Semana 52 Rancho Ward: CHRISTmas!!!!!!!!!

Wow! I have never studied more about Christmas in my life. I feel like the more you study the more you want to find out! We've been studying the characters, the symbols, and his life so much this month. It has given me a greater appreciation for the symbols of Christmas that we still have today. Let's get this email started! 

Monday: Tonight we had 3 back to back appointments! We had dinner with the Wiggington family who gave us the biggest helping of lasagna ever! Then we were off to Emily and Evie's house. There we watched the Christ Child video and talked about Christ's birth. They were absolutely in awe about the star. We ended off the night at Sister Linderman and Claudia and Amanda. 

Tuesday: Today was a pretty normal day! The super fun thing that happened was we had another 11 year old lesson and Penelope came again! We are going to invite her to be baptized next week! She knows everything and is so cute and ready. She's really bonded with the girls too and that has helped her a lot. All our cute girls move to young women's next week which is such a proud momma moment! They're all getting so big. 

Wednesday: Today we were supposed to have dinner with Alex and the Hobbs a newlywed couple in our ward, but, Alex got super sick so we weren't able to have him come :( Everyone is getting the Covid variant around here so please pray that I don't get exposed because I do NOT know what we would do after Sister Hunter and I already were bed ridden for 2 weeks after the crash. Our area book is already organized. The rest of the day we spent street contacting until the last 30 minute before we switched for exchanges! Hopa called and told us she officially wants to get baptized! She is getting baptized on the 8th and is so excited about it. It kind of took us by surprise, but we will take good surprises like this! Finally we switched for exchanges and I went up north with Sister Carlson! 

Thursday: We has the best day! Sister Carlson served the first four months of her mission in Missouri! She was one of the Sisters that gives tours at the visitors center and liberty jail. Pretty cool that she knew all about my state! We got to teach so many cool recent converts and members and got fed dessert 4 times! I am sugared out. She is such a good missionary and I can't wait to see her grow as she gets her feet under her in the proselytizing part of a mission. 

Friday: Christmas Eve! We made a vlog so I you want it ask my momma, it's too long to send in an email. We had all the Sisters in the zone over in the morning and baked 6 different varieties of cookies! It ended up being 23 plates of cookies to pass out! Our ward is way bigger than the other two wards so we took 10 plates and went and delivered them to people. The coolest run in was we finally got back in the door with Jenine and Sevan. They are still interested and promised they'd come to church next week when it starts at noon. We laughed and said we'd take it! The rest of the day we picked up some Cafe Rio for dinner after a horrible dinner experience at an assisted living home and then called our families to open our Christmas PJ'S! 

Saturday: CHRISTMAS! We actually had a super chill day which was really nice! We got up and opened our presents on the phone with our families and then headed off to breakfast with the Smith family. They made us eggs benedict and it was yummy! Their cute kiddos showed off their Christmas gifts and then we headed out. We came back home and did a little spa day and then built the Lego set I got pictures will be included. I got to play clue with my family over the phone which was kinda complicated for them I think but, it was really fun for me.  We ended the day at the Dunning's house for dinner. We had a big Mexican Christmas and had flan y tres leches y tamales y todo de eso. We also did a bunch of fun drink concoctions which was a blast! My favorite part was really remembering what Christmas truly is. Sister Hunter sent me a message that reminded me that I was kinda like Mary, in a strange land away from my family on a big holiday, representing Jesus Christ. How can you be homesick when you think about it that way? 

Sunday:  Sadly yet again all our friends stood us up! Even Penelope didn't come! Luckily, church was only an hour so we went home and texted everyone telling them how sad we were we didn't see them at church. Afterwards we did our studies, weekly planned and then went to dinner with the Riggs. They fed us prime rib leftovers from Christmas and we were in heaven! They also hand make their own chocolates for Christmas which reminded me of my grandma Hattie Jensen and it was a big tender mercy for me! We got to make our own box and their chocolates were so yummy. I think my grandma's are better though ;) 

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and has a happy start to 2022 this week! Love you!

Merry Christmas

And the stockings were hung...

"In our Christmas jammies!"

Matching jammies even in Vegas

Christmas Eve shenanigans

In our Christmas Jammies!

Merry Christmas!

Opening presents with Grandma and Papa

Playing CLUE as a family

Sister Sellers wins!

The best part of Christmas 2021!

Lego flower bouquet was one of my gifts

Filter Fun

LOL

Christmas baking COMPLETE!

Gingerbread temple making

Family Christmas Card 2021

Semana 51 Rancho Ward: All the things!

Monday: Tonight we had an awesome 11 year old lesson. We have done a lot of these so my object lessons are running thin. But, the girls loved it and we decorated gingerbread men and talked about how our bodies are temples. It was pretty awesome. 

Tuesday: Today we had the biggest rain storm! But, we had cookies to deliver so we pulled up our raincoats and delivered all our cookies while dancing in the rain. It was quite awesome. We ended the night with a pizza party at Centro Hispano. 

Wednesday: Today I got to go on exchanges with Sister Willes. She is so fun and I have loved getting to see her. We got to go to Pennwood and speak Spanish which is always a treat. We taught some lessons and even found a new person to teach, which was great. 

Thursday: Today we spent the entire day doing service. We started off with a 5 hour shift serving at the giving machines which was super fun! We loved it. Then we went to HandUp NV and taught English there which is always a nice treat. We ended off the night with practicing our musical number for zone conference. 

Friday: Christmas zone conference! The happiest time of the year. We had a great time drinking hot chocolate, did a funny skit with our district to Feliz Navidad, and had and awesome photo booth. We also got to watch The Fighting Preacher which I 10/10 recommend. The acting is definitely low budget, but the script and story is powerful and super awesome. We loved getting to meet with all the new missionaries and old friends. I also got to sing which was so happy! 

Saturday: Today we had the ward Christmas party and it was super fun! We had a lot of our friends come and eat and have a good time. After the party, we planned our week and wrapped and wrote notes for all of our sisters that we are over it was kind of a blast! We hope they like them and have a good Christmas. 

Sunday: Today we had a lot of fun things! We had Penelope come to church with us which was such a good time, and had some amazing speakers. After that we went to a lesson with our friend Ellie and she committed to read the first five chapters of the BoM by next week which is huge! We finished off with a super amazing dinner with our favorite family the Dominguez family. They sent us home with enchiladas, pazole, and a special soup that I forgot the name of. We love them so much and always have a great time. 

I hope you all have a fabulous week and Merry Christmas! I've loved being able to focus on the Savior and see all of the miracles that come with this time of year. I'd you have time reading Luke 2 is always always amazing experience.

Light the World

Giving Machines Las Vegas

Sisters Tveten and Sellers

Baking Christmas cookies

Delivering Christmas cookies

Silly Sisters

Grandma Anna has a stocking for each member of her family!

Chicken! YUM!

It's raining in Vegas?!?

Christmas Zone Conference

District skit to Feliz Navidad

President and Sister Reese

Lots to smile about!

A little photo booth fun!

Sisters

Wrapping gifts for our fellow sisters

The finished product

Ice Cream... YES!

CHEEESE!

Mom Note: Paige sang the soprano part of O Holy Night for Zone Conference with 3 other sisters as well as one on the violin and another on the piano.  It's always fun to hear her use her talents!

Semana 50 Rancho Ward: Reindeer are better than people?

Buenos días todo! I'm sure you are all wondering why the subject line, well, we haven't found a lot of people who want to hear our message of Christ this week, but, we sure have seen a lot of reindeer. To keep ourselves sane and joyful we have been teaching several of those random decorative reindeer and it has been quite hysterical. All of the reindeer have wanted to hear our message in case you were wondering ;) 

Monday: Honestly, our lessons canceled so we ended the night with some much needed language study and some contacting to set up lessons for the week. 

Tuesday: Today was pretty slow too! It's the first kinda cold day of the year so no one is outside. We did get to teach at Centro Hispano which is always an interesting experience. 

Wednesday: Today we had MLC which is always super insightful. We got to discuss some important topics and I am excited to see them implemented. That is however, a whole day meeting, so we just went home did our studies and then it was time for bed! 

Thursday: Today we had weekly planning and HandUp NV which has been super awesome to work at. We also had a really fun lesson with our friends Phillip and Shannon who are super awesome. Shannon was close to baptism a really long time ago, but had some bad experiences with some members in her home state, so we are working through that, but, she is so faithful and working really hard to change her life around. That was definitely the highlight of the week for sure. If you could keep her in your prayers that would be awesome! She's having a big surgery this week and needs all the blessings she can get. 

Friday: Today I got to go one exchanges with Sister Siuafanua and Gerritsen! They are really amazing and really work very well together. I enjoyed being in a more affluent area for the day, but was excited to get back to Rancho. They love to take exercise selfie everyday so there's one attached. It's amazing the miracles you see when you try your hardest to ask for them. 

Saturday: Well, not going to lie, today was rough. It was freezing so no one was outside, and no one wanted to let us in either! Tough luck for us! We were able to get a lot of needed contacting done and even got to try out a few new fun tracting techniques to lighten the mood. Something I was not good at before the mission was letting the littlest things ruin my day or even my hour. But, as I've been here I've learned most of the stuff I would get worked up about wasn't worth the extra effort of getting worked up. So, we turned on some tunes, jammed on the way to our contacts, and made the best of a slow day.  

Sunday: Sadly none of our friends came to church again this week.... so hopefully we can find some new friends. We did however, get to deliver baskets of gifts to the widows in the ward and that was a neat experience to meet them and pay them a little visit. It's always a nice reminder of how much a small act of kindness can do for a person. 

I love you all and I hope you're having a fabulous week! Keep me updated. I love to hear your stories too.

Hermanas

MO!

Out to lunch

Beautiful Sunset

Food, Glorious Food

Christmas Card Preview

Vegas, Baby!

View of the Las Vegas strip

Reindeer are better than people?

Semana 49 Rancho Ward: Professional U-turners.....

Buenos días! Sorry the email last week was so short! After working on scholarship essays for two hours the last thing you want to do is write a weekly email. But, lucky for you I had no essays to write this week! I've loved being with Sister Tveten but definitely miss Sister Hunter. She doesn't give herself enough credit for how awesome she was. Sister Tveten and I served together at the beginning of our missions and its crazy to think a year later we get to be companions!! We are so excited and already BFFs. Ok, let's get into the week! 

Tuesday: We didn't really do a whole lot today because we had pday and then went straight from there to Centro Hispano. Yep, that's right, I'm back. We get to teach the orientation class and it has been nice getting to use our Spanish again! Helps keep me motivated to study. 

Wednesday: Today we had a super boring day that ended up having a lot of crazy stuff in the morning! Luckily all our lessons canceled so we had 4 hours to walk the streets.... (can you hear the excitement in my voice?!) I'm a firm believer that if you give God something to work with he will give you a miracle. We decided that morning to mark up a Book of Mormon with all the questions of the soul, and asked God to help us find someone to give it to. So, we prayed about where we needed to go and decided on this one particular house. After driving and walking for about a half hour we realize the house straight up doesn't exist. Naturally we start to question why we felt prompted to come to this specific street. We start walking and I'm praying we find someone to talk to, when we bump into Nicole! She was drawing outside and we knew right there we needed to give her our Book of Mormon. When we gave it to her she burst into tears and was so excited to meet with us again. After a hard past few days of goodbyes, bad news, and hard memories, it was amazing to see the hand of the Lord in finding Nicole, we can't wait to bring her the joy of the gospel. 

Thursday: This morning we had the amazing opportunity to help with a massive service program to give underprivileged kids clothes for a whole year. We got to go and shop with the kids at JCPenny and oh my goodness did I learn a lot, but the biggest thing was that I get to represent Jesus Christ every day, but serving like him this morning melted my heart as I watched Ruby pick out her new clothes. Even though naturally I can not stand shopping, especially with little kids, the love of the Savior overcame all my imperfections and I had an amazing time! We ended the day teaching at Hand Up NV which is always a party and a half.  

Friday: Not gonna lie today wasn't anything to write home about.... The only fun thing was that we had a super cute 11 year old graduation into young woman's and our friends and recent converts were all there and it was seriously so happy to see them all progressing on their covenant path. 

Saturday: The day of U-turns.... in total we made 21 U-turns. Not only am I directionally challenged Sister Tveten is too..... We are not good together in that aspect, but, we did make it where we needed to go and had an amazing lesson with Jenine and Sevan! They are seriously so prepared and elect. I can't believe we found them! They are interested in learning more and even asked how they can get baptized. We are so excited to see where this goes. I love getting to share the light of Christ with people who have had dark lives. It is truly the most fulfilling work. 

Sunday: Sadly none of our cool new people came to church, or any of our cool old people... Don't worry we made sure they knew how sad we were that they didn't come. We spent the rest of the day watching the Christmas devotional, knocking doors, and doing our studies. We also met this funny lady named Heidi who we aren't quite sure if she's interested, but she self referred herself through come unto Christ and had already read the into of the Book of Mormon by the time we got there to do a lesson! 

Ok, real talk, I don't get spiritual very often in these letters, but this week has been really hard. God put a lot of miracles and tender mercies in there to help me out, but, it was the one year anniversary of Elder Pope's passing, and the depression that I felt then started creeping its way back in this week. Among that I've received some pretty sad news, and am trying to adjust to a new companion. So, naturally I turned to the scriptures. While reading in the New Testament about the life of Christ I came across a footnote. For those of you that know me, I'm not a scriptorian, but, I love to read. I felt prompted to follow the footnote and came across this scripture in Acts 22 

22 And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:

23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.

24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

As I read I couldn't help but put myself into Paul's shoes. I had been called to my own Jerusalem, not knowing the things that would befall me there. I knew there would be trials and the Holy Ghost helped me and warned me of those. As I read verse 24 I realized how God is truly in the details of my life. He knew I wasn't going to let those things move me, and he knew I was longing to feel the joy of missionary work, and to finish my mission out strong. As he told me the way to find joy was through preaching and teaching of Jesus Christ I reflected on my week and realized I had just witnessed the miracle of the Atonement. There were angels pulling me along my journey and I found so much joy in sharing the gospel. I know God is aware of your tiny details, and he's even more aware of the big ones. I can promise as you go out an serve as he did this Christmas season, you will find the joy, and peace you are looking for.  Love you all!

Christmas shopping with Ruby! What a treat.

Who will the lucky recipient be?