Semana 57 La Sombra/Hillpointe: I MET SOMEONE FROM SAINT JOE

 Ahhhh t-minus one hour and I haven't started my email. Sometimes I think pday hours get sucked into a magical vortex and you can never get them back. This week I felt a little homesick but scroll down to Sunday to see all the tender mercies from this week! I'd love emails and cards as I make it to the last leg of my mission. You guys rock! 

Monday: Today we had dinner with the cutest older couple the Yochams. They were so nice and Sister Yocham even sewed us masks to wear. So that was exciting. After that we came home and called a million people in Spanish and ended up setting up 5 lessons for this week, so hopefully that goes well. All in all a great end to pday. I also had my Spanish tutoring appointment which was really fun and I learned all about the learning curve. 

Tuesday: Today we started off the morning with a lovely surprise of our car dying so we quickly got a ride to our meetings. Elder Smith couldn't come to fix our car until 5 so we spent the day walking to all of our appointments. After an hour walk to our friend Barbra's house we taught her a great lesson and it sounded like she was really interested! Luckily Elder Smith came to save the day and picked us up from Barbra's house and came and fixed our car just in time for our Centro shift. At Centro we has 8 new people show up and it was awesome!! Teaching a full class was a little intimidating but it was awesome and by the end I was feeling so confident about my Spanish. My companion is very shy so I taught most of the class by myself and it made me realize I actually am good at Spanish.  

Wednesday: Today we had correlation at our Ward Mission Leader's house with our district because we are all in the La Sombra Branch. We got to have lunch with them afterward and it was a really good time. After that we went to a lesson with our new friend Frank! He is a single dad and is super nice. He used to be a catholic but is now exploring with us. Hopefully he comes to church next week when he doesn't have to work. We also ended the day with correlation for our English ward which was nice too. 

Thursday: Today I went on exchanges with Sister Douglas who is one of my new best mission friends! She is so sweet and we just laughed all day. We just made so many jokes and celebrated her being on the mission for 4 months with 4 Crumbl cookies and ate them all! We also met a new friend named Roux and hopefully he goes to church in their area. He's excited to learn and we were excited to find him. All in all we had a blast today. 

Friday: Today was a long day. We had another exchange and it really made me realize how much I want to be kind to everyone and look on the bright side even when it's hard, because that is a much happier way to live. We didn't have a lot of appointments but did get to meet the Guzman family who is half members and half not so we got to have a cool discussion with them and are going back next week. We ended the day with Chickfila and enjoyed our life! Moral of the story behind positive!!! Find something to be happy about it and do it. 

Saturday: The day of days for Sister Susman! We went to a baptism for a guy named Bobby that she had taught for the past 1w weeks and it was so happy! She got to witness and it was fun to see her joy that came from that baptism. We also did weekly planning and then went to our friend Norma's house for dinner! She was telling us all about her knee surgery and therapy in Spanish and man..... I am not fluent in medical terms in English so try in Spanish! Ahhh! It was hard, but I learned a ton of new words so that is a win. We ended the night with some good old language study and went straight to bed! 

Sunday: We had two of our friends at church today! Mary, who wants to get baptized and Romina who is amazing but having a hard time committing because her family is very active in their religion and she doesn't want to cause a rift there. Both of them loved it! I was able to speak in sacrament meeting about the Bible and the importance of it in our study and it was a huge testimony builder for me! We loved getting to go to both wards and ended the day with the most spiritual lesson with Romina. She is amazing and I can't wait to see her baptized one day. Tender mercy for the day was we met Sister Watsabough who used to live in Missouri and she knew all the people! It was so cool to talk to her and get to know her, and was huge after feeling a little homesick this week. God really does look out for us. 

Love you all! This next week is full of fun events with pictures! This week... not as much!

Crumbl cookies for the win!

Exchanges with Sister Douglas

Lunch with the Sisters

Hermana on the road

Semana 56 La Sombra/Hillpointe: Finalmente normal!

 Hey yall! It's be a whole since I actually wrote a good email... so let a get into it, we had a pretty busy week and finally got back to missionary work!! 

Monday: We were still pretty tired so stayed home and did studies as well as contacted a ton of people in the branch and ended up setting up a ton of appointments with our members and members who don't come as often! 

Tuesday: We started off with our first district council with Elder Medina who was trained by Elder Polo my last district leader, so it's been fun to see the things that got passed down! We also met our new ward mission leader and chatted with him. Then we went and taught orientation at Centro Hispano and actually had people in our class which was awesome! 

Wednesday: Today was the famous MLC and we gave a training on teaching simply simply from the heart. We started with a funny object lesson where Elder Dorius told a story really vaguely about a warrior who lost his family at a young age and ditched the adopted family business for something greater. No one guess what it was so I told the story of Kung Fu Panda in wayyyyy to much detail and we related it to the gospel. Sadly I don't think I'm ever going to live that down, but shout out to s

Scotty for my extensive knowledge if Kung Fu Panda. That meeting lasted most of the day and we ended off with some good old fashioned dinner with some new members in the ward! They fed us Tempura and let me say, it wasn't bad, but my stomach was not a fan. Fried greasy seafood is not a win.... The Vazquez family was super nice though and we ended the night switching for exchanges! 

Thursday: Today I went to the Summerlin ward on exchanges with Sister Gerritsen! I love her and she has seriously been killing it as a new trainer. We went and taught this amazing family the Ovejas and man! They are so ready to be baptized, their main goal is to be seals as a family forever and I just think that is the happiest moment one could ever have as a missionary and as a person.  We had a good time being comps for a day and thankfully I didn't get sick from the curry we had for dinner. The only two things I don't like in two days... yikes! 

Friday: Today we ended up sleeping through our alarms and realizing maybe we weren't feeling as good as we thought or were pretending to be for the past two days, so we took it easy today, did studies and called a ton of people! We also went to go visit a referral that ended up not being home, but fingers crossed we get to meet her soon. We went to Bishop Ward's house for dinner and oh my goodness, I thought the Foothills ward was fancy..... it's nothing compared to the Hillpointe ward!! I felt soooo out of place after living in Rancho for so long. We had a good dinner and even kneeled to pray with them which was a really cool experience. We ended the day visiting our new friend Robbin on her 85th birthday! It was really cool, she's very opinionated, but an awesome lady. 

Saturday: We were supposed to have an exchange today, but Sister Susman was not feeling up to it so we ended up having our first normal day in our area and it was really refreshing. We got to contact all the people we are teaching, go out and try to find some people to teach, and do all of our studies. All in all it was a really good day. We ended with weekly planning and getting ready for our HandUpNV pow wow with our special guest!!!!!! 

Sunday: TWO OF OUR FRIENDS CAME TO CHURCH! One in each ward so that was really fun. Margarita came with her member friends and that was really awesome, they showed her around and we think she really liked it. We also had Romina come to church and this was a miracle. This girl is basically already a member she just is scared to tell her very catholic family, so the fact that she came to church in person is huge! We are so excited for her and hope to see her taking the steps to be baptized soon. We ended the day with a pow wow for the HandUp page with Miriam from the YSA!!! It was so fun to get to see this boss lady again and we're so excited to work with her on the page. Super excited to work on the page and get HandUp busy again! 

Ok still not a lot of pictures.... next week I promise!!

STL's

Mission Leadership Council

Hermanas Sellers and Susman

Semana 55 La Sombra/Hillpointe: The new variant

Well..... this week is gonna be a short one without a lot of pictures... (sorry not sorry) After almost 2 years of avoiding covid I finally got the new variant!! Yes, I can now say I've successfully had covid. Don't worry our members took really good care of us, we got lots of food and medicine, and we basically had no symptoms except extreme fatigue.  But that meant Tuesday through Saturday we basically did our studies, tried to call some people and slept. We had some awesome missionaries who went out of their way to go get us medicine and a ton of members that brought us food all the days we were quarantined. All in all feeling blessed, never stressed, and so glad I got to put on my Sunday best. 

Sunday: Today was the one day we got to be out this week and it was awesome! I loved being back on the Spanish branch and it was fun to be somewhere new again. Getting to see old friends and new faces all at once has been nice. La Sombra is really fun and I'm excited to get to work and grow the branch! Hillpointe is a new ward that recently split so I'm not sure how the dynamic is there yet, but we will figure it out I'm sure! Training a new ward council on missionary work will be exciting. I haven't met anyone we are teaching yet but, hopefully I will meet them this week. 

No pictures this week but I promise I'll do better next week ;) there's nowhere to go but up!

Semana 54 Rancho Ward: Meeting President Ballard!!!!!!!!! And transfers...

Buenos Días everyone! Yes, President Ballard came to Vegas and we got to see him live and it was amazing. Scroll to Saturday for an amazing spiritual thought about how awesome he is. It's transfer day and I'm sure you're all so excited to hear that I have been transferred! I am moving to the La Sombra Branch and will be training a new STL! Her name is Sister Susman and she is a really awesome missionary. My transfer details threw us off a little bit because I thought for sure they were going to keep Sister Tveten and I together, but they are dissolving our area so no one is replacing us..... Since so many people are leaving to their original assignments we are busy combining all sorts of areas back together like they were pre covid. Pray that Hopa still gets baptized next week even with the Elders taking over. All in all I am super sad to leave the Rancho Ward, but, I feel like I have done what I needed to do here and I am ready to move onto the next chapter of my mission in the La Sombra Branch. Everyone calls it the promised land..... so I'm super intrigued to find out what that means ;) 

Monday: Today was a good day, we basically did language study, tried to set up a ton of lessons and then planned for our zone council and district council trainings. Our zone has been struggling in being unified and so we are excited to give a training on how we can work better as a team. Let's just say we made the zone leaders do 50 pushups while everyone watched..... ;) don't worry it was for an object lesson. 

Tuesday: Today we gave our training in District council about being 100 percent responsible. It is an amazing BYU devotional and I highly recommend reading it if you're wanting to know how you can change your life and your relationships with others. After that we gave our Zone Council training Coach Carter style and made the zone leaders do so many pushups. We related it to Christ in that he carries us through our hard times as long as we put in the work. I think our zone full of boys really liked it and it brought the spirit of unity which was our goal. After that we had an awesome lesson with the Jones family. They have 5 kids and are working on becoming active again in the church! They promised they'd come this Sunday, which is super exciting. We can wait to see them there. We finished the night with a Centro Hispano shift and started off our first of three exchanges in a row....... 

Wednesday: Today I got to go on exchanges with Sister Mini! She is awesome and we had a great time. We taught this amazing lady who is working on some word of wisdom problems so she can get baptized. If there's one thing I've seen on my mission it's that God can truly take our burdens no matter how addictive or strong they are, as long as we are responsible and allow him to help us. She has overcome so much already and we can't wait to see her baptized. It was for to visit up in Norther Vegas and get to see the different culture there. I love Sister Mini and am super sad she is leaving to Chile in 2 weeks. 

Thursday: Today I was on exchanges with Sister Wilson. I've been her STL for three transfers so it was super fun that we got to go on exchanges again! We both came out to Vegas together and it was a really special experience to connect with her yet again. We grinded on the contacting game and contacted over 40 people which was amazing! I'm so glad I get to learn from these girls and see their successes and trials. It's a super humbling experience to be one of the older Sisters in the mission and I'm so grateful that I get to help the newer and older girls grow. 

Friday: Today was exchanges with Sister Lafleur! I love her! We got to stay in the area so that was awesome. We got to talk to a ton of our friends. We had a meeting with the Crump family, had a lesson with Alex and Ellie, and got to do some finding activities. All in all an amazing day. Alex told us he quit his job and is going to be able to come to church on Sunday which is huge! We can't wait to see him progress towards baptism. 

Saturday: Today was the day of all days. One, I finally got to be back with my companion, and two, PRESIDENT BALLARD CAME TO VEGAS! He was the keynote speaker at Harry Reid's funeral and so after that he came and spoke to the missionaries for 4 hours! He is surely more than a man as Joseph Smith would say. I could talk for hours about my experiences with him and what he talked about but I'll just mention 3 main points. Number one is that Elder Ballard is hilarious, he has the most dry sense of humor and it really made him so relatable and personal, even though he was talking to 500+ missionaries. Number Two, the church must be true because I have never felt the spirit so strong in my life. Elder Ballard's presence brought with him the strongest sprit, you could feel it when he walked in and you could tell when he left. Three, engrave the Savior into you heart. President Ballard took about 2 hours making one point,  and that point was to learn all we can about Jesus Christ, so that we can love him enough to be successful in life and as missionaries. He told us if we learn all we can, and study about him, our love for him will grow, our success will increase, and we will have greater joy. At the end of his talk he pronounced and Apostolic blessing on all of us and that was pretty much the coolest moment of my life. So, all in all I have a new favorite Apostle and I am revising my study plans ;) 

Sunday: Today we had Alex come to church which was huge! We was a little nervous but he made it through sacrament meeting and That was awesome. We are so excited to see where he goes and hopefully he can get baptized. 

Monday: Today was full of goodbyes, packing and prepping out area to be double transferred. We also had an amazing lesson with Shannon and are hoping she continues to progress!

Semana 53 Rancho Ward: Mama Bear

This week was full of service for literally everyone, basically the entire mission was sick including my companion so we ended up doing some really fun service to keep everyone's spirits up. In the process I somehow earned the title of mama bear because we are carrying the zone on our backs by making soup and loving everyone, but also, if anyone messes with my sisters then they probably shouldn't tell me, which I think is funny. 

Monday: Today we had dinner with the Kereczman family and got to chat a lot about the work. Sadly the rest of our night got filled up with Sister Tveten having a huge allergic reaction still from the dogs on Sunday. So we bought medicine and let her shower and relax. 

Tuesday: Today was a really weird day, but it wasn't the weirdest day of the week... We had district council and all that jazz, then we were knocking doors and doing studies for a while. Then it hit about 4 and we were like, ok let's go to this one apartment complex, Google however decided to take us to a different one wayyyyy out of zone.... we didn't have enough time to get to our area before it got super dark, so we decided to go make a huge batch of soup for all the people in the mission that were sick! We ended up becoming a soup kitchen and delivered soup to 4 companionships. It was a good way to serve and I missed all of the good times getting to talk to everyone. 

Wednesday: Ok, today was officially one of the weirdest days in my whole mission. We started off with personal study and were at the library doing companion study when we get a call saying one of our sisters are quarantined and have Covid.... the catch however is that they needed medicine from a doctor in Summerlin, so, we drove 30 minutes to Summerlin, picked up the meds, then drove 45 minutes back to their area, delivered them and we were starving by then so we stopped for lunch. While we were stopped we found out that we had more sisters that were sick up in Northern Vegas so while we were there we stopped by and brought them a care package too. We finished the day off with some lessons and slept really well :) 

Thursday: Today was a pretty slow day thankfully! We had an awesome lesson with Penelope and are hoping to put her on date for baptism soon! She is a really awesome girl and we are so excited excited her. We also did our planning and also got to celebrate my one year in Vegas with Cheesecake Factory! A member gave us a lot of money to go out to dinner and so we decided to go somewhere fancy and it was really fun. 

Friday: Today we had an awesome breakfast with our ward mission leader and he made us biscuits and gravy! How awesome is that?! We got to talk about our temple trip with Amanda that we are so excited for it!! We also got to go visit the Crump family and teach them the plan of salvation which is one of my favorite lessons. It was a really good time! Can you tell I have has a good week by how many exclamation points I have used? I've really tried to focus on consistency in all the morning routines and man, game changer for sure. We ended the night at 6 and got to make goals and ring in the New year with our families at 10pm which is 12am in Missouri. That was super special for me as well. 

Saturday: Today we ended up going tracting for 4 hours..... but, we met a lot of really awesome people and have return appointments with a few. It was good to feel a little bit uncomfortable and stretch my skills as missionary. Really that's it for Saturday. So spiritual thought time. I have made it a goal to be consistent because Christ loves effort and although its only been a week I can already see the benefits of staying consistent in the little things each day. So, as you write your big yearly goals, remember the little details. 

Sunday: Today we sadly didn't have any of our friends come to church yet again..... so please pray that our friends will come to church so they can get baptized! I bore my testimony and it was nice to feel like home in my ward. Which sadly means I'll probably get transferred so I guess we shall see. I love you all! 

Here's a few pictures and some catch up pictures from Christmas!

Happy New Year!!!

We left a Book of Mormon for our server ;)

Yum! Cheesecake Factory

Chillin'

Hermanas

It's not New Year's without the Callahans

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Christmas tag pic

Smoothie Bowls...

...with Nutella