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!
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
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