Week 37 Miracles!!!: 5/26/2020

Hello!! Our pday is on a Tuesday this week! 

This will be a quick one.

This week we had a lesson with one of our friends and one of my besties Sister Cummings from the MTC and her comp taught with us! Oh my gosh it was so fun and the spirit was STRONG and this friend is just going to receive the best sisters!!!

(Shout out District Joy, I miss you all for real all of you don't forget I love you)

This week one of our friends told us she shared the Book of Mormon with another friend!!! It was so cute, she said that she didn't want her friends to be scared and wanted them to have Jesus Christ and be able to have prayer. It was so sweet, and the next lesson that friend was there too and told us all about Joseph Smith's experience!! Gahhhh so amazing!!! This is the friend on date((:

Another friend said he wanted to be baptized!! This is a part member family we are working with, and so we haven't set a date, but we are going to teach him everything, yesssss

Also amazing miracle. This week we called some Chinese elders in arcadia to give them a referral and the they had one for us too!!!! Ah what that is so amazing!! 🙏🙏🙏

And then just want to end with a question a super awesome amazing friend of mine asked: How has your testimony and your hope been?

So. Starting out quarantine, we were so happy (we being me and Sister shay) we were teaching a ton, finding, and helping the missionaries in our zone. Now we are halfway through transfer 2. Starting this transfer, our finding slowly started decreasing and the number of lesson we taught did too and some of our friends weren't progressing as much. Although we were still busy, I wondered a lot why I sometimes had a hard time fulfilling my purpose, why some of our friends who had progressed before seemed to not know how to make that next step towards baptism. And I feel like that's when my testimony started really going. Although I still had hope in God that He would help us continue help find people, I was a little discouraged. Haha just being super real here. I was still happy, but sometimes I was like ah God, this is hard. But our mission president taught us something. He told us, get on your knees. Get on your knees and pray. Pray for miracles, and pray to thank for miracles you receive. And so I started doing that with Sister shay. Every single thing is a miracle now. I learned this week that faith is a gift from God. Even the act that I can exercise faith is a miracle from God!! 

I just really love this work. There is no greater work on this whole entire planet. I just love it so much ah being a missionary is such a blessing. Anyways, love you all!!! Also shoutout to all my missionary friends I get emails from. I never tell all of you but all of you inspire me so much!!!

Week 36 We are Beloved Sons and Daughters !!! Week 35, 36 5/18/2020

Friends!!!! Hope you're doing good and that no one is insane during this quarantine. Just know that I love all of you!!!!

So some news. We be receiving about 50 new missionaries in June and then about 50 more in July! In June as far as we know, there will be quite a bit of transferring....haha pray for everyone involved in transfer planning, I'm sure they would greatly appreciate it. So far, none of anyone I know is getting reassigned to LA, BUT. If any of you have friends or relatives coming than let them know we are SO EXCITED to have them come and we are ready to receive them with so much love!!!! Most will be speaking spanish, but ah I'm so excited to have these missionaries!! No doubt they've all been through a lot, but ahaha I just want to hug all of them buuuut that would be super good for corona so don't worry I won't do that.

Other news is that Sister shay will be leaving end of this transfer))): BUT we are throwing a birthday twin party because we won't be together for our birthdays lol. So any clever twinning ideas, send them this way.

And how is the work going you ask? One emoji: 🔥🔥🔥🔥(well, one emoji repeated a lot of times) not every day is like "WOW THAT WAS AMAZING!!!" but me and Sister shay are still making goals for dances so you know we're in a good place. Here's some good experiences for you all

-this past week me and Sister Shay did exchanges. We only have 2 other sets of sisters, but it's fun because we all party together!!! There's a sister that's newer in our zone and it was her first real exchange, and I got to bring her to me and Sister Shay's area. I told her that one of the first things I heard about exchanges was that miracles just happen. And she was like, wow really!?!?! And I was like, yeah, a lot of times, they just happen. And miracles always happen, but like a crazy ton of miracles happened that day. We made a new friend, and all of our lessons except for one didn't cancel, and we just worked so hard that day, and she's actually a Chinese missionary too so she taught so powerfully in chinese, and at the end of the day, she was like, you were so right!! There were so many miracles today!! And it was just so cute. Ah amazing.

-we threw a nacho party because one of our sisters is going back to her original mission (historic  site at Nauvoo, not kidding you guys this place literally sounds happier than Disneyland, got book a tour with Sister John if you ever get the chance)

-and then we has another breakfast party because we had a sister's women's conference via zoom, but our sisters in our zone could all gather together!

-we committed on of our friends to baptism!! That was amazing so we are preparing her for baptism!!! It won't be for a while though

And ending with a spiritual thought!! In Alma 53:2 it talks about how Moroni and Lehi (not the very first one) came back together and they were so happy because they were each safe, and it says that they were beloved by each other. Well, first, I wrote on a sticky note, "don't forget that you are beloved by me" and stuck it in Sister Shay's scriptures on that verse so hahaha she'll find it one day, but the second thing is, it made me think, what if were all beloved by each other?? And really just truly loved every single person? I don't know, that sounds pretty amazing to me. We are all beloved sons and daughters of God. He loves us so much. I have yet to understand why beloved truly means, but this week, I just kept thinking about it, and how I want everyone to know that they are a beloved son or daughter of God when I come in contact with them.

Anyways!! I love you all!!!!

-they're like all the same picture so enjoy

Week 35 .... [pics] 5/11/2020

Week 34 From the heart and blaze pizza 5/4/2020

These past couple of weeks have been a little wild. Here are some highlights

-made a tent for FHE. And then we all read King Benjamin's speech over video chat while we all sat in our tents

-made breakfast for the sisters today!!

-our friend finished the children's Book of Mormon and now she wants to read the real one with us!!! We also invited her to be baptized and she said she will pray about it!!!

-all our other friends are doing good!!!

-in March when we could still go out, we met this guy who was interested. We exchanged contact information, but he never picked up when we called. Well, this last week we texted him and now we have been teaching him!

-ALSO A HUGE HIGHLIGHT IT WAS SO AWESOME. So. Our mission president told us that we could order pizza now. Well, when we first got into quarantine. I kept telling Sister Shay that I wanted to eat blaze pizza. Specifically with goat cheese. Well when our mission president announced that, me and Sister Shay were like, "blaze pizza! Blaze pizza! Blaze pizza!" And so then like the next day, we were going to, but then didn't have money on our card. Oh well. But, on Thursday at 4:30pm, someone knocked on our door, and Sister shay jumped up and whipped the door open and pulled out 2 BLAZE PIZZA BOXES WHAT EVEN?!?!?! and I was like WHAT. WHY DO WE HAVE BLAZE PIZZA??? And Sister shay was just laughing so hard and then we were both laughing. Apparently that morning she asked her parents to call blaze pizza and order pizza to our apartment. Ahahaha she told me that all day she had such a hard time focusing because she was thinking about suprising me. Ah I have THE BEST companion. Going on transfer 4 with her now!!!!!

To close, here is a spiritual thought!!! Soooo, missionaries have been working from the apartments since about march now. So about 2 months now. And so what have I learned? Okay that was a poor question because I've learned lots of things. But the lesson I want to share today is from Elder Bednar's talk this last conference. He said, "Our hearts—the sum total of our desires, affections, intentions, motives, and attitudes—define who we are and determine what we will become." As we work from our apartments, it's so easy for me to get catch up if we're working hard enough, if we're teaching enough, and sometimes the thought of not teaching or not being effective or not helping missionaries stress me out. But this week I had an experience during a lesson when Sister Shay shared a scripture and an overwhelming feeling of why I decided to come out in the first place came over me. I felt so much love from God, that I was doing His work. And so I decided to continually try to work from my heart and doing missionary work from the heart. And honestly, that calms my soul sooooo still out here in LA and still loving missionary work!!✌

Okay I love you all!!!!!! And God loves each one of you!!!!

Also, my dad tells me that whenever I take pictures I open my mouth. True or false?