things in there that I learned that I can improve on. Right now I just really want to improve my teaching abilities. Become that master teacher! And I always love hearing from President and Sister Watrous speak too. They are just such good people.
Tomorrow I'm going on exchanges in the Samoan program. Yeah! So Sister Brown will be coming here to Spanish for the day. It should be interesting to have these three sisters here doing the Spanish on their own. But I think it will be a really good learning experience for them. And I'm excited to speak my native tongue of Samoan, and eat some “pig.”
We don't have any baptisms coming up...yet. But somehow, I know we can have at least one more baptism by the end of the transfer. We're trying!
Oh yeah, earthquakes. We had one a couple of weeks ago. We were teaching Alma and Paulo and all of a sudden I notice their faces were all funny, and then I realized that there was an earthquake. Just a little one. Sister Lewis and Sister Yeom were somehow oblivious to that one. Then Sunday night when we got home we had another earthquake. Like a 5.7 or something. It's too bad how those things excite me. It didn't last too long, but kind of was jerky in the way it moved. It scared my companions. I already know where I would go in our apartment to hide if there was a big one. Sister Dutson figured it all out one time. We have to think about these things, right? I'm pretty sure our apartment will just fall over if anything happens. Ha ha ha.
Love you all, thank you for everything!

Preparation Day

This is what Preparation Day "looks" like:



We are only going to the temple every other transfer now, and when we are scheduled to go, we have p-day. So that is today. We were afraid that we wouldn't make it an extra couple of days without a p-day, but I hardly even missed it. P-days actually end up wearing me out because we're running everywhere trying to get stuff done. And teaching lessons to people is really what energizes you as a missionary.
Anyway, it was fantastic to go to the temple! It's a perfect day today…not too hot, so it was a great day to take pictures.
Last week when we were out knocking, we meet a Korean woman. She was really nice and we taught her; Sister Yeom talked to her in Korean. I listened and tried to invoke the gift of the interpretation of tongues. Didn't work. But the woman also spoke English. It's really fun to teach a variety of people when we can. But in our mission, since we're in the Spanish ward, if we find someone English speaking, we pass them on to the missionaries who are in the English ward they would go to. Sad.
We did a lot of knocking last week; we knocked one complex that had hallways that just looked like a creepy old 70's motel. A lot of people made appointments with us for later but of course they weren't there. Oh well.
We had interviews with the president last week too. That was good. Usually mine last about 2 minutes. He doesn't usually have much to say and I don't really have questions. But this time I asked him about what he thought of our area, and what he was thinking about me staying here. He said he hadn't thought about it too much, but that he was told by Elder Clayton (the area authority here) that wards that have 2 companionships are less successful than those with 1. And we have 3. Sooo, I don't know; I think it's possible that the sisters might get pulled out of here. Who knows. Maybe I can just spend my mission here.
We are teaching some really funny “inactives.” I really love visiting and teaching inactive families and people. One family is just so awkward: the Flores. But they're great. They give us 2% milk when we visit, and when the kids read in Spanish, their dad corrects them on their words the entire time. It's funny how even though these kids who speak both languages (but English for school), have the natural Spanish accents that I would just looove to have; but I can read in Spanish a whole lot better than them. We watched “Legacy” in Spanish with them. Pretty funny. We also visit Hermana Olea, another inactive. Her personality is very American. She has been a nanny for a member family for like 17 years and knows English; through them is how she ended up getting baptized. She makes us dinner on Saturdays. She cooks reeeally good. She tells us how she doesn't like Relief Society, so she won't go to that part of church unless certain a woman is teaching because it just bores her. And she could never be in YWs because she'd “kill them.” She makes us laugh.
Well, we've been trying to commit everyone to be baptized, asking everyone: the new people, the old people, everyone. So we taught Hermana Mendez (remember her?) with her husband for a little FHE on Monday. I like to teach the Restoration with candles. Big one in the middle represents Christ-and we use lots of light scriptures (being power/authority/priesthood) and 12 little tea lights around the candle-being apostles. It's a cool lesson I must say. But it did not work in getting Hermano to accept a baptismal date. He's just very intellectual, and he's read all the scriptures, and pretty much knows it's true. Apparently he's just taking his time. He always says “one of these days, I'm just going to surprise you.” I told him if he wants to surprise me, he might only have 3 weeks to do it (in case I'm transferred). Hermana is going through the temple in June, so it would be great if a year later, they could be going through to be sealed too. We'll see. Monday was a pretty good day I must say though. Tuesday was even better. I played the piano at a funeral! My first Hispanic funeral. It wasn't much different than a “normal” funeral. Someone's mother in another ward passed away so they called me to play. This was our service for the week.
Then we went and visited Araceli. She came to church on Sunday (after like 7 or 8 weeks of random excuses of not being able to come) and her husband came too! Mostly because they were just planning on leaving right after church anyway, and she asked him to do it for Mother's day. We had planned on kind of dropping Araceli yesterday, giving her some time. It's hard to drop people though. I didn't really know how to say it. I think she understood though what we were trying to do, and she was confused. Well, we didn't drop her. Maybe we're not supposed to yet. I don't know what to do with her!
Then later that night, after getting some frozen yogurt (it's amazing here!) we went home and our bishop had been trying to get hold of us. When I called him he said “Hermana, I have some good news for you. Alma and Paulo are getting married Saturday and baptized Sunday.” Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah! They have been taught for over a year, and have wanted to get baptized, but she was just never ready to be married. We've had so many talks with her. They’ve even met our president and his wife; they talked about temples and marriage. I didn't think she wanted to marry him at all. But they live together and have a little girl. It's the miracle of having a ward getting involved. Our bishop has taken them on as his challenge, and he's met with them both several times, and apparently it's helped because we're having a wedding this weekend! So that was a fantastic end to the night! We're also hoping that our El Salvadorenans are getting married and baptized this weekend too, but I don't know if they're ready yet.
So that's that! It's a good week so far! Next Monday we're having a mission conference with Elder Packer (the son, not father), so I won't be writing again until Tuesday.
I love you all mucho mucho and thanks for supporting me and talking to me and loving me!

Love,
Emily

Mung Mung

Sisters Ochoa, Fatkin, Sanders





Hey everyone! Well this last week we had some good lessons. We've been teaching these four people from El Salvador all of whom have a baptismal date. They're pretty funny. Sometimes they seem to get it. They always know they need to be praying and reading, but I have to wonder if they are always praying because they're really not progressing. We brought this very recent RM girl whose parents are in our ward to an appointment too, which was really nice, because there was someone else who spoke Spanish who could answer the questions. It's interesting because being the one who really can speak Spanish in our companionship, I am the one doing a lot of talking because I understand the people, and I can answer the questions. So I'm learning Spanish faster than if I were with a native. But, it sure makes me tired. It's nice to have other people talk, that's for sure. We actually have 7 people with baptismal dates, but none of them came to church this Sunday. Great. Okay, well one did, but she's not sure if she's going to get baptized-I think her dad might not be giving her permission. We had zone conference last week and the focus was completely on baptism. This was motivating but also makes me feel like if we don’t make these baptisms work out, then we failed. Ah! We're doing what we can though, so we'll see. It was kind of a long week, because we had a couple of days when everything fell through. Nobody was around Saturday and Sunday because there was this huge Cinco de Mayo street party going on in our area. Hispanics may say they don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but they're lying. They take advantage of anytime when they can throw gigantic parties. Saturday morning was interesting in companionship planning too because S. Lewis basically freaked out about a lesson we were planning, and didn't like any of the ideas we had, but wouldn't come up with anything else. Seemed like the longest hour of my life. Funny, because the day before she said "Sister Sanders, I know you're stressed. How can I help take some of the stress away?" My answer now would be, "stop freaking out!" Man, sometimes it seems like all companions are not created equal. But then things worked out and she apologized that night. There are rough moments, and there are great moments. So goes the mission, yeah? We went and talked to Yesenia, Abel and Eva last week too. We have an appointment with them this week, so we'll give them another try and see if they're ready to progress. I hope so. Yesenia and Abel were the type of couple I could really see going to the temple, and really that's the goal, not just baptism. Huh. What else? I really need to start thinking of actual interesting things to write in these e-mails. Sorry for the repetitiveness! How is everyone doing? I guess you can all tell me next Sunday when we talk! Ah! Love you family, hope everything is going fantastically for everyone!

Sisters Ochoa, Sanders, and Fatkin

Achicopalada

Hello family! How is everyone doing? I hope everyone is doing great. Weird to think it's almost May! Well, I'm going to try to think of some different things to say in the e-mail today because really basically it's all the same. We are still looking for more people to teach and still trying to get people to keep their commitments, etc. We have some baptismal dates with people---7 of them, but none of them even came to church yesterday, so....we'll see.
We have begun to teach three kids who are nieces/nephew to a bunch of members in our ward. In the way of the Hispanic culture, the entire extended family lives together, and I just never knew who all the extra people were. Now I know and someone else in the ward told me these kids needed to be taught. They are Lupe, Alejandra and Oscar Jacobo. Lupe and Oscar accepted the baptismal date. They're good kids and they definitely have the family/ward support already, but we just aren't sure their mom will give them permission. We also have a new goal in the mission. The very first time we teach anyone, we invite them to be baptized and with a baptismal date. It feels a little crazy, but we'll be doing it. So we knock on someone's door, they let us in, we talk for 15 minutes about whatever and maybe don't even finish the lesson, and maybe they have lots of doubts and are confused, but we still say "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God? We will be holding a baptismal service May 17; will you prepare yourself to be baptized on that day?" I feel a little like we're back in the days of memorizing lessons (even though I don't know what that feels like) because we are supposed to say exactly that because it's from Preach My Gospel. So, I suppose we will be having a lot of baptismal dates being set without all of them happening.
It was a good first week of the transfer though. Sister Yeom is doing well with her Spanish. It seems like everyone, besides English speakers, can pronounce Spanish better because they are used to pronouncing all of their letters. So she can't say much, but she says it with a good accent. Hay que aprender el idioma! Being back in a threesome, well it's familiar. What's new?
Um, a couple of days last week it was over 100 degrees. Hot. But it's cooled down again. People are starting to give us cantaloupe water again, so that is also very good.
We taught this guy Javier last week who is actually a referral from Araceli. He talks a lot. Really slow. We've been trying to set another appointment with him to meet with the elders, but he always wants to explain to me his entire week schedule and by 9:45 at night I'm done talking to him. He leaves messages like "Sister Sanders, it's Javier, it is 9:30 pm, what day is it....um....April 24, I am calling so that we can discuss my schedule for the week. Please call me back so we can chat about this." Except it takes him like 5 minutes to say that.
I think that as a missionary, my attention span has gotten pretty bad. I can't focus for too long. And now I am the one who people usually ask to talk to on the phone because they know I can speak to them. Sometimes I am "Hermana Sander" sometimes "Hermana Sandra." They have a hard time with the "rs" together. Ryan, could people say your name?
We got a new car to drive: a brand new Toyota Corolla that is silver. We are working on naming it. We had a Ford Fusion named Jorge earlier. I am thinking Pepito for the Corolla.
And that's my week!

Transfers, New Companions, Teaching

Hermanas Duston, Fatkin, and Sanders





Last week was a good week. We did a LOT of knocking. I feel like we have been doing lots of door knocking all transfers. One week we got 9 new investigators from that, last week, only two-and on the last day of the week. It's crazy. Can't pay toooo much attention to numbers. We did not have our weddings/baptisms this weekend. Que lastima. Sad. Araceli doesn't feel spiritually prepared. Or so she says. I don't think many 8 year olds are very prepared, but when you know its right, it's right. She also didn't have time to meet with us this last week, but we still stopped by randomly anyway and she said "que milagro!" Testigos de Jehovah have been stopping by and talking to her fairly regularly-like us, since at least when I first started my mission. But I forget that they visit her. Apparently she finally told them last week that they just can't come by anymore and that they're confusing her because they always come and say bad things about our church-because they know she meets with us. She says she feels really good about not seeing them anymore, and that she slept better that night. Huh. Well, hopefully she will be able to progress even more now. Alma and Paulo. Well, Alma's still not ready. I don't know what she needs though. With some people it's this guessing game. Guess the doubt/real problem. Usually I'm good at guessing games, but sometimes it is hard! We saw our Jung for the last time on Saturday. She is leaving for Korea in two days. I promised her that I will be going out to visit her next year. Either in time for cherry blossom season or in the fall. Anyone want to go to Korea? I was lucky to be able to meet with her and teach her for the last 4 months, and I will really miss her. She's just crazy and funny. Mostly she calls me "Sanders" but sometimes it's randomly "Emily." She makes me laugh. We have some member referrals that we're checking on this week that I'm pretty excited about that; there is definitely baptism potential for one of them this transfer. We are also teaching these four young people: three from El Salvador (all family), and one is a boyfriend from Mexico. They're really funny and enthusiastic and actually came to church on Sunday. We were really excited. Hopefully things go well there. Meanwhile we are still just looking for new people and keep visiting recent converts and those less actives like I love to do. Yeah! Well I am sticking around here for another transfer. I think that will be like eight months at the end of this transfer. Man. I had the fear that I would be training again, because the sister coming in is in intermediate Spanish. But President always seems to surprise us. Instead Sister Yeom, who came in February, will be joining us here. It will be crazy; she's still sort of learning English. I can't seem to escape the threesome. I'm guessing that I will be out of here the next transfer, so the pressure is on to make sure I do my best to help these sisters feel comfortable in their Spanish, and feel like they can do the work in this area. I'm definitely not fluent at this point, but I'm working on it. Sometimes my mouth just gets tired of speaking a foreign language. Ah! When missionaries go home tired I don't think it's because of a lack of sleep but just because they're worn out. I'm feeling it coming on! Okay familia, I love you all muchisimo! Que tengan una maravillosa semana!

My District from January 17 - March 2009

Easter Week

Hello my family! Well, I'm not sure what to say. It's been a different sort of week, huh? It was kind of interesting to start of my week last week with the knowledge that Erin was in the hospital and probably going to lose little Taggart. It definitely made me aware of different things all week. I thought a lot about the Plan of Salvation. I thought it was ironic how for me, one of the themes that I thought I recognized in conference was that the Plan was talked about many times. Before, whenever we taught the Plan to people, well, I always knew it was true. But I think now it is even different and more real to me. Sometimes you have to gain a real testimony of these principles that we teach people. And I've been reminded even more about how blessed we really are. How blessed I am.


Well, we're still waiting on our baptisms with Araceli and Cibelly and Alma and Pablo. Their dates are coming up this weekend, but the marriage thing has to happen for both of them first. We'll see. I still believe it's possible, but they have to take that step of faith. It's hard. Jennifer and Jessica got baptized this weekend. Stephanie said she wasn't going to get baptized because she ended up having the same "problem" that Jennifer had the first time we postponed the baptism. But this time it wasn't going to be postponed. It was really nice and so special for their family. Our ward mission leader-their uncle, and his family, and the girls' mom have been waiting for years for this to happen. I'm so happy for them. I was sad for Stephanie though. Because I know she wants this. But she also told us that her Dad said she needs to wait another couple of months. Another couple of months could really mean a year. I'm sure she was disappointed to not be baptized with her cousins.
Sunday S. Lewis and I taught Relief Society. Wow, never been something I've aspired to do. Especially in Spanish. Especially teaching these women how to be missionaries. I don't think they got the message we were really trying to get across, but at least we didn't have a mental breakdown trying to prepare for it.
Then the elders had a baptism after church. With the baptisms this weekend, especially on Saturday, I kept thinking how interesting it was that these people were being cleansed, getting a chance to live with Heavenly Father again, while you were all together at little Taggart's funeral, and he is already in the Spirit World waiting. Wow. Having those baptisms at the same time made it really special to me. Hmm, what else.
We found quite a few new investigators last week, so that was really good. Hopefully they'll actually be pretty solid. We'll see. We also lost quite a few investigators last week, so we're really searching for those who are ready. Well things are going really good here. Last week of the transfer, I'm not sure where I'll be/with who next week, but I'm not too worried. I would just really love to spend my whole mission in Spanish. My old companion Sister Dutson and her comp are leaving next week, and I really don't want them to go. It just reminds me of how much time is just flying by.
Well my family. I love you all so much. I would've so loved to have been with you all on Saturday, and all last week. But I was thinking about everyone. Thank you all for you love and support. I'm pretty sure we are more blessed as a family than we can sometimes handle!

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