El Día de Acción de Gracias

Hello everyone! I hope y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family! 

Thanksgiving was great over here:) in the morning our zone helped out at a rest home to set up tables, clean up plates, and help the residents get food. We were basically waiters & waitresses:) 

It was just so fun to be with the residents and their families, causes they were so nice! They were always thanking us, and several families even asked us about our callings :) and then we got to have our own little Thanksgiving lunch together afterwards with the leftovers, so that was fun! 

We also stopped by to visit a few families in our ward for dinner & dessert, it was so much fun to be with their extended families :) 

Last Monday night we stopped by this lady named Kathy, who lives across the street from a family in our ward. They told us that they've talked to her every so often & thought that she would be interested in meeting with us. So we knocked on her door and when she opened it she said "Sisters! Come on in! Did you know that I'm an inactive member?" Definitely was not expecting that response haha, but such a good visit with her! And we even got to meet her son & daughter in law who are not members. 

Ever since our mission has followed the invitation to make sacrifices individually, as a companionship/zone, etc. and applying Elder Bednar's devotional talk of being "All In", we have seen a lot more miracles! Still working on finding more people to teach, but it is amazing to see how many more people Heavenly Father has been putting on our path each day.  

 

Everyone go check out LightTheWorld.org! The Light the World initiative is starting this Saturday with a day of service, so I want to invite y'all to pick out something you can do this Saturday to serve someone, whether it's in the community or in your family. This truly is a wonderful time of the year to feel the Spirit of Christ as we serve the way He did. 

  

It Is Well With My Soul

YOU GUYS!!! OH MY GOODNESS I AM JUST SO PUMPED TO TALK ABOUT THE DEVOTIONAL WOW IT WAS SO AMAZING! But I don't want to forget about the other great things that happened this week, so here are some miracles from this week :) 

We did LOTS of moving this week! The Livingston's moved out of our ward :( so we helped Sister Livingston pack up and move stuff. We helped Mary move as well this morning, and she is a lady that we are teaching. Luckily though she will still be in our area! And then we moved apartments as well! It was time for an upgrade haha, so after district council the Elders came over and helped us, along with 2 other guys from the ward. So grateful for them, they helped a ton! 

Dolores took us out to dinner this week! At first she asked us to think of a place to go to before she picked us up, but when we got in the car she suggested Panda Express (which we were not opposed to haha) We walk inside and get in line, and Dolores starts a conversation with the lady in front of us who is with her fiancee and baby. Turns out it was a less active lady in our ward who we have been trying to meet for weeks! That was so neat to see that miracle and to have a recent convert be a part of it :) 

Some other cool things from the week, we got to meet some of Mike's family! He's a manager at the thrift store and told us we are welcome to come by his home anytime. So we stopped by one evening cause we didn't have set appointments, and we got to meet him, his daughter & granddaughter. And it was really cool to talk about the church with them and learn more about their religious background. He wants us to come back again to talk more so hopefully we can start teaching their family!

On Saturday we got to go to Angelica's baptism! A few months ago we got to go to her home for a lesson. The Elders are teaching her but Spanish is her first language, so we were invited to come over one time to teach in Spanish to see if that would help her feel more comfortable with the missionaries. It was so special to see her be baptized and to see her family again, and by the end of this year she will be sealed with her family in the temple! 

Okkkkk now for the devotional. There are just so many things I want to say about it & not enough time. But WOW, what an amazing opportunity to be able to be in the same room as President Nelson, Elder Bednar, Elder Ochoa and their wives. To hear their experiences of discipleship and of their testimonies.

We were able to go with Sister Bridges (returning less active lady we are teaching, along with her ministering person & husband) and I just felt so happy to know that there were also a lot of recent converts & non members there that were able to witness this amazing opportunity to listen to our living prophet. 

Watching them all walk in at the beginning, all of us missionaries got to see the Prophet shake President and Sister Polley's hand, and Sister Monroe next to me says "Do you think they role played what they were going to say to him?" hahahah I just had to include that quote, love her :) But with that I included that picture along with President Polley's email for this week, cause it's SO GOOD!

Towards the end of President Nelson's talk, he talked about the song "It is well with my soul" and how the choir would be singing it afterwards. It was so powerful to see him hold his hands to his chest, with emotion in his words as he said that phrase, to then end the devotional with that song. A couple in our ward were part of the choir and said that they could only practice it overnight because President Nelson made a last minute request for that song. But they said that it was such an honor to be asked to sing that song, it invited the Spirit so strongly and was a perfect way to end the devotional. 

What had an impact on me the most, after hearing the different talks about gathering Israel and increasing discipleship, was to watch President Nelson exit after the devotional. Other people were already leaving to avoid traffic, but I couldn't help but stare at him the whole time to see what he did as he left. President Nelson truly is a servant of the Lord, because he ministers the way Christ would if He were here--one by one. He took time to shake people's hands, to thank the choir, chorister, & organist, and to wave to every single corner of the Alamodome. It was an amazing example to me of how I can do better at ministering to others as a representative of Jesus Christ. 

To my friends and family, it truly is well with my soul to be a member of the Lord's restored church. To have had the opportunity to listen to a Prophet's voice, among so many of God's precious children in Texas. I love these people who I have come to meet on my mission. I am so grateful for this time to be His full-time servant. I know He lives. He guides this church through a living prophet. I KNOW that President Nelson is God's mouthpiece on the earth today. I love him, I sustain him, I know that what he teaches us is truth, because it is God's word. 

I love y'all with all my heart! I pray that y'all will continue to seek for ways to increase your discipleship. There truly is no greater life than following the path of our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

"Go get yourself a burnt cookie!"

Exchanges with the Lockhart sisters (& Sister Schultz!)

Well another great week in the mighty TSAM! We got transfer calls this morning and Sister Monroe and I are staying in Canyon Lake another transfer! The sad news is that we are both being released as being STL's. But I am so grateful for the time that I had to serve as an STL. I truly learned a lot from it and I loved being able to learn from other sisters. 

I went on exchanges with Sister Mudrow in Canyon Lake. She went to the Mexico CCM as well and she is going to start her 2nd transfer this week! It was so much fun to be with her and to see her excitement about the work. We went to the CRRC thrift store for service, and Mike got so excited that there was another "O" sister (Mike calls us the "O" sisters since mine and Sister Monroe's names end in an "O" sound. Hahah he was a middle school english teacher) He was like "Who is your main person that I call? I want to request that they keep y'all here as a trio!" 

Other fun quotes from the week:

When we were talking to Clifton at the thrift store later in the week

Clifton: "Are y'all confused about the pricing?"

Us: "No, we're just looking at how cute this is!"

Clifton: "I knew y'all were human."

Also at our ward mission leaders house last night, we were discussing who would be good fellowship for someone we're teaching, and his wife Sister Marshall brought up the perfect person. Brother Marshall was like "Ahhh, you're so smart. Go get yourself a burnt cookie." (Sister Marshall earlier was so sad that she burnt her cookies) We were dying so hard! 

I think what I love so much about being a missionary is how much I learn from the people we're teaching! We met with Sister Bridges last Monday night with the bishop's wife. Sister Bridges is in a part member family, and she agreed to let us come by to teach her the lessons as a refresher. She truly is so amazing and wants to set an example for her family so that their hearts will be softened to learn more about the gospel. But it was so amazing to bring the bishop's wife with us cause she has some kids that have fallen off the gospel path, and Sister Bridges kept talking about how she has faith that her family will join the church someday. So that brought our member a lot of peace. Also we met with Dolores this week and read the scriptures with her since she wants to finish the Book of Mormon before the end of the year. Dolores was telling us how this week she had an experience where she was in a situation where she wanted to express anger towards someone who did something wrong to her, but she held it back and instead responded in a loving manner, remembering that everyone is a child of God. That touched our member so much! 

Guess who came to church yesterday? Mesha and her family!! We had an amazing lesson with them on Friday, and Brother Duffy our assistant ward mission leader came with us for the dinner & lesson. Mesha and her son TJ are learning about the church and her boyfriend Chris is a member. One of the things that Mesha has had a challenge with is organized religion. We taught her the Restoration and especially wanted to focus on the importance of coming to church. Brother Duffy was super awesome and shared a powerful testimony about his conversion story and how fellowship helped him to start coming to church. It was so cool to see how much Mesha's heart was softened and to see the Spirit working through their whole family. Sadly they didn't stay for all 3 hours, but it was so good that they came cause they were recovering from food posioning :( Mesha told us that no matter what she knew she had to keep that commitment! Wow, love her :) 

A talk that I found this week in my studies is "Preserving the Heart's Mighty Change" in October 2009 by Elder Renlund. Maybe it's just that I love learning about medical stuff haha, but I thought it was so cool that he gave the analogy of treating a new heart in a transplant like how we need to treat our new spiritual hearts. To keep ourselves spiritually alive, we need to make sure our hearts don't become hardened by continually following the gospel of Jesus Christ with real intent. I'd invite y'all to read it, it's a good one! :) 

Cutest dog named Millie :) 

The District!

Mike, Clifton, and Louise

 

Feeling the TSAM Pride

The invitations for Pres Nelson devotional :)))) 

Hey y'all!


Guess what?? Less than 2 weeks until the Prophet comes to San Antonio! Everyone is PUMPED around here. Unfortunately, transfer day is like 3 days before President Nelson comes, so please pray for Sister Monroe and I that we get to stay another transfer or at least be close to San Antonio Haahah :) 

We went on exchanges with the San Marcos sisters this week, it was so much fun to be with Sister Boyer again in her area :) and Halloween was kind of a bummer haha. We were planning on going to the Halloween parade that is right outside of the thrift store that we volunteer at, and sitting with Mike and his family who are non members (Mike works at the store). But it ended up raining & we were all out of miles on our car & we weren't allowed to go out unless if we had set appointments. So yeah it was a bummer, but instead we just decided to deep clean our apartment cause it has been needing it haha :))) so woohoo for a clean apartment on Halloween! Saw a lot of spooky things like years of dust build-up under our appliances ;)

Exchanges with San Marcos! 

MLC was on Friday, and it definitely made me feel pumped again to go out and do the work! My first MLC, we came up with the goal of 40 baptisms per month as a mission, but since then we have been really slacking at meeting that goal. We talked a lot about recognizing how this is God's time that we're on, and evaluating ourselves on how we are using our time each day to find people to teach. We also talked about being truly excited about the work and helping other missionaries to catch that excitement & motivation to work (One of the AP's talked about having the TSAM Pride and it reminded me so much of having that Lone Peak Knight pride haha) But seriously though it has been so refreshing to renew this excitement to the work within myself, and to also help the sisters in our stewardship to have that same excitement as well.

I got to be a part of my first cottage meeting on Saturday night! Our ward mission leader and his wife hosted us and 2 couples for dinner & games along with us sharing a message. Michele & Elmer came along with Sister Higgins and her husband who isn't a member (He comes to church with her but isn't interested in taking the discussions). It was a really successful cottage meeting! We shared the video "The Hope of God's Light" and Brother Higgins was participating a lot with our conversation after the video. And everyone just got along so well! Also at one point Brother Marshall was talking about serving a senior couple mission with his wife, and Elmer said "Yeah Michele and I want to do that too, right?" He looks at Michele, and she seriously was so sincere with her answer! "Yes I want to do that!" Sister Monroe and I looked at each other and just died inside :))))

And then this morning I just got some pictures from Indira, the cutest girl that got baptized in my last area! She is back in her country in Colombia right now, and she just got to see the newly built temple in her home city of Barranquilla! Seriously just made my day :))))

The gospel is so good, y'all. Words can't even describe how amazing it is to be a part of God's work and to be a servant of the Lord, helping to gather His sheep.

Zone Conference!

Enjoy a throwback to times in the CCM with our favorite 

Hermano Gonzalez (found this on Sis Monroe's tablet:))) 

Indira and the Barranquilla Colombia temple