We Too Can Be Great Examples

the family that we baptized last week. They are so cute. They are great, the 14 is such an example to everyone. She is reading her scriptures out loud becuase her mom doesnt know how to read so she is reading so her mom can learn. Also she invtited her 17 old boyfriend who is of another faith to church with her this week. It was a little bit of a battle because her dad didn´t know she had a boyfriend. I told her it´s best if he knew and we helped her tell him. He said well lets go to church and see how things are, and sunday he was there in church. I didn´t get the chance to talk to him becuase I was running off to class but it was a great example to me of how we can be missionaries and when we know that something is true, that something that can bring happiness into our lives and can help other people when we are sharing it it can truely bless our lives and the lives of others.

We had to talk in church yesterday and I spoke on Testimonies and read out of true ot the faith. What is a testimony, how can we develope one, how do we know when we have one. I shared stories about little kids bearing their testimonies solo of what they hear. I love heavenly father and the profeta and my family en the name of Jesus Christ amen. I also told them that when we are sharing our testimonies with others we are strengthing our own. That even when people ask us some little thing when we answer we get a little bit more oil in our tank and we grow. I shared how before the mission I would pray for missionary experience, I got to thinking about it and really I didn´t have very many with people who I found on the street, or people I didn´t know. It was more with family and friends. I remember I had alot of chances to testify about the love of our savior, also about the book of mormon, about the atonement. There were so many text messages, conversations and moments that I got to testify and those were my missionary experience. Sometimes we think we need a huge long testimony about something but really it can be something small and simple but very powerful. I want you all to pray to have these experience and listen to the spirit to guide you so you can testify in the moment that you need to. I promise the Lord will help you and you will know what to say in the moment that you need it.

This week has been a little bit better for us, we are just working hard and trying to find new people to teach and also help our recent converts. Satan knows our plan and doesn´t want us to succeed at this. We want to have 100% retention this month and satan doesn´t want us to have that. Ugh our recent converts I have no idea what is going on. The strong ones that were always int he church are the ones who know don´t want to go. I know again and again I get to see that when we are obedient and when we are doing the little things in our lives we are blessed and our testimonies are strengthened. For example one hasn´t taken the sacrament for over 2 months and now she doesn´t want to go to church and is hiding from us in the mornings when we come around to get her. Another doesn´t read is scrptiures and we found him drunk off his chair saturday and sunday. Alot of others satan just goes to work when we think we can let things slide for just a little bit. Always keep your guard up. Satan does all he can to take us away from our blessings of the gospel.

This change has been very trying for me and I am growing alot. I am learning even more and I am being tested and tried in ways I never would of thought of. But I know I am becoming little by little the person that our Heavenly Father wants me to be. I know that he is there for me and that he is blessing me and helpoing me in every way possible. I am extremely grateful and happy for him and for the Love that he has for me.

This week also in church David I don´t know if I have told you guys about him. He is a less active who wants to know everything. He wants to know everything about everything and just is super confused about things so he quit going to church. We have met with him and his wife a few times teaching them and just trying to help him feel the spirit. We haven´t gone to his house for like a week because we have just been busy but when we were on our way to church today His daughter passed us and told us she has an announcement that her dad was going to come to church! I was like WHAT? I didn´t get the chance to talk to him because he left really fast but we are going to go by and talk with him I was so happy that he came. I gave him homework last time to start reading the book of mormon I think he has been doing that and has been feeling the spirit in his life again, I think that might of helped with him coming back. Or maybe the question he little boy had in our lesson if he was feeling the spirit and if the spirit was talking to him when we were talking. I love the little kids and I love the spirit and the Lord and how he works. He works in many marvouls ways.

I love this work and I love being a missionary. This church is true and the book of mormon will change your life when you read it I PROMISE you. If you don´t believe read it, read it this week and if you don´t feel anything different or if you don´t feel that your week went better or you recieved more blessings email me and tell me so that I can start telling everyone here in Nicaragua that I´m a liar.

I love you all. Have a great week and keep up the faith and the spirit with you.

Things Do Come Around

After a bad week of just feeling really low things have started to bring them self around again. This week started out pretty well with our super hermanas pday and listening to marriage advice. I didn´t dare have the guts to tell president that I didn´t want to get married after his talk. He gave us for Christmas a book with all the pictures of missionaries so that when we get home we can look them up.. How funny is that our mission president is giving a dating catalogue.

Tuesday we woke up at the crack of dawn to take a bus 2 hours away for interviews with president. I honestly was ok with it becuase i love president and well the bus is fine we can sleep and relax and it´s fine. I was dyin this bus ride tho I was done being on the bus after the day before and then again tuesday. Anyways wel went in for our interviews and I was the first one of like 50 missionaries to go. I loved it tho I love my mission president and talking to him and getting his advice and his help. I told him how i felt, how I feel like I´m not having success and I just feel frustrated and he gave me great advice and comfort and helped me feel alot better about myself we takled a little more about life and about everything. I shared the experience about matt and I at the temple when we were younger and he enjoyed that. We then had other classes and just learned about using little children to our advantage while we are teaching and we are angels and how we need to be more like missionaries in the scriptures serving and helping and defending and with faith. It was a good lesson. We got home at 8 at night it was a super long day.

We are teaching a lesson active and his wife trying to help her come to church. He has alot of problems becuase he was another religion before and so is very confused with things and wants to know everything and we know that we can´t. We know we need to have faith and learn little by little we cant eat the whole cow at once. So we are trying to help him understand little by little. We were reading a chapter in the book of mormon and David thats his name is just kinda ok ya feeling the spirit because he hasn´t been reading the book of mormon for a while. SO I know he is feeling something. His little boy is just bugging him for money so he can buy a pop and buggin and buggin. Finally he asks me what the Holy Ghost is. the little boy. I was like umm.... How am I going to explain this to him. Then we were like 3 feet away I started to whisper he couldn´t hear me so I moved closer he still couldnt hear me so he moved closer till I whispered in his ear. I told him this is how the holy ghost speaks to us softly and to our minds and our hearts. He asked a few more questions then asked me if it was speaking to me right now. I told himto ask his sister who is a member and goes to church all the time. He didn´t he asked his dad. Dad is the spirit speaking to you right now? I just sat there with a huge smile on my face like ok answer him. I think the spirit taught all of us more then what we were teaching this day. How the spirit talks to us and how we can reconigize it. He didn´t answer his son he just said I will explain more to you later. the little boy is like 6 years olD. Anyways I asked him if he would say our prayer he told mehe didn´t know how to pray. I told him go ask your sister to help you pary. Again he didn´t he went to his dad and his dad helped him. I was like what a great expierence we got to have with this little boy. Hermana arredondo was right to have us get help from little kids and from heaven.

We had our baptism this week of Luis, Luisa and Ana! Honestly they are amazing we went to their house and I straightened her hair and did her make up for her wedding. We had 2 wedding and 6 baptisms becuase the other hermanas wanted to do it with us. It was packed but a great sight to see. My computer wont let me send you pictures so next week I will. Luis and Luisa have lived together for 22 years have drank coffee and liquir their whole lives her coffee him beer and never have been married. It was great to see them both so nervous to get married but so cute and happy. They invited a few friends who aren´t members to come and see and it was just great. They wanted he other family to get baptized first but then they did. Luis had a metting for work the next day and he was going to be late for sacratment metting I was like ok we can just confirm you a little later. I thought oh no we might have trouble with this but where is my faith? He came earlier then we thought and was so happy. He got the holy ghost and then went to class.

They saved us part of their cake because we were fasting so we went over last night so we can eat it with them and I asked what they were learning about. He pulled out a piece of paperhe had been taking notes on and was telling us everything. He told us he is going to buy a new white shirt so he can go to church with his shirt and tie and also glasses so he can read becuase the ones he has give his a headache and he wants to read so he can answer in class. He has been sober for over 3 weeks now and honestly its just a amazing story the lord knows who is prepared and who isn´t and when we listen our lives can be blessed as well. I love this family and am so happy for them they are going to go far in the church and thats what I wanted. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father to let me have this blessing after a hard time. I know that he hears our prayers and that he helps us out after we have done all we can.

I love this gospel and I love being able to a part in the lives of those whos lives are changing and to be able to see it. i love this work even thou it´s frustrating and hard it´s so worth it and I wouldn´t trade it for anything. I love you all ad hope you have a great week.

Elder Nelson

This week as you all know we were able to listen to Elder Nelson of the quorum of the 12. It was really a very neat and great experience that I was able to have. So far in my mission I have been able to personally meet Elder Ballard and elder Nelson. We got to have a lot of time in the morning to get ready which was a great part. My daughter as you can see in pictures before had a different sense of style and well I am my mothers daughter and we had a great day having a spa day in our house. Straighten hair, plucking eyebrows, doing makeup I LOVED IT. I was in my zone doing the hair and make up and everything.We got there and waited around forever because i´m sorry to say but the mission south is not very organized so we just were crazy then we got in sat down and waited. When Elder Nelson entered the room you could feel the spirit and everything just change about everyone. We got to shake his hand and his wifes hand and then we sat down. The first hymn we always sing in conferences like this is called to serve. At this time it was about 130 in the afternoon maybe a little later. I opened my mouth and started to sing called to serve in Spanish but didn´t make it very far into the song before my eyes started to tear up and the thought came into my head that Mat and I are both now singing this song together. I fought my way through called to serve telling myself i was not going to cry here! We finished and the conference was under way.

We got to listen to area president and his wife, first our mission president who I love so much, he spoke about the gospel and how it blesses lives and just bore a really strong testimony about it. Then the area president Felabella and his wife they as well just bore brief testimonies then we got to listen to sister Nelson and also the best part is that they don´t speak spanish so we got to listen to them in english which I love spanish but i love things in english as well. Anyways she asked us what we did in heaven so that we can be serving here in Nicaragua that she would love to see the video of what we were doing so that we can serve here but also so that we can remember who we are and what we agreeded to up there. I thought about it because it´s not only for me, what I did to be able to serve here but what we all did to be able to be born in the USA to be able to be born to this family, to be able to live free and with food with work we are so blessed because of the decisions that we make daily. So spoke to us about using the people from the other side of the veil in our teachings to talk about them and to ask about them so that their spirit can be present with us. They are a huge blessing and help to us in this work. It was a really good talk she is super sweet and nice very well spoken as well.

Elder Nelson is funny. He had us stand up for different things and there was a super short missionary standing up that he couldn´t see but the other missionaries were pointing out. He asked straight up are you standing up? Why are you so short? just things that I was like WHAT? but honestly it is just like a little kid honest and bold and straight forward I was dying laughing. But he spoke to us not like we were in a conference I felt like he was just talking to us like we are his friends. He spoke to us about the work and if we had just one sentence what would that sentence be to share with someone and he talked to us about just teaching and getting to know people and to really care about them. Then he was teaching us about how we can study more about Christ and he taught us about the life style of Christ and the scriptures from the Book of Mormon it was really a very uplifting and great conference I really enjoyed it.

Pepi is doing good, he didn´t come to church this week but we found him a friend because he is super lonely and they are going to go and visit him so that he can feel more love and happy. We have 6 families that we are teaching, I am just working and trying to follow the spirit and help these people really make changes in their lives. I love this work but it´s very frustrating. Anyways we have a family her name is Linda and his is Omar and they are super sweet her dad is a member she has a desire to learn and is readying the Book or Mormon and just loves when we read with her. another family is Luis and Luisa they as well are super kind they came to church with us yesterday and just have so many questions but just understand everything and are like ya that makes sense and just are very chill. Maricele is to complete a family and she has listened to missionaries before but her husband is less active we are trying to help activate him and baptize her their daughter is a member and is great but they just are struggling the others are starting to cook we just met them but things are going good. I love teaching when we have appointments the time goes by so fast but when we are just contacting it doesn´t. This week we have been running from every end of our area because the appointments we had but it´s great.

The other Hermanas had another baptism and I love them!! I love seeing the people come out of the water and while they are standing int he water nervous but super happy. This gospel really changes lives and bring happiness to our lives. I love it so much. I am so blessed and happy to be serving a mission and to be sharing this message with everyone here. Pray for these families please and pray that we will be able to find more so that we can be lead to who is ready.

Family please be careful with satans traps he is fighting to take away our salvation and our happiness. The things that only give us happiness for a day or a hour or a week don´t last. The things of the world aren´t things that we can take with us into the next life. Remember to be strong and to do the things you know your whole life. To read, to pray, to listen we are only trying to help you not make things harder their is always a way out remember who you are a daughter and a son of a king you are prince and princesses don´t settle for anything less then royalty.

I'm A Trainer

I am now training and new missionary. Her name is Hermana Queme and she is from Guatemala. Honestly I feel I don't know, very stressed out, very not ready for this and a lot that I need to change. I'm happy for this chance I have because I need there are things I need to change to make me a better person and this is going to be one for those things.

She is very very quiet. She is a white personality and well I don't know if I mesh well with them but its going to be good. There will be almost like another Hermana. Evans running around here in Nicaragua. We will be together here for 2 changes so its going to be great.

The work is going good, this week really we focused a lot on our recent converts we went around teaching and visiting them kinda like I had planned on doing before but just didn't get around to. But so we visited them and then Sunday came around. Always on Saturday a lot of people are like ya we are going to come to church with you, ya this, ya that ya come by for us and then they bail. We were able to take a less active to church today who is a mom of our recent convert. She is really sick and hasn't been able to go to church for a few months now, but we got her to come with us and she enjoyed it.

We were sitting in the church and in walks Pepi who I just love. He loves going to church and leaning. But he came in then another investigator came in, and then one after another after another of our recent converts came walking in. I was like wow what a blessing that we have. We had 10 out of our 17 recent converts in church yesterday.

... So we had to give a talk and prepare a class for the same day. I spoke on Obedience and

the blessings that we recieve from being obedient and just scriptures about obedience. Like the ones in D&C the lord is bond when we do what He says. and I love one in 105:6 where the Lord tells us that His people need to learn obedience and he does help us to learn it when we are given tests and trials. also I really like the scripture in 1 Nephi 2:3 where it explains what is obedience. I read out of the true to the faith and just talked how Jesus was perfectly Obedient with the Atonement and how we need to be obedient so that we can receive blessings and we can be happy. We are given these rules to make us free and to help us so that we can become better people and show our love for Heavenly Father.

I love this quote from Presdient Arredondo- "When we are obedient we receive blessings, but when we are obedient with exactness we receive miracles." It's so true when we are doing everything in our power we receive miracles but when we think, oh it doesn't matter oh no I don't need to obey this tiny little thing it doesn't work and we don't get the blessings and miracles we could of had.

I am learning a lot about the Book of Mormon. I swear each time we read it there are new chapters of verses that are just put in there for us. I am now in Mosiah and am reading and study about baptism, before about our next life. I love it, I had the idea while I was studying that I was going to teach the primary the plan of salvation. I drew circles and everything and labeled. It was going well until the little boys in the class decided they didn't want to listen anymore and
well I had had enough and kicked them out of class. They went to the priesthood with the adults. I asked them after class how it was, and they said they hated it. I asked how are you going to be next week? They said good. Will see how it goes, maybe another week in the other class and then they might behave. Its so hard because they don't have any respect for anyone and they don't listen but they are going to learn. With me and another sister we are going to teach and train these people to be a lot better

Yay New Converts

This week oh my was different. So we started off the week with killer retention with our recent converts and just working our butts off so we can have families that we are teaching and families we can take to church. But I just want to tell you a few experiences that I had this week.

1 I go into my room to change my clothes in the morning, close the door am in there for not even 5 min go to leave and I cant open the door! I thought the Hermanas I live with were playing a joke on me until they tried opening it and couldnt get it opened. I was like oh my how funny is this going to be with our numbers in the night time sorry elder we couldnt leave to work today becuase Hna. Evans couldnt come out of the room. For the next 15 minutes we had everyone trying to get me out, they were trying different keys, different ways of turning the handle just everything and no luck, I was sitting on my bed crying becuase I was laughing so hard, finally they just got a hammer and broke the handle off and I came out. So thats how my day started we came back in the afternoon to get something and they were like look we saved your life today, I was like ya thanks I know I couldnt leave the room. They were like no look by your door. By our front door was this big scorpin! I was like what the heck is going on? I told him thanks again for saving my life and we went to work but not contacting or teaching. Hna. Arredondo called me at 4 in the afternoon and said I neede dto find the presidents of the primary, relief society and the young women so that we could have a meeting at 6. We spend an hour looking around the whole area to find this lady so she could be there. Finally at 6 oclock we found her in the street and she said she was going to be there. It was a great meeting, she taught us how to work in these areas and things we need to do and how things need to run it really gave me a drive to work in one of those areas but it quickly wore off sunday when I was back in the primary. Anyways so we finish the meeting and we go back to our house and there is a huge tranchula right above my suit case. I was like what is going on here in this house today never have we had this kind of problems. we killed it and went to bed.

The next day the other hermanas had a baptism that they had us go set the church up and get everything ready so we are at the church at 4 and got everything ready and people are showing up and we are just waiting for them so they can get married and baptized. We get a call at 430 saying the lawyer is an hour away and we arent going to have this till like 6. We were like crap what are we going to do because there are people here and we cant just leave the church so we had an investigator there and we decided hey we are jut going to teach him so we went into a room with just 7 of us, a guy in our ward got a great idea that he was going to invite everyone to join who is there so he invites everyone we have like 12 people and it was fine we just taught lesson one about the restoration while we wer teaching more and more and more people started coming in. When we finished the lesson there was probably 25 people in our lesson it was pretty good because they were all reminded what this lesson was and everyone learned something new. Finally we got the wedding and baptism over with and we were taking our numbers at night. I looked down on my skirt and there was another huge brown tranchula on my skirt. I flicked it off and we were trying to kill it but it got away we dont know where but it got away. We cleaned our house today for pday to try to get rid of those nastey things. Anyways it was quiet an adventure we had this week.

Pepi is doing ok, he was a little ticked at the elders for telling him he had to get baptized this week and was not going to keep coming to church but we went and smoothed things over and everything is ok with him and he came to church this week. it was so cute there was like a old peoples club in the corner of church I wish I would of had my camera.

We have other families we are teaching and well please pray that they will have a desire to progress and to go to church. I feel there is alot of stress and pressure on me to baptize and to just be amazing because Im training but I know its in the lords time and when these people are ready. We met a really neat lady last week named Lilian.

We have been teaching her and put a goal with her to get baptized the first lesson. She never gave us a direct answer when we wanted her to get baptized and if she got an answer. We were teaching her the other day and I had the idea to have her pray. She prayed to know if this church was true and if she could know. It was the sweetest and most sincer prayer just simply asking to know. We taught about the 5 principles of the gospel and about baptism and I asked her after if she would get baptized or what she thought about baptism. She was quiet for a min and didnt answer then she said she didnt know I asked what she thought and she told me she knows this church is true, she knows its real and that she needs to get baptized she is just scared there are going to be alot of tests and trials that come from that. we taught her its part of life and that everything is going to be ok. She didnt come to church with us this week I think satan is working on her but we are going to be working harder.

We were leaving that lesson and I turned back around and we contacted her son and his wife that live int he same house. Linda is the wife and her dad is a memeber they are super sweet and just love learning they need a little extra help but things are going to be good for them. Im excited she loves the book of mormon and we gave her one the other day and she is reading I know she is going to know these things are true.

Another great experience we had we have been teaching jessica and her mother in law and sister in law but her husband never comes and joins us. We were teaching them on Wedensady and he came out and was present in the lesson. It was a tender mercy to me that Heavenly Father is hearing our paryers and preparing his people.Again another family you guys could please pray for.

I love this work and the miracles that take please in it. The answer to prayers and the strength we recieve from it. Its hard and I learn daily, my faith is tested but like the scripture after the trial of our faith we recieve the testimonies.

Ive been reading in Mosiah this week and learning so much, its amazing how when we are reading we find new things that we feel like they were never there before. I wish everyone could just read the book of mormon and have the desire to read. I love the first part of the book of mormon the introduction its amazing. We were teaching an investigator with it and I asked him to read where it says its the only true book and we will become closer to God by reading it. I asked him what he learned and he said its the only true book I asked why we should read it and he said to get closer to God. I asked if he was going to read it and he said yes I need to to know and to learn. I love how it simply says we can read it and pray to know its true and that we invite all the read it. it doesnt matter if you are a member or not all of us can read and know if these things are true. This gospel blows me away daily and Im so grateful and happy to have it in my life.

Trials and Tests.

My whole mission I have been teaching people that trials and tests are part of life, to show our commitment and our love for the Lord. We chose to come here to this life to be tested and tried so that we can live with our Heavenly Father again. I know this stuff and know that it is true. I also know the mission is not easy. It´s not for wimps.
I´ve started having back pain in Augusto and I just thought it was my little tumors and things would be fine. I only had a little more time left and ya. As you know I was sent home and treated with for a buldging disc in my back and little by little was nursed back to heal. I had the wonder miracle take place and I was able to come back to my same mission and same area where I was before. I struggled with a little bit of pain but thought it would just go away.
2 months back into the mission and I´m in the same place I started. I am at a pain level I can´t explain. Everyone kept telling me when I passed kidney stones that was like back labor. I can´t tell you the kind of back labor/pain I am feeling right now. I think I will easily be able to handly back labor.
I talked to my mom and then to my mission president about what was going on and how I felt. I told him I would like a blessing and he gave me one. I thought feeew ok my part in done I will be healed and ready to give it my all the last 4 months of my mission. I got on a bus and headed one. By the time I made it one I was in tears curled up in a ball trying to get rid of the pain that I felt. I thought this should be gone, everyone is praying for me, I´m praying and fasting and I just got this blessing Hello...
I continue to be taught it´s not my timing but it´s the Lords timing and I need to have faith in him. I´ve had to keep reminding myself everyday when I think I can´t leave the house becuase of the pain I am in, that faith without works is dead. I guess I was a little inspired when I put the scripture after the trial of your faith you will have a testimony either 12:6. I have had many trials of my faith but I am thankful for each one of them.
I was in the hopsital the other day recieving teatment, or just getting shot up with pain meds to help with my pain. The doctor told me that I can´t walk so much, I was like ummmm. I don´t think you understand I am a missionary thats what we do all the time. But I can´t walk so much, I can´t get on buses, I can´t carry heavy things the usual then she told me that I needed to lose weight. I was just like oh thank you. But it´s true maybe it will help. Anyways I got put on bed rest again for 2 days and we are waiting to see what the doctor says when we get my test results sent here and then to the hospital.
I know the Lord has me in his hands and that everything is going to be ok. I will be fine and this test will have it´s end at some put. I was talking with a missionary today and boy does satan want me to fail or what. The missionary told me that Heavenly Father knows my pain, and knows whats best. That I can go home now and get released when honors. I laughed and told him I didn´t come this far to give it up and throw in the towel now. I only have 4 more months left I´m going to finish. After we finished talking satan was right there to tear me down. That I wasn´t doing anything here, why was I here in the mission, that I was just sitting around and that my presdient and his wife were goign to think the same thing and blah blah blah. I really hate satan. But I got over it quickly after reading and thinking a little more. I am suppose to serve for 18 months and I´m here for a reason. Heavenly Father knew what was going to happen before I even came back and he sent me back here so there is a purpose for me. I just need to be patient and figure it out. I´m also learning patience and well everything I struggle with now.
I love this work and I love the trials and tests we get to pass to make us better people and to strengthen our testimonies that we have. I wouldn´t have it any other way.