Semana 13 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Finding people who are willing to let God prevail!!

Hola Hola! Week one of the transfer is complete. I have gotten lost only about a million times but, there isn't a scratch on my car so I take that as a success. This week we did a ton of trying to find new people to teach. We don't have very many that are really progressing so we decided to focus more of our efforts on finding. Let me tell you guys! It has worked. We have put ourselves in the place to be found and people just keep coming! 

Tuesday: Well Tuesday was not super eventful, we just got Sister Edwards all situated and went to Centro Hispano. Our new class is how to find a better job and it is really cool! 

Wednesday: Today literally every single one of our appointments fell through including our dinner!! Sad! Also sad, I had to drive myself to the doctor which is like an hour away! Soooo lame! But, they are getting getting me all fixed up so esta bien. After the doctor we street connected to no end! We walked and walked and walked some more. Sadly we came home empty handed but, we got to know each other pretty well on our walks! We also decided to go to mutual and did etiquette dinner with the youth! Aperantly that is where the Lord needed us to be! It is so cool to me how the Lord can guide your efforts as long as you put in the work! My challenge this week is to ask God to give you somewhere to go or something to do. He is waiting on us to ask so he can use us to further his work! If there is something I have learned this week it is that God will put us in the right place at the right time to help one of his lost children. We just have to listen. 

Thursday: To start the morning we had a bunch of social media meetings! Being a social media specialist is wayyyy more legit than I thought it was. It's a lot of work! After that we did some service and helped this guy move. Then, we met with an awesome referral named Blazey! He is from Kenya and he is golden! We answered all of his questions and he is coming to church with us on Sunday! How exciting! After that we did a ton more street contacting. Sadly no responses so we headed out to dinner with the Richard's family. They are the sweetest couple ever! Oh my goodness and they made this super yummy salad that I could've eaten six servings of! He is the patriarch of the stake and I loved seeing the strong spirit that came from the unity of their relationship with each other and with God. 

Friday: Today we had service with Esther and hoped to give her a Book Of Mormon. Sadly her kids were soooo cranky and we ended up leaving earlier than expected. However, she did say she would come to church on Sunday! So we shall see! Fingers crossed! After that we did some Facebook finding and studies. Then we had yet another social media meeting. After the meeting we were so bored of screens that we walked a mile to this super cute park to street contact. While we were there we met this amazing guy Terrence who is really looking for answer to his big questions and we can't wait to help him out. He also wants help learning Spanish! Fingers crossed all goes well with him. We also met a guy named Tallen who left his family at a young age and is just trying to make it on his own. He used to be a member but told us he hasn't gone in over ten years. We told him we would love to see him at church and at the Easter Egg hunt! He told us he would come and we were able to bring some light into his life. 

Saturday: Today started out with a move for a single dad named Dan! We helped him load up his truck. But, the coolest part was the end. We were able able share with him a message of peace and even set a return appointment for a family home evening Monday night. So cool! It amazes me the way the Lord gets his work accomplished. After we had an amazing Easter brunch with the ward! A ton of people brought their friends and we were able to set up a lesson with a cute older couple out of it! Tallen came as well! Even the Stewart and Gibbs family were there. We had a blast and were able to talk to so many awesome people. After that we came home, showered, street contacted, and taught some English to the Peña family. During street contacting we hid golden eggs all over the park with picture of Jesus and our number inside of them! Fingers crossed someone calls! 

Sunday: Josiah sadly wasn't at church because he is on vacation. However, we had an amazing sacrament meeting! Blazey and Tallen got up and BORE THEIR TESTIMONIES! Literally coolest moment of my mission. I have a feeling Blazey will be getting baptized soon. Tallen is a member but hasn't gone since he was like 8. Hopefully we can get him to the temple. We had an amazing dinner with the Grillone family and then crashed because our Sundays are always crazy. 

It was an awesome week but sadly not a lot of pictures..... I had a ton the past few weeks so bear with me! We also had to clean out our dragón three times because it was so nasty and clogged soooo you get a picture of that too! I also smashed my finger while helping Dan move sooo.... I hope you all have had an awesome week and don't forget to ask the Lord to guide you at some point this week! If you take the challenge I would love to hear how it all goes! 

Enveinidos Abrazos Celestiales,

Hermana Sellers

Missionary Moving Company

Smashed pinky :( Hoping I don't lose my fingernail... Fingers crossed

Teaching Spanish instead of English

Hiding Easter eggs at the park

This is NOT a random picture of me standing next to a Jeep... ;)

Cleaning out the drain

Our new friend Tallen

Semana 12 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Hola Hermana Edwards y Adios Hermana McBride.... (:(

 Hola todos! I'm sure your missed me with P-day being on Tuesday this week. Transfer details included me staying in my area, being the designated driver...... and getting a new companion! Sister Edwards. She honestly intimidated me big time the first time I met her because she trained one of my friends that came out at the same time I did. Everyone says she is awesome so I guess we shall see! She has amazing Spanish and is in charge of Centro Hispano, which means we will be going there a lot more potentially!! Woohoo! I'm excited for the change but sad to see Sister McBride go. We are staying in the new apartment I recently moved into. So, that is good! No moving for me, just a lot of helping Sister McBride and taking lots of pictures. Plus....! We are the Social media specialists for the Centro Hispano page this transfer which means we are in charge of all the posts and ads and stuff. Ahh!!!

Monday: Man, time this week has gone so slow I can barely remember what we did on Monday! Today we went to the Anderson's house for dinner and man are they talkers. We were there for basically the rest of P-day! 

Tuesday: Today we did a day full of studies! It was nice not to have so many appointments and actually get all of our studies in. Pretty crazy that this is some missionaries every day. We are lucky to have so many people to visit and teach. Josiah sadly canceled on us.... we will do take two tomorrow. We also had an amazing dinner with a family in our ward who has adopted their two little boys. They are the cutest!! We got to say a prayer with them and it was fun to watch how their little family functions. 

Wednesday: We wore our green and after hours we went and got green shakes at our favorite icecream place! Sadly Josiah canceled on us yet again....we will do take three tomorrow. Today we also went street contacting and complimented everyone's green. It was so fun! Then, we went to the  Burt's house for dinner. She made Indian food which I've learned people eat a lot here...... so..... yeah...... Anyway, after that we went and watched the youth music festival with all the youth! It is soooo good. I highly reccomend. I really felt the spirit and the church has seriously upped their church music game since Covid. 

Thursday: Today was service day. We started off the morning at an old lady's ranch helping her clean out her horse pens. Three of them were completely stuffed full with boxes of, well, garbage. However, she clearly didn't think so. So, we bucked up and cleaned out every single box, we sorted and un-taped until our fingers were raw. We tried to sneak boxes of sorted out trash into the dumpster when she wasn't looking because this poor lady had so much stuff! If there is anything I have learned this week is the power random stuff has over your life. It really blocks out the spirit. So, my "invitation" for the week is to sort your stuff!! Clean out the junk in your life and leave some room for the spirit to speak to you. I promise that as you let go of things that don't matter, you will have more room for the things that do. We also, spent most of the rest of the day deep cleaning Sister Stewart's house. So we did a lot of manual labor today! Luckily Sister Stewart bought us Raising Canes as a thank you. After that we drove to Centro Hispano and Sister McBride had to say goodbye to our class :( Sadly I did too. My new shift will be on Tuesdays. 

Friday: Today we did service for Esther and helped mop a floor that desperately needed it. After we did weekly planning. After that we got to go to my Dad's boss' house! Crazy right? He fed us a very nice dinner and we even got to share a message! 

Saturday: Today was full of saying goodbyes. English class ended with a super yummy mexican restaurant. We enjoyed the time we had left! Transfer calls were all night so we were super anxious all day! Sister McBride knew she was leaving but, I had no idea I would stay!! Luckily I still have a little longer here in Blanco. 

Sunday: Today was nuts! I honestly am too tired to write about it! We had three really cool meetings and even had a birthday celebration for Ari! The week ended with a bang! 

I have a million pictures, so hopefully they send. Here are a bunch of member pics and fun things we did to live up our last week together. They won't all send so check my blog later this week for more pics.

Hermana Sellers and McBride sporting their green on St. Patrick's Day

Yummy lunch at Cafe Rio!

Goodbye breakfast on the way to tranfers...

Sisters!

Happy Birthday!

My Dad's boss' boss, Vince and his wife.  Their house was GORGEOUS!

Holding a pet turtle!  Everyone has one here!

More from Mom ~  As a side note, please keep Paige in your prayers.  She has been ill for the last several weeks and is headed to the doctor tomorrow.  The mission nurse believes it is her gallbladder and she may need to have it removed.  She's really hoping to stay in Vegas and not have to come home for surgery.  We will be waiting for results on an ultrasound and bloodwork as soon as they can get them done.  

Semana 11 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: THE BIG MOVE????!

Yeah you read it right.... #ET!!!! For those of you who don't know all the random mission lingo ET stands for emergency transfer. Basically the mission president can call at anytime and change where you live and your companion. That is an emergency transfer. Sister McBride and I got halfway ET'd. We are still companions but we had five hours to pack and move into an old Elder apartment..... 🤦‍♀️ More on that later, but, it has been a Rollercoaster of a week my friends so buckle up!! 

Monday: SO SAD! Our ward picnic got canceled due to weather. We were so upset because we had five families (three non members and two returning members) coming! So that was sad. We ended up going home and calling a ton of people. That's all for Monday. 

Tuesday: Tuesday was a..... day. It was moving day! Ah! So our day started off normal, we just went to our morning meetings, came home took lunch, laid down for a short nap around 1:00, and no more than 10 minutes into our nap the phone starts ringing..... we pick it up and turns out it was the Zone Leaders. We answered and they said Sisters, we have a little emergency. We have a Sister from Samoa who has been serving for over 20 months due to covid. President thinks she will be able to get a flight soon, but the members she is living with have Covid..... meaning if her plane arrives she won't be able to go and may miss her only shot to go home for months. So, you are moving to a two man that Elders currently live in, they are moving in with the zone leaders, and all four of the Sisters that are living in a members home are moving into your big apartment. You need to be out by 7:00pm..... so, missionary work went out the window and we ran around like crazy people trying to pack, clean, and stuff everything into our tiny equinox...... It was by far the most stressful day on my mission because not only did we have to move we had a SUPER important Spanish lesson that is a 30 minute drive away from our apartment. So, alas. We drove to the lesson and he accepted a Book Of Mormon! That means it was totally worth the drive. However, we zoomed home with less than an hour before we had to be out apartment. When we got to our apartment it was absolutely disgusting. Guys. We have been living here for almost a week and we still can't get rid of the smell. We have tried everything. Air fresheners, oils, boiling orange peels and cinnamon. But alas, it still smells like boy.... I wish we had before and after pictures because we rearranged all the furniture and turned it into a Sister apartment so, now it is much better. We had to de-elderify so it looks nice, but it still stinks. That's all for my update on the move! Sister McBride hasn't unpacked because transfers is next week and we are pretty sure she is moving so she only unpacked her carry on and is living out of that! I unpacked a little more than she did but we are basically living out of our suitcases until Saturday when we get transfer calls. 

Wednesday: Well, today was super busy! We had a fun time getting ready because we didn't have time to unpack anything yesterday. So, we did that, and some studies and then headed out at 11:30 to do service for our cute mom friend Esther. We love helping her because instead of cleaning on her lunch break she gets to play with her kiddos. Right after service we went to a meeting with a recent convert and got him set up with temple prep classes!! Let's go! He is excited to move along the covenant path. After that lesson we went to another recent converts house and set up lessons with her 7 year old daughter who lives half the time with her Dad who is very anti-religion. Her poor momma is really trying to teach her but it is hard when it is a constant fight, so we came to be the third party advocates for the church. After we did that lesson we went to our new Relief Society presidents house for dinner. We talked about members that could use visits and had a really yummy casserole of some sort. After that we rushed to youth group and I taught Yoga and did meditation with all the girls. You could tell they really liked it because there was zero talking! Which is a feat for this group of girlies. After mutual we came home and crashed. We didn't even bother unpacking or anything we were so tired. It was such a good day and felt so good after we did barely any missionary work yesterday. 

Thursday: Today we left our apartment at 7:00am and drove to downtown Las Vegas to help at the Covid-19 Vaccine clinic. The one day it decided to snow in March in Vegas we had to be standing outside clearly underdressed for the weather directing traffic. Below are before and after pictures of when we got there and after we froze to death. It was honestly so funny to help a bunch of old people follow clearly marked signs. I love doing community service especially for something as important as getting our older population vaccinated. Sister McBride killed it at traffic directing because she is much too nice to be the one telling people where to go. She would've held up our line chatting with people :)  So, I had to move the line along. Natrually, I am a pro because of my traffic directing skills learned at good old CFA. Speaking of Chick-fil-a THERE IS ONE RIGHT NEXT TO THE CLINIC! So, obviously we stopped and got Chick-fil-a for lunch. It literally made my whole month. After that we came home did weekly planning for an hour and half and then rushed to Centro Hispano! We had five class members!!!! I had to take a picture because chances of all five of our awesome middle aged men students being in the same room at one time again are..... probably 0% ;)  We had a blast teaching English class like we do every week. 

Friday: Today we finally got to relax after a long three days. It snowed in Vegas yet again and if was so bad we weren't allowed to drive. So, we stayed in, did all of our studies, unpacked and made a bunch of phone calls. That's all that really happened Friday. 

Saturday: It finally warmed up a little! Today we helped clean the chapel, walked to Del Taco because it is now a five minute walk from our apartment...... Walked to the church to do language study because our service is absolutely terrible at this new apartment, and had all of our appointments cancel on us. So, again it was a pretty chill day. We invited a TON of people to church so, in the next paragraph you can read how that turned out. We would've gone street contacting but Sister McBride sprained her ankle doing jumping jacks, (don't ask me how we have no idea) so sadly, the nurse told us not street contacting until transfers. 

Sunday: Well, today was crazy, not only did we have our usual two sacrament meetings, ward council, and Relief Society zoom. We also had breakfast with the Gallegos family, lunch with the Villagomez family, dinner with the Gapp family, and a lesson with the Vazquez family. The Gapp family made us the cutest Easter baskets and totally made our day! Maria (the Vazquez momma) totally opened up today and even committed to reading the Book Of Mormon with her kids this week!! Lunch with the Villagomez clan is always a party and I never understand anything..... but, they made the best fried rice I've ever had in my life so, esta bien. 

You're welcome for the abundance of pictures this week! Sister McBride is probably getting transfered so there are lots of pictures with members. We also took some fun pictures of us at a huge park that we discovered on our morning run, and lots of other random things that made us happy this week. I am not apologizing for this email being so long but, if you skipped to the bottom and just looked at the pictures you are going to be really confused on who is who. So you should probably start from the beginning ;) As always I love you guys! I also love hearing from you!!! So, please update me on how your lives have been!! I have Facebook messenger and this email!

Directing traffic at the vaccine clinic

Service with a smile! 😊

Snack break while trying to warm up

Mmmm...Del Taco

Peek-a-boo!

Breakfast in the new apartment

More service with a smile!

Smiles all around for Chickfila

Who knew something so small could make someone so happy?!?

TO DO

Clase de Ingles con Hermana Sellers.

ALL 5 class members came!

Sister Mc Bride saying her goodbyes

Easter baskets from the Gapp family! 💝

Semana 10 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Expect the unexpected...??

Well everyone! This week was interesting. I am almost positive that Sister McBride and I's life, or any missionaries for that matter, should be on reality TV. It is amazing the people you meet and talk to on your mission. Also, we took lots of fun pictures so if you don't read my whole very long email, at least scroll down and take a look at the pics!  (P.S. I'm sure you're going to wonder at the end of this email what is so weird? Well, everything, also, lots of things I didn't say because they were just weird... just imagine a reality TV soap opera and that is how this week went) 

Monday: Monday we went to the Peña's house and they fed us dinner but then they helped us with our Spanish!! So nice of them. They served us fresh mozzarella with dulce de leche on top! Don't knock it until you try it. It was soooo good! They come to our English class every week and it is really nice to have a trusting  relationship where we can correct and they can correct our pronunciation and grammar! 

Tuesday: Today we had the typical district council which was nice. Then we filmed a Facebook video for the ward councils that is honestly, pretty cheesy. We had a member missionary help us with it and.... yeah it's honestly hilarious. I hope the ward councils take it seriously. But, we tried :) Sadly the Stewarts canceled on us because Sister Stewart wasn't feeling well, so we stayed in and made a bunch of contacts by phone!

Wednesday: Today was a good day! We did service with the zone. We cleaned up this section of the highway and man, it needed help. In two hours we managed to fill a whole dumpster. A really cool company does this every two weeks so I have a feeling this service project will become a regular. We also went to youth group and the girls are finally opening up to us! They were all chatting and we had a blast getting to know them. Ari came and made some new friends too. Today we also had our interviews with President for the transfer!! We just got to chat and he asked me if I was comfortable enough to train a new missionary in a transfer or two..... Ah! Everyone keeps telling me I will train and I'm starting to get nervous! Hopefully I stay in Blanco so I know how to get places! 

Thursday: Today we had the BEST lesson with Josiah! He really opened up to the bishop in our ward and is now reading the Book Of Mormon which is huge! We taught him the law of tithing and the law of the fast and he really seemed to understand. Also today we went out to dinner with Sister Adling who is from Wichita Kansas!! (idk how to spell it and I don't have google) It is always so fun to talk to her. She has the cutest baby Avery, pictures are below. She told us she is moving back to Kansas in the Summer and that we should visit when we get home! Today at Centro Hispano one of the adult leaders gave a spiritual thought and talked about Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith. At the end he pulled out a box and in the box were exact replicas of Joseph and Hyrum's death masks (for those who don't know what a death mask is, in the 1800's people would pour plaster over a dead persons face to conserve their facial features, that is how all the statues of Joseph and Hyrum are made). We got to hold them! I put pictures below. We also had English class with Marcos and he is so funny! We taught him some idiomatic expressions and he really enjoyed it. 

Friday: Today we did exchanges!! I went to Sister Boyer's area and it was a really cool experience. I am glad I got to go on exchanges with her because I learned that we are very similar and that she and I will probably be super good friends! It is usually hard for me to get along with girls but so far on the mission I haven't had a problem with anyone being mean, which I am sooo grateful for. I did also learn that street contacting is wayyyy awesome when it isn't in Rhodes Ranch! It was so fun to talk to people and we even got a few service referrals. Turns out Sister Boyer loves smoothies as much as I do so we got smoothie bowls for lunch! Overall it was a super fun exchange! 

Saturday: Today was a pretty slow day, but, we did have a good English class with the Peña's we also did a lot of service and we actually did all of our studies! We did correlation with the Ward Mission Leader and he made us an amazing breakfast! 

Sunday: Today was super busy as per usual! Sadly the Vasquez family had a game tonight so we didn't get to go over, but, Josiah came to church and the whole ward was super nice and he looked like a member of the Ward. We also talked to our friend Joel, he is an older guy and he is hilarious :) We ate with the Califf family and they are literally the best! They made us tostadas and a chocolate tart. We also visited some returning members, the Gibbs and had a blast playing play dough with the kids. 

Ok picture time!! There are some pictures including fun selfies, my favorite breakfast, Avery and Sister Adling, Sister McBride photo bombing my picture of the beautiful trees that are blooming here, more pics with the Peñas. 

Enviados abrazos celestiales,

Hermana Sellers

English class with the Penas

Dinner with Sister Adling and Avery

Isn't she the cutest?

Another Book of Mormon I painted

Smoothie bowls with Sister Boyer

Death mask replica of Hyrum Smith

Death mask replica of Joseph Smith

Sister McBride photo bombing my picture of the tree blooming

My favorite breakfast

Semana 9 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Hakuna Matata...What A Wonderful Phrase

 Hola todos! Spoiler alert; this email is going to be so long. First things first, MARIA O. WAS BAPTIZED AND CONFIRMED! It was a beautiful day and my heart was filled with so much joy. There is such a special spirit around baptisms. That being said, baptism prep is not nearly as pretty. Satan tries really hard to thwart these things. I think through the whole week my Heavenly Father was telling me, hakuna matata Sister Sellers. I have everything under control, just do your best and I will take care of the rest. So many tiny details and things made life very crazy stressful this week. However, I learned to truly let the Lord take the wheel and everything turned out just the way it was supposed to in the long run. 

Monday: After Pday we had dinner with the Burt family and spent the rest of the night calling and texting the branch to confirm assignments for the baptism! 

Tuesday: Tuesday's are some of my favorite days because we have the Stewart family! We went out to dinner with them and had a blast! Last week we promised them we would come with a special gift and we delivered! We gave them all their own hand painted copies of the Book Of Mormon and I wish I could have had their reactions on video. Dillion the little one was sooo excited, and you could tell Ari felt so special. Hopefully this will help them read individually and as a family. The whole day we tried to find time to plan for the baptism but it just didn't work out. We did some finding activities but, came home empty handed.  The Stewart family was truly our top priority today! 

Wednesday: This morning we had a lesson with Maria at 8:30am! We showed her the font and talked to her all about what would happen in her baptism interview and on the day of her baptism. After the lesson we rushed back home and had day one of three of our mission wide zone conference!! Elder Kyle S. McKay and his wife were there from the Seventy and they literally changed our mission in three days. Elder McKay is one of the bluntest and loving people I have ever met. One day I hope to be able to speak with the power, authority and love that he did. He challenged us to work hard all day and promised that if we did we would find a new person to teach. Sister McBride and I did everything in our power as we worked around a crazy baptism schedule to try to find someone to teach. We tried everything, there were three minutes left of the day and we decided to just call two more people. We each individually prayed and found one person to call. The very last person, after hours of rejection, answered the phone. She wanted to be taught and even set a return appointment on Tuesday. That was a huge miracle for us, that even in our crazy day, we worked hard and God provided a way. We also had a lesson with our friend Maria D.. We taught her the Restoration and are going to explain mode about the Priesthood next week. She has a testimony she just doesn't understand some key parts of the gospel. She has been taught by missionaries for sooooo long. Hopefully we can be the ones to finally get her to the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

Thursday: Not going to lie, today was a hard day. Most people never say today was a hard day in their emails. But, today was rough. All the crazy from planning and feeling inadequate to plan this baptism and the stress of not knowing if it was even going to happen all crashed down on us today. That being said, Heavenly Father blessed us so much through the day. Had he not been there helping me through it all, the day would have been a whole lot harder. Today was day two of the mission conference and Elder McKay really spoke to me, I could go on for years about how cool he is and how much I felt the spirit in these meeting but I won't, because my email will be wayyyy too long. However, I started the conference with three question and my questions were all answered beautifully. He challenged us again to go out and find someone new, he told us not everyone would find someone, but if everyone acted on their spiritual promptings that was the real success. We had dinner with the Lemos family and I choked down some banana empanadas (she HATES bananas) and hoped for the best. We went to the Cisternas families house, got toasted for our Spanish and got help with our baptism program. Afterward we went to Centro Hispano and taught Marcos English! All in all a crazy long, crazy productive, crazy stressful, crazy faith filled day. 

Friday: Today we decided to turn it over to the Lord. We had 15 hours worth of things to do in 12. First we had Maria's baptism interview at 8:30 in the morning! Luckily the Elder doing the interview was an answer to our prayers and filled out all of the paperwork for us. We had our companionship study with Sister McKay from 9-10 which was amazing!! She is so cool and full of the spirit. You could just tell she loved us and that was a really neat experience. After we had day three of our mission wide conference and I was so sad to see that it was the last day. I have learned so much and really regained my desire to do missionary work through these past three crazy days. Right after the meeting we rushed to a service opportunity in Rhodes Ranch and helped this very stressed single mom clean her house and rearrange/organize her toy room. She was so grateful and you could tell she really needed the help. She even got us in on the Rhodes Ranch moms facebook group sooo, I'd say mission accomplished. Right after that we rushed to a lesson with Maria G. who sadly didn't answer the door... (have you noticed this is the third Maria?). Next we rushed to dinner with Sister Sibley a single lady in our English ward. We managed keep the visit to two hours and rushed the the Whitaker's house to print off the baptismal program for tomorrow! We left our apartment at 8:00 in the morning and didn't come home until 9:00 at night! Through the whole day the Lord orchestrated every little thing to work out just the way it needed to and we were able to get our whole crazy agenda accomplished. 

Saturday: The day you have all been waiting for! Maria's baptism! We left the house at 8:00 again to fill up the font! Turns out we have a master key which unlocks literally everything. Our key unlocks more things than the Zone Leaders key does.... ;) we got everything all set up with our fair share of interruptions, but everything was all up and running by 10:00. Only problem, Maria still wasn't there...! We were all so stressed! She walked in the door around 10:10! We were so glad to see her and got her all changed and ready to go. We took a quick picture of her in her jumpsuit and we were on our way. The baptism went amazing. The spirit was so strong. We loved every little second. The cute Ricarte kids surprised us with an unplanned musical number and Hermana Gonzalez, a returning member, gave a beautiful testimony of the Holy Ghost. My favorite part though, was right at the end. She was walking out the door, she turned around and in broken English said "I am so happy now" Is that not the reason why we are all here? To find joy? Seeing Maria find that joy that all of us are her to find was truly a miracle. It made every step of this crazy week so worth it as we heard her bear her testimony and saw the light of Christ enter her being. I could not wait to see her confirmed tomorrow. 

Sunday: Today Maria was comfirmed!!! She was literally glowing. I have never seen anything like it. Afterward we went to our English church and it was nice to talk to everyone. We had a super fun lesson with the Vazquez family and their new puppy!!! Sister McBride was in heaven. Me, well.... dogs are kinda growing on me. We had a blast, and taught about tithing. We can really tell Maria's (yes another one) heart was softened. 

Pictures include lots from the baptism, and our serious drinking problem during this stressful week. Also included is a timer selfie with the puppy! But, most important are the super cute pictures of us with Maria at the baptism. I love you guys!!! Enviados abrazos celestiales, 

Hermana Sellers

Maria's baptism

The Blanco Vista Branch represented!  Lots of support for Maria!

The Ricartes 

The Vazquez kids with their new dog

Sister McBride is in love!

A painted Book of Mormon

Blueberry Lemonade Slurpee?  Yes, please!

Our drinking problem...