New Investigators!!

November 17, 2014

This week was pretty good! (: 

Coolest thing! Ready? So ya'll know we've been struggling trying to find new investigators. So we've been praying hard and working hard and nothing was coming of it. But I just kept thinking, God will bless because we are doing our part and that's how He works. 

So we kept doing our part for the past few weeks and finally a miracle! 

So we were walking to our car from our apartment in the morning on our way to a lesson when this guy stops us and is like "you guys are Sisters right?"

Us: yeah! (We're always cheerful of course)

Him: yeah I've seen you guys around here but I've never said anything. I'm member of your church, I just joined in April

Us: wow that's awesome!

Him: what ward our you guys in?

Us: Garden Grove ten. It's a spanish ward 

Him: really? You guys speak Spanish? Do you think you guys could come and teach my parents? They only speak Spanish and I've been praying for the chance to share the gospel with them but I still don't know a lot and I'm not very good at explaining things. 

*happy dance in my head*

Prayer works. Do it. 

So we went over and met his cute parents. And they like us. And they like that we speak Spanish and they like what we taught. So we naturally invited them to come to church. 

Yes. Yes, they did come. Now I don't know about every other mission in the world but here in the Anaheim mission when you meet someone on a Friday and invite them to come to church on a Sunday they NEVER come. Miracles. I'm telling Ya. Baptism is in the works. 

We met Russians this week. One of them was nice. The other ones were kinda scary. They just looked at us skeptically and asked us if we were Mormons and asked if we just going around offering our services to people. He didn't like us too much. Whatever. Already downloaded Because of Him in Russian and we have our zone leaders working on getting us a Book of Mormon in Russian. So it's going down. 

So Sister Johnson is how we met these Russians. It was night time and we were outside teaching one of our investigators. We had a member there with us and we were right about to jump into teaching the law of chastity. So I say such and such then turn to Sister Johnson who just pauses and says "uno momento. Hay algo que necesito hacer." Then she gets up and walks a few feet away to a lady who is just balling her our eyes out. And starts talking to her. For almost an hour. Haha bless her heart. So I just had the wonderful opportunity of teaching this investigator the law of chastity all by my lonesome. Well kinda. The member was there and he was a lot of help and he is thinking about baptism again!. But that crying lady turned out to be Russian and sister Johnson helped her out a ton so it was all good. 

This week we had a lesson with this cute less active family. We had only met them once before but they invited us back and we got there and the cute little girls were sitting at the table with their Books of Mormon all excited for us to teach. So we did our spill and then they brought out flan that they had bought for us and they turned on Christmas music (they have kozy 106.5 out here and I guess they've started playing non stop Christmas music) and made us hot chocolate and then we played Uno. It was magical to say the least. 

I have to say I'm suuppeerr jealous of the cold and especially the snow. I love snow and goose bumps and bundling up. So it's common knowledge that when it comes to the cold. People here are a bunch of whimps. Sadly though, I'm turning into one of them. Don't get me wrong, I still love the cold and am super excited be back into it one day, but I'm turning into a whimp. This week my companion and I got so cold. We wore our jackets and long sleeves and had our heater on in the house and the car. So we were curious just to how cold it really was?  63. Yep 63 degrees. I was chilly. California does weird things to you. And to your hair. 

Yesterday bishops son was baptized. I helped him play the piano for the service. It was a lot of fun. I like baptisms. They're so fun. Everyone should be baptized. But not just by anyone. Oh no. By someone who has the authority of God-the priesthood! Yay! And then they should all get the awesome gift of the Holy Ghost so their baptism is complete. And then they should seguir adelante for the rest of their lives! So tell everyone. It's even free, any day of the week that's most convenient. Do it. Be a member missionary. You save those souls. Please. Missionaries need it. 

Anywhoo I love you guys. You're the best! Have a great week! Love Hermana May 

Her half way celebration!!!

A Week without Vargas

November 12, 2014

So this week was good. Sister Vargas left early on Tuesday morning.
And now it's just Sister Johnson and I. We are doing good though. We
rearranged some of our furniture so it's all good.

Not a ton has happened. We have both been trying so hard to be good
missionaries and be obedient but we just haven't been seeing success.
We cannot find new investigators for the life of us. We knock doors,
we visit part member families, we street contact, we ask everyone and
their dog for referrals. It just isn't happening. But lo and behold. A
miracle last night. Finally we found one new investigator. We found
her going through the former investigators in this area and we knocked
and she was home and we taught something short and she said we could
come back on Thursday. So we're praying hard something comes from it.

We started teaching Elvia's daughter, Gloria. It was all fun at first
but now Gloria won't talk to us. So that's too bad. Our ward was
really wanting her to be baptized. Oh well what can you do? Elvia
didn't get confirmed this week because she was in the hospital. But
she is better now so we are crossing our fingers for this Sunday. She
is so cute. We went over yesterday to read in the Book of Mormon with her
and a lady was at her house and was like "where's the coffee?" And
Elvia goes "I didn't buy any" and then she looks at us and laughs and
says quietly reassuring us, "I don't use coffee now." Haha it was pretty
funny.

We had zone conference yesterday with one of the men in the first
quorum of the seventy. He was very smart and had a lot of good
insights. We sat behind the ASL program the whole seven hours and so
it was pretty entertaining getting to watch them sign the whole time.

Our zone leader told us about his favorite snack: whole wheat tortilla
covered in peanut butter, toasted coconut on that and honey in that
all rolled up. I bought the stuff and tried it this morning.  It was
way good. Try it family.

I don't think I have anything funny or whitty to say this week so
don't be too let down because I'm obviously hilarious other wise (;

Okay I love you guys!
Have a wonderfully magical week.
 Love Hermana May

This is the only pic I took this week. It's of the snowfall globe our District Leader gave Sister Vargas as a good bye present. I wonder how she forgot it!

HALLOWEEN

November 3, 2014

This week has been crazy as predicted. Last Monday we went to our pumpkin Palooza way out yonder in Fullerton and we ate yummy pumpkin things and caved pumpkins. I took pictures, but they were gross so I won't be sending them. 

We had such a cooool lesson with one of our investigators this week. He was going to drop us because of some weird dream he had but we prayed and prepared a ton and went over and talked about his dream and told him how we interpreted it and he liked our version much more than his haha and then we asked him about the Book of Mormon and he gave the sweetest testimony of it ever. And it really was a testimony. He talked about how he knew every word was one of God's and that no man could have written that book and it adds to the bible. The spirit was super strong. Hopefully he can get baptized soon!

Also this week we made Papusas with a ward member from El Salvador. For those of you who don't know what Papusas are they're basically stuffed tortillas. And they are probably my favorite Hispanic food. I'll do my best to make them when I come home. 

We also had our ward Halloween party this week. If nothing else, Hispanics sure know how to party. They can throw together a good party in a day. We had a fog machine, tons of food, two bounce houses, and all sorts of other stuff. Sister Vargas had her deleting dinner that night so it was just Sister Johnson and I that night. We painted little kids faces, which obviously is my strong point. . . I just hope they didn't look in the mirror before they went home. Our bishop is kind of like a twelve year old half the time and stole one of our paint brushes and went around trying to paint on people's faces. He got me, so that's why I have blue on my face in the pictures. One of our investigators came and brought his kids. They had a lot of fun, I hope. Haha. 

On Halloween we had a meeting at the mission office and my package came while I was there! Thanks momma I love it! So on Halloween night we are not allowed to go out because there are too many crazies and drunks.  So we weekly planned. BUT we did have masquerade masks. So we weekly planned in our masks. And we even had trick or treaters!

On Saturday morning we got out early to help a family in our ward move. And we looked out the window and what did we see? Rain! real rain too. That doesn't happen here! We were sooo excited. Best morning ever- rain and jeans!!! 

One lady in our ward signed up to feed us dinner during her sons birthday party. So we went to a bounce house to eat dinner! And bounce. Luckily no one had a problem with missionaries in skirts and suits jumping. Best dinner hour ever. 

And then yesterday Elvia got baptized!! At first it was crazy because we get to the church in time and no one was there with a key to unlock to font. So we finally got ahold of the guy who had the key and he was like, oh I'm at home watching the kids. Apparently reserving the baptismal font doesn't include reserving the key. So we called a bunch of people and got some other zone leaders to go get the keys for us. Mean time our bishop shows up and we tell him what happened and he's like "okay I'm just going to take a turn around the chapel" and then next thing we know the fonts filling up. Guess he somehow crawled under the font curtain. And then the keys came to unlock it so it all worked out and she is now baptized! I'm so happy for her. She has changed so much since I've met her. Her confidence has gone up so much since I've met her. The gospel really changes lives. I think that's my favorite part about being in the mission- getting to see the gospel change people. 

So our apartment has a plague of spiders. But not just any spiders. No that would be too easy. Black widow spiders. We kill them once or twice a week. Well, my companions do. If I can I just sit on the counter until it's down the toilet. They especially like hiding behind our garbage can, next to our shoes and if their feeling really ambitious they hide in our sink. 

Okay well I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love Hermana May 

Rain and Jeans!!

Happy Day!!!

Ward Halloween Party

Weekly Planning in Masks