Edificando el Reino: Hermana Roberts en Saltillo, México

Hello family!! Well I talked to you on Christmas so I dont have too much to say. Plus, I wrote a lot of personal emails this week which I think I actually might like better and may do more in the future.. I will discuss it with myself throughout this week haha. But talking to yall on Christmas was the bestttttttttttttttttttt. Miss you so much. Love you so much. And I think the best thing I have EVER heard is that you are all coming home next year when I come home. Man I am soooo happy I will only spend one Christmas in the mission. It wasnt horrible, but nothing like being with family haha. I am only going to share a quote from my personal study this week that had a big impression on me. Its found in the book Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmadge. It says  Our Heavenly Father has a full knowledge of the nature and disposition of each of His children, and knowledge gained by long oberservation and experience in the past eternity of our primeval childhoo...

¡¡Hola hola!! Well everyone, MERRY CHRISTMAS!! It doesnt really feel like Christmas to me, just because I have never had a Christmas like this before, but I am trying to enjoy the experience rather than being sad!! Also, pretending its not Christmas helps too :) jaja. We speak this thursday !! Whooo!!!! Okay well this week was great! Still super stressful, offffffff couuuuurseeee because I still have to arrange schedules for EVERYONE (or so it feels like). But whatever because JUANY AND GERONIMO GOT BAPTIZED!!! I have attached pictures becuase those speak better than words anyways, right? Well I am just going to write what I wrote in my journal again.. "Juany was SO nervous. I went with her where she enters the font and she was shaking and jittery, but she did great and came out smiling. Geronimo was baptized last (this was a baptism of 7 people.. it was huge) and complained the water was cold haha but he did great too. Admist all the crazy I was able to re...

Buenas tardes familia, Well this week was an interesting one, thats for sure! We went to the doctor on Monday night and my companion, Hermana Rebolledo, was instructed to not walk for 10 days. I talked with the mission president and we came up with a plan for the time being so that we could keep working. Hermana Abanto, one of the sisters in the trio in Rosita, came and worked with me all week and members from the branch stayed with Hermana Rebolledo in our apartment during the day. It was SUPER stressful honestly because I had to coordinate all of that on top of the nomal missionary work, but this week should be better because its more organized. On Thursday , the 10 day mark, we will review with president what we will be the next plan of action.  Working with Hermana Abanto was GREAT!! I LOVE her!! She arrived in the field the same time as Hermana Rebolledo, so I am doing both of their training. Hermana Abanto is from Peru and man, I just really like her. She...

¡¡Hola hola!! Well fam, there wasnt too much that happened this week in the way of our investigators. That would have to be due to the fact that my companion sprained her ankle or something (still not sure whats wrong) on Tuesday afternoon and so we were pretty much down and out for the whole week cause she can hardly walk. We still tried to work, but it was really slow and in the long run, we didnt really accomplish anything. After a lot of hassle and a lot of waiting, we finally are seeing a doctor tonight at 7. I think its a tendon because.. well I wont go into medical details, but we{ll find out if I am right haha. I wish we knew so I could tell yall what this next week it going to look like.  On Friday we had our mission Christmas party!! Whooo. It was just with our zone, but president and his family came as well as his counselors and their families. Elder Diarte (one of the consejeros) took a picture of me eating and told me he was going to send it to ...

Short again this week.. sorry!! And my keyboard is being dumb. Gah, cant wait to one day use functional computers again. Man I took the BYU library forgranted. Well my hija and I are still here in Sabinas working every day. Nothing too special happened this week, but my wonderful Medrano family is progressing very nicely. Jorge went to church again this past Sunday and I think he is planning on making a habit of it ;). We watched the Restoration video with them this week and talked a little more about the Book of Mormon to solidfy their understanding. They all pretty bore testimony after that they know it is true...!! Whoo!! Very comforting to hear as a missionary haha. Geronmio and Juany will be getting baptized on the 13th, due to a prior obligation on their original baptismal date (the 6th). Jorge will hopefully be getting baptized in the weeks thereafter, although we do not have a date for him. We did have an awesome lesson with him this past week though about th...

Family! I apologize in advance, I am not going to be able to write much in this email because I spent a lot of time writing individuals, but it was a good week! We finished up the last week of the transfer and we have wonderful investigators who will soon enter the waters of baptism. I was pleased to see that our numbers for this transfer added up to be higher in almost every category than my last change. This is naturally a good feeling, but a relief for me as it was my first transfer as the senior companion and I was training.. which means I was focused and stressed on many many things, but still we did better than the last transfer! Whoo!! Still lots of room for improvement. Alright, I was convinced by Dad to share more about the family we are teaching. They are far enough along now that I dont think I will jinx it haha. Juany is the mom and she is so wonderful. She has taken hold of the gospel and is applying principles to her life before we even teach them....

Familyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, I miss yall and I love you! This week was good!! GET THIS. We went to Piedras Negras for Zone Conference and I was 2 minutes from the border!! If anyone knows where Eagle Pass is.. thats where I was. The closest I will ever be to home while I am on my mission. And I probably wont ever go there again because its really dangerous. The family we stayed over night with kept staring at us and wanted to take pictures with us because they were like "we have never seen sister missionaries before!!" It was really cute. Zone Conference was so great and man I love our mission president. He is so inspirational and just brings the Spirit with him wherever he goes. We learned a lot about the Atonement and about autosufficiency. I wish I had the time to expound. I still am afraid to tell yall much about the family we are teaching because I am convinced I jinx things.. but Juany, Jonathan, and Geronimo went to church for the 3rd ti...

Alrightttttttttttt what a week, We had splits with the sister training leaders and I went to Nueva Rosita! It was really weird to go back there after two months. It seems so small!! Haha I think its like when you{re a kid and your house feels huge, but once you{re older it feels small. Who knows, but it was pretty fun. Nice to also talk with some of the members that I knew, but not I understand and communicate with them MUCH better. Also, the sister that is that area told me that Pedro (my convert) has gone to church every single sunday and is recieving the priesthood this next week. Also, he found the birth certificate of his wife and is starting her temple work!! He is pretty excited about it. AND she told me that he has been asking about me this past few weeks!! I wanted to cry I was so happy. I didnt get to visit him, but good news none the less. He is so sweet. Unfortunately Angle{s parents have changed their minds about his baptism and are not going to let hi...

Alright Fam fam, whats the 411? Wellllllllllllllllll Angel is a rock star and doing great getting ready for his baptism. I love that he comes to church in white shirt and tie and honestly just is glowing. We hardly have to do anything with him, he{s just great. Huge transformation in such little time. One of the other young men told me the other day Angel even explained a scripture in Sunday school so I am pretty proud of him. His baptism is 11 days away! BUT GUESS WHAT!? We had 5 INVESTIGATORS IN CHURCH YESTERDAY!! Oh my gosh talk about clouddddd 9. And I give the members a gold star because so many people greeted them and made them feel welcome. Mere (as usual), Angel, and my favorite family!!! Jorge still didnt want to come, but Juany finally decided she would just go without him because she really wants to, and their two sons Jonathan (18) and Geronimo (13) wanted to go too, so the three of them came together! It was sooooo great and they all seemed to have a ...

Alright I am just about out of time...... but this week was good!! I have so much more responsiblity being a trainer which is both nice because thats more of what I am used to and stressful haha but learning lots as always. But awesome things happened this week and I am just going to copy one of the my journal entries cause it was an account of one more eventful and really good day... "We taught Oscar (NEW INVESTIGATOR) in the afternoon and oh my gosh that was awesome. I have been wondering what that "dang" experience where a perfectly prepared person is just put in my path would happen, and have been feeling a little jipped lately in this way, but it happened. I am afraid to jinx this by talking about it, but I really do think Oscar is perfectly prepared. He has so many questions, but wants so badly to know the truth. He wants more than anything to have faith and he even told us he wants to have a testimony like ours. I was able to teach him all about...

Family!! I have offically finished my first week with my hija (daughter.. new companion)! It was kind of crazy week as we had to travel back to Sabinas from Saltillo and get everything set up and going, but por fin we are getting going.  Her name is Hermana Rebolledo and she is from Mexico City! She is a sweetheart and has a great testimony and seems pretty excited to get going. She told me the minute she saw me, she knew I was going to be her companion. We got to work the day after she arrived (I was sooo nervous) and things went well, but shes still pretty timid. Not to mention, she got sick with an ear infection and one day this week we had to stay in the house for the whole day. It did put a kink in our appointments and such, but I am not going to lie, having a nap and then studying for like 3-4 hours while she slept was pretty great. But oh my gosh medicine here in Mexico is nuts..... I officially have now given shots.... at 1 o'clock in the morning... ...

So right now I am in the offices in Saltillo.. ¿Saben porque? Pues.... I HAVE BEEN CALLED TO BE A TRAINER. I dont really know how to feel or how I should feel haha but yeah, tomorrow morning I receive a greenie from the MTC and will be training her in Sabinas. I am really nervous. I only have 4 months in my mission, and only 3 in México. I came here to Saltillo with a bunch of elders and they are were asking me how long I have in my mission and then they were like "and you´re training already?!? Congratulations!". I do not feel ready, but the Lord is trusting in me and called me for this position, so I trust in Him. Its really overwhelming though, so PRAYERS PRAYERS PRAYERS. I wont find out who my companion is until tomorrow , but she will either be from Mexico or Peru because we only have two new hermanas coming in this transfer. Clearly I am nervous because of spanish.. I am only starting to become functional (although my companion of 11 months tells me I sp...

¡¡Hola Famila!! Another week here in Sabinas, Coahulia, Mexico. We were able to get a lot of new investigators from our contacts the week before and so we spent the week giving what is called lesson zero, where we explain who we are and what our purpose is.. that kind of weeds out who may potentially be interested. We have a couple that look pretty good and quite a few others who I think accepted out of feeling obligated. So we still dont really have too much progression, but poco a poco (little by little). We visited Estella for the last time this week (supposedly last week we dropped her but we had one more appointment) and we decided to talk to her about temples, hoping maybe that would spark a more eternal interest and maybe connect the dots. It actually did go really well and we discovered she hadnt understood that the church is the only church that actually has the priesthood. We had been pretty clear about it before, but I guess not clear enough. Thats some...

This will probably be a shorter letter because I wrote a lot more personal emails this week, but we had a good week! First off... CONGRATULATIONS TO MY VERY BEST FRIEND WHO GOT MARRIED THIS PAST FRIDAY !!!! I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUU, CONGRATULATIONS!!! Pedro was baptized and I was able to go!! I will see if I can include a picture, but maybe not until next week. He is so sweet and it was a neat experience. My first baptism!!!  We dropped Estela... it was really sad. But actually, we feel alright about it. We taught her last Tuesday and just decided she isn´t going to progress. We taught The Restoration again and even watched The Restoration video, but she just isn´t making the connection with The Book of Mormon meaning the church is true and the only true church of God. She still loves the Book of Mormon and wow, she really loves us, but we decided its just going to be a personal journey for her and in the time and will of God. Eventually she will figure it out an...

BIKES AND BAPTISM! Okay so this week wasn't anything unusually special, just continuing on! But we did get bikes this week which we are super excited about because our area is huge and we spend so much time walking... but I have to say.. my butt is a litttttttttle sore hahah. And we're figuring out the skirt thing.. its quite the challenge.  My investigadors: First off, given the title of my letter, yes... baptism!!! However, not in my area, BUTTTT I am counting it as my baptism because its Pedro!! The older shy gentleman from Rosita that I taught for a few weeks before I was transfered. He is getting baptized this upcoming Saturday!! Techincally he is the baptism of the sisters in Rosita right now, but I am counting him as mine because I am the one that contacted him and pushed to keep visitng him when my companions weren't really focusing on him.. and I taught the first two of the three main lessons and set his baptismal date all before I was trans...

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!! (in Mexico.. clearly) Well what a week... it unfortunately was not very successful... haha but because I took a suprise trip to Saltillo in the middle of the week.... ALONE!!! We were studying one morning and I was getting all pumped to get out and start working and I was feeling good and we had great plans for the day when all of a sudden the mission office calls and told me I had to take care of stuff for my Visa and come to Saltillo.. in like 2 hours. So yeah, and they sent me alone. So this week I conquered the fear of traveling through Mexico as an American muchacha who is still learning spanish... alone. But hey, I did it, and nothing bad happened. And I even got to Saltillo and got a taxi and traveled through the city and made phone calls (in spanish thank you) and got things taken care of. BAM! Clearly they trust me or something because apparently that never happens (sending a sister without her companion... none the less a American ne...

Hola Familia, This week was GREAT!! I could probably say it has been the best week of my mission thus far. I am now working in Sabinas, not too far from my last area, but I feel like I am in a different world almost. It honestly is not that different, but it is bigger and it just feels different to me.. how strange. A lot of it probably has to do with my wonderful companion, Hermana Barnard, as well as the branch here. First, Hermana Barnard. She is from Ogden, Utah and has been out here for 10 months now, the last 3 here in Sabinas so she knows the area pretty well. Her spanish isn't perfect, but its pretty dang good.. but obviously she also speaks English and that has made a huge difference for me. We do speak a lot of English, I can´t lie, but only when we are alone together like in our apartment or walking between appointments. Sometimes I feel a little guilty because before now I have been almost completely cut off from English, but honestly I think this is t...