Semana Quatro Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Firsts

 Hola todos! This week is titled firsts because not only were there a lot of firsts for me, but there were a lot of first interactions with some amazing people this week. We did so much finding this week and our efforts have really been paying off. I love you all and I love hearing from you! How have your weeks been? Here is how mine went!

Monday: We went to Cactus Joe's! It was this cute little nursery that really reminded me of home, except that all the beautiful plants were not flowers or green they were all cacti. I got a baby Cactus and he needs a name so drop sujestions below! We also learned from our mistakes and didn't put three lessons right after Pday so our day was much less stressful toward the end. Also I miss flowers. Like a lot. Miracle about that later. 

Tuesday: Today we had the usual district council and then a companion Del Taco party. We gave a training and talked about talking to everyone we meet. As we pondered Sister McBride and I decided, this time we would give a passalong card with our number on it to the lady in the drive thru and she actually seemed super interested! So, we are going back to Del Taco this week to see if we can catch her again!! Also, we have a new obsession with Del Taco literally all of their food is soooo good. We also had an awesome lesson with Josiah and taught him the whole Plan of Salvation. He seems like he is finally starting to get it. Next week is Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom so wish us luck... the bishop is going to come fellowship and hopefully help us out. We also ran into Linda while street contacting AND her friend! Who we thought wanted to hear our message. Boy were we wrong. I have never had a lady run away from me so fast in my life. However, it was a blessing because now we know we can focus less on Linda and more on our progressing seekers of truth. 

Wednesday: MY FIRST ZONE CONFERENCE! Boy. I have some crazy stories. First we accidentally went wayyyyy out of zone trying to find a car wash and we ended up at the most sketch car wash ever! But it was much too late to turn back. So we got our car washed but not dried so we spent like ten minutes, both of us in skirts trying to dry our car, vacuum with the worst vacuums ever and then wipe down the entire inside of our car. Luckily we pulled into the church at 10:59 and we weren't late for car inspections! Ah! Car inspections are terrible. You have to check every tiny little thing but, we passed! Then we walk in and we have to recite DyC 4 to the AP's! I only know it in Spanish which you think would be better but one of our AP's is from Spain and is here as an English missionary..... so yeah my accent, not so good. The Blanco Vista branch really came in clutch for us and made us an amazing meal! Then, we had a bunch of really cool workshops about how to be better missionaries. The mMission Presidency spoke and they are really amazing speakers! I can see how older missionaries think zone conference is the best thing ever but I didn't really know anyone so it was more like an orientation part two for me. Sister McBride said that she felt the same way until she started getting to know more people! Hopefully that happens to me too! After we went to the Burts house and had a very interesting dinner. I always find it amusing when people from other countries try to make American food. Sister Burt was so kind and she made some great conversation over some home cooked chicken noodle soup? All in all a good and very long day! 

Thursday: Weekly planning today was awesome! We actually sat down and did the whole thing. Crazy right?! Also, milagros today! We went to a members house for what we thought was a 30 minute lesson right before Centro Hispano.... turns out it was a huge Chilean dinner! I was super excited because this is the first authentic meal I have had since I got here! But, we only had 30 minutes before we had to leave to set up for Centro Hispano. So we ate as fast as humanly possible, missed our set up for the meeting, and made it to Centro Hispano two minutes before class started. Lesson learned, ask if people are feeding you before hand...  However, Hermana Cisterna really helped Sister McBride not be so nervous about going to Argentina and we know we really needed to be at that dinner, even if it meant sprinting the five minute walk to the truck and getting four check your speeds on the way to Centro Hispano to make it to class on time. The Lord knows who needs his missionaries and he worked everything out for us tonight. We were still able to teach English and share an amazing thought on prayer. The spirit works in mysterious ways. 

Friday: The Stake President had our whole zone over for breakfast and a little meeting! It was so nice to finally meet the stake president and see his goals for missionary work in the stake. You can tell it hasn't been a focus in the past and that he is trying to push the importance to the wards in the stake. We are so grateful for that. After, we had a lesson with this really cool guy Eric, but he ended up accidentally giving us the wrong address and we missed it.... but we rescheduled and hopefully we can teach him next week! Instead, we spent two hours street contacting in Rhodes Ranch and it was honestly a blast. The walk was beautiful and we talked to some really great people. We even got one guys phone number and have been texting back and forth all week about the Book Of Mormon his friend gave him. It's crazy what happens when you talk to everyone. 

Saturday: Today we decided to fast about what to do with the Vazquez kids. They are ready to be baptized, we just don't know how to go about asking the parents for permission. Hopefully the spirit will be with us in our lesson on Sunday! These kids are ready and so faithful. We also tried to have a call with our new person Tonya but, unfortunately she didn't answer. We are working on her Book of Mormon and it is starting to look really cool. We tabbed lots of really good verses and are going to heart attack her door on Tuesday. She said she is planning on watching the zoom of church and we are so excited! We also taught our second English class with the most adorable Peña family. They are converts and they are amazing!! They tried to say prayers in English and their English is getting so good! 

Sunday: Well the start of the day was the usual crazy Sunday! Except that.... I spoke in the branch!! Ahhhhh...!!!! I think it went ok but writing a whole talk in Spanish was really hard. It taught me a lot about grammar and I'm really thankful for my awesome companion who helped me translate my talk I wrote in English into Spanish. We spent a long time learning grammar and figuring out how to say things we wanted to in Spanish! In the end I feel like the talk brought the spirit to the meeting even if I spoke really slow and my accent isn't great. But, we also went to the Pena's for dinner and they are the cutest! We had fried chicken and tried to teach them how to do family search, mistakes were made. But it was so fun! 

Hopefully you guys love the pictures! My cute roomies got us flowers and I literally almost cried. Its crazy the little tender mercies the Lord sends our way. I love the way the Spirit follows us as we strive to be worthy and bringing that spirit into peoples homes is one of the best feelings ever.

Cute companeras at Cactus Joe's

A friend for Baby Oaks!

Enjoying the sunshine!

Feelin' the love

Sister photo bomb!

A new hobby

The Penas

English class with the Penas

First Zone Conference

Color Coordinated Companeras <3

Semana Tres Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Work, work, work, work, work

 Buenos Días todos! It has been another loco week in the field. This weeks theme was ministering. Our Sisters are still sick with a nasty strand of the flu and strep, so we have been doing 90% of the cleaning, checking in, and diffusing mental breakdowns like everyday. I love them, but having sick roommates is STRESSFUL!! Hermana McBride and I however are healthy and working hard to stay motivated, even though our Hermanas have gotten a fully needed break this week. A lot of our lessons with seekers of truth canceled on us this week, so we also did a ton of ministering within the ward.

Monday: Lesson learned, never plan 3 lessons right after pday ends at 6:00.... we were soooo tired by 9:00 that we just crashed. The other Spanish Sisters that we share the Blanco Vista Branch with came over and helped us with our over the phone Spanish lesson and then we helped them with theirs! Monday was supposed to be a fun touristy day but we moved it to today! So hopefully in the next email I will have lots of pictures from that. 

Tuesday: Today's theme was contacting and meetings. We had combined district council and zone council because the zone leaders were on exchanges. So, it wasn't as fun as last week but, we still had an awesome training about street contacting and did an awesome role play around the church street contacting to other missionaries. So fun! Naturally we went to Crumbl for our free cookies after zone council. Then we went home, did all of our studies and contacted so many people via phone calls. We confirmed appointments for later in the week and filled up our schedule. We also got super into painting our copies of the Book of Mormon and started rough drafting today.

Wednesday: Today we had an awesome lesson with our "homie" Josiah. He said that he isn't ready to be baptized this month but wants to make it a goal!! Woot woot! We taught all of the third lesson and are trying to teach him as much as we can these next few weeks to help him feel better about his decision. We also called a ton of people today. We set up an appointment with this amazing lady named Elishya and hopefully we will make her a new person this week. Today is also the day that we heart attacked the Stewarts, an inactive family who is really struggling right now, and our girl Maria who is ill and needed some loving. Since we are teaching Maria we painted her a Book of Mormon and stuck it in her little care basket we made full of random self care things from around the apartment. We also worked on our copies during lunch and after the day was over! Pictures of the finished product are below. 

Thursday: Today is my favorite day!!!! I get to teach English to all our friends!!! Our class got two new people this week and everyone is so nice and works so hard. We learned all about holidays and frequency words this week. Hermana McBride and I went through the teacher trainings and the material before class this time and it went so much better than last week. At the end of class we always do a spiritual thought and this week our cute friend Liz, teared up. The spirit was so strong and we know everyone in the class was feeling it. After class and after our meeting we caught Liz and Marcos still chatting in the parking lot! Matchmaking in English class??!! Hmm.... not in my job description but totally happening. 

Friday: Today was Nuts! We had a pretty normal morning until about 1:00 and then we got on that mission grind. We had district meetings with President and Sister Reese which was so cool! They did a training on spiritual growth and DyC 4. After, we had lunch with the Lemos' and they made us this amazing fresh pizza, annndddd banana cake..... and when I say "cake" I actually mean soggy, cooked bananas with a cinnamon crumble on top.... so let's just say it wasn't a good thing for me. However, Hermana McBride loved it. Anyway they are super nice! Pictures are below, weird 2020 style so we could all have our masks off. The Lemos family and the Gibbs also live in Rhodes Ranch. Today was the first day I have been to Rhodes Ranch in the daylight. Did you know that they have their own themed water park inside the gates? No? Me neither! Seriously everytime we drive in it feels like I am on vacation. We also went to the Gibbs house, who are another inactive family in the ward. They are working to become reactivated and have the cutest kids! We taught them that God is involved in every detail. Suddenly, Bro. Gibbs gets a phone call. From Sister Sibley. She tells him she has been waiting for us to get there for over an hour and is coming over to drop off some primary stuff for his little boy because she doesn't think we are coming..... Oops.... we totally double booked ourselves. So, we set up a time to talk to Sister Sibley tomorrow. Ugh. Mistakes were made. We also, had a Centro Hispano meeting which we super cool and productive. 

Saturday: Another day full of ministering. Today started off with studies and our goal to talk in all Spanish for the whole day! It was hard but I powered through. The only times we spoke in English was during our English appointments and when we got lost yet again in Rhodes Ranch the largest gate community on planet earth. Pretty sure it is bigger than the entire town of Savannah 🤣. Ok enough fan girling, today we visted Sister Sibley a cute single lady in our ward and we chatted for wayyyy too long. She told us all about oils and her new hobbies she has started with covid. You could tell she really needed a visit. After her house we visited the Stewart family, and learned some awful news. So, naturally we stayed longer there as well, to show support and comfort. Right after we had a steak dinner at our ward mission leaders house!  He is the bomb! He is brand new to the calling and is so ready to help and coordinate with us. We told him all about the people we are teaching and he gave us some awesome advice. We love him and his wife already. 

Sunday: Sunday's are by far our busiest day of the week. Today we had Blanco Vista zoom, English ward council, Blanco Vista Sacrament, Painted Mountain Sacrament, lunch with the Whitakers, an hour of study time, dinner with the Moffat family, and a lesson with the Vazquez family. Church went ok, sadly none of our people came which was a total bummer. :( The Whitaker family fed us burgers and then we went home, did some studies and went straight to the Moffat's for dinner. Sister McBride is good family friends with them so it was a party. The coolest part though, we got to hold to one of the original copies of the Book of Mormon!! It was Elizabeth Cowdery's. Pictures are below. I could feel the spirit so strong just holding that book! After we left we had a meeting with the Vazquez family! It was so good, and the mom gave us permission to have the kids start coming to youth activities!! Woot woot! They have been saying family prayer every night and you can tell it is really helping the parents realize how much this means to the kids. Hopefully we put them on date next week! 

Ok that's all for now everyone! I love you all! There are some pictures here and then in the next email are the pictures from exchanges last week! 

Also! I forgot!! The most awesome Crumb family went to Vegas on vacation and they dropped off a donut!! So so so nice of them! 

Enviando abrazos celestiales,

❤Hermana Sellers

Hermana Sellers and McBride holding Elizabeth Cowdery's Book of Mormon!

An original copy of the Book of Mormon

Creative care package contents for a sister in need.

Gift basket for Maria

Hermana Sellers new hobby...painting the back cover of the Book of Mormon.

Sisters!

Beautiful!

Hermana Sellers and Hermana McBride delivering Maria's care package.

Two beautiful hermanas! Look at those smiles!

Busy, busy, busy!

Donut selfie! Thanks Carl and Sally! You're the best!

The Crumbs tried their best to get this donut to Paige,

but I got this pic from Sally one day of her church building

saying this is as close as they were going to get with a 

HILARIOUS story!

Sally was a woman on a mission and messaged me again 

on Sunday with this picture.  She still didn't catch Paige, but

she did pass the donut off to these cute sisters who left it in the 

kitchen for Paige to pick up later that day. 

Semana Dos Blanco Vista/Painted Mountain: LOCO MILAGROS

Hola todos!! Listen all I have to say is the church is true. Literally everything about this week wouldn't have happened if the church wasn't true. The amount of miracles that have happened are insane. If you don't read anything else from my very long email, the church is true. Alright, let's get this email/blog started! 

Monday: Ok so, I know I got to talk to you all on Monday but, we went to this super cute restruant called Cane's for lunch and their chicken is better than Chick-fil-a.... That took me about three days to admit but, it is amazing. After 6:00pm when I said adios to everyone we had 3 lessons! All three happened and all three had amazing miracles. The first one was with our seeker of truth Josiah. This man is a little rough around the edges but he has such a strong testimony. Hermana McBride and her old companion have talked with him about baptism before and he didn't want anything to do with it. Long story short we invited him to be baptized on January 23rd today.  After many promptings from the Spirit, he said he would pray about the date and he wanted to get baptized! Our second miracle was Angel. We called him for two seconds on Sunday to make sure he was still planning on our zoom calls and Sister McBride was prompted to ask him to pray for her to sleep through the night. We went to bed, woke up, and forgot all about asking Angel to pray for us. When we called the first thing he said was, Sister McBride, did you sleep good?! We instantly remembered and told Josiah that it is the first time Sister McBride has slept all the way through the night since she started her mission seven months ago! This really strengthened his testimony and ours. Our final miracle was the fact that this lady we have been trying to contact for months called out if the blue and said she wanted to come back to church! Aka best p-day ever. 

Tuesday: Today was our first district council meeting!! We walked into the church and guess who's there? PRESIDENT REESE!! The zone leaders we scared out of their minds and it was hilarious. But, our meeting was really good and I learned a lot about family history in missionary work. After the meeting Hermana McBride decided to introduce me to Crumbl cookies!! Sooo amazing, and the owners give missionaries free cookies! Vegas seriously has so many good people. After that we went home, did some contacting, did our studies and went to bed... jk 🤣 after we got home the Sisters we live with come out of their room wrapped in blankets, looking sick with car keys..... we are sick they said, we have to get a covid test they said. So we spent the rest of our day sanitizing the whole apartment, canceling lessons for the next day, going shopping for potential quarantine and overall stressing. Some super sweet members dropped Panera by and we went to bed waiting for the results..... 

Wednesday: Today was super stressful because we didn't know if our roommates had Covid until tonight at 5:00pm soooo we stayed in all day! We changed all of our appointments to zoom calls and did a lot of super productive studying😉 Anyway, good news, my roomies don't have Covid! Woo! Just strep soooo yeah. We are thriving over here. 

Thursday: Today was a party! Well, everyday is a party, but today was fun! It was all pretty normal except for tonight! We got to go teach English!!!! I literally am so excited to keep going and teaching. Our class is awesome and they all work so hard to learn. I love teaching and I love English so, it's really fun. Ahhh! Guys, I literally am so excited to teach again. 

Friday: Training take four! We had another training day with President and Sister Reese! Which was so good! They are awesome and give such good pep talks. So, that was really nice. I got to share some of our awesome milagros with them and they were so excited to hear about Josiah! Ok, I feel like I have used a million exclamation points but, alas, this is life. After the training we had to go out to eat, because..... In-n-Out is not in our zone, but there is one right next to the church we were at!!! Sooooo we had to stop and get In-n-Out, don't worry pictures are included. After we studied and then had dinner at the Branch President's house. He is sooooo funny! Literally we had the best conversation. After dinner Hermana McBride dropped me off for exchanges! I got to go with our awesome STL Sister Knight. We got to stay at her members house! We really just chatted and went to bed tonight, but alas it was a blast. 

Saturday: Exchange day! Ok, today was literally crazy. Hermana McBride told me that the craziest stuff goes down on exchanges and she was 100% right. Today Sister Knight and I started the day off with studies. Then we headed off to this cute little township called Blue Diamond. Only like 50 people live there, they have wild donkeys aka burros and also wild horses that just wander around as the please. So naturally we parked our Tacoma and went on foot for the day! We first stopped at this super cute Cafe for lunch and met two new friends! Our waitress gave us her number and the other Sisters are planning on teaching her next week! Also, another younger guy stopped us and asked if we wanted to volunteer at his new non profit organization. We got to talk to him a little bit and are planning on setting up a time to do some service! After that we went and visited this part member family the Bacas. Sister Baca is so awesome! We knocked just in time because she told us she was having a hard day. We chatted and she invited us inside to show us her new craft project. So, lo and behold, we walk in and her floor is covered in water! Her washing machine broke! Naturally we help cleanup and collect all her clothes to get them washed. Emphasis on the tried..... There are zero laundromats anywhere in Las Vegas 😭 So, what did we do? Carted all these clothes to the member Sister Knight lives with house, and washed her clothes there. Which made it a whole day ordeal. But it was an adventure! While we were at the mercy of the ancient laundry machine we did a bunch of phone calls and language study! After the laundry was done, we went and delivered it, and got some THRIFTY ICE CREAM!! on the way home. Yes mom, there are about 5 million pictures. We seriously had the best day, but I was glad to come home and talk with my cute companion and roommates. 

Sunday: I don't have much to say except that Sister McBride and I accidentally matched today and all the members thought it was awesome, as well as, the words Sundays are no longer for rest....😅 Today we had Spanish Relief Society at 9:00, English ward council at 10:30, Spanish church at 11:30, English church at 1:00, a lesson at 3:00, and a devotional at 6:00, and weekly planning thrown in there too. Talk about a crazy day....! However, we got to really feel the spirit today in many ways. So, I can't even complain. 

Lo siento, (SORRY!) For the supppeeerrrr long email there are so many pictures, that hopefully make your day! More pictures will come in another email, I reached my max on this one so, be looking for more once Sister Knight sends them to me. Also, disclaimer, no restruants are open for sit down here so all of our fast food pics are us in our truck. Lo siento, we tried our best. Finally, I had to include a picture of the telephone poles disguised as straight up evergreens. BTW there are literally no trees of that kind or that tall here so the camouflage..... didn't work too well.

Leftover homemade pasta from the Spanish Branch President.

YUMMY!

You can't beat free cookies! She said the churro cookie filled with Nutella was to die for!

In-N-Out!!! A family favorite.

The members in Las Vegas are awesome!  Everytime someone hears Hermana Sellers is new, they give them money to go out to lunch and try the food at their favorite place.  She said she has eaten out everyday this week on the generosity of the members.

Those are not trees... they are cell phone towers.  Nice try though!

THRIFTY!!!!!

Mom's favorite ice cream flavor - Chocolate Malted Crunch

Accidentally color coordinated.

SO CUTE!

Canes vs. Chickfila

My first package from Mom!

All my favorite GREEN things...

I'll share two things that Hermana Sellers didn't mention in her email.  They have a whole mission Zoom meeting twice a week with the Mission President to promote unity and get to know everyone better.  That meeting is called Reese's Pieces.  Her mission President, President Reese, used to call his children his Reese's Pieces when they were young and now he using the same endearing term with his missionaries. 

Also, Hermana Sellers didn't think she would get so many questions about where she is from, but people are fascinated with Missouri and ask all the time if she's been to the Church History sites like Liberty Jail and Adam-Ondi-Ahman and then want to hear all about it. This week they had dinner at the Branch President's house.  He does not speak a ton of English and Hermana Sellers does not yet speak a ton of Spanish.  He asked her if we had tornado sirens in Missouri like he's seen in the movies.  She didn't know the Spanish word for tornado sirens and he didn't know the English word, so she said it was a bit of a fiasco until they were finally able to figure out what he was trying to say.  Then, she had to explain all about it in English while her companion tried to translate what she was saying into Spanish.  They were all amazed at the telling of how tornado sirens work and needless to say, Hermana Sellers will be working more on her conversational Spanish and hometown vocabulary, LOL!

 MORE PICS FROM EXCHANGES WITH SISTER KNIGHT

Blue Diamond

Thrifty Ice Ceam

Enjoying her Chocolate Malted Crunch ice cream

LOADS of laundry!!!

Sister Knight and Hermana Sellers

Week Uno Blanco Vista/Painted Mountain: Crazy days!!!

Buenos Días mi amigos y familia!! Week one in my mission has been sooooooo longgggg! But it has also been so FUN! Day one included visiting the beautiful Las Vegas Nevada temple and meeting our companions! Mi compañeras name is Hermana McBride, she is so nice and I seriously couldn't have asked for a better companion. She is teaching me all the details but we are also getting along super well which is awesome. ALSO! We are in charge of a Spanish branch and a ward. Which means we always get fed. Literally every night. Also, the members bring us so much food. We literally have two pies, a whole box of baked goods, multiple boxes of chocolates and more. We literally couldn't go wrong, except we are all gonna gain 25 lbs from this ward alone. Anyway! 

Thursday: We had a orientation/training from 9-5 in which we had so much information thrown at us I'm pretty sure we forgot 99.9% if it! But alas I learned all about our super cool Tacoma!!! Annnndddd all the fun things that come with getting gas and washing the car every week.  We also got to meet our mission President and he is honestly so awesome. He is so in tune with the spirit and I know that we are in good hands. Thank goodness because I was scared out of my mind to talk to him for the first time. This day was sooo long but after training we went to the store and we got some yummy juice and blueberries to help me survive until p-day! We also forgot to get soap sooo I had to get a loan from the other Sisters in our apartment!  Yeah that's right! We have a huge party apartment with two bathrooms. Literally life could not get any better! Sister Farnsworth and Leflur are soooo funny and nice! I can't wait to get to know them!! 

Friday: New Years Eve!!!! Soooo fun! The day itself was finally a normal day of missionary work! We had a blast, but we had to be in our apartment by 8 because Vegas on New Years is a whole train wreck. Sirens and Fireworks were going alllllll night. Which is why I think our mission President let us SLEEP IN TILL 8! Seriously he is actually the best. Anyway my fun roommates had a new years party at 12 Missouri time and 10 Vegas time! 

Saturday: More missionary work! Today we met Linda, the crunchy lasagna queen. This lady is a hoot! 🤣 She is very opinionated on all thing political which is totally allowed on the mish..... yeah that was a fun convo! But in all honestly Linda is a really cool daughter of God, hopefully she can recognize that someday. Also we called some members in our Spanish branch and I tried to talk but man, Hispanic people talk too fast. So alas I tried but my companion had to do a lot of the work. We also went to Cafe Rio with some of the other Sisters that are in our branch and it was soooo fun! We also went to the craziest neighborhood that you need VIP access to which is our whole ward! So yeah we live in a very nice area! 

Sunday: Today was the funnest, craziest, busiest day of my life. We went to two Sacrament meetings, two ward councils, a member lesson, and an investigator lesson. The spirit was so strong today and I just loved the way it followed us all day. The Spanish branch is tiny and I had to say the prayer!!!! Ahhhh!!! It was crazy and really hard!!! The family that we shared a message with is the Vazquez family, they are amazing! Their kids are so ready to hear the gospel so hopefully we can get the parents on board soon. 

I hope this email makes you laugh and I am sorry it is not super detailed! We are learning the ropes over here! Next week will be so much better. The pictures were soooo hard so sorry Mom! We will do better about pictures next week!

Sister Mc Bride opening her New Year's Eve package from her family.

VEGAS!

New companeras! Hermana McBride and Hermana Sellers.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! (Missouri time so that they could go to bed on time).

It's a party!

Out to lunch in the Tacoma. Did she mention she drives a truck now?

Here's to a better year.  Welcome 2021!

Video calling family on P-day.  Cali loves the filters!