"We have all these new good ideas which are super exciting and marvelous for a missionary but for normal people are probably incredibly unextraordinary"

Monday October 20, 2014

Thanks for your email:) Glad someone is reading my emails and I'm not just arbitrarily writing to nobody. The treasure hunt sounds soo fun! Wish I could be there to participate but I'm a little busy trying to talk to people and sweat to death. Actually, the weather has been really nice this past week. And by really nice I just mean that we stop melting at about 2 or 3 every day cause then it starts raining. I can't wait to come home and be dry for the first time in like a year. 

WELLLL this week... was the last week of the transfer. Next week we have cambios and who knows who's going to leave. Kinda nerve racking. But we got super organized and have all these new good ideas which are super exciting and marvelous for a missionary but for normal people are probably incredibly unextraordinary. But so we are getting the hang of these transfers and I'm learning the area better and we have started going to divisions with members of the ward which is fun and we have all these big plans that supposedly are going to come to pass (according to our missionary leader) but we'll see how that works out. Jasmin is on board to be baptized the 8th of January!!! Everyone pray for her!!! I love her she's so stinkin' cute. She came to church yesterday and totally participated in the gospel principles class and came to Relief Society and everything! I'm so proud of her.

ok other stuff..... let me think...

OH so yesterday we went to visit that guy Miguel, (the one from the comvi remember?) And turns out he's still super awesome, but he just needs to come to church so PRAY for him please!?! But we went to visit Miguel and he brings us out this tray of cookies and apple juice, and I was like shoot. Because I'm fasting and I didn't want to offend him but I didn't want to tell him that I was fasting either so I was like "Hermana Nunez hurry eat a bunch of cookies so it looks like I ate some too!!!" And she's like OK!! So when he leaves the room she starts shoving cookies in her mouth and then she's like here put some in your bag!! So we are randomly shoving cookies wherever they will fit before he comes back in the room. So that's the story of why there's a bunch of broken cookies in my companion's scripture bag. 

ALSO pray for Manuel cause this guy is so dang stubborn!!!! He knows he needs to get baptized cause he's told us and he has read like half the Book of Mormon already and he comes to church, but he's just scared to get baptized!!!! 

Ok well that's about it for today. I wish you all the best of luck in your endeavors and hope that you can find happiness in the most unlikely circumstances!!:D

HS

"The Lord works in mysterious ways! And missionaries work in the Lord's ways. So that's why missionaries are so mysterious sometimes I guess.."

Monday October 13, 2014

So we just passed week four in Chichen Itza. I think... Gosh I can't keep track of time, it's all going so quickly!! 

Welllllll this week was good and eh. It wasn't bad 'cause nothing is ever bad on the mission. Except for those very rare times when it is. But those are super rare!!!! ANYWHO it was eh because we had no time to be in our area teaching 'cause practically every single day we had some meeting or something where we had to travel or do divisions or something. AND the days that we had divisions, I stayed here in the area and HN left, and ALL of our planned lessons fell through.. And then like nobody could talk to us. Or I guess they just didn't want to. But it was all good 'cause I got to know the Hermanas really well. 

 Sam and Hermana Nunez

"Funny picture of some minions. These things are actually like a big deal here.. I went on divisions with an hermana that had  her towel and camera case and everything was of minions..."

We had interviews with President on Saturday and so we went to Centro cause the interviews are ALWAYS in the offices, so we assumed this would be the same, turns out they weren't. He came to our stake center to do them so we took a trip all the way to Centro and back for no good reason right? NOPE! So we're in this comvi (Its like a little van that fits like 12 people and everyone sits on the benches facing each other.  Everyone's just sitting there not talking, when HN says "Do you want to contact them all?" And I was like "Ok!" but not really sure how to start a conversation with every single one of them. And she suddenly starts talking to them all like "Good afternoon, we are the missionaries of ......" And just talking about the message, and it felt pretty awkward at first but I think I've grown so used to being that weird missionary that keeps trying to talk to people even if they don't want anything that I guess it didn't really phase me. Anyways so nobody wanted us to take their address to go visit them, (And there was even this one old guy who started randomly talking about his Bible and I think he was trying to bash the Book of Mormon or something but he didn't even really make sense...) but HN saw one other guy looking somewhat interested I guess so when we got off she followed him and was like "Hey do you want a Book of Mormon?" And he didn't accept it but he said he was actually really interested in the concept that there could possibly be another book other than the Bible, so he gave us his address and we said we were going to visit him one day. His name's Miguel. But before we left we like bore our testimonies of the book and Joseph Smith and everything and left. THEN yesterday we just visited him and turns out he's actually like super prepared and accepted a baptism date and everything! And had been researching and reading the pamphlet we gave him and like already knew the whole first vision part and was explaining it to us before we even got to that point!!!

Sam and Hma Velasquez

"This morning we made caballeros pobres which is like super delicious Mexican style french toast that's way unhealthier than french toast from the States"

AGH so I'm running out of time but it was just a really cool experience and I keep remembering something that someone said that President quoted (sorry don't remember who) but he said "testify of Joseph Smith, even if they throw rocks at you." Haha well it's just a really powerful subject and I know that his name alone can bring the Spirit into a conversation. 

So the week ended good, with 3 new investigators that have potential:)

The Lord works in mysterious ways!

And missionaries work in the Lord's ways.

So that's why missionaries are so mysterious sometimes I guess..

Those are my wise words for the day. 

Shout out to my mom for her birthday!! Happy birthday mommy!!! Love you!!

HS

Conference has never been so exciting as it is here on the mission!

October 6, 2014

Soo conference weekend!!!!

Conference  has never been so exciting as it is here on the mission [Twice a year the LDS church has general conference where we hear from the prophet and his apostles- link here ]. ESPECIALLY this time around 'cause we got to watch all of it in English!!! It's really amazing how much you get out of conference when you get to hear it in your native tongue. We got to hear it in English because both the zone  leaders are gringos, and there are 9.5 gringos total in our zone. (HN is the .5, she can't really decide if she's Mexican or American.) So everyone in the whole stake comes to the church to watch conference because they project it in the sacrament meeting room, but the zone leaders decided to go sweet talking the stake president into letting them use the high council room to watch it in English, haha...so that's what we did!  It was a fun little English private conference watching party in the air conditioned high council room! Haha it was way fun, everyone just talked English the whole time and it felt a  little weird at first but it was way cool and we could talk about the talks we liked and stuff.  It was good because there are a couple of newer missionaries that are still learning Spanish and would not have gotten anything at all out of the Spanish. But I swear only missionaries could get so excited about a general conference talk that they start shouting "YES" at the screen and waving their fists in the air as if it were a football game. not even exaggerating!....

Merida Temple

 Remember that talk by that guy Jorg whose last name I can`t spell let alone remember? [ Jorg Klebingat  here's the link ] Yeah I might say that one was my favorites but I can't tell if I alone loved it, or if I was biased by my over-excited missionary companions... but yeah that was a good one. I also loved Elder Bednar's Sunday afternoon talk  [ link here] and that one that you mentioned Mom by Lynn G Robbins [link here] ! Oh it was just all so good! I wish I had my notes here with me so I could remember the parts I liked the best!

SO here in Chichen Itza (Not to be confused with the other equally valid area in the mission named chicken pizza) we're doing good. HN and I are hardly ever together cause we have to be in exchanges like 3 days every week. And the bad news is our somewhat potente [from Camille- she uses this word all the time and from the context I would say it means ready or receptive but when I checked the Spanish dictionary it says "powerful" ] investigator Michel randomly moved to Mexico City.... Her mom answered the door one day and was like, "she was being really bad so I sent her to her dad's house in Mexico City." So that was disappointing... Also our other two investigators who we're really trying hard with, Manuel and Sofia, are being stubborn and don't want to get baptized. But we're going to start thinking out of the box for them. The good news is there's this chick who we found who is super awesome, her name is Jazmin, and she totally wants to get baptized!! She's so ready to learn what we have to say and really wants to know what happened to her brother who died a couple years ago, like where he is and everything. So we're going to teach her that today!!!:)

 And now are you READY FOR THE OTHER REALLY GOOD NEWS? Oh sorry caps lock, unintentional emphasis.. But so HP [former companion- still in Izamal] informed me today that our investigator Lucy from Izamal is finally deciding to get baptized, and accepted a date!!! I'm so excited for her!!!! So I guess you could pray for Manuel, Sofia, Jazmin, and Lucy again!!! Hmmm and Leslie and Felipe too. That's a family we're working with now. They need the gospel in their lives. 

This week we had our leadership meeting on Tuesday all morning (Where Elder T totally told us off us in front of  all the leaders in the whole mission and then tried to tell on us to HG 'cause he was all upset cause his clothes were all stinky and his house was dirty because somehow it was HN's fault that he lost almost his whole p day last week... even though it kinda was.. and then it was really funny cause HG totally took our side, but that's another story involving some donuts, and some really internally disturbed elders) and then I went to Motul for exchanges (which was super fun cause I was back in a little pueblo again) and then we had like 3 other meetings, a couple family home evenings, and a zone conference, and general conference, and all of a sudden it's p-day again.  This was like the fastest week ever. But it was really good.

Glad to hear everything is good there, love you all a lot!

HS