Spanglish

December 15, 2014

Okay so this week was good.  It rained again so that was nifty.
Spanglish is alive and well in the Anaheim mission. We were at a
members house for dinner and her two year old was watching a cartoon
and a whale showed up and he goes "whaleo!" Haha so funny.

One cool thing that happened this week  was we went knocking and one lady
opened the door and knew exactly who we were. She is also a member who
goes to a different ward. She was like "my grandson here has a
question that I have a hard time answering." His question? What is the
purpose of life?
That usually doesn't happen, ya know?
Anywhoo it was a cool lesson. We read some good scriptures and he
liked them a ton and asked if he could take a picture of it and we
were like "take the book" he was a cool kid.
After the lesson the grandma said that earlier that morning she had
been praying that someone could come and answer her grandson's
question. It's so cool to see how much the lord loves people and
answers their prayers and it's also cool to be the one the Lord lets
answer other people's prayers.

So transfers went well. Sister Johnson and I are staying together in
the five for round three. We both are excited. We were hoping to be
together for Christmas. :) Most of our district is the same once again
except for one elder. It'll be fun. Probably the best transfer ever
because it's Christmas and my birthday all in one transfer. It will be
epic!

I got my hair cut this week. I like it because the lady got off all
the dead ends and nastiness and stuff but it's just kinda short now
and I have crazy layers. It's all good when it's straight but I kinda
hate it when it's curly... That's okay. It'll grow right?

I finished my hat! With my hands! It's cool. I'll send a picture. Okay
sorry I'm all sorts of frazzled and stuff so this is the end of my
email.

Have a great week! I love you!

Love Hermana May

No pictures this week.  Guess she was really busy! We felt lucky to get the e-mail since it didn't arrive til the evening! Would have liked to see her haircut and new hat!  Maybe next post! Glad things are going well though!! :)

Rainy Days

December 8, 2014

This week was cool. Literally. It rained this week for two straight days! It was wonderful and magical and everything in the world was right for a moment. It made me realize however that Southern California doesn't really know how to deal with any kind of weather aside from the sunshine. So it's probably good that it doesn't rain or do anything here much because I don't think the people or the roads could handle it. But it was great. I've missed the rain. 

One night Sister Johnson and I were singing the Christmas song in the dark, by the light of our mini Christmas tree, listening to the rain outside and I thought "this is as Christmasy as its going to get" it was a happy, jolly night. 

We went and saw Bodies last Monday! It was super fascinating. A little creepy thinking the bodies we were staring at used to be real people, but super duper interesting. I think the nervous system was the coolest. 

There are two families here in the ward who I'm pretty sure are in competition with each other to see who can make the sisters throw up on their table first. It's nice to know they love us, but really, I haven't been hungry since Thursday. 

I got a new I-pad this week! Woot woot. I named him Bart. So that's been exciting. 

Oh! And guess what? While we were in the office getting Bart the assistants were there, so I wondered over and said "so one of the days that we have temple trips is my birthday. So that would be pretty great if those were on the same day."  And then one of them turned around in his chair and was like "when's your birthday?" So I told him and then he put it into his computer then he asked what session I wanted. Wow! Best birthday present ever. I'm sooo excited!!! 

We have this new investigator that's the girlfriend of a less active member and she is awesome. She is straight forward and asks questions and answers questions and she really wants to know what our church is all about. Please pray that things will go well! 

We got to go to the Christmas devotional yesterday. It was great. I really liked it. Did you guys watch it? Also apparently next Sunday our stake is putting on a production of the testaments. That kinda sounds like the coolest thing ever. I'll let you know how it goes. 

This cute lady in our ward is teaching Sister Johnson and I to crochet...with only our fingers. It's pretty fun. And then she gave us two cute hats she crocheted. People are so nice here :) 

Anyways, I'm sure I'm forgetting to tell you guys about something. So sorry about that. Have a super duper Christmasy week. 

I love you!

Love Hermana May

Rainy Day

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Our cute crocheted hats!!

I think my district leader decided to put me in a diet...he served my
food for me and this is all I got. He broke my fork in half too so it
was the right size haha

Thanksgiving

December 1, 2014

My week was just peachy.

So we had a lot of fun plans for Thanksgiving. Turkey bowl with the
ward? Canceled. Service feeding lots of cute families their
Thanksgiving meal? Canceled.
It was sad. So after that got canceled I thought "well this is
awkward, we don't have anywhere to eat for Thanksgiving..." Denny's
was my back up plan. But tender mercy, Cecilia, the cute recent
convert I told you about last week called us and invited us and the
district over for dinner. It was a good one too. She made a Huge-ole turkey
and there were mashed potatoes and corn and rolls and pumpkin pie ...
And of course rice. It was all good. Couldn't have asked for more.

In the day time we found another service project thing to do. The
Honda center down here does a big Thanksgiving dinner for all the
folks around that need it. So we got to come and help clean up. It
wasn't bad, kept us entertained and feeling like we were doing
something. And we got a free t-shirt out of it. I'll do almost
anything for a free t-shirt.

Oh and in the morning our zone set up our own little "turkey bowl" for
us to play at 6:15 for exercise time. Except for they wanted to play
soccer. You learn a lot about yourself on a mission. For example, I've
learned I'm really not that athletic, at least when it comes to
sports. Running? Fine. But throw a ball in there and that's the end of
my skill level. I've also learned that there is no other sport I loathe
playing as much as soccer. But I tried to be a good sport. I pep
talked myself all morning long. And I wasn't going to complain or
anything. After all, it was Thanksgiving. So I got there, I joined a
team and tried to be a good sport. It was slightly awful. I have no
coordination. And for starters I have no idea how to even kick a ball.
Then to make matters worse, the rest of the team kept telling the
goalie to throw the ball to me and then they'd keep kicking it to me
when all know very well that I'm perfectly content jogging back and
forth, pretending that I'm doing something. It was a trying morning.
But I persevered and lived.  You wouldn't believe how many bruises now
cover my legs from that plus service.

We ran into a few anti people this week, who just stop us and tell us
how awful our church is and all sorts of crazy rumors. I feel like the
best way to deal with those people is just to smile and play stupid so
they leave you alone and don't try to start bashing even more. It
works most of the  time.

We went on exchanges this week. I stayed here with Sister Huelet and
Sister Johnson got to go up to Anaheim. It was a good day. We all got
a lot done and got new investigators and all sorts of things we needed
to help our numbers.

Yesterday we found a new investigator. She came to church with her
boyfriend and then we ran into her again after church. The lords timing
rocks. He always puts us in he right place and the right time.

Also, I found the old movie of Johnny Lingo on our gospel library. You
know your a missionary when:
1) you actually watch
2) want to watch it again
Good movie. I like it.

So the church came out with a new video "He is the Gift" it's awesome!
I really, really like it. If you haven't seen it already you should go
watch it. It's on LDS.org of christmas.mormon.org. So after you watch
you should put it on Facebook. The church is working super hard to get
this movie out to everyone, so please watch and share it okay? I'll
bug about it next week so you need it do it this week. Deal? Also in
the ensign they should've put cards with the website for the video on
them. Give them out. It's what Sister Johnson and I do every single
day, so then you can know what it feels like to be a missionary. And
it's super easy. You just walk up to someone and go "hey can give you
a card?" And they go "yeah sure" then You go "sweet, it's for a
website with a video that's like two minutes long about how Christ is
the greatest gift we have" or something to that effect. And pretty
much everyone believes in Christ and it's Christmas season so everyone
is nicer around this time anyways and it all works out. Just do it.

Okay I love you guys! Hope all is going well!
Love Hermana May

Thanksgiving with Cecilia

Sister Johnson and I

Pumpkin Pie! Mmmm

Our District

Our District

It Broke!

November 24, 2014

My week has been good. Ya know, mission life in the regs.

We've been trying to contact all the members in our ward, active and
not, just to make sure all their information is right. It's a hassle,
I'll tell you that. You got a love that one family who says "oh he
doesn't live here anymore" and their four year old goes "yes he does!
He's my dad!" Then the mom yells at him and quickly shuts the door. So
not sure what to do about his records...

Something truly tragic happened this week. I was in the passenger seat
of the car, being the gps for my companion, using my I pad to figure
out the streets, and luckily I know my way around Garden Grove now, so
I got us there no problem. So we pray and get out of the car ... And
my I pad also decides to get out of the car....  Yep. Broken. The
screen is all sorts of cracked. I'm still wiping off glass bits from
the screen. Still using it though. Luckily no one yelled at me when I
called to tell them of the mishap. But it'll be two weeks before I get
another one. So in the mean time, I'm still using it. Still emailing you
beautiful people on it. Luckily it still works.

We had a big ol' Hispanic pachanga this week for Thanksgiving. We
spent a few hours of the day passing out flyers to everyone and their
dog. We actually had a really great turn out. A ton of people who
we've never met before showed up. And most of them left with a Book of
Mormon and a restoration pamphlet in hand. Success.

So one of our recent converts , Cecilia, just funnier and funnier
every time we see her. She is old and walks slow and mumbles all her
spanish words but she is a little sweetheart. She fed us dinner this
week and as soon as we come in she sits us down and says "I'll turn on
the news for you to watch!" Doesn't bother listening to our
objections. Then whenever her little dogs, brandy and whisky, bark she
sprays them with windex. I guess it really does work for everything.
We are going over on Tuesday to help her decorate for Christmas. Super
excited.

Yesterday, we were so sad because no one shows up for church and even
sadder because Elvia, still hadn't gotten confirmed. The first Sunday
after her baptism, she was in the hospital and the next, no one stopped
by to pick her up and then this week she had to sign some papers for
her son, I don't really know what or why but she couldn't come. So we
were sad because she is moving to Oklahoma next Sunday, but she said
she would come to church before they moved to be confirmed. So then
during church she shows up and says that her daughter called and said
they were going to move Saturday instead.  So she got home from
signing papers as quick as she could and some how found someone to
drive her to the church so she could be confirmed. Then she asked for
a smaller Book of Mormon to read in the car in the move over. She is
so cute.  And soooo happy. It's wonderful.

Well I think that's about it. Have a wonderful holiday and eat lots of
yummy things. Love you!
Love Hermana May

Cute Elvia!

Our cute investigators!!

My broken Ipad ;(

Cali Missionary!

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