Semana 8 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Baptism Prep, Blanco Vista style

 Hola todos! Buenos días! Hoy es un dia maravillosa. This week has been non stop baptism prep. Who knew so much work went into planning a baptism? However, we are so excited for Maria! She is truly amazing, and so ready. 

Monday: After Pday we called people and did some awesome language study. We have been really trying to make the most of language study because we both really want to improve our Spanish skills. This week I've been working on using future and past tense. Sister McBride has been working on subjunctive...! 

Tuesday: Ok today we did our usual district council and Crumbl cookie run, we dropped off a cookie and a restoration panfleto to Tonya. She didn't answer and we are thinking we might have to stop teaching her.... :( Then, we zoomed to the church for a quick zoom lesson in between appointments. Right before the lesson, Elder Smith (the car guy) calls us. He asked us some questions about our Tacoma and then said that our Tacoma was being retired!!! Apparently 2017 is too old for missionaries.....?? So, our Tacoma went to auction to be sold to some lucky people and we got a boring old 2021 Equinox...!!!!! Just kidding, we are so excited! It has so many cool features and even has wifi, pedestrian sensing automatic breaks and much more. So, if anyone was wondering where their tithing money goes. I think the missionaries in Las Vegas are totally spoiled. I think it is cheaper for the church to buy new cars and resell them but, who am I? Anyway, pictures hugging the Tacoma goodbye are included. Today we also had a awesome lesson with Josiah! He finally understands more about the priesthood and baptism, sadly he is still firmly against meeting with the Elders.... Hmm mm... We also had dinner with the Stewarts! We love the Stewarts. They made really yummy food and we made chocolate covered strawberries afterwards. We had a lesson and invited them all to start reading the Book of Mormon! We told them if they did we had a special surprise for them (their very own painted Book of Mormons and scripture pens!).

Wednesday: Today we taught Maria Ocejo the gospel of Jesus Christ and she really seemed to love it. Sunday is the Word of Wisdom, Tithing and the Law of Chastity soooo wish us luck. Hopefully she still wants to be baptized next week!  We also had dinner with the Lemos family and went street contacting. Which. I am convinced doesn't work. So many other missionaries are seeing success soooo maybe we are doing something wrong?? Missionary friends please drop some tips below! We also went to youth group and ARI CAME! So, that was awesome and we got a meal out of youth group as well, so let's go! Ari was warmly welcomed and we love our young women's presidency in the PM ward. 

Thursday: Today we went and studied at the one and only biblioteca! I love the library!!! We loved sitting in the fancy soft chairs and we will 100% be going back. A game plan for sneaking Book Of Mormons everywhere is in the making. We also had a lesson with our friend Maria (Not the one getting baptized. We have four friends named Maria...!). She is Catholic, but has been taught by missionaries for years. Next week we are going to hit the priesthood hard and hope that changes her mind about the Catholic church. She has a strong testimony of the Book Of Mormon and we really want her to understand the importance of acting on her faith. We went street contacting and got rejected yet again, and we also had English class! Our class is honestly hilarious. It's the one time a week I can't breathe because I am laughing too hard. The natives tried to explain the difference between vamos, vamanos, and vayamos. But, I still don't get it, soooo, Spanish speakers that I know and love please help! I am pretty sure our class teaches us more than we teach them, but we have a blast. Marcos brought a friend and he is also interested in hearing the gospel! So we sent out yet another golden referral. 

Friday: Today we had the stake breakfast and had a visit with our cute single member Sister Sibley. She is a hoot! We were there for almost two hours and barely escaped by the skin of our teeth! However, she really needed someone to talk to and we were able to share God's love for her in a unique way. If you tend to be a perfectionist I suggest you read Alma 29:1-10, Alma is talking about how he wishes he could be better and it is really inspiring. Today we had lots of social media meetings and it got me excited to try and make some cool posts, so stay tuned. The majority of our day was spent in meetings and baptism prep! We are trying to include as many branch members as possible and we are so excited!! We are having a big traditional feast afterwards and I can not wait. 

Saturday: Today we studied at the library again, had an amazing crepe breakfast with our ward mission leader, and called Hermana Venegas to lift her spirits. We also spent 3 hours weekly planning and contacted over 40 people who responded to our English class ad! Ah! It was a long day but an overall good day. 

Sunday: AHHH!!! Such a long day! So we are going to do this list style, bear with me. First, Spanish Sunday school/practicing vocab for Maria's scary lesson, next English Ward council hot topics including a meal calendar.... finally and Josiah, third is Blanco Vista church with the cutest Sophia more on her later, chastity and word of wisdom lesson with Maria, zooming to English church and rolling in 30 minutes late...., talking with the literal whole ward, in person BOM reading with Josiah and Sister Harley, came home and took a much needed lunch hour, got on the baptism planning grind for an hour, lesson and dinner with the Vasquez family, and finally finishing weekly planning and turning in our key indicators....... Ok, now that we can breathe, more on Maria's lesson. Maria brought her granddaughter to church and she is the cutest! However, it made it really hard to teach her the three hardest principles in the whole book. Hermana Martinez was there and she really helped us out, the spirit was so strong. She is already living all of the laws and even thought tithing was "muy hermosa". So, we can't wait to get her baptized Saturday and the branch is nothing but excited! 

Thanks for everyone who made it this far! Honestly not a lot of pictures this week but I will make up for it because Maria's baptism is next week!!!!! I love you all!

Goodbye Taco!

(Taco the Tacoma, get it?!?)

Say hello to the Equinox!

Not a bad trade!  It had 60 miles on it when Elder Smith delivered it.

This Hermana loves her new car!

Facebook filter of the week

Taken from Sister Reese's Facebook page.

"Dyed in the wool, true blue, through and through!"

More from Mom...  

Hermana Sellers was a little homesick this week.  Sister McBride had two family birthdays this week and since they are now allowed to call home on birthdays, Paige listened to Sister McBride talk to her family twice.  It made her long for home a little bit.  Needless to say, she was thankful to talk to all of us on Monday!

Paige celebrated her 3 month anniversary as a missionary this week.  The other sister missionaries in her area took her to lunch to celebrate.  She said that for sisters they celebrate their 3, 6, 9 and 12 month marks.  She said it feels like its been so much longer and shorter than that at the same time!  I feel like as she continue to get comfortable with her routine and work, the time will start to fly by.

She finally brought up in Ward Council that they are not being fed dinners and it turns out that it was a huge miscommunication and the new Relief Society President had their whole week full in less than two hours.  Apparently Sister McBride forgot to tell the leadership that they were allowed to have member meals again (that change happened before Paige arrived), so noone really knew that they were allowed to have them over.  After last weeks break down about not having enough money to purchase healthy food and their money not being deposited into their accounts, this was a HUGE blessing!

Paige said that at the end of each of Maria's lessons on the Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity and the Law of Tithing, Hermana Martinez would bear a powerful testimony of the principle and each time Maria would say that it made sense and accept it whole heartedly. She's been worried that their Spanish wouldn't be good enough to communicate these difficult topics, but the spirit came through and it was testimony to Paige of the power of bearing your testimony.

Lastly, Paige and I talked quite a bit about how Christ ministers to us in the ways that will most help us.  Paige is loving her time with the Stewarts as they minister to them. Jesus didn't just baptize people.  He loved, cared for, healed, brought peace and hope. As a set apart missionary, she is allowed to make promises and as long as she lives worthy and the terms are met, the Lord keeps those promises.  She has made several promises to Sister Stewart that have been fulfilled and it has been a beautiful blessing to both Sister Stewart, her family and to Paige. These experiences remind me of how much Paige is His daughter first and how much love and faith He has for and in her as she devotes herself to Him and His work. <3

Semana 7: Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista; Never launch a Facebook ad...

 Hola! Como está? Happy belated Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you all felt loved by your families, friends, significant others and your Savior. Today's theme is never launch a Facebook ad because, well.... you'll find out throughout the email. 

Tuesday: Ah crazy that I'm starting this email on Tuesday.  Ok so, we went to the Stewart's today after pday and made the cutest bracelets! Pictures are attached. We love the Stewarts! She is progressing so much, but it's going to take time for the Savior to heal her broken heart. 

Wednesday: So today we decided to put up a Facebook ad for free English classes in the South Vegas area! Mistakes were made..... Within five minutes of posting the ad we already had 20 responses... We still have the ad up but we get a solid 15 to 20 responses a day. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to respond to everyone, report their contact, make them a person, and send their referral. We sent 15 referrals to other missionaries today. Crazy the need for English classes here!! We also went to mutual but, sadly none of our friends they we are teaching were there.... Also, for all you parents with 12-14 year old girls. I love you, you are doing great, and don't get discouraged this too shall pass. 

Thursday: Today we responded to yet another million ad responses, sent 10 more referrals and have two potential new people coming to our English class!! We also did weekly planning and helped Hermana Gallegos plan her Relief Society lesson. She always asks us to help her because she gets nervous, but we really just provide moral support. That's about it other than Centro Hispano, no cool stories today about that, just a normal super fun English class. Our class is soooo funny! That, and I got to see Hermana Tveten! I seriously miss her already and I'm glad she works the same shift at Centro as I do! 

Friday: Ok, well first. Responded to more ad people.... sent 15 referrals..... again. But, today was really cool. So, after we finished that we needed to get out of the apartment so we decided to go street contacting. We prayed and decided to go to this neighborhood we had never been to before. The first street we walked up there was this Latina lady sweeping her sidewalk (So, our English area is RR only but our Spanish area is the whole zone, so if we go anywhere not in RR then we have to only look out for Spanish speakers). We came up to her, got chatting and ended up getting her name and number and we have a call with her later today! She loved the idea of eternal families and has only been in the US for three years (Which means she hasn't been corrupted with random anti stuff yet, thats a huge problem in our English area). Fingers crossed we get to make her new today!! We also said goodbye to our dear gate guard and gave her the Book of Mormon we painted for her. 

Saturday: THE BIG DAY! Today we went and cleaned the chapel with the Branch. Maria Osejo, our good friend came to help?! We were floored. So, naturally we had a lesson with her afterward. With the Spanish speakers, it is much easier to get to teach them if we just seize the moment. They just aren't very good with phone calls. We invited her to be baptized on March 13th!! However, our Branch President was like how about February 27th? And she said yes!!!!!! That means we have to teach 4 of the 5 lessons, get her prepared for baptism, plan the baptism, and get her to attend another baptism, in 14 days!!!! Ah! But, we are so excited for her and so glad she wants to enter the waters of baptism. She even took an extra Plan of Salvation panfleto to give to her daughter. We use the panfletos to suplement after the lesson just in case anything got lost in translation they have a perfectly written and worded panfleto to look back at. TWO NEW PEOPLE CAME TO ENGLISH CLASS!! It made us feel like our efforts on FB were not wasted. 

Sunday: Josiah and Maria came to church! We were bummed Javier and Damari didn't make it, but we still had an awesome lesson about the Restoration with Maria after the Branch. I actually taught quite a bit and surprised myself with how much Spanish I knew. The Lord isn't letting me mess this up with Maria....! We also had our own make shift Valentines day. We took dinner at 8:00 so we could have 8-10:30 off. We made homemade lemonade and fancy breaded chicken, yummy mug brownies and heart cookies. For breakfast we made tiny heart waffles in the tiny waffle maker that Sister McBride's parents sent us. We tried to make the best out of a pretty homesick day. Luckily our Sundays are so busy we didn't have a whole lot of time to be homesick. All in all our two man Valentines Day was a success. 

This week we just had like one big thing happen, but we spent a lot of time on Facebook with English class. Pictures include feeding the birds, our Galentines day, a selfie with Maria, and other random things, like us in our new comfy! The best creation on earth currently. Also, our yummy fried ice cream! The car selfie is us at the light we have to add five extra minutes to our drive time for.... and since I took so many pictures there are more attached in another email!

The greatest thing on planet earth! Introducing the COMFY!

Sister McBride's family sent Comfy's for Valentine's Day.

Heart shaped waffles for Valentine's Day

Fancy Galentine's Dinner...

...Sister Missionary style

Twinners

Stuck at the signal...again!

MARIA!!!

Feeding the pigeons

Semana 6 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: New Friends

 Hola todos! Today's theme is new friends because we met so many people this week! Stay tuned for some super cool miracles involving a duck, a drive thru, a journal, a members house, and the branch RS president! 

Monday: Ok! Pday was fun but after pday we had an amazing miracle yet again! Sister Stewart wrote down every time she saw God in her life! She even bought her and Ari special journals for that exact purpose. She opened up to us about some of her trials and how she just feels like she failed in life and she failed her kids and that God doesn't want to talk to her. As I explained the Atonement to her I felt the spirit enter the room and you could tell it hadn't been there in a while. This just, amazing love for her came out of nowhere and I knew it was the spirit. I can't wait to keep working with her and Ari and hopefully see them progress even further than they were this week. 

Tuesday: Today was awesome for missionary work! We stopped by Maria's house and talked to her a little bit. We called some of our people and FINALLY! Set up an in person lesson with Tonya!!! I can't wait to see how this goes next Tuesday. We also went street contacting next to the golf course in RR (Rhodes Ranch). We met Sarah by asking her to use some of the bread she brought to feed the ducks! She is literally so elect. She volunteers at like 6 different places and is just so down to earth. Sadly her "significant other?" Is not so interested in our message so we shall see if this goes well or not. But, we needed this little miracle after a long day of no, no, no in RR. After the RR miracle we met the cutest Sister Adling!! She has the cutest baby and got married in the KC temple so she is basically the best. Plus she got us Chinese take out so.... New favorite English member. 

Wednesday: Today our beloved friend Joel sent us yet another excessively long text/journal entry about the corona, but at the very end of the longest text I have ever seen, he said he started reading the Book Of Mormon! He even sent us pictures of his study set up! How fun! I don't know if he will actually progress or not but he is taking steps in the right direction. We also crashed youth group to launch our new Instagram page called @onewithmysavior and not a single youth has Instagram..... and only like five of them have phones..... sooo that didn't work. But, Daniel Vazquez came to youth night again! So we got to say hi to him before we dipped out. Also, you all should follow the Instagram! It is super cool! 

Thursday: Today we had a super busy day! We had weekly planning and made some awesome new goals that we are super excited about. Getting nervous for transfer calls.... we shall see what happens. But, we got to teach English and had yet another miracle with this lady named Victoria! After our spiritual thought she super quietly raised her hand and told us that she wanted to meet with us outside of class! Sadly, I doubt she is in our area so a lucky missionary is getting another referral! We talked to her a little bit and gave her our number. Teaching English is so amazing in so many ways. We also had an amazing dinner with the Nassiris who invited us and Josiah, to their Super Bowl party😂 We shall see how long we can stay. But, so glad Josiah is getting more involved with the ward. Also! Our adorable gate guard Rosie is quitting and her last day is next week. :( We will miss he so much, we came home today and she bought us bamboo plants!! She is literally the best. We are working on painting her a Book Of Mormon and getting her a little something special. Who knows maybe we will end up teaching her. We named our bamboo Rosie and Rosie Jr. 

Friday: Today we taught Josiah about the priesthood and seeing it click in his brain was so cool! We also went to the Gallegos family's house and taught them a little bit about family history and I was able to teach probably 50% of the lesson in all Spanish by myself! Which was so exciting! I feel like I am slowly but surely progressing in Spanish, some days are better than others, but I know I am learning a ton. However, the coolest thing that happened today was, the Roberto's drive thru. We decided to go get dinner around 8:10 because we didn't want to cook. We went to this cute Mexican restaurant across the street from our apartment and we heard the guy in front of us ordering in Spanish so, we decided that would be fun. We ordered our food in all Spanish and we got to the window and Javier the drive thru guy, was like, where did you guys learn Spanish?! We told him we were missionaries and he told us to pull around so we could talk more. We pulled around, got his number and invited him to church! He said he was gonna try and come if he didn't work! Had we not ordered in Spanish Javier wouldn't have asked where we learned. It wouldn't have brought up a gospel discussion and he wouldn't have known about the church, or the amazing Spanish community of members from the branch! The Lord works in mysterious ways. Just another miracle involving talking to literally everyone. 

Saturday: Today was awesomeeee! We spent most of the morning doing studies and even went to the park to do some language study. Javier from Roberto's called us asking about English class and church! Hopefully he comes tomorrow!  After, we walked around RR for two hours trying to find people to help us with our video and everyone said no... So, we ended up changing our whole plan and it was kinda lame. However, the day was still awesome because we met Manuel!!! Manuel is a recent immigrant from Peru and he knows the Villagomez family in our branch, so we went over for dinner and taught him the whole Restoration! He was so excited and we gave him a Book Of Mormon and he was so excited to get reading! Hopefully we see him at church tomorrow. I haven't ever really felt the spirit in an all Spanish lesson because I am always so nervous, but, this time was different. All my nerves were gone and I was just able to feel the peace that I know he was feeling too. Even though I probably only understood 10% of everything that was said during the lesson and at dinner I could tell the Manuel knew that God loved him and was looking out for him. 

Sunday: It's a crazy day in the neighborhood, so much to see so much to do, would you be mine, could you be mine, won't you be my neighbor? First transfer calls. Sister McBride and I are staying and we aren't getting new roomies.... so that's lame. Also, our zone got combined with South zone so now we are huge!! And we are no longer a Sister zone. Also, the Blanco Vista dream team is leaving and no one is replacing them. Which is a lot more responsibility for us, but we are excited because we love Blanco. However, me and Sister Tveten are like the same person and I really love her so it's going to be sad to see her go. Hopefully we see each other again. Also, Elder Main and Elder P are staying our zone leaders which I am so excited about because they are the best. We will get new district leaders though, so that will be interesting. So, today none of our friends came to church which was lame but we did get a new friend and her name is Maria. Crazy miracle about Maria. She is the other Sister's investigator but they are passing off all their people today so we got to talk with her. Hermana Martinez (the branch RS president) walks up to her and is like, so when are you getting baptized? Me and Sister McBride are like...!!!!! Ah!!! What is she doing?! So we ask Maria, wait, do you want to get baptized? Maria says yeah, of course. GUYS! Maria is officially getting baptized. We are meeting with her next week to start doing the lessons and set an official date (she hasn't been taught any but the Restoration and has been to church three times). Which means, I now have to be able to teach all five lessons in Spanish pronto. So. That's terrifying but also super exciting!!! After church we went to the Gennari's for dinner and have the yummiest Empanadas ever. I love the Gennari's, we played throw throw burrito, which I thought would be weird but it was actually super fun! 

Monday: Not a lot happened today because we usually have pday and so we don't have a ton of appointments. We did meet two more of the Sisters investigators and did mini pass off lessons with them. We also had out last district and zone council which was sad but we got some cute pictures. We door bell ditched Tonya her Book Of Mormon and she seemed to love it! We shall see where that goes. We have so many promising people I hope they all start to progress in the gospel. 

Ok! I love you all! Pictures are included, have a fabulous week! Bonus selfie of Elder Smith the car guy that he took on all of our phones🤣 and a super awesome early in the morning picture with the Heiners who came to fix our vacuum and scared the crap out of us because our apartment wasn't the cleanest....  

Enviados abrazos celestiales,

Hermana Sellers

 

Sisters Zone 

Silly face!

Sisters District

Brother and Sister Heiner fixed our vacuum!

Elder Smith "The Car Guy"

Spanish Branch Hermanas

All smiles!

Oh's... The breakfast of Sister missionaries.

Breakfast on the go!

Mmmm!

The Blanco Vista Dream Team

Meet Rosie Jr.!

We decorated for Valentine's Day.

Facebook filter fun!  We love talking to our hermana!

Thank you Grandma Lisa for Door Dashing us Chickfila! Happy Hermanas!

(It's their favorite, but out of their area, so they can't eat there right now)

Semana Cinco Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Service central

 Good morning folks! Jk, Buenos días mi familia y amigos, como esta? This weeks theme was service. We may have only taught a few lessons, but we did so much service!! 

Monday: The last three hours of pday were wack. Our roomies have been sick, the entire transfer. Which has been so hard for us, and them. But, we have been trying to help them our in every way we can, which made us shocked to walk into our apartment and it looks like a tornado went through the entire apartment we had just cleaned. So, naturally we walked into the other Sisters room and stuff and suitcases are everywhere. Turns out they are being Emergency Transfered (ET'd) and they leave Tuesday at 8:00am. So we spent our night helping them pack while contacting our members to try and get them to feed us this week. The ET was kinda scary and no one is taking their spot so, it's just me and Hna McBride until transfers next week! Ah! We are gonna miss our roomies, but we also think splitting them up will hopefully give them a fresh start and allow them to get back into the work. 

Tuesday: Today was crazyyyyyyy! Ok first off, the first two hours were spent helping the other Sisters finish packing and get out the door. My mind is still blown that President can just call you and you are moved in less than 12 hours. While we were lugging suitcases down our two flights of stairs we got a call! It was Tonya!! We have been trying to get a hold of Tonya so we naturally pause everything and answer the phone. Turns out one of her kids had a last minute thing and that's why she didn't answer our call but she is still interested and we are planning on going to her house next week Tuesday!! Ahhh! Also, today we had an amazing lesson with the Stewart family. They have been going through a rough time, the mom is inactive and the kids aren't baptized, so we have been working hard to let them know the Savior is there for them. We experimented with some fun food combos, including crushed hot cheetoes and pickles. Don't knock it until you try it, it is actually amazing. After the fun food combos, we watched this video on faith and reaching up to the Lord. Hna McBride and I were trying to find an amazing video but we really couldn't and by the grace of God, the next video that auto played on YouTube was the video we had been searching for. The spirit was so strong. We invited Sister Stewart and Ari to write down the little ways they see the Lord's hand in their lives this week. Hopefully, we can discuss over Enchiladas later today! 

Wednesday: It snowed!!!!!!! Today we did more service! We helped vacuum and clean an entire school to get ready to finally let the kids back in on Monday! We had a blast vacuuming with the zone and we built a ton of member trust. We also went to our Branch President's house and they made us traditional Argentine empanadas 😍 they were literally so good. The Gennari's are hilarious! We were there for so long discussing, well, everything. It was the best!! Pictures are included. 

Thursday: Ok, today we had English class! My favorite part of the week! We taught this amazing lady named Jessica who just moved here from Peru a month ago, which means she is in lesson 3 and speaks no English. But, during our spiritual thought she really teared up and we talked to her afterward and she is elect! (Elect is the new word for golden investigator). We gave her a Book Of Mormon and she gave us her number and address. Sadly she lives in the other mission so we had to refer her to them.... However, I can't wait to see what happens with her. Plus, we will still see her in English class every Thursday.  Milagros happen everyday guys. 

Friday: Today was a long day so buckle up! First, we had ST&MT, aka Second training for new missionaries and trainers. Long acronym but it was fun! I got to see all my peeps that I came to the mission with and everyone looks like they have grown so much, which is so cool! After that, we went to a members house and helped her paint the entire house for three hours. I didn't realize that moving so much would make me a pro painter, but, it would've taken a lot longer if I wasn't there. After painting we had a lesson with one of Sister McBride friends via zoom, and then headed out to Sushi! Ah!!! The Moffat's took us to this fancy Sushi place and I was scared out of my mind. But I did it! I ate all the different kinds, three of which had raw fish. Honestly, it wasn't terrible, but it definitely is not something I would choose to eat again. However, it was super nice of them to take us out and the other Sisters we went with love sushi, so 🤷‍♀️. After, we came home, studied Spanish and crashed!! 

Saturday: Today we helped this lady move who only speaks Portuguese..... which is actually super similar to Spanish so we made it work. But, she hadn't even packed up her house. So, we were just throwing all of her stuff into trash bags and it was terrifying. I'm just glad I am not the one that has to unload the truck. The language barrier was hard, but you could tell she really needed the help and the Elder's she moved by set up a lesson with her tomorrow and she came to church! Service works guys! Even if it is hard and it is kinda weird and gross sometimes. After that we called a bunch of people and texted a bunch of members. One of those members being Sister Stewart!! We had a huge miracle today. We were just weekly planning and we were deciding what to teach the Stewart's, when I had the thought to invite her to church on Sunday. Sister McBride was like no. We can't, we have built too much trust we have to do baby steps. But, I really wanted to invite them to church. So, I was like let's pray about it. So we prayed and Sister McBride was like ugh, you are right let's do it. So we invite her to church and we are super nervous. Not more than five minutes later she texts us back and says, not this week because I haven't been to school in three weeks and Sunday is my only day off work to catch up. But, please keep inviting me. It has been too long since I've come to church and I want to come back. Guys!!! We literally cried. Our goal we have been praying for is to get Sister Stewart through the temple and she finally wants to get back on the path! 

Sunday: Big news! Josiah drove himself to church and stayed awake the whole meeting! Yes! That was the best part of our day. Today was also the first ever branch conference and guys i have never seen anything so cute in my life. Everyone in the branch was so nervous for the Stake to come! We had to set up translators that the stake wore and the Branch really went all out. We had printed paper programs and flowers everywhere. They were so excited to show the Stake Presidency their branch. The only thing that was bad, was this white lady from the stake did the musical number in English..... and it was awful..... you know when people think they can sing and they can't? Sister McBride and I were really grateful for our masks..... oof. But, the rest of the conference was amazing and so spiritual. I think this is the first time I have really felt the spirit in a meeting where I can't speak the language very well. My Spanish is getting so much better. Lastly, we asked permission from the Vazquez parents to baptized their kids, and they flat out told us no... That probably hurt the most of anything on my mission so far. The kids have such strong testimonies and it makes me sad. We are going to keep working with the parents, but they really just aren't ready for the gospel. 

This week had some huge highs and some very low, lows, but I've learned that is missionary work. Pictures, include a fun icecream date with our favorite missionaries in the zone, and our terrible parking jobs in the truck, plus pics from previously mentioned stories. I love you guys! Keep me updated on everything where you are. 

Enviando abrazos celestiales,

❤Hermana Sellers

SUSHI!!!

Out for Sushi with the Moffats

Sisters and Sushi

It's so pretty!

The Gennari Family

Our favorite ice cream spot

The sisters we share the Spanish Branch with joined us for ice cream

Blanco Vista Branch Hermanas

Painting for a sister in the ward

Painting with a smile!

 

Sister McBride's fabulous parking job

Sister McBride LOVES Coke!

It SNOWED!!!! In Vegas!!!!

For the love of food.

Hearts for my door everyday leading up to Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day care package from Mom!

Hermana Sellers mentioned that while out with the Moffats they slipped a hundred dollar bill in each companionships purses!! They didn't notice until later that evening and could not believe their eyes. She shares many stories of how well the members are taking care of them and how generous they are and it makes this Momma's heart happy.

She also mentioned that because of her painting skills, it only took them 2 1/2 hours to paint the house!  We've painted LOTS of walls in LOTS of houses over the years and it seems like it is paying off!