5 January - Happy 2015!

Most of us are working on our New Year’s Resolutions. Today we had an activity with our Zone and we all went around the circle sharing what our resolutions were last year and what they are this year. Idk how many people actually remembered their resolutions from last year and how many people bluffed like me haha. Every year we start out fresh and excited, and somewhere along the year we stop striving to achieve them… we don’t even remember what they were! Hahaha it’s funny but it’s also not. How are we gonna achieve anything working like that?

This year I’m working on a paper chain. Like the ones at Christmas time, except the chain represents 2015. There are only 12 links—one for each month. So that right now, while I have all my ideas, I make a plan. So that I take steps each month to reach my goal. So that when 2015 ends, I actually remember what my 2015 New Year’s Resolutions were—and I have worked steadily towards them. So that these desires I have become reality.

I don’t even know why I’m writing about goals to you guys. Every single one of you is an example to me in this area. Each of you inspires me with your tenacity and the magnitude of the goals you set. Your high goals represent your faith in yourselves and in the ennobling and enabling power of the Atonement. When I think of your examples, one word comes to mind: relentless.  

Keep being relentless. Don’t let anything get in the way of a worthy goal. The drop does not erode the stone because of its force, but because of its consistency. And don’t try to accomplish your goals alone. I can’t do everything, but I know Someone who can. And He can make more of a man than any man without Him ever could.

29 December - A Couple Christmas Pictures

Me with all my Christmas presents—THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH:DDD!

Christmas Day we had a district meeting and then we played truth or dare Jenga (the blue blocks are truths, the red blocks are dares, and the white blocks are freebies)

Hehehe my companion with her stocking from Mom, we had twin sister missionary stockings! So cute, I loved them so much! Oh the things Mormons think of to sell : )

22 Dec-- Merry Christmas:)!!!!

Everyone has been asking what our Christmas plans are. Christmas Eve and Christmas day, we have a different schedule. We leave the house earlier and get home earlier. Our plans are: visit a few members that we know are gonna be alone on Christmas, anyone else who will let us into their house haha, and call our families!

I have a new companion who is from the Dominican Republic which speaks Spanish but when she speaks English she has a sick accent like she’s from the Bronx and she loves Beyonce and Rihanna so needless to say we are getting along just fine ;) She taught me what is called a “tubi” to keep your hair straight.

After straightening your hair, you part it on the side and wrap it around your head and hold it in place with bobby pins. Then you put on some kind of hair net or beanie or whatever you want (as long as it’s not something that sucks the moisture out of your hair and makes it static-y) and you’re good to go. We had to leave the house at 1 in the morning to board the bus that took us to Guadalajara, so when we got home at 9, we showered and got ready, packed a picnic lunch, and decided to sleep for a few minutes while we waited for the taxi…

Which never came!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That night we were part of a miracle because somehow I woke up at the last minute and we called another taxi and got to the bus station JUST BARELY in time. That night was a big holiday in Michoacan, so all the taxis were booked and everyone was out partying. I seriously felt soooooooo blessed. We got to hear Elder Russell M. Nelson and he shook everyone single one of the 500 missionary’s hands. It was such a special day and a great Christmas present!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the missionaries of our mission (Guadalajara East) and the Guadalajara mission were there. I saw my old companions, and found out that the missionary I trained, Hermana Moran, is training. Wow!!! Que emocion!!!! It was sooooo great to see her. It was the closest thing to family that I have here in Mexico.

4 “generations”: my trainer, me, Hermana Moran, and her “daughter”

December 15: What is Christmas like in the mission?

In downtown Morelia

First off: I have the best family and friends ever. I’m definitely convinced. I’ve been convinced my whole life, but now it’s like a more-sure-about-this-than-I’m-sure-I’m –alive type of thing. Haha but seriously! We always get mail the first Friday of the month, but these past couple months we have also gotten it two other times and the point of my story is: There has not been one opportunity to get mail in which I have not gotten MORE THAN ONE letter! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!! It is sooooo awesome to have that support and to hear news from home. Whatever you send, however boring the news may seem to you, it’s so interesting and important to me. Or if you don’t want to write, just email or mail me a picture! Those are bomb.

 

No it's not snowing. My camera's dirty. Haha

You’ve all been asking me how we are going to celebrate Christmas. I can't stop celebrating Christmas all day every day! Even though it’s nothing like the rest of the Christmases I'm used to, it’s wonderful. It is so easy to talk to people on the streets when you just have to bear your testimony of Christmas. It is so great to be on the Lord’s errand at Christmastime. We got treated to a meeting with an APOSTOL! Serious Christmas present. The neighbors put up Christmas lights and we have a poinsettia (they’re called “Christmas Eves” here).  I thought it was gonna be hard not to be home at Christmas butin reality there is nothing better than sharing the Gospel at Christmastime. That’s not to say that whenever some leader who’s speaking to missionaries mentions out families, I don’t cry. I do. I miss you all. But it’s not a sad time, Christmastime. It’s the best time of the year because it is filled with hope. The hope Jesus Christ brought to the world is alive. He is alive .His love reigns. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it at times with all the sadness and ugliness in the world, but if we could only see the whole picture, we wouldn’t doubt it.

This week, I invite you all to decide how you can more fully turn yourself over to the Lord. There are so many things we can do. The one thing we can truly give God is our will. It’s nice to give of our time or our resources, and I’m not saying don’t do that, but those things are already His to take when He wants. The one thing that doesn’t already belong to Him is our will, our agency. So turn yourself over to Him this month and you will find a new perspective, a new life-substance, new revelation. Turn yourself over to Him and make a goal. Maybe it will be something that just occurred to you while reading this, but more likely it will be something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time but never just made it happen.

News

Today we had transfers!!!! I'm staying here and I'm getting a new companion, from Domincan Republic, but we're waiting for her right now; I still don't know her.

This Saturday at 12 am I'm going to wake up to catch the bus to go to Guadalajara to listen to Elder Russell M. Nelson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow!!!!! It's awesome!!!! Our whole mission and the Guadalajara Mission-- some 500 missionaries.

1 Diciembre—El es la Dádiva

Well I am reading a few emails from y’all this week and everyone is talking about Thanksgiving… yeah that came and went without me hardly realizing it. Although on Saturday I decided to be more festive and I made a list of my blessings… :D ß that’s how I felt

And that’s how I still feel! Because there is something so exciting going on in the missionary world right now… soon to be “in the Christian world right now” because pretty soon everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will know about it! And even people who don’t.

This year in celebration of Christmas, the church launched a huge and I mean huge iniciative to help us all feel Christ at Christmastime. They made a seriously beautiful video called He is the Gift, and on Friday, they launched it on Youtube and on an amazing website called christmas.mormon.org. We got to spend an hour on this website this week (which is totally totally not normal!) and it was so beautiful! Spiritual feast!

mormon.org/Christmas/Story

 I didn’t even miss out on Thanksgiving haha. Starting today, the video will play on the screens in Times Square until January first :D And you all should go to Youtube this Sunday December 7, but I’m not gonna tell you why.

The scriptures say that the gospel will be carried to the four corners of the earth, that every nation will hear it in their own tongue. This year, 220 million people will see a 30-second version of the video. It’s really crazy and beautiful to live in this time, when prophecies are being fulfilled. I always pictured some big guy with a megaphone when I heard these scriptures, but now I realize how funny that is. It’s not gonna be anything like how I pictured. It’s going to be through means we already have—the internet, missionaries, and members of the church who invite their loved ones: one here, one there—until everyone has heard the gospel, the good news.

It is the best news I have in my life, and it’s important to me to help others feel it.

To my family and friends who are reading this, I love you a lot. You are in my thoughts a ton!!!! You are in my prayers. I am excited to come back and see you. I am learning how to receive the Gift for myself this week through some of the things I printed off from links I followed on the site christmas.mormon.org. The Gift make changes in my life—peace, hope, confidence, love—every day that I am willing to subject my own will to a Someone whose will is much bigger and wiser.

As Caitlin taught me, God is big and He is close.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

mormon.org/Christmas/Story 

My Heart

These past couple days have been so amazing.

On Friday we had to do splits because at the same time we had two appointments. Splits are always hard because you don’t have another missionary to help guide the lesson, and I never like doing them! But coming out of the lesson, we all (3 members came with me so that they could get to know the family) were on cloud nine. Walking out into the dark night, all our thoughts and feelings started bursting out, and we had all felt the Spirit so strong.

On Saturday we had a long-awaited baptism!!!!! She came early so we were calm and happy and could talk with her about how she felt. She kept saying she felt calm and sure. But hearing her bear her testimony for the first time after her baptism was even better. It filled my heart to see how much she has progressed. She really and truly knows the sacredness of the covenant she has made and the value of this church she has found. If only everyone could know these things for themselves.

I know that God is the father of our Spirits. I know that we lived with Him before we came here. I know that coming here to earth is part of our Father’s plan for our eternal progression, that He is so worried about us while we are here and just wants us to be successful and come back to Him. He spends all his time and energy trying to make that happen, without overriding our agency. I know that Jesus Christ is our Heavenly Brother and that before sending us to earth, God prepared Him to be our Savior and make our redemption possible. God didn’t send us to earth without all the tools we’d need in order to come back and be perfected and eternally happy, and Jesus Christ is the center. The prophets, the scriptures, and priesthood, families, prayer: the list of tools at our disposal goes on and on. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is sanctioned and directed by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ—it is the church that includes all the tools. I have no doubt. I don’t apologize and I don’t want to apologize—what I want is that everyone could know these things for themselves.

Every single one of us is a child of God, and as such has the right to know these things for themselves—if they humble themselves more than they ever have before, if they truly desire and diligently work for that knowledge. It was not easy for me to truly find out, but it is the best thing I have ever done and has brought me more peace than I ever had before.