Feliz dia de accion de Gracias!!!

Hola familia? que tal coma estan? okay so it's thanksgiving time, so I am going to write you about what happened this week in the format of what I am grateful for. ready?

 

I am grateful for the opportunity that I have to be a missionary. The opportunity that I have to wear my saviors name above my heart for 18 months is a calling that I am so privileged to have. Of course there are times that it is hard, and times I wish I could be normal, but I wouldn't give up this privilege for anything.

 

I am grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that I have a perfect older brother. And because he is perfect, he makes up for all my faults and shortcomings. This week we had a little experience where we didn't act as good as we should have as missionaries. But I am grateful for the atonement that helps us to move past these things. Of course we will all fall. But what really matters is that we get back up again. Take the hand the savior is always extending to us, and just try to be better the next day. I am so grateful that I have a savior.

 

I am grateful that as missionaries we are guided by the spirit. We had an incredible miracle this week. We decided to go knocking doors on a street we have never been before. I didn't even know the name of the street, I just knew that it existed and I kept thinking we needed to go there. When we got there I didn't know where to start, so Hna Clifton suggested from the beginning! So we go to the very bottom of the street, and started at an apartment complex. The first door we knocked the woman opened the door, and before we could even introduce ourselves she invited us in!  of course we went in, and sat on her chairs and as we introduced ourselves she said, "I know who you are. I was baptized a long time ago." This woman hasn't been to church in over 8 years. Ever since she has moved from Mexico. She has been wanting to go back for a while, and take all her kids, but she has been scared and doesn't know the schedules. She said she has lived there for 8 years in that apartment, and not once has any missionary knocked on her door. WHAT A MIRACLE!!! I am so grateful that the spirit directs us!

 

I am grateful that Heavenly father keeps us safe! This week we received a referral from a member, to go see his neighbor. Well we went to visit him, and surprise! he is actually a leader of a gang!!! he was telling us crazy stories about how he's almost been killed like 6 times, and how he could have taken 4 peoples lives and gotten away with it, but he didn't. Because he's good. He's changing the gangs. Don't worry, he told us were all good, and that the streets are safe because he's in charge. oh man, thanks a lot members for those great referrals!

 

I am grateful for the members of our ward. They are all just so amazing for so many different reasons. I have taken a new love for the Enciso family, who are like in their late 70's and absolutely crazy! We take them to our investigator, Fransisco who happens to be 77 and they get along just perfectly! Cutest little honeys I ever knew. they all just are old and happy together. I am also super grateful for the familia pastor, because when we couldn't find anyone in the world to take us to the temple, Hermano said hey don't worry I will just take you. me and my wife. (mind you they don't have recommends to go in....) but he said no don't worry, I have work tomorrow but I won't go. I'll take you to the temple instead. They are the sweetest family I have ever known. So giving!

 

I am grateful for the temple! Every time I get to go I just feel so much peace and love. Even though we had to pass through every trial in the world to get there, and we were practically running to make it to our session, right as I sat down, it was like coming home. I know the temple is the house of god. There is an undeniable spirit there. And I love every single minute I get to spend inside. and talk to my heavenly father.

 

I am grateful to have a heavenly father that loves me. Sometimes I feel like a little girl, who's a long ways away from home. But I know I can always talk to my daddy, and he is always listening. He knows everything that's going on in my life, and he is just so anxious to help me. I love talking to him every chance I get. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to pray, and that I know that he is always listening to me.

 

I am grateful that I have a family here on earth, and they love me so very much. I love my family more than anything. And I am so excited that I can be with them for all eternity! if there is one thing I have missed the most here In the mission it is my time with my family. I love you all with all my heart, and I hope you have the most amazing thanksgiving in the whole world! Remember all your blessings, because we have so many. Heavenly father is so good to us. Enjoy the time you have together, and always remember that I love you with all my heart.

 

And last, I am grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know I would be nothing without this gospel. Without it I wouldn't be here as a missionary, I would never know these amazing people, I wouldn't love my family as much as I do, I wouldn't know my heavenly father, or know how much I need my savior. I know that this Gospel is true. I know that that our family will be forever. I know that what I teach is true, and it changes people's lives. I love every single minute I have here, because I have the opportunity to share this glad message.

 

I love you all! Happy thanksgiving!!

 

6 mo. 11/12/13

Dearest family. I cannot believe 6 months of my mission have already gone by. Man I tell you what. They flew!! that's crazy!! I only have a year left! gross!! okay but let me tell you. you are going to be super disappointed with my weekly email this week. Not too much happened. It wasn't a very crazy week like last week. well lets see what happened.

Oh! we had a zone training meeting, and it was incredible!! the main focus of the training was that we need to go back to our main purpose, and that is to baptize! So there are these crazy statistics, that you know how the number of new missionaries went up like crazy? well the number of baptisms actually went down!! I know nuts right?? So president Ballard had a meeting with the mission presidents, and he said we need to be getting back to our purpose, and that is to baptize!! so me and Hermana Clifton are looking for a miracle baptism this week. It's really true though. Basically everything you do in missionary work leads the people up to baptism. Man I tell you what. We are gonna be stepping up our game for sure. We need to be baptizing!! I will be a successful missionary if I baptize.

well anyways, that training was awesome. then right after we had exchanges. I stayed in the area with Hermana Barnes. We had a pretty crazy day. We visited a lot of families, and they all wanted to feed us food! okay let me just tell you a little about our day. We went to this investigators house, she said, hey I am making papusas so we are going to eat them okay? oh man. She actually made pretty good papusas, I don't usually like them. Well then after that we went over to Monica's and she said oh my goodness my sister made some zupa Toscana from Olive garden, so naturally, we had to try it!! haha people just love to feed us I tell you what. Also, the other day, we were visiting this member right before a dinner appointment, and she said oh I made some Mole I want you to try it. And we said oh no we've got a dinner to go to... she said oh no just to try ok? and I tell you. I HATE mole. grossest food I have had so far on the mish... So she gives us this aweful aweful mole, and I wanted to die. Then we went and ate some yummy enchiladas at our dinner appointment. don't even worry, I am just becoming the fattest missionary ever!!!

Other side note, I am becoming a soccer super star. We played yesterday for P-day, and our team rocked. Actually I got like 7 red cards because I play really dirty and I may or may not have tripped District leader very bad and clearly on purpose. Okay he tripped me first!!

In other news, Miguel is now officially a member of la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias! he got confirmed on sunday. He is so excited to be a Mormoncito:) umm, well, I tell you, I am sorry this letter is the lamest! We didn't have too many adventures this week! But don't worry, next week we should have some. We are going to the zoo for my birthday!! so I will have lots more pictures and fun stuff the next couple weeks. But for now, Enjoy this picture of Hermana Hadley and I for our 6 month anniversary :)

I love you all so much, and I hope you have the best week ever!!!

Love Ness

Mail time

Okay sweet family, here comes the weekly email. Well not too much has happened this week. I have a feeling my next weeks email is going to be pretty crazy!! but this week, let me tell you what happened.

 

So on Tuesday we had our interview with President Hall. Can I just tell you, he is the greatest man I ever knew. He is just the perfect mission president. I love him so much!!! So we talked for a bit, and he helped me out with things, and we talked about what I wanted to work on. So I really want to just work really hard! It has been a struggle I am having with Hermana Clifton and myself. But president told me that it is okay to push your companion. Because we need to be working hard.

 

So this week I put his advice to the test. I am sick of staying in the house when we could be going out and talking to people. We need to be finding the people we are going to baptize!! So Friday morning Hna Clifton was in a particularly sour mood. She is just frustrated because she is sick and hasn't slept well and is just discouraged. Well I made her get out of the house, and she was just super grouchy. We contacted a ton of people. Didn't really find anyone super interested. But We met with the familia rosas, and we got a member referall from that! so that was a small miracle.

 

We tried it again on Saturday, but with not too much luck. Also, we had a cita with one of our investigators, and when we went she left our book of Mormon outside with a note saying she wasn't interested... So that was hard to hear. It just seems like one trial after another. Grouchy companions to not finding people, investigators cancelling citas and people dropping us. Just one hit after another. Satan has been playing dirty up here in North Hollywood. Missions are hard work. It is a constant struggle to keep my positive happy attitude. But I try hard everyday.

 

Well after a hard week, Saturday night we had a mission activity. the whole ward was there and we helped them know how to better help the missionaries. It took a lot to keep it together through the activity. At the end of the night, I just burst into tears. I just couldn't keep it together anymore. But I will tell you what. The Lord is so great to us. He is so wonderful. He knows we have been working so hard, and doing everything we can. So he showed us some great tender mercies. On sunday, we had 4 people come to church. 4. That NEVER happens. Najhi came to church, and after we had a lesson with her, and invited her to be baptized, and she said she would like to be!

 

back story on najhi, we are teaching her whole family, but her mom is super not interested. Najhi is the only one who is even interested. The mom has cancelled all of our citas for the last couple of weeks, so finally we went straight to Najhi and asked her if she wanted to come to church. She said she really wanted to, and she came and loved it, and is going to come back next week!! so everyone, PRAY FOR NAJHI!!!!

 

The lord is so great to us. He knows we are working so hard and trying to find new people. And even though we didn't find any new investigators this week, we were able to experience a miracle at church. The Lord is so aware of us. Always look for those tender mercies. They may not come in the way you think!! I love you so much family, and I pray for you always!! Love you!!

My First Baptism!!

Okay family. I will tell you. This has been the best week of my mission. It has been hard, and crazy, lots of fun, and lots of times I had to take a deep breath and count to ten. Lots of laughs, and a couple tears. Are you ready to hear all about it?? here we go.

 

So My sweet companion Hermana Clifton. Well she is so nice and so fun, but sometimes I tell you, she can be a Grinch. I think I have told you she is at a really high stress level right now yeah? well she is seeing a counselor and we are working on it. But there will just be some days where she will just be grouchy. And I tell you, it is probably one of the hardest things I have had to deal with on my mission is grouchy people. I just don't handle them very well! that's all there is to it! I just love being happy, and grouchy people are just no fun. So during her grouchy days I would have a jolly good time looking for fruit from peoples trees. There is this really yummy fruit I love called Guayaba. oh in English it's just guava. Yeah they are pretty yummy. So in her down moments we would find strange fruit and then try it! I think we may have accidentally eaten a rose the other day... it was pretty gross. And some sort of strange berry/grape. That was fun! also we found a guy selling corn from a cart! you know like in Nacho libre? oh man I tell you. It is the yummiest thing ever!! and he gave it to us for free!! Cute little Helote man:)

 

We had a Halloween activity this week, and Hermana Clifton and I dressed up as nerds. It was super fun. We actually had a pretty good turn out!! there were a lot of investigators there too. They had like musical chairs and stuff. Hermana Hadley tried to teach us all thriller!! haha and then they played the Gangnum style song. All the missionaries about died because we couldn't dance :( saddest!!! don't worry, I am sending lots of pictures!!! Halloween day was super fun. We got lots of candies and got to help monica decorate her house. More pictures don't worry. And also, we got 2 trick or treaters!! how fun!!

 

I tried to use a real pumpkin this week to make pumpkin cookies. Well... they now have a new name! pumpkin chunk cookies!! haha. Also, we didn't have like any of the ingredients, so they turned out bien extrano... bien wuakala no? haha

 

Some other fun things we did this week was we got turtles!!! ahahaa so our investigator, cute little fransisco, poor guy he is so sick :( but his son gave us turtles! it was the funnest! all the other missionaries were jealous!! well we couldn't keep them of course, so we decided to give them to hermano Miguel in honor of his baptism!! but not before we played with them of course!! we painted them, and then named them! Princessa and Sebastian :) oh man. Hermano Miguel about died when we showed up with TURTLES! haha who gives someone turtles for their baptism? oh yeah only us!

 

another thing we did for hermano Miguel before his baptism was paint his room! it was super fun. His room looked like a five year olds room before. Super splotchy and funny. He had a ton of toys and stuff too. And weird posters. So we helped him out and gave him pictuers of jesus and the temple and of all of us together. It was super fun. It took us the whole afternoon too!! he loved it a lot though, and he was super grateful! oh it was a surprise too! so that made it even funner!

 

Okay now let me just tell you about sweet hermano Miguel's baptism. It was incredible. Most amazing thing of my mission. I am so proud of him!! okay. So finally the day has arrived. After 3 months of teaching him, and having to change his baptismal date twice, he finally made it! he changed his life completely. He is totally different now. he is so much happier and he is just a new person. He was super nervous for his baptism, but he did so good!! We got his whole less-active family involved in the baptism too, and they said they are going to start coming back to church!! how incredible is that!! I love them all the days! I am just so grateful that I had the opportunity to be hermano Miguel's missionary. He has come so far. I know that it is only through the atonement of Jesus Christ that he was able to change his life. Thank you so much for all your prayers for him, and for all your support. You are such a wonderful family and I am so grateful for you. I love you all all the days!!

 

Love Ness

Ward Halloween party

10/15/13 Lessons learned

Oh my dearest family how I love you so. So I am just going to tell you lots of lessons that I learned this week.

 

the first is how the spirit speaks to everyone, and everyone is entitle to receive revelation.

So we were super privileged this week with a visit from Elder Kopischke, a member of the quorum of the 70. He was holy tolito, just super incredible. He is from Germany and had an awesome accent, and he shared tons of cool stories. But one thing he had us do in the very beginning was write down questions, of what we wanted to get out of the conference. I wrote my questions very personal to me, and it was incredible to see that throughout the conference, my question was answered multiple times. I received so much revelation specifically for me. Sure I could have gone to that conference and learned a lot about what he said just from his words, but Because I wanted to learn something, I was able to receive personal revelation. It was awesome. Everyone in this church is entitled to receive revelation. So don't forget it. And just oh my goodness Elder Kopischke just blew my mind. He was awesome.

 

another thing I learned this week was the importance of being obedient. We met a family this week who was taught by the missionaries a couple of years ago. We asked them what they liked the most about meeting with them, and they told us that they just had a lot of fun, and they would cook and laugh and have a good time. So I guess these missionaries were super disobedient, and set us up for failure! This family has completely false expectations of us. We had our first lesson, and they started out by asking all these strange questions like who is heavenly mother and just crazy things. So we taught the plan of salvation, and they had CRAZY questions during that. Well we ended up having an 1 1/2 hour lesson, and then after she wanted to feed us! But we were already late! so basically, I am super mad at these old missionaries who were super disobedient and now we have a family who probably wont progress. We invited them to church and they said, oh no we don't go to church. They were taught for 2 and a half years and never went to church? what. Okay well I will keep you updated on this family.

 

The last amazing experience we had this week was that we got to go to the Los Angeles Temple visitors center with our Investigator Miguel. Satan really did not want us to go, and he put every single obstacle in our path, but we got there. We got there very late, and we drove with a member who doesn't have a license (don't tell anyone), but we made it. It was such an incredible experience. We ended up going with a member, Hermano Lico, a less active, Hermana Dominguez, an investigator, Miguel, and then two other people who are not members, or investigators. They no like nothing about the church. It was amazing though, because the hermanas at the visitors center did such an amazing job with them. The spirit was super strong, and it spoke to all of them differently. You see? The spirit speaks to everyone!! We watched that families are forever video, and it had me, Hermana Hadley and Hermana Clifton all crying!! oh man, when the missionaries have a break down, that's when you know you are doing a good job. I am just so happy to know that my family is eternal. It makes everyday out here in the field worthwhile.

 

Other things that happened this week:

We went to yogurtland!! we earned that ice cream!

I got bit by Aisa pastors hamster. Rude.

I had a breakdown on Thursday, and so did Hermana Clifton. Good thing we have Hermana Hadley to play doctor phil.

We had a super rad zone activity and carved pumpkins!

That's about it. I can't really think of the things we did this week. But it was a super amazing week. I love you all, and I am so grateful for all of your amazing examples to me!!

 

Love Ness

 

pics; yogurtland, Elder Kopischke, pumpkin carving, temple

Bodas, Baptisms and a bike 10/28/13

okay, so here is the deal, this week was awesome and super fun!! I am just going to start out by saying we lost Hermana Hadley. But she didn't go too far! she just got moved to the bike area in our district. So surprise! she is still in our ward! which is good, because she needs to be there for Miguel's baptism!! which is next week!!! WOOOO!! he is doing so good. I will tell you about him in a minute. So yes Hermana Hadley is gone. So now it's just me and Hermana Clifton. also, the elders left for argentina, but not before elder Pennington treated us to PF changs! last Monday. Yeah he is the greatest ever! We got a few new people in our district, and it's a bit different, but it's going to be fun!

 

Let me tell you, being with just 1 companion is super different! but Hermana Clifton is fun. We have a lot of fun together me and her. We have nominated ourselves the fun companionship of this district, and it's so true. one thing that is a little bit hard with her though, is she doesn't like to work quite as hard as I do. She is at a really high stress level right now, so she gets overwhelmed pretty easily. Sometimes I feel like we don't work very hard, and it is a bit frustrating, but I am learning patience. This is the transfer for patience I tell you what!! Patience, Love, and Lots of laughs!!

 

Okay so this is what has happened this week. Friday, we had a crazy day! we had 4 member presents, all back to back! (in missionary language, that's a HUGE DEAL!!) Saturday we got to go to a Boda! for my little greengos out there, that means wedding. Ruebin and Yessenia got married, and then on sunday, they got baptized!! how cute! the wedding was so good. It was in the church, and the ward came and there was a little after lunch. Our ward is so good to do that for them. Me and Hermana Clifton made up a rap to sing at their wedding, it was in Spanglish and pretty legit. I was proud of it. But we decided not to. Also, because Elder speth's rap was way cooler than ours. Dangit I hate losing in rap battles.

 

So yeah on sunday we 3 baptisms in our district!!! what!! that is unreal. None of them were our investigators. that's next week! also, we had stake conference, and it was super awesome! Miguel came and he brought his friend Javier! (javi hated it.. but he is hilarious.) man Miguel is just on fire! He is talking to all his friends about the gospel, and inviting them all to church. The other day, we texted him to remind him not to drink, and he said no way hermanas, I'm not going to fail you! oh I just love him every day!

 

Okay so we are a little bit on the blonde side sometimes. So stake conference was in Van Nuys, which is a little ways away. So we didn't realize we were almost out of gas, so because we didn't want to buy gas on sunday, we spent the day as BIKE HERMANAS!!!! WOOHOO!! seriously. I want to get put onto bike SO bad! it was so fun! I was just laughing my head off all the way down the street. But boy golly my booty is hurting right now! man. This week was just a blast! I tell you what family, the church sure is true. And even though this work is hard, it is so worth it. There is nothing on earth I would rather be doing right now. Family I love you so much. Keep being the great members I know you are. Heaven only knows the church needs good members. Us missionaries would be nothing without you members! thank you for everything, and I love you with all my heart!

 

Love Ness