ZONE CONF WITH ELDER PINGREE!

Heyyy we got transfer news this morning! Guess where I'm going?? STAYING HERE! Yep. Another transfer in the lovely YSA ward, and I am SO EXCITED! For one, I get to finish Sister Motock's training :) and I get to spend half of my mission with some of my favorite people :) even though the work is slower than usual right now, I know that something good is going to come up! We're slowly receiving a few referrals from members and other missionaries, so I can't wait to see what happens! 

We stopped by a dropped investigator named Pepe last monday night. He is a spanish investigator (sort of, he's also fluent in english haha) that some Elders sent to us, so we decided to go by and see if Pepe was interested still. We had a short lesson with him on Thursday and it's hard to tell if he's fully interested right now, but funny thing on Monday night! His uncle handed us drinks, and we asked him what it was. He said "agua de vida", and it did not look like water haha. Pretty sure it was wine. So that was interesting! 

Oh also, remember Jordan? The other dropped investigator that said we could come back? So we came in the middle of the week when he told us to, and he didn't answer. We stopped by again last night, and his mom answered the door this time. She was mad haha. She was asking us lots of questions about who we were, and at the end she told us never to come back. Sad day! 

Zone Conference

Zone conference was this past week, and we got to hear from a General Authority! Elder Pingree of the Seventy came to speak with his wife, and wow they were amazing! I recommend all of y'all go back and read his talk "I Have a Work for Thee" from last year. SO GOOD. A big theme of our conference was Christ's Atonement and how we learn more about it through the Book of Mormon. It was so powerful to hear people's thoughts about the Atonement from the scriptures we read together, and then afterwards we opened up to questions to ask Elder Pingree and President Polley. Wow, you could feel the amount of love that was had in the room. It is SO AMAZING to see how Christ's Atonement can heal every single one of us, no matter what challenges we have been given, or the choices we make. He knows exactly what we are going through, and I can testify that true, everlasting joy comes as we let Christ into our lives. 

Ok guess what the highlight of the week was?? DAVID CAME TO CHURCH! Remember the less active I talked about a few months ago? We kind of lost contact with him cause he moved back home out of our area, and he got busy with work. Well, one of our members reached out to him again, and he agreed to come to church! And after church we were talking to him, and he was like "Hey who's the executive secretary?" YES! That definitely made my day to see him at church. Definitely a living testament that it is never too late to change! 

I love y'all so much! Through all of the heat, bug bites, and rejection, I know that this work is so worth it! :))) 

Zone Sports!

Escaping on bikes and avoiding hugs

Buc-ees with Hermana Tuinei and Hermana Pugmire!

So we tried street contacting this week! There's a long road that leads to our church building with a lot of apartment complexes along the way, so we decided to spend an evening walking down the sidewalks to see if we could talk to people. First off, it was pretty hot with the humidity haha! And also, when we came to the light to cross the street, we saw this guy waiting at the light to cross with his bike. We didn't even say anything to him, but the moment that he turned around and saw us, he literally picked up his bike, turned it around, and booked it in the other direction! Hahah didn't know that missionaries were scary :) 

Also, we set up a return appointment with a dropped investigator! We met with Jordan and his records said it was hard for missionaries to get in contact with him, but we thought we'd try again. We had a good conversation with him for a few minutes, and then at the end this 6'4 guy went in for a hug. Of course that is when things got awkward, I hate when I have to explain the rule haha but people are so nice and understanding! 

We stopped at Buc-ees this week! Sister Motock and I had a new missionary follow up meeting up towards Austin, and we went with Sister Motock's MTC companion Hermana Tuinei! Also, her trainer is Hermana Pugmire (which I had my college english class with her) what a small world! So that was fun to spend time with them and of course, stop at Buc-ees! 

There was one night where Sister Motock and I went out to eat cause we didn't have a dinner appointment, and we got to talk to a police officer and a mom while waiting in line. We told them we were Mormon's and missionaries, and the police officer was like "I trained a mormon guy once. We're looking to recruit more guys like that cause they don't drink or smoke!" Haha and then when the mom heard we were from Utah she was like "Hey is that where Brigham Young is from?" That comment was a new one for me to hear. I always love talking to non members, especially hearing what they have heard about us mormons :) 

Our Buc-ees shirts :)

Elizabeth is getting ready to go to the temple!!! We met with her this week, and she said that Bishop invited her to take the temple prep classes since her year mark is coming up in a month. Super exciting! 

Yesterday in Relief Society our lesson was based off of Elder Stevenson's talk "The Heart of a Prophet", and there were a lot of great comments made in the lesson! One of the sisters talked about how when President Monson was a prophet, his leadership was the style of ministering "one by one". That example to members led to the revelation we just received from President Nelson about enhanced minstering, and now with President Nelson's guidance we are putting into practice what we have learned thoughout the years of how to minster. It was really neat to discuss how we can learn from each prophet's loving example and how we can implement their guidance into our own lives. 

I know that President Nelson is God's prophet on the earth today. We are so blessed to be continually guided by a loving Heavenly Father through His called apostles and prophet. This truly is the restored, true church on the earth today! How amazing is that! 

Craft Day!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Happy Mothers Day yesterday to all of you wonderful women! Thank you for your wonderful examples to me. Y'all are amazing! And special shutout to my mom cause, cause she is THE BEST! The most Christlike person I know. I love you, Mom! 

The work has been getting slow, since school just got out a lot of our investigators are moving back home, and people are just not being really responsive right now. So we're doing a lot of knocking and trying to find new people to teach. It's all good, though! It's definitely been interesting talking to different people. On Saturday night we were contacting, and we ran into this one guy. Once he found out we were Mormons he just kept going on about how he couldn't accept the Book of Mormon, and he was laughing at Sister Motock as she was trying to explain the Book of Mormon and share her testimony. At the end he was giving her a hard time and kind of teasing us for what we do. I was feeling kind of angry on the inside, but we walked away from that and Sister Motock had a smile on her face and we just kept going! Definitely a good reminder to keep pushing forward. It's all about planting the seeds and keeping a smile on your face! 

So we had one more lesson with one of our investigators named Luis, who has had his missionary friend skype into the lessons. Sadly, he is moving out of our mission so we won't be able to hear much about him. But at the end of our lesson we gave him a temple pass along card with a reading assignment. The card had a picture of the Salt Lake Temple, and when he saw it his eyes widened and of course he was asking us about it. So we explained it briefly to him and he was like "Dang that's beautiful!" I was like yeah the temple IS BEAUTIFUL! Haha I love it when people learn about the temple for the first time. 

I got to go on exchanges with Sister Duke in the Helotes area! I haven't been back to that area since I was double covering in a trio, so it was so much fun to see some of the members and investigators that I got to work with for a little bit. I even got to see Sam! He was one that I wrote about a few weeks ago when we went over to spread dirt on his grass for a service project. Some of the sisters and elders help him regularly, so on exchanges we helped him and his wife set up for their garage sale. 

That's about it for this week! I love the members and meeting new people here! This work is absolutely amazing and I'm so grateful for this time to serve my Savior and Heavenly Father. 

Soccer with the Zone!

Soccer with the Zone!!!

 P-day crafts with Sister Roundy in the Valley Ranch area! 

Sister Duke

Exchanges with Sister Duke

My Roomies!!:)

SHE'S BACK!

Kneaders with the District!

Hello y'all! Wow this week several crazy things happened :) 

Thank y'all for the birthday wishes! It was definitely a good day, and I've decided that everyone here just wants me to get fat, cause there are TONS of cake and other treats that will probably last me and the other sisters a few transfers :) the b-day was the same day as our District meeting, so we went out to Kneaders afterwards to celebrate! Everyone bought their own pastry with their lunch, and right when we were getting ready to leave this sweet lady walks up to us and starts putting more pastries on our table! "I got 8 more for y'all!" Haha it was great :) 

Indira made it back to the States! She had to go back to her home country to renew her visa, and she was really nervous she wouldn't be able to come back. But she is here now! Ahh it was the cutest, when I saw her she ran up and gave me the biggest hug! I love her so much :) So now that she's back we're really hoping that in the next few weeks she'll be ready to go to the temple! 

So we had a funny thing happened on Tuesday.  We were teaching a recent convert named Vi (She's in our district leader's area but she is YSA age so we are teaching her new member lessons to fellowship her into our ward) and after our lesson we get out to our car and there's a mormon.org card in our car window. There was a note written on it that said "God really needs missionaries here today. Btw go visit (address) her name is Maria" We were like what no way that's so cool! So we talked to Maria, she wasn't YSA age and she's spanish speaking so we can't teach her, but we figured we'd set up an appointment for our zone leaders who are over the spanish branch. We start driving out of the neighborhood, and on the corner of the street we see 2 guys in white shirts and ties. It was the Elders on exchanges! We honked and waved at them, but come to find out later they were the ones who wrote the card! Apparently the Elder on exchanges thought that the missionary car was his car that his companion was driving for the day on exchanges, and the Elders had just contacted Maria like 5 minutes before we did haha. Still kind of confused why the one elder wrote out that card to visit Maria, thinking it was his companion and asking another set of missionaries to visit the same lady. But it's all good, it made for a good story! :) Maria's probably confused that there were so many different missionaries knocking on her door in the same day haha :)

Church was so good yesterday! There was a worldwide YSA devotional by Elder and Sister Kearon of the presidency of the Seventy, so we had a special sacrament meeting where all the YSA wards in the San Antonio area were combined. Mike came to church for the first time in like 2 years! He's a less active we're teaching that went inactive right after his baptism. 

And Kevin also came to church! We knocked on his door like an hour before church started, he asked where our church met and he was like "I actually really want to come, it's been a while since I've gone and I've actually been needing it." It was so great! And now we are meeting with him tonight for our first lesson! 

I love y'all lots! Hope y'all have a wonderful week! 

More cake with the sisters:)

Guess who stopped by???
Mom's best friend Mandy & her husband John
So fun to see family & friends:)

Kneaders with the District!

TIFFANY FOUND TEMPLE NAMES!

Exchanges w/Sister Broadbent (during a rainstorm!)

Hello everyone! I hope y'all had a wonderful week! 

Not too much has happened this week. We've been finding new people to teach still, but none of them will come to church though. It's all good, we'll keep trying! 

We met this really sweet lady named Diane this week and we taught her the Restoration! The sad thing is that she is not YSA age, so we have to pass her off :(  She was the cutest lady though! She basically told us her whole life story, and she kind of invited us in cause she said she was feeling lonely. But it was so fun to spend some time with her and share our testimonies with her. 

Ok also the highlight of my week was seeing Tiffany find names for the temple!!! Oh my goodness it was so amazing! We met with her for a lesson this week and then went on to the computers to help her with her family history. She has been working on Ancestry the past few days, and so she had a name that she found that she needed to add onto her family tree on Family Search. Once she added the name of her Great grandfather, a whole line of names just popped up! It went as far back as 900 AD! And she had a lot of green temples show up! Ah it was so amazing, and to see her reaction was priceless! She has been waiting a long time to find family names, and I am so happy for her that she found some now :):):)

I love y'all lots! 

I love my Hermana Motock!

P-day Sports!

P-Day Sports!