"I have really become more grateful for everything in my life since being here on the mission..."

December 1, 2014

Baptize Manuel... check.

Memorize 25 scripture masteries word for word in Spanish,.. check.

Hope and pray with all my heart that we don't have changes in the transfers next week... check. 

No I ate no turkey this week. but I had some delicious rice and beans. Actually rice and beans are super good here so I'm not complaining at all.

Thanksgiving day picture!! We didn't do anything special. We ate ground meat and rice and beans.

Yes there are lots of holidays where the kids have school off here but I never know when they are and people will sometimes just randomly tell us that there was no class on whatever day. I don't remember what 5 de Mayo is actually.... but it's not that big I don't think... Thanksgiving sounds like it was so fun!!!

I have really become more grateful for everything in my life since being here on the mission, and I honestly would not trade anything that I now have for anything else. Because I know in the end that even all the stuff I don't like about my life like all the problems I have, will be for the best. I am so grateful for a family that raised me in the gospel, and I can't even express how much I love this gospel and my Savior Jesus Christ. Every time I teach someone and get to know their situation it makes me reflect on my own life and makes my heart ache 'cause it doesn't matter how much or how little they have, I know the gospel is the best thing anyone could ever have and I know my life is just so much happier because I have come to know and understand all that Christ did for us and how we can become more than just imperfect humans one day...

On Thursday HW and I made all of our prayers just be pure giving thanks prayers, and it was really cool. This morning we had this leadership meeting thing and the missionaries who are going home next week in transfers all bore their testimonies and I got all scared to end my mission again. I REALLY love being here and I don't want to leave!!!!! AHHH I'm scared the time is going by way too fast!

Guess who I got to see on Tuesday!!!! My beloved daughter HP!!! We had this double- zone capacitation thing. (Again. I feel like we have about a thousand of those every week...)

and I got to see my old zone lakin cause we were with them!!!! HW and I had to give a presentation again and we sang.. it was pretty fun!

All the girls in the capacitation thing.

Good news, Manuel got baptized. He was so prepared and so happy and now we just have to get him to the temple and baptize his family!!!!!

 Us with Manuel!!!! Thumbs up.

Ok you guys remember Lucy from lzamal? She got baptized on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hermana P [Sam's previous companion] told me and I got so excited!!!! If you guys were praying for her then thank you 'cause it paid off!!!!

Miguel is having family problems cause his family told him that he can't be the godfather for his nephew anymore cause he got baptized and he's feeling kinda down about that... Pray for him!

Retaining converts is probably the biggest struggle here... I don't know why but it's way hard to keep your converts active!  Por Favor oren por [Please pray for...] Jasmin, Manuel, Miguel, Emmanuel, Maribel, and Edy:)

Hope you all have a very merry week!

HS

"We're weird gringas who randomly start talking to you on the bus or in the street or whatever and then try to baptize you."

November 24, 2014

School, I really haven't thought much about it.... I can't decide if I want to come home and work for a summer or go straight to school.

I just want to stay here and go to college in Mexico. Can I do that?

Thanksgiving sounds like such a party. Sorry I can't be there. Get together with everyone for Christmas and skype me!

Did you send any m&ms in the package you sent? Just wondering cause we went to Walmart today (it was a special day) and wanted to buy m&ms but chocolate is SOO expensive in Mexico!! So all the girls in our zone have their parents send them chocolate and stuff. It's really great.

OK so now on to the big news..... like the whole week. Holy cow so much stuff has happened I don't even know where to start!

On Tuesday we had yet ANOTHER missionary leadership capacitation meeting  from 7 in the morning to 6 in the evening... that's 11 hours. of pure capacitation. AND they asked me and HW to give a part of it cause some of the leaders had to prepare a message. SO we had to share the importance of learning by memory and by the Spirit, the 10 points of how to begin teaching, according to preach my gospel. AND elder R (one of the assistants) asked us to make it fun and something that the crowd would never forget... Uhh ok no pressure or anything....

SO guess what we did? We made up songs to all of the points and sang the really good ones to everyone so that they could remember them easier! We picked tunes to hymns and just changed the words, everyone laughed at us a lot but hey, I don't think they'll forget it.

Then after the thing, there was a major problem with some hermanas in our zone, and we had to cancel our plans and go to the hermana's house to talk to them, and then it was really late, like way after the time that we need to be in the house when the assistants call and tell us that they're coming to the hermana's house too so president can talk to them. And we got home super late that night, and that was the start of my week of getting like no sleep...

Then I had to go to this same hermanas area to do divisions AGAIN, but for 3 days this time.. UGH I hate being away from my area and my companion for 3 days, I get anxious. But it's all good because then I came back on Saturday, and that night we had a baptism!!!!! Miguel got baptized!!! And so did this family of 3 that the elders were teaching. It was soo crazy spiritual and Miguel invited his brother and bore his testimony and was so excited for his baptism even though he was so nervous for his interview and he is just so prepared. Its been like four weeks since we started teaching him and he already got baptized. AND he's totally going on a mission cause he's 21 and already going to mission prep classes and he goes on visits with us and everything. Ohhh he's so awesome.

J and Miguel both got confirmed yesterday. J had to wait a week because last week was stake conference. But it's all good! Except for the fact that this is STILL all a big secret from her dad, whom nobody wants to talk to 'cause apparently he's really scary, and J doesn't ever allow us to meet him...

Today was so cool 'cause like 5 different people contacted US, as in, instead of us going up to people to try to talk to them about the gospel, they come up to US and start talking!! And that doesn't happen a lot because usually the people are scared of us cause we're weird gringas who randomly start talking to you on the bus or in the street or whatever and then try to baptize you.

which is totally true:)

Ok I'll send pictures of the baptism!

I love you all!

BYE!

HS

Ok I have to go now ‘cause we have to go baptize more people.

Haha yes we do exercise, but there’s no pyramids here in Merida.... just Izamal. We get up at like 6 every morning. And we're trying to be healthy so we run to the little fruit stand that’s close to our house and buy fruit every morning. :)

Sam and Hma Williams eating limes

Miranda is so stinkin’ cute in her Frozen outfit!!

OK so where do I begin?? JASMIN!!!! She got baptized on Tuesday and she's the greatest. The service was really nice even though not a lot of people came because it was a last minute change, she WAS going to get baptized last Saturday, so that’s what they announced in church so everyone came... but she couldn't until Tuesday and by that time everyone already had plans... but it doesn't matter cause it was still really beautiful and HW and I sang and the elders came and she has a really strong testimony. Even though she almost passed out from how cold the water was. ( but I think she was exaggerating ‘cause I felt it later and it wasn't that cold.)  I wrote more about her in the picture email.   [Here it is…] Oh my gosh she is literally the best ever she got baptized with such a strong testimony and she is totally going to be a super faithful member her whole life and we're going to be friends forever. She told us that the reason she wanted to get baptized was because she wanted to be able to go to the temple one day with her family and get sealed to them, and do the temple work for her ancestors.....

Do you know HOW MANY people get baptized with that in mind? very few!! But that’s like one of the most important reasons really, eternal families:)

 Samantha and Jasmin

We did divisions twice with some hermanas that have some big problems that we now need to try to resolve, one of which requires that we do divisions again, possibly for a WHOLE WEEK! Who knows how we're going to be able to have time for our own area.... oh well.

This week alone I lost a bag that I bought, 2 Books of Mormon, 2 gospel principles books, my CAMERA, an old agenda that had a lot of info, another bag that randomly disappeared, and get this, MY AGENDA for this transfer. UGH! Anyone who has been a missionary understands my anguish right now. YOU ARE NOTHING WITH OUT YOUR AGENDA. Luckily and thanks to lots of prayer, almost everything else showed up again, but my agenda is still gone!!!! I'm quite depressed... I have a temporary one but it’s not the same and its way chafa..:( but oh well I'll keep praying ‘cause prayer totally works.

MIGUEL IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY! We changed his baptismal date cause he's so prepared and we couldn't wait any longer! This week he went out on visits with us again, and went to mission prep yesterday..... :O He is so awesome!!!!!! I'll try to send a picture of him. Oh HW just told me she's going to send me this picture we have of him so you can see him in a sec. I'll send it in a minute.

Stake conference yesterday! It was wayyy good! This guy from the seventy came and they had all these recently baptized or activated people participate and talk with telling them before and they talked about their conversion stories and it was so cool! Manuel came and met Presidente Garcia. Manuel is getting baptized on the 29th of this month:) He's awesome too.

Ok I have to go now ‘cause we have to go baptize more people. I love you all and hope you have Happy Thanksgivings!!

HS

"For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."

Monday November 10, 2014

OK so I know I sound like a broken record here but I have NO TIME today... p day ends at 6 and that's when we started writing.... BUT it's not our fault 'cause the zone leaders never told us that we could write today 'cause they told us we had to wait and... Ok it's a really long story nevermind.,.

BUT this week went really great!!!! Even though we had to go to 2 random leadership meetings this week and do divisions twice we actually got a lot done and we're so stoked. Know why???  'Cause being a missionary rocks!!

On Tuesday we had our leadership meeting with president and the assistants and all the zone leaders and sister training leaders, everybody argued a lot and we talked about how we need to work with the members more to be able to accomplish what it says in Moses 1:39 ["For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."]

THEN I went on divisiones[splits] to Baca (this little tiny town with a zillion mosquitos and people who totally come to church:)

THEN on Wednesday we taught a gay guy who likes to talk way too much, and came late to Merida again to finish the divisions, so HW and I had to RUN to the church to teach our English classes and have an awesome consejo de barrio [ward council meeting] and the elderes bought us donuts and KFC so that was fun:)

On Thursday we brought a member with us who had never come with the sisters before on lessons, and she loved it and wants to go with us every Thursday from here on out! And we ate with the lady Y we're reactivating and she's so great.

On FRIDAY we were supposedly going to have our zone conference like planned as usual, but at the last second the assistents call and tell us we have emergency changes, and all the leaders are coming to Merida again for another leadership meeting! So we go and get a ton of revelation to then pass on to our zones, but then they tell us that the next day we have to do our zone conference and we have to go to both of our zones that we cover (We have 2) SO we had to do emergency divisions with the other zone so that HW could go there for THEIR zone conference and give the capacitacion and I would do it alone in ours.

SO on Saturday we did that and then there was a baptism that night of the Elderes and 2 of our investigators came! (Manuel and Miguel) and on Sunday, Jasmin and Manuel came to church and Miguel didn't but we went to visit him and he told us he wants to go out on visits with us so we were like .... ok sure why not? and we took him with us to visit another investigator and Miguel was SO AWESOME!!! He was like talking about the restoration and he says :"I haven't been baptized yet but I have prayed about the Book of Mormon and..." and we are just sitting there with mouths wide open... And then we took him to this stake missionary meeting where our awesome stake missionary leader planched us all with his fantastic words and Miguel was totally pumped up and we're so sure he's going to be a missionary. He just needs to get baptized first:) 

<but how cool is that?? Just hours before, we talked about his baptism and he was a little unsure, but then after the meeting we stuck around (Jasmin was getting her baptismal interview, she's getting baptized tomorrow:) and were talking and he's like "wait, what day is my baptism, the 29th? what time? are we going to invite everyone?" HA! the power of a group of ward missionaries in a room... :)

So yup. Jasmin is getting baptized tomorrow and she's so excited, she invited her boyfriend to church and he came and she's been like reading the Book of Mormon with him and everything"!!  She is so cool.

In other news there's this group of teenagers that literally hangs out smoking and laughing and being punks and probably drinking too in front of our house every night. But literally, they are RIGHT in front of the door and we have to ask them to move out of the way to get in.... We always invite them to church and then we blast Mo-Tab [Mormon Tabernacle Choir] and sing hymns right on the other side of the door, but they always come back. I bet it's the Spirit they feel that keeps drawing them back. The first night we were scared and called the zone leaders to complain but then we realized they are harmless. And we gave them a word of wisdom pamphlet and told them to read it. And then we told them they were going to be condemned if they kept breaking that commandment. No just kidding we didn't do that. But we thought it...

In other other news, our ward has 6 missionaries (one of only 2 wards in the whole mission that have 3 companionships of missionaries by the way.. nbd..) and we are all gringos. Except for elder F, he's from the Dominican Republic.

Oh my gosh it's like already Christmas here.. the grocery store already is selling Christmas trees, and HW and I are already praying that we stay together for Christmas. We are so stoked and we REALLY want to stay here together next transfer!! Pray for it!!

Today we went to the grocery store that's right next to the church early this morning to get ingredients 'cause we want to make chocolate chip cookies, but hey turns out that chocolate chips don't exist in Mexico. And neither does frosting. or brown sugar. Know why? 'Cause those things don't contain pig fat or corn. And the things that don't contain pig fat or corn don't exist in Yucatan.

Yeah it's great. 

HW and I are going on a diet. which will be extremely hard 'cause the people feed us pure oil and corn and pig fat. and sometimes a salad (a couple leaves of letttuce and a tomato with lots of chile and lime and salt. It's actually super delicious.)

So anyway we went to Walmart today to find chocolate chips!!! and they are like

OK wow that was long.. Sorry Mom you are going to kill me but I don't have my camera right now... long story... but I PROMISE I will send pictures next week! 

HS

"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