Semana 17 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: The Bees, Scrapped Knees, and Please, Please, Please

Hola todos! It has been a crazy eventful week, our zone lost a fight to an enormous bees nest, I fell harder than I did on my first date, and we begged so many people to come unto Christ this week! We must've done something right amidst all the chaos because, JOSIAH IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY! WOO! Ok for all of you who only read the intro, you can officially tap out now, because our biggest victory this week was getting Josiah to pass the baptismal interview and be ready to be baptized on Saturday! 

Monday: After pday we went to the Califf families house for dinner. We had super yummy enchiladas and they are just the cutest couple ever! They told us all about their missions and how much they loved them and it was amazing. We were supposed to have two lessons after that but they both canceled on us so we spent the rest of the day calling people. 

Tuesday! Ok, let's get down to business to defeat.... the bees? Every Tuesday we go to the church to do District Council, aka a two hour meeting about how we can help eachother and be better missionaries. This week we decided to walk since it was so nice and we live super close to the church. When all the meetings were over everyone started to leave. At that fateful moment we saw this guy in a full bee suit! I knew what that meant and I was terrified. This guy was smoking out 3 enormous hives of bees...... and we all had to walk in between them and their hives to get to our cars..... Everyone started running like their lives depended on it. The only one who didn't get stung was my companion... I had a bee get stuck in my hair and as I was shaking my hair to try to get it out, more flew in.... I got stung once on the head and fell so hard I still have a huge gash in my elbow and some very bruised knees. We didn't have a car so we ended up running most of the way home until the bees stopped following me.  What a way to start the day am I right?! After the bee incident we had a really good day! We got to do all of our studies, had an amazing lesson with our new investigator (friend) Zoila, and had a blast at Centro Hispano. I love all the missionaries that work there. The after party of cleaning up chairs and desks is honestly more fun than pday! Sadly a bunch of them are going home next week. 

Wednesday: Today was a SUPER BUSY DAY! We started off the day helping someone move all of their random stuff out of their storage unit. Turns out the guy we helped is some super famous Spanish Hypnotist and his wife is a big model. Only in Vegas guys?..! After the move we headed back to RR to a lesson with Blazey. Blazey is really interested in learning about religion he just hasn't quite figured out why it applies to him.  Hopefully we can show him what faith really means next time! After Blazey we met Liz and Geoff in the park. I used to teach Liz English and she and her husband were recently baptized in Sister Edwards old area! They came down to chat with us and feed us lunch, so nice of them! We had an awesome English class over zoom today as well with a guy named Darian! Then we had yet another move. These were a part member family who was really struggling. They were so thankful for us and even insisted on getting us pizza. On our way to our second dinner of the night we got a call from some other Sisters saying they found a guy named Roman who speaks Spanish! He is super interested in the gospel and we set up a lesson with him on Saturday. We then drove to mutual and did a high fit class with the young woman! It was so much fun and totally made my whole week. Listening to real music and working hard with all the cute YW. That ended our crazy Wednesday with a bang! 

Thursday: Today started off with yet another move. It's moving season here! After the move we did some studies and contacting via phone. Then we went over to the Stewart's house to clean. We got some sad news and instead of cleaning ended up helping them pack :( they are moving soon! I'm sad to see them go but I'm also excited for them to start a new chapter. After the helping pack and chat session we had lunch, did some more contacting and then walked to a lesson with Tim. Tim is our sidewalk friend, we gave him a chapel tour and taught the entire Restoration. We gave him a Book Of Mormon and challenged him to pray about it. After our lesson with Tim we had dinner with another less active family the Acostas. She made homemade funnel cakes and it was a blast to make plans for a ward Fiesta for Cinco de Mayo. After dinner we stopped by our friend Sonny's house and taught him all about prayer and the importance of it. He really opened up and it was a blast. Shortly after his lesson we headed to Sister Villagomez house to check in on her after surgery. She was doing well and even had us take a doggy bag of food to go. After that we headed to the church to start our Exchange! I got to be with Sister Black and we had a blast chatting until 10:30 on the dot. 

Fiday: Sister Black and I were excited to see some crazy exchange milagros. At 9:20 we were doing our personal study and the fire alarms in the whole building go off. Not more than a few seconds later there is banging on our door. There are three big dudes and we debated not opening the door but luckily we did. They were testing the alarms and needed to make sure they worked fast enough that the sprinkler system didn't drench our whole house! Crazy way to start the morning. After the fire alarm fiesta we did a ton of contacting members on the phone. Then we taught English to a girl named Alex. We decided to take our lunch and go get smoothie bowls at this yummy place that feeds missionaries for free! Woot woot! Then we headed to spend the rest of our lunch hour at a Tae kwando class with some Elders in our zone! They tested to get their white belts and we learned the first half of the white belt routine! Woo! It was super funny to watch the Elders take the testing so seriously. After Tae Kwando we rushed to our lesson with Josiah. Milagros happened guys! He told us he talked to all his friends and family and he wants to have his baptism May 1st at 5:30pm! How cool is that?! He was so excited and as we asked him the baptismal interview questions you could really tell that he has been listening to us for the past 9 months. Sister McBride gets to come and witness and I am also so excited to see her! After that amazing lesson we got a random call, it was some Elders from the other mission. They called and were like, you ready to go to a lesson that starts in 10 minutes? We were like, ummmm what? They had found this lady named Cassandra but turns out she moved into our area and they couldn't go teach her. So we ran out the door to teach this awesome lady named Cassandra. She has a Baptist background but we were able to show her how much the Bible and Book Of Mormon go hand in hand and she invited us to come back over again! Yes! After Cassandra we had a Thanksgiving style dinner with the Richard's and man oh man. She is the best cook. We love the Richard's and their spirit. We ended the day team teaching the Tiave family with some Elders in the zone. They were in Sister Black's old area and wanted her to come put the family on date for baptism. It was a really great way to end our exchange! 

Saturday: Honestly today was pretty slow. We did all our studies, contacted, weekly planned, and that's about it. We had a lesson with Roman and he is super excited to learn and we get to meet him in person on Tuesday! Yes! We didn't have a dinner so we street contacted for so long. We found this really cool guy who was selling solar panels door to door and he really seemed interested. We got his phone number so we will soon find out. After that, we got some drinks for some Elders who weren't feeling very well and hopefully they start to feel better soon. Being sick on the mission is weird. Its kind of like the only way to get a day off, but being sick is super lame so, it doesn't really pay off. Other than that nothing too exciting happened today. 

Sunday: Woo! 6 hours of church! My favorite.... 

Overall it was a really good week. This week on Saturday we find out about transfers. I have a feeling it is my turn to get moved and I'm pretty sad! I've grown to love my wards. But, the Lord might need me elsewhere. That being said we will have pday on Tuesday next week! So, I hope you can all survive 8 days without an email!  Pictures include exchanges and other random things. I'll be sure to take pictures with all my favorite members before I go!

Smoothie bowls with Sister Black

Semana 16 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista:

 Hola! Como está? Estoy muy bien!! I have an official update! I don't need surgery. My body was freaking out due to a sudden diet change. I have been taking some medicine to get my stomach under control and have also managed my stress with oils. I haven't gotten sick all week and can hopefully go back to being a normal missionary soon. 

Monday: Tonight after our pday ended we actually super busy! We had ward FHE at the park and got to chat with a lot of the ward. Josiah came and it was a blast! After that we stopped by crumbl to get some free cookies but not for us. We have a new Elder who is really struggling so we wrote him some nice notes and dropped by with cookies! I've never been at crumble when it is so busy! Turns out 8 pm on a Monday night is wayyyyy busier than 10am on a Tuesday, weird right?!..... Anyway we really wanted him to feel noticed and I think it worked! Being a new missionary is tough, especially when you don't have family support at home. 

Tuesday: Today we had district council and then went straight straight our guy Lázaro's house. Sadly he is ghosting us. Rip. Then we drove to the church to practice my musical number for zone conference..... I was so nervous! We spent a long time putting up chairs and tables and decorations and practicing. Our zones building got to host, which is nice because I don't have to drive 80 million miles to get to a different building ;). After set up we rushed to Zoila, our newest investigators house. She is an older lady who lives with her family! We are hoping to get them all interested but for now it is just her. She is amazing and sounds very interested in the church. After her house we went to Centro Hispano and had a blast!!!!! I am finally starting to fit in on the shift. I got to talk to all my missionary friends and it was a nice break from the living with just my companion life. I am getting better at checking people in and making small talk. Even though I still kinda stink at it. 

Wednesday: ZONE CONFERENCE! WOO! Ok so at 8am we had car inspections which I was scared for since we have a brand new car, luckily we passed and we were on our way. We had tons of cool training on how to teach with the spirit. We got to listen to both President and Sister Reese which was so cool. Afterwards we had a training on how to keep our apartment clean..... and then I sang my musical number to bring the spirit back into the meeting for the testimony portion. I think it went super well considering I haven't sang in a long time! Everyone loved it. The departing testimonies were way more sad this time because 5 people from our zone are going home this transfer. Everyone was right, that more people you know the more fun zone conference is. After zone conference we had lunch take two with the Lemos family, had dinner and a correlation meeting with Sister Burt and had a lesson with Rosie an investigator that was being taught by other Sisters. She is a chatter!! But, she seems like she is interested and we are excited to share the gospel with her. 

Thursday: Today honestly we did a lot, but not a whole lot happened. We knocked a ton of doors but no one answered, we texted a ton of people, but no one answered. The one really cool thing we did today was we had a Fireside with our English ward. They had a professional grief support lady come and give a training on mourning with those that mourn. I think everyone should learn the principles we learned in this training. Christ emulated empathy, not sympathy and when we were baptized we promised to mourn with those that mourn. Not bring meals to those that mourn or ask those that mourn if they are OK. It is our duty to mourn with them, to love them and to walk with them as they use the Atonement of Jesus Christ to heal. I am so glad I learned things to say and things not to say in times of mourning, and I can't wait to use these tactics while ministering as well as with my own kids when I get older. I know that Christ knows all of our pains and afflictions, the least we can do is minister to one of his sheep. 

Friday: Today we had our stake breakfast with the stake presidency! They made crepes and eggs and bacon, but after all the fun they asked us to share what debris we are taking out of our lives after President Nelson's conference talk. I thought long and hard, my debris is doubt, self doubt, doubts of faith, doubting others capabilites. That's one of the main ways Satan gets to me. So, I'm pushing out the doubt. Yes rhyme intended. However I need your help! Please send talks, scriptures, personal experiences and more that helped/helps you push out doubt in your darkest hours. I would love to hear and see them. After breakfast we had a lesson with Josiah, and weekly planned in the park. One of Sister Edwards and I's favorite things to do is grab and otter pop, walk to the park, and study there. You literally can't go wrong with a cool breeze a nice shade tree and the only real grass in Vegas. We spent probably three hours street contacting today and sadly found 0 new people to teach. Hopefully we will have better luck next time! But wait! There is more! We found an old grill in our apartment a while ago and we decided to take our dinner at 8:00pm and invite some missionaries over for a cook out. I made burgers from scratch on the grill!! Ahh is was so scary but I did it! I also made fresh fries and we bought icecream and cones for everyone. We invited the Elders that live by us and the Zone leaders. Sadly I think we scared them with how awesome we are and they all got super awkward...... I guess the combo of Christmas lights, music, and amazing food is just too much for 20 year old Elders to handle (insert facepalm emoji and angry emoji). Next time we are having pie night and it's a Sister's only party. However, Sister Edwards and I had a blast setting up our party and it was nice to kind of feel like normal 20 year olds throwing a party. 

Saturday: Can you believe it is already Saturday? I can't, time is weird on the mission. It feels like this week has been a day, an eternally long day. Weird. Anywhooooo Saturdays are always wack on the mission. It is either a really successful day, or an extremely boring and disheartening day. Today was....... neither surprisingly. We had a slow morning full of studies and smiles. Then we helped this cute lady move out of her mom's house after two years of healing from a super messy divorce. She was not packed at all but it felt so good to see this lady and her cute six year old kid really trying to make the best of a tough situation.  She even bought all 12 missionaries that came to help pizza! Super nice! We took pictures of her with the truck and it made all of our hearts a little happier. After that we went to the park and did language study and some Facebook contacting. Life is better when you're at the park. After that we walked to the church and helped set up for the first ever Relief Society activity with the Branch! Oh my gosh guys! Best. Activity. Ever. The RS president came in a full pioneer costume and they decorated the whole gym to look like the first ever Relief Society activity. They had old sewing machines and everything. All the ladies got up and talked about a different cool event involving the Relief Society and afterward we had a trivia game with prizes. One of the ladies in the branch made empanadas for dinner and the most amazing homemade green salsa I have ever had in my life. It was like what Cafe Rio dressing is trying to be. It was so good. Pretty sure I could've drank it. Anyway, the coolest part though was that I felt the spirit so strongly and the whole thing was in Spanish! I have never been able to understand enough to truly feel the spirit in a meeting until today. Sister Edwards was busy translating for the Stake Relief Society president, and she even translated her spiritual thought that she said. Sister Edwards is literally fluent in SPANISH after only ten months of studying. She is really helping me out too. We only talk in Spanish from lunch to after dinner. It is really hard, but it is helping a ton. On our walks we play this game called digame which basically is a story telling game. We make up a story in Spanish as we walk and they are always super random and funny. Last time we made up a story about two dogs who fell in love and ran away to the mountains together. It helps a ton with conjugation and vocabulary practice in a fun way! 

Sunday: Today both of our wards go back to full in person church, which means between that and ward council we had six hours of church today...... ahhh! The Harleys had us over for dinner which was so nice. They are always willing to lend us a hand. BUT BIG NEWS! WE HAD TWO NEW SPANISH FRIENDS AT CHURCH TODAY! AHH! A member in the branch brought their friends and they want to take the lessons! How exciting is that?! We are so excited. Josiah accidentally went to the wrong church even though we told him 8 times that the time changed...... sad. But, overall it was a really good day. Hermana Edwards and I were so tried by the time we got home we both just crashed. 

Sorry y'all I think I just wrote you a whole novel. I just had so much to say! I really miss everyone, but I am finally starting to see the fun side of missionary work. The adjusting never finishes but I am feeling so much better. Thank you all for your prayers, I am pretty sure we had a miracle with my stomach not hurting so much. So thanks for your constant support. I would love to hear all your favorite talks on pushing the doubt out and I can't wait to talk to you all next week!! Pictures include the activity, the move, our party, and some other random things.

Zone Conference

Child of God

Blanco Vista Relief Society Presidency

Blanco Vista Relief Society Birthday Celebration

Queens!

Missionary Moving Company

Feeding the Elders dinner

Ice cream for dessert

There's a first time for eveything!

MMMmmm!

 

Semana 15 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Covid Vaccine and Teaching

 Hola todos! 

Disclaimer! I did receive my Covid vaccine. Due to the encouragement of local and ecclesiastical leaders, as well as my concern for the large amount of high risk people I visit everyday. I prayed and decided it was the right choice for me! That doesn't mean I have an opinion on whether you should get it or not, and as missionaries we aren't allowed to talk politics. So please, take this info how you will, and know that I made an informed decision with God on my side. 

Monday: Monday, Monday, so good to meee! Anyone remember that song? Anyway, Monday was a good day, pday and we called a crap ton of people to set up lots of lessons and visits for the week! We are retaining a lot of the new people we found last week which is huge! We are so glad we have some more people in our teaching pool. 

Tuesday: Today was a weird day, we had our usual district council, but I was late because I needed an ultrasound which meant another 45 minute drive to Henderson.... To let everyone know, I have been having intense stomach pain that the doctors believe are gallstone attacks. I only mention this because today at 2:00 (Vegas time) I have to go get my ultrasound results back and see if I need surgery. So, I'm asking for prayers today that the doctors find what is wrong and are able to help me, preferably without surgery. After the ultrasound and lots of pregnant jokes from all my friends..... (insert face palm emoji here), we went out and hit the streets. We knocked on a ton of Blanco Vista doors, but sadly no one answered. Noted that 2pm is not a good time to go knocking doors. We finished off the day with a super fun shift at Centro Hispano where I am a greeter now. It is helping my Spanish tons. Hopefully by the end of the transfer I'll be able to speak without hesitations!! 

Wednesday: Today we called everyone that we are teaching and just chatted. We had a member from Sister Edwards old ward take us out to lunch with the Zone Leaders (Zone Leaders are missionaries who are in charge of our zone and who we ask daily questions to). Elder Main's bishop is her brother and she has been wanting to meet him his whole mission! So they took us out to Cafe Rio! Woo! Except that I asked for no cheese and they gave me a ton of cheese anyway so I got super sick after.... rip. Anywayyyyy. After lunch we had some down time so we walked to the park to do studies and enjoyed a nice day. After that, we had dinner with the Claudios and then had a milagro happen! We went to go visit this lady named Dolores who has been inactive for quite a while. She is moving to Arizona and we got her all set up with the missionaries and she said she is going to church in Arizona! So exciting! That was a great way to end our day. 

Thursday: Today was a teaching day! We had a lesson with Blazey and got all his questions involving the temple sorted out. This man has soooo many questions. We then headed out with Hermana Martinez to deliver invitations to the RS birthday party next week! So excited to have our first activity as a branch! Sadly no one answered, but we did leave invites for everyone. After Hermana Martinez, we had an awesome lesson with our guy Tim and passed him off to the YSA Elders (YSA stands for young single adult). Tim needs a good community of friends his age and we just don't have that in our ward here, so we were excited to pass him over to the Elders! They even had a friend come and they all hit it off really well. After Tim's lesson we had the weirdest thing I've ever seen street contacting. A man slammed on his breaks and starts backing up in rush hour traffic on a one way street. Six cars almost hit him, everyone is laying on their horns and we are just trying to walk on the sidewalk. This continues for probably about five minutes and one of the Elders says, maybe he needs help? So we walk up to his car and turns out he is backing up to talk to us! Ah! Weird, right? So, turns out he loves the church and is now coming to sit with us at church on Sunday! Crazy milagro there. But wait, there is more! After we got home we decided to call some members and built some member trust, am I right? After that, we started calling people who were formerly taught by missionaries. One number we called ended up not being the same person but his name is Ruben and he is interested in hearing the message of Jesus Christ! Overall it was a super milagro filled day and I can't believe the blessings you see when you truly give it your all. 

Friday: Today we spent time with Ari! We gave her a makeover and taught her how to do her makeup. She looked so pretty and hopefully we helped her self esteem a little. Today was also vaccine day! We had yet another almost hour drive but luckily this time we got to carpool with some awesome sisters! We got our vaccines and then went to Chick-fil-a to celebrate! Let's gooooo! After we got home we were starting to feel kind of tired. So we decided to do weekly planning. We spent two hours doing that at the park and then did language study and went to bed at 8:00! Around 9:30 we both started to feel pretty gross. Neither of us slept, but luckily all the symptoms we were having we pretty much gone by the morning. We were just exhausted!!

Saturday: Sadly we didn't have exchanges this week like planned but, we ended up bringing sodas to all our sick missionary buddies, bringing crumbl to a sad momma, cleaning the church, having two phone lessons and took a few naps! 

Sunday: BEST DAY OF MY MISSION! THE STEWARTS CAME TO CHURCH! BLAZEY BORE HIS TESTIMONY ABOUT CONFERENCE! WE FINALLY MET WITH THE VAZQUEZ FAMILY! JOSIAH FINALLY AGREED TO MAY 1ST! I DIDN'T GET SICK AFTER EATING KALE SOUP! AND WE CONVINCED TWO INACTIVE SPANISH FAMILIES TO COME TO THE RELIEF SOCIETY PARTY! LETS GOOOOO! In reality, I literally cried when I saw the Stewart family walk into church today. Sister Stewart even brought a friend. I am so happy. Blazey got up and shared his favorite talk from conference and the ward is like blown away. 

Miracles happen guys! Even if they take a while to work up to. I am truly amazed at the way the Lord magnifies our efforts. Something I have been thinking a lot about is President Nelson's talk in conference where he talked about focusing on the stain. I feel like that is something I do a lot. I focus on the one bad thing and miss all of the good. As I have tried to focus my week on the good things I made a really hard week a fun one. Hopefully I can keep this up on the rest of mission. Faith works guys. All it takes is a mustard seed. I love you all. Fair warning I have like two pictures..... sorry Mom..... I promise I'll do better next week.

Vaccinated!

Sisters on their way to get the COVID19 vaccine.

Proof.

Beautiful girls!

Fun with make-up!

Makeovers at the Stewarts

Semana 14 Painted Mountain/Blanco Vista: Conference and Easter!

 Well well well it's that time of the week again! One more down, a lot more to go! Everyone always asks me how long I have been on my mission and it just reminds me of how many more weeks I have to go! So, advice of the day, stop asking missionaries how long they have been serving! Come up with a fun and original question. They will thank you forever! Also, Easter and conference on the mission were actually super fun. Our members really looked out for us! More details to come. 

Monday:  Man, Monday feels like an eternity ago! We helped Dan finish packing up his truck and had a really cool lesson with him and his kids using the book you are special! It was really cool to see someone who didn't believe in God realize that maybe God does exist! We really got to see him through Christ's eyes and it was amazing to serve and teach! 

Tuesday: Today we decided to contact every single person on the list for Blanco Vista. It was super disappointing because barely anyone answered us.... we had worked so hard all day and were feeling kind of bummed out, so, we decided to pray. We thought we should drive to see some inactive members in our English ward. When we got there, the members wanted nothing to do with us, but, their neighbor, a Spanish speaker was interested and we are now teaching him! Crazy how the Lord works. But wait, there's more! Right as we got in the car after meeting Sonny the other Sisters called us and told us that they had a Spanish referral for us! Milagros! I can testify that the Lord really does magnify your efforts. After grinding all day contacting every person, he lead two new people to teach to us through different means than we had expected. We also went to Centro Hispano tonight! We are greeters now, so we do a lot more logistical stuff, which is fun, but, I miss teaching English :( 

Wednesday: Today we had a ton of people cancel on us so we ended up doing all of our studies and lots of contacts. We knocked on a lot of members doors, but, no one answered. We did do dinner and enjoyed a chat with the Cisternas family. Pretty typical mission day. 

Thursday: Today was a very weird day. We started by helping Deseret industries at the Bishops store house unload massive palates of food and mix them all up to make specific orders. All the boxes weight at least 30lbs. It was really cool though! We knocked that out in two hours and then decided to spend our lunch break doing Tae kwando...? with a returning member. She isn't in our ward but the Elders couldn't go alone, so we were enlisted. It was honestly a blast! We learned lots and got a killer work out in. I couldn't walk for the rest of the week between our run, palate unloading and Tae kwando. After that we had a awesome dinner with the Stewart family and did game night! I really missed playing games so I loved every second! That's basically all we did! 

Friday: Today we filmed a video for Facebook and it took soooooo long. Everyone kept stopping singing singing they messed up so we ended up filming this video for like two hours. It was fun but also stressful because I get nervous in front of a camera! We also had a social media meeting and dinner with Sister Harley! She took us out to Mexican and it was a blast. We also had an awesome lesson with Tim our cute sidewalk friend! We are super excited that he is so eager to attend church and can't wait to send him to the YSA ward so he can make some new friends. 

Saturday: This morning we watched conference and enjoyed the fact that Blazey came! He asked lots and lots of questions which was good! You can tell he will be the guy that sets his own baptism date when he is ready. We've enjoyed teaching him and can't wait to see what happens. After conference we went and visited Sonny and did a fun short lesson on his porch. We talked about Easter and the importance of the Atonement. I have gained a sincere testimony that the atonement is REAL. It us there for everything. Our pain, sorrows, sins, transgressions, sadness es, and the overall unfairness of life. Conference really made me look at my faith. I have faith. I just need need use it! I challenge you all to use your faith sometime this week! Let me know how it goes! 

Sunday: Easter and conference should not be on the same weekend! It was such a spiritual and food filled day! We spend the morning with the Phillips family and Blazey and loved the diversity being shown in the first session of conference. I loved hearing the prophet speak. It really felt like he was speaking just for me. Exactly what I needed to hear. After the Phillips we went and had a lesson with Elias a guy we found calling random people who have talked to missionaries previously. He is super nice and we are going back again next week! We went straight from there to the Richard's home to watch the second session of conference. I loved it but, was a little tired! Good thing we had Easter candy to keep us awake! After conference the Richard's fed us an awesome dinner with a really yummy lemon cream pie. They are so kind and even sent us home with basically an entire ham! After that we headed to the Stewart's for our second dinner and ate basically the same things there! We played games and did a peeps fight in the microwave! It was such a spiritual and fun day. I couldn't have ever imagined. 

Pictures are small but mighty this week! Sorry! Not a ton happened to take pictures of other than Easter! Love you all!

Happy Easter from Hermana Sellers!

Easter with the Stewarts

Thank you for the Easter baskets!

Fun and games

Peeps fight in the microwave

Who's gonna win?

Easter dinner with the Richards

Beautiful table setting for Easter dinner

Our friend Tim from the park

More from Mom:  Paige had bloodwork done on Tuesday and is waiting for her ultrasound that is scheduled for next Tuesday.  After that she willl follow up with her doctor for the results.  She's still in a lot of pain, but is puching through it most days.  She says that mornings are easier than nights. Hopefully we'll have some answers soon!

The members spoiled her rotten for Easter! She recieved several baskets and gift cards and she really felt loved.  They had Easter brunch and 2 dinners that day. I totally appreciate the members that love on my daughter while I can't.  It is such a blessing!

She failed to mention that she got to call home on Easter for a little bit.  We talked to her early in the morning for a bit and then again later that night after dinner. Jake was here for dinner with us and talked to her for a bit.  They both had the most amazing grins on their faces and it was fun to watch Jake stumble over his words a little at the sight of her again.  I wish I'd thought to take a screen shot, but we were all just living in the moment.

Paige siad that they walk about a mile each way every morning and afternoon to a nearby park to exercise and study.   They have been soaking up the beautiful weather before it gets unbearable this summer.  I think the fresh air is really helping keep her spirits up.

She is really enjoying the diversity in Las Vegas and all the different cultures she has been able to experience so far.  She has enjoyed the native food members make for her.  She says that sometimes they will try to make American food for the missionaries. While she appreciates the sentiment, she much prefers they cook what they are used to cooking. Though, she has come to realize she doesn't care for Brazilian food.

She also didn't mention that she really misses teaching English classes.  She is now in an administative role at Centro Hispano and happened to check in on her class one evening.  Her students asked her why she wasn't teaching anymore because she is so much better than the new teachers. She laughed when telling the story and said,  "That's Latinos for you.  They say it how it is!"  All joking aside, she's really found a lot of joy and purpose in teaching English to those men who are learning English to better their way of life.