What Do I Even Say?

Well golly, this sure went fast. It’s my last Pday, in my last week as a missionary, and I can hardly believe it.

Yesterday I had to complete an enire 6 week long RM program called MyPlan. ( Explaination of what MyPlan is: https://www.lds.org/youth/article/my-plan-the-plan-for-after-your-mission?lang=eng ) Hermana Capi, who is going to the mission home with me, was doing her MyPlan right next to me, and it was so surreal. Last week when they sent us the email telling us we had 1 week to complete all 6 weeks worth of courses, Hermana Capi and I laughed and decided not to do it under the excuse that “ain’t nobody got time.” But then, upon hearing what Hermana Olguin had to say about her first week course, we decided to give it a shot. And did the whole thing. But what a blessing it is! I am so glad to have a way to concisively tie up all my loose ends. I didn’t even know I had all these loose ends to tie up, and I’m really glad I didn’t have to fumble through all of my life decisions after I was already home and trying to transition 🙂 10/10 stars for MyPlan.

I guess it’s only suiting that I cut myself short on time my last Pday writing, but this last week is going to fly by. And then I can just tell everyone the details in person.

I love you all. See you soon. For the last time ever,

Hermana Mrozek

It’s Beginning To Look Too Much Like Christmas

Man has this week been CRAZY! First of all…

• The Linda service fiasco. On Monday morning, Hermana Capi and I get a call from a lady named Linda who is apparently someone they (both sets of Chelan/Manson hermanas) have done service for regularly in the past. Except she’s calling to tell us she’s been evicted from her storage unit for… wait for it… LIVING in it. So she wanted out help moving her stuff out of her storage unit into a Uhaul, and I honestly did not feel so great about the idea of 1. moving someone into another storage unit so they could be breaking the law some more or 2. doing service during our normal proselyting hours on Monday evening, but the lady was in need! So compassion over ruled on sound judgement, and we decided that Christ would probably help her if He were in our shoes (She’s 70, and homeless.) But it was COLD when we got there. In the low 20’s, and windy. And she was so angry that we brought people to help us. It just did not feel right from the beginning. There were two recently returned elders that came up for a mission tour and stopped in to visit Hermana Capi, so we brought them with us (along with the other Chelan hermanas) and we decided to get it done as soon as possible, and boot. Except, because of her severe hoarding problem (which was not mentioned before we got there) she wouldn’t go any faster than moving one item out at a time, and there was filth, and mold, and cat pee, and so much disaster everywhere inside that unit. Oh my goodness, I can’t even begin to describe it. And she was just so mad – I mean, stress can get to a person, but for how much we were trying to help her, she was not being nice. She had until midnight that night to be out of the unit, and realizing that there was NO way we could work with her, we called our Ward Mission Leader, our Bishop, our Elder’s Quorum President – EVERYONE for reinforcements. And the only person who answered was the old bishop. And he had only one person that he could send: his 27 year old inactive son. After being consitently yelled at for an hour, the RMs left to head up to Bruster, and the old bishop’s son joined us. When 9 o’clock rolled around, we were all super excited to leave. The Spirit had not been there during that service project, and I really wished that I had spoken up louder with my initial impression of whether or not we should continue to be involved.
• The thief that added grief to the Linda service fiasco. Much to Linda’s dismay, we called her the next morning and told her about our white handbook, and how we could no longer be involved in helping her. (She told us she was going to throw her stuff over the fence of another storage place and sleep outside with it, and we seriously couldn’t deny the Spirit telling us not to be involved anymore. It was getting too illegal, and too out of control.) We had tried to involve the ward in getting her a moving crew or something, but it was entirely unresponsive, as was our District Leader, who we wanted to consult with. So we kept trying to nicely tell her and back out gently when all of a sudden there was a wrench in the whooooolleee thing: the bishop’s son came back the 2nd day to “look for his phone” and STOLE Linda’s record player/radio deck and stereo speakers. And we knew he’d had to be the culprit, too, because he was openly eyeing it while he was very rudely going through all her stuff. Him being there after the RMs left was one of the biggest back-out-now vibes we got, but it wasn’t until the morning after that we found out why. She left us maybe 5 voicemails the 2nd day, all about 15 minutes long, all questioning our integrity as a church and as missionaries for bringing a thief to help her move. And so it was after fervent prayer, calling the old bishop’s son (& being lied to), and then finally calling the old bishop himself that the stereo was in fact found in his room and returned that same night. Man, was that a relief.
• Getting sick from the Linda service fiasco. That was probably the biggest consequence that came from not following the spirit. Because we had been working in so much filth and cold on Monday night, Thursday and Friday were spent with me trying to pretend like my fever wasn’t in the 100s and that my whole body wasn’t sweating/aching perfusely. I almost had to miss all of the baptismal interviews because I was seriously ill, and it was seriously a battle to remain focused and participating in the few lessons we were able to teach. I was exhausted, and I felt so bad for adding more pressure on an already stressful week by getting sick. (Although I’ve got really bad chest congestion, I feel like a normal human being again, so that’s nice.) I think that the Linda service fiasco has been the single most effective learning experience that I’ve ever had on the mission.
• The snow! Finally on to a more pleasant note 🙂 This past week starting on about Wednesday, we started getting snow by the bucket full. It descended from the sky in the form on golf ball sized flake clumps, and immediately piled up to almost a foot high. So of course Hermana Capi wanted to build a snow man, and I did too, so during lunch on Wednesday, that’s exactly what we did. We made it in Len and Lesa’s backyard 🙂 I didn’t enjoy being cold and wet, you know, while fighting a really bad cold, but it was worth it. Our snow elder looked really good. Then the dogs came and ate the snow man, which was sad. Now he’s just a melted torso…
• But for the main hightlight of the entire week: The Baptism! 🙂 This is the best part of the week. Actually, it’s the best part of what makes up missionary work. Salvador got to baptize his wife, son and oldest daughter, and the look on his face was one of sheer love and joy in the priesthood. Milagros, up until the day of her interview, had been joking around that she could “still change her mind!” But she didn’t 🙂 And after the baptismal service, she came up to us and gave us the biggest hug and told us that she’s never felt so warm and peaceful. She knew that what she had chosen to do was good, and that it was what God wanted her to do. Man, this family is incredible. Even Julie, who doesn’t turn 8 until the 5th of May, participated in the baptismal service. She helped us with our half-time show by bearing her testimony of eternal families, and how much she can’t wait to be baptized next year. She wrote her testimony herself, and then gave it to her parents after the service because they didnt’ get to hear it while they were changing back. Milagros legitimately had tears of joy in her eyes. That is what the gospel is about.
  I’ve loved working with them. Last night when Hermana Capi and I went to give them their first new member lessons, they all got so sad when we told them that we are leaving our missions in 11 days. So she’s going to make us dinner (ceviche and handmade tortillas) this week.

Anyway, this week has been crazy. Hermana Capi and I continue to see miracles daily, and we’re working hard right up until the end 🙂

All my love,

Hermana Mrozek

 

This is a picture of the nativity that our ward put on this weekend. Phenomenal 🙂

 

All of us sisters serving here in Chelan/Manson 🙂

Visit from the RMs – Elder Sanchez and Elder Garcia

 

“They shall roar like young lions” Isaiah 5:29

This week has been a COLD one! But the Spirit continues warming us both 🙂 Like last night when we were tracting in the 25 degree weather, and we were able to fulfill our prayers and find two amazing new potentials, one of whom has a sister who is a member in Rice, Texas 🙂 They live in a lone trailer in the middle of nowhere, but happily stood outside with us in the cold, moonlit night. We were able to share with them the message of the Restoration, and as they both felt the Spirit, they told us it didn’t matter how cold it was – they were thankful we took the time to come by. It was awesome. (And then later, as we went out to try knocking a different door, we almost got mauled by two huge German Shepards running at us from out of an orchard.) But things have really turned around as far as finding/going the extra mile goes.
Milagros, Brian and Lexi are continuing to progress, and were actually our ride down to Stake Conference yesterday! That was a tender mercy. In the car it was Salvador (the hubs – recent convert), Alejandro (brother of the hubs – also recent convert), Milagros (on-date, and the wife) and us two. We were able to have an amazing conversation about what we all took away from conference on the way back, and the hour long drive felt like it only took about 15 minutes. Time flies when you’re feeling the Spirit.
We’re excited for this week, and we’re trying to not speculate -too- much about what transfer calls will bring us on Saturday.
Have a great week!
Hermana Mrozek

 

Salvador, Carmen (a new investigator), Milagros, Alejandro, Hermana Capi, Me, Lexi and Julie yesterday after the Spanish session of Stake Conference 🙂

From our temple trip this past week 🙂 It was so nice to be back in Kennewick, again, even if it was for just a couple hours. PLUS I got to see one of my favorite member families from Kennwick when I was serving there 6 months ago – the Fingers! I was praying they’d be working in the temple that morning, and my companion found them by a miracle in the baptistry!

This is a picture from when I made churros at Hermana Guillen’s house this past week. My Mexican companion had no fear of boiling hot oil, and would not cease making fun of my whiteness. But forreal though, for the first churros I’ve ever made ever, they were PRETTY good. Hermana Guillen is in the backround of this picture (pink hoodie) and she made us about a gallon of Chocolate Abuelita ❤ Mmm. That stuff is good.

Temple Selfie:)

Just Chillaxen’ in Chelan

  This week has been full of finding struggles and teaching joys and all the things that make missionary work actual, hard work. It’s been hard seeing a lot of progress as far as finding through knocking goes (a lot of the Hispanics have migrated back to Mexico, and none of the rich white people seem to want much to do with us) but we have been seeing a lot of tender mercies by finding through our recent convert families 🙂

     One of the reasons that finding out here is so hard, is because the sun sets at 4pm. And after that, this place gets scary. There are dogs everywhere, unchained and vicious, and there are no street lights at all outside the nucleus of the town. So we’ve been having to plan a lot of our finding/knocking time from 1-4pm… exactly the time when everyone is at work. So therein lies one of our biggest problems.

     Buuuuut, by way of finding through recent converts/part-member families, we were able to have an awesome home-court at Bishop’s this week with our on-dates Milagros(Mom), Brian(13) and Lexi(10), along with the rest of the family Julie (7), Salvador(Dad), and Kaylee(2). It was super powerful, and Milagros told us that she had a dream in which she was told that the Church is true, and that she knew what she needed to do. So we are super excited to see them again tonight!

     We have also been teaching Christal’s dad, but we were sad he wasn’t able to come to Church this Sunday. Elkie (the matriarch of the family) was sick, so she and her 8 kids stayed home, making the one tiny ward we have here look like it was halved in numbers :p But we hope they feel better soon.

     I am so excited for Wednesday when we’re able to go to Kennewick for a temple trip! I am in need of some guidance that really only the temple can bring. And oh man, have I missed that place, and all the people there that I was able to teach and see baptized 🙂 Norma, Juan and Erick, Susana and Rafaela and their families, little Anahi and Kimberly. The temptation to make our member take us to see everyone is going to be real, but I trust that they’ll all be doing just fine when I can visit the other mission the kosher way in a couple of months :p

      Life continues to be splendid here in Chelan. Earth has reached its paradisaical glory, and it’s in Chelan, I’m convinced.

     Live Righteously,

         Hermana Mrozek

On the docks of Lake Chelan

What I wake up to every morning 🙂

The companera and I looking fresh to def on the set of Twilight (Aka: everywhere in Chelan, always.)

Chillin’ in Chelan.

There is absolutely no accurate way to sum up how awesome this week has been for Hermana Capi and I, so I’m just going to photo log it for this week.

1. This cat lives with a family of 3 that Hermana Capi and I just put on date for the 5th of December. It climed up to my shoulder then sat on me for 30 minutes while we had a lesson outside with Brian.


​

2. Hermana Capi did my hair to look like Utah, and I did her makeup to look like an asian, and this is what we both ended up with.

Well, I’m officially out of time. It’s been a great week, though! 🙂 3 new on-dates for baptism, and two investigating families at church, and a whole lot of fun times in the rain/ice 🙂

#ET #PHONEHOME

Whaaat is my liiiifeee right now. You know in movies where you see the two main characters in a The-Struggle-Is-Real moment, and then one of them says: “Well, at least it can’t get any worse :)..”

DUNN DUNN DUNNNNNNN

Actually, it can.

On Thursday morning last week I woke up with a killer headache and some nausea, which only served as a precurser to the biggest surprise of my mission. At 7:30am after morning exercises, President Lewis calls to tell me that he is going to “alter the course of my day a little bit,” that I need to pack my bags, that the APs were coming to pick me up in 3 hours, and that I was moving 3 hours north to Chelan to trade places with a new missionary who needed an Emergency Transfer to an area closer the mission home. My area, in Moxee, to be exact. Waahhhh. So I scribbled out notes to all the people I wouldn’t actually be able to say goodbye to, hurriedly shoved all my earthly possessions into my decrepit luggage, and at noon, the APs and I set sail for Chelan. (Which I would like to say was the most awkward car ride of my life, alone with the APs without a companion. Plus I was experiencing some unprecedented I’m-Gonna-Barf car sickness, and they kept trying to get me to eat food from the MASSIVE pile of “provisions” on the back seat – AKA cookies and sweets.)

So anyway, there were a couple other changes being made to Chelan that day, so we picked up another sister in Moses Lake, and the moseyed our way up to Chelan. We passed through Ephrata which was the best moment of my life, being able to see my old stomping ground again, but I thought I was going to die later as we were wending our way through the switch-backs of Chelan on the way to meet my new companion. I seriously had a high fever and chills at the same time, which is weird because I -never- get car sick. After 5 hours of driving, when we stopped the car at the church building, I was able to walk about 6 feet away from the car before I threw up for all I was worth. All. Over. My. Feet. I was so weak, I couldn’t think, so Sister Blackmer (the one we picked up in Moses Lake) helped me shuffle into the church building where I she literally cleaned my feet and legs, then we got back in the car like nothing happened. After we got out 10 minutes later at the purple Victorian mansion which is now my home and hugged my companion, I shuffled off to a huge brush pile to throw up for my life again. Poor Sister Blackmer is such a trooper. She held my hair back, and helped me sit on a boulder. The APs gave me a blessing, I went inside the house and spent about 30 minutes on the floor by the toilet, my companion made my bed, I spent my entire first night in Chelan throwing up into a trash can, sick with the flu that Sister Averett and I both caught down in Moxee.

Weekly planning was shot, because we were both trying to recouperate from our respective illnesses – Hermana Capi with some kind of bronchial infection, and me with the flu. It wasn’t until Friday night that I was well enough to even start unpacking. Or shower. Gross.

Halloween was super lame, because we had to try and do our weekly planning, which we’d missed on account of being sick. So we went ahead and did our best on that, got some service in for a recent convert named Christal (helping her do her Halloween hair and make-up), went to a dinner where we had shrimp gumbo with spicy sausage, and then came home to watch movies, paint nails, and spend some time actually getting to know each other now that neither one of us was fighting to stay alive.

Later that night at 12am, however, Hermana Capi woke me up. She’d been throwing up and wanted to know what to do to make the nausea go away. My super exhausted/disoriented answer: “Well, Hermana, did you think to pray?” Her response was no, but she wasn’t really thinking about that while haunched over the toilet while her body tried to put itself inside out. I gave her the useful advice to sleep sitting up, and then went back into my sleep oblivion. Poor girl spent the rest of the night throwing up and crying while I just stayed in bed. Which I guess is karma for her making fun of my throw up sounds the day before, and telling me she wished she’d recorded my throwing up fun times so we could laugh at them together :p

So on account of the new bought of flu virus, we spent Sunday inside, missed the confirmation of our recent convert, and both tried to keep all our food and water on the inside.

It’s been an interesting week, to say the least. The irony is that Hermana Capi and I are dying together on December 18th, and this week we literally died together. We’re both up and running again, though! 🙂 So that’s good. Hermana Capi is awesome, and we’ve got some super solid plans. I can’t say I have a very good grasp on anything at this point (having not met pretty much anyone in the ward or our investigators) but I trust that Hermana Capi knows what’s up and we’ll have some awesome miracles to report on next week. 
Chelan is absolutely gorgeous. It’s all mountains and clouds and when it’s gray and there’s the smoke-like clouds all over the mountains, I really honestly feel that at any moment the characters from Twilight are going to emerge from the woods. It’s really eerie at night though. We live in this huge purple Victorian mansion off the shore of Wapato lake (slightly smaller than Lake Chelan) and although it’s been completely renovated like something chic off of HGTV, it’s got this haunted vibe that chills the soul. It’s really cool here all the time, and I love the vibes of this place. I finally feel like I’m in Washington!

​Meet Hermana Taua, from Honolulu, Hawaii! Her many talents include: singing, playing the piano, figuring out how to make steamed rice in the microwave, and bearing an awesome testimony with everyone we meet.

​And here’s a selfie of hermana capi and me like 5 minutes before we came to write 🙂 She’s way chill. Reminds me of an old homie of mine, Aimee. It’s awesome to be able to kick it with such a swagtastic companion (not that Hermana Taua was without swag.)

Todo Lo Puedo En Cristo Que Me Fortelece.

This week has been SO. EXHAUSTING. Oh my goodness. Between mini-exchanges, transfers, and all of the things we’ve gone through in trying to find our way around, I didn’t think I was going to make it until PDay, or that we’d even be able to find our way home at night. Taking over this area has been hard – it feels just like we’ve been doubled in! My most frequently asked question to myself: “What the heck was I doing these last 6 weeks when Hermana Harston was explaining everything?” D:

But, because His grace is sufficient, we’ve made it through 🙂 Hahah somehow, we were able to find the places we needed to be at, and although there are still a lot of loose threads to tie up, I’m sure we’ll get there.

I want to talk about miracles, though, because we’ve SEEN them! First and foremost:

H E L I A D O R A  C A M E  T O  C H U R C H !!!!!!

She’s a less active woman who has been to church maybe twice in her 5+ years living in Terrace Heights. We’ve been visiting her weekly, we’ve taken members, and we’ve been inviting, and she’s been promising (and cancelling), and -just- when we were about to give up on her, SHE CAME! And she brought one of the little girls that she’s fostering (Bianne – 4 years old) and I just wept in my pew. I read this talk that Hermana Taua has about how 98% of missionary work is hard work, discouragement, frustration and weariness. But there’s 2% that is PURE JOY, and it’s what makes all of the other 98% bearable for these 18 months. And when I saw her walk into Sacrament, that 2% was there. And so many others felt it, too. I’ve never seen someone be so well received in my life. And there were a swell of other less-actives who had come back that day, as well. The Spirit and the love was so strong. So, while we didn’t have any investigators come, The Lord still got one of his sheep back 🙂

One of the reasons we didn’t have any investigators at church is because our two most incredible investigators are in Seattle for the next 3 days. Womp womp. Their names are Maria and Emmanuel. We met Maria 2 weeks or so ago, and she invited us and the entire Pimentel family into her house, she listened to the Retoration message, she asked some good questions, but in the end she didn’t seem too excited about our baptismal invite. She shakily agreed to read the pamphlet that her 2 year old was tearing to shreds, we promised her blessings – it was great. But she wouldn’t set a return appointment. So of course we couldn’t find her at home for the next little while… BUT! On our 2nd night together, Hermana Taua and I were in the Beaudry Trailers, and lo and behold, her giant, angry German Shepard wasn’t patrolling her house! So we knocked, got let in right away, and had an incredible lesson in which she told us she’d read the pamphlet with her daughter, she had a question about the atonement, and her non-religious boyfriend was there, so she started teaching HIM the restoration, and having HIM read in the pamphlet and asking HIM questions. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen! In teaching to their needs, we learned that they really didn’t know that Heavenly Father loves them, and they hadn’t prayed to establish even a relationship with Him, so we committed them to do that and they asked us to come over again on the day they get back from Seattle 🙂 So that was super cool. Although it would have been way cooler if they’d have been able to come to church this Sunday because…

The Sunday School lesson was on Eternal Families! And they have a cute little family that they want to be eternal! There was a returning member family in the class through, and an investigating couple, though, so that made it super fun 🙂 I was asked asked to teach the class about, oh, 3 minutes before it started, so the fact that it went well at all is a complete miracle. I have a firm testimony of the Lord qualifying those whom He calls, although those were still the most nerve-wracking 45 minutes of my life.

So we’ve had some really cool things happen this week 🙂 The Lord is definitely very merciful to us.

On Friday night, as I was trying to figure out where some potentials live (which I had visited on multiple occasions before), I just started crying in the car as we were turning around for the umpteenth time because I felt so completely overwhelmed with my inadequacies for the task of taking over the area. We said a super humble, sincere prayer, asking Heavenly Father to just guide us to where we needed to go, I stiffened up my upper lip, we got out of the car, and we started walking. As we were praying, I had seen in my minds eye the right way to go to get to the house we were looking for. The entire time we were hiking up the long route, I just had one thought running through my head: “If we can find Lupita’s house, we can do this. If we can just find Lupita’s house, I know we can do this.” And after 10 minutes of walking, with no more turning around/getting lost, we found it. And even though no one answered the door, and it was almost time to head back, I know we can do it. We can do this transfer by the same power that lead us through the darkened streets of Moxee all the way up the winding hill to Lupita’s house: with the help of the Lord.

So keep me in your prayers! 🙂 I hope y’all have a FABULOUS week!

Leah Arnett, one of the wonderful sisters who attends our weekly Bible Class every Monday night at the Brookdale Senior Living Center. She has several grandsons serving missions right now, and she played a key role in the conversion of her husband, Lee. Lee and Leah are some of the highest caliber people I’ve ever met, and Mr. Lee can play just about any instrument he touches, with or without music.

This was taken the last time Hermana Harston and I went to the Salvation Army in Yakima together. It was also the last day we had to hang out with Sister Moetala who returned home to Samoa this past Friday. Every week in the basement of the Salvation Army we work with this incredible lady named Annie who has been clean and sober for the last 6 months now, and has completely turned her life around through strong faith in the atonement, and sincere repentance. 

Placentero Nos es Trabajar :) Himno #88

Another transfer call has come and gone, and as usual, I am completely flummoxed as to the Lord’s logic. Hermana Harston is being transferred to Ellensburg to open up a Spanish group, and TRAIN! She’s awesome, and so the training/pioneer call is completely understandable, but couldn’t she have been told to do that 8 weeks from now when I’m dead?! We had plans! (I am super pumped for her, despite my selfish desire to die as her companion :p)

But honestly, it’s been an incredible last week with my sistah from another mistah. We’ve been blessed with many more member present lessons than usual, and we’ve even had word that Joshua, who we handed off two weeks ago, has been progressing steadily towards his baptism on October 30th 🙂 Does a heart good to know that pass-offs really won’t tarnish those made out of 24K gold 🙂

We are continuing to find and to teach everyone that we can, and it’s been some tough sailing, but LO HAREMOS. We’ve done a lot of good heart-to-heart/soul searching to find the root as to why our OYMs have been scraping the barrel. Our findings: we’ve been working in Moxee to much. It’s a small, small town, and there’s a reason it wasn’t nourished well in the past. It’s just not offering us much. But in our attempt to build it up, we’ve been suffering for OYMs and new investigators. Kind of a “why seek ye the living among the dead” kind of deal. So this coming transfer, when I’m with the incredible Hawaiian Hermana Taua, we will be working Union Gap hard 🙂 And we’re going to be doing a LOT more street contacts during the daylight hours by ditching our car and walking everywhere. Union Gap is kind of (really) sketchy, so we’ll use the hours after dark to work in Terrace Heights and Moxee (so we’re not completely neglecting them). I’m just super pumped for the sincere repentance of action that’s in effect this week, and that the Lord was kind enough to help us realize where our fault was. Prayer is real.

So I’m just super excited to go at these last 8 weeks with all of the energy I posses. I’ll admit, the bags under my eyes have tripled in size since the beginning of my mission, and I’m pretty much always battling a constant state of exhaustion, but there’s still so much to be done. It’s not over until it’s over, and with all of the redirection and branch progress we’ve received, there is no reason not to have a baptism in the month of November 🙂

I just want to add one last note about something I learned in Church yesterday from Gospel Principles that I felt was really applicable to how exhausted I’ve been feeling as a missionary. Manuel Pimentel, the teacher, said: “The way we ask influences the way we receive. So, if we ask with the wrong intent/conviction, we will receive contrary to what we seek.” I found that to be very poignant in regards to my prayers – personal, and as a companionship. I sometimes find myself so exhausted that my mind starts wandering in my prayers, or that I’ve gotten super general with Heavenly Father. The lesson was on eternal families, but the Spirit definitely took that opportunity to gently correct me, for which I am grateful. I know the Spirit can only teach us if we put ourselves in the right place to be taught. So ever since that, I’ve been ultra concentrated on my personal and companionship prayers, because I know that to achieve any success here is going to rely so heavily on the Lord. And I don’t want to ask amiss.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now 🙂

Attached are two pictures. The first is the the last #SundayTwinDay that I will ever have with Hermana Harston, and the other is a picture of District Sass 🙂 It’s been a great transfer.

“…tribulation worketh patience;” Romans 5:3

I know it’s been a minute or two since I’ve written anything substantial, but I kind of wanted to wait to see where some of the dice would fall with a lot of stuff that’s been going on recently. Hermana Harston and I have been trying so so SO hard to find people to teach and to serve, and we’ve consequently had a lot of joy 🙂 I am happy to report that we have been able to witness some choice miracles this week.

We are saddened by the loss of our incredible Joshua to the YSA elders. His Spanish speaking mother and grandma weren’t progressing, so it was a call that we had to make. They will be missed. PLUS he moved out of our area, but you know, it still had to be done. But he’s still SO solid. He’s going to get baptized for sure, and we’re going to be there. We are confident he’s in good hands.

So! With his loss, we embarked to find some more golden souls for the Lord! 🙂

And this week, we met Dani. He’s another hombre solito, who’s just looking for his purpose in this life. We had the worst, most interrupted OYM with him ever on Thursday night at 8:50pm while kids were running around outside, people were laughing us “mormones” and so in the end, we kind of left with a wishy washy “we’ll pass by on Saturday around 4” kind of thing. And so 2 days later on Saturday when he was there waiting for us, and ready to listen to us, it was very surprising. It was also very surprising when he told us that he’d met with missionaries before, but that his work schedule had prevented him from progressing, but now he’s ready to learn. It was also very surprising that he knew exactly where his Book of Mormon was, and brought it out so that we could read with him in the lesson. The surprise only amplified when he said (after reading the last paragraph in the Introduction to the Book of Mormon) that if he knew the Kingdom of God existed on the earth, he would fight – he literally used to word fight – to be able to get in. And yes, he would like to be baptized, thank you very much for asking. Essentially, our only regret was not bringing a spatula so that we could scrape our jaws off of the pavement without so much mess. It just goes to show that you never truly know the potential lurking behind even the shambliest OYMs until you do a good follow-up! We owe it to these wonderful souls to give them the chance they’re waiting for 🙂

Also in the very neglected town of Moxee are Oscar and Teresa. They are both SUPER receptive to the gospel, and we found them on another bout of 8:45pm knocking after we’d walked 3 miles into town in order to save on miles. Teresa was initially really creeped out as us two strangers knocking on her door so late looking for her husband we’d met first, but as we shared with her our message, she was very eager to learn and then referred us to her mom! We met her, and her mom is super interested too! Oh man, we are excited to see how everything pans out this week 🙂 Member referrals have been getting better and better, and we’re just really thankful for how much support we’ve be getting.

There’s just one more miraculous thing I would like to mention about this week, and that is the baptism of Diego Fernandez. Hermana Harston and I went to visit the less-active Fernandez family 5 weeks ago on asignment from Presidente Sanchez. They were all baptized about 2 years ago, and during our visit, we were just super lead by the Spirit, and the whole family came back to church in full-force. And wanted their 8 year old son, Diego, to get baptized (in preparation for their sealing this coming November :’) So happy. Oh man.) But the baptism, scheduled for this past Saturday, got off to a terrible start. There were problems with building scheduling, the entire branch was stuck in Kennewick after the sealing of the Pimentel family who were baptized a year ago because a WILDFIRE had engulfed the highway, and Sister Harston and I were stuck with the Fernandez family in the Selah Stake center 45 minutes before the baptism was about to start with no idea what to do. We got there early to prepare the room/our “half-time” show, which is when we realized all the scheduling conflicts that caused us to call EVERYONE in the branch which is when we found out that NO ONE was going to be at the baptism. That was the beginning of the most stressful 2 hours of my life. By miracle, the branch was able to make it back to town safely (with teary red eyes and smelling very strongly of wood smoke) in time for the baptism which was ultimately relocated to the completely opposite side of town. It was just so incredible to see our little branch pull together through such a trying series of circumstances to see that 8 year old Diego could get baptized. And when the moment came, and Sister Harston and I still hadn’t been able to prepare our half-time show message about the Restoration (because of all the relocating, finding hymn books, setting up chairs, etc.) on the fly, I asked Sister Mitchell (the English member we live with) the play Nearer My God To Thee and Sister Harston and I sang our first duet together without any thought or practice before hand. She handled the soprano wonderfully, and I took care of the alto lines. The Spirit filled that tiny little Relief Society room, and it was just so nice to have the Lord take care of us in our moment of need. I think that baptism, and everyone pulling together, was the start of a happier, more united Spanish branch. Everyone was in grateful tears by the time the service ended at 8:30pm, 2 hours after it was supposed to.

So it’s been an incredible week, and as always, there are more miracles to come 🙂

Cuidense mucho. Les quiero mucho.

PS: Attached are pictures from our shenanigans painting more fire hydrants around Yakima. Fun times 🙂

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9

I’m really super tired this week, but here are some bullet points of everything that went down:

• Monday: Ms. Peggy, a very thin lady with severe Alzheimer (impeccable taste in hats), came to our Monday Night Bible Class again 🙂 She kept giving us hugs and thanking us for coming and providing hymns. She’s the only non-member who comes, and she used to only stay for the hymns and leave before we read any scriptures (she can’t even read the hymns any more, but she knows all the verses by heart.) But she’s stayed for -two- weeks now, and she just glows and adds the most amazing spirit to the entire lesson. I never want to forget Ms. Peggy. She’s someone who is going to meet missionaries on the other side and want to keep feeling the Spirit that she came to find here.
• Tuesday: We started the day out with painting some fire hydrants in the shadiest parts of Yakima, saw so many Yakimaniacs doing some pretty trippy  things (talking to trees, twitching, whistling at us, taking their clothes off in the park and putting them back on, asking us to paint their shoes, wanting to buy something from us – cans of yellow and black paint? – and so much more). After those blissful 3 hours of re-painting fire hydrants, I’m really glad I’m not serving in Yakima proper:) But we also had an amazing lesson that night with a couple of returning members, and the Spirit really was doing all the teaching. We invited them to get a vision for their future as a couple and a family, and showed them the Mormon Message “I am the Gardener.” It was just what they needed. The wife came back to church this Sunday 🙂 She also told us that she and her husband had set 5-year goals that they’re striving for.
• Wednesday: Lessons galore, mostly with RCLAs. We have just been seeing so much progression in those who have left the safe harbor a little bit. Under the direction of Presidente Sanchez, we were given a few families that he wanted us to reach out to in an effort to help them know that Heavenly Father loves them. With all of the families that we have visited, we have made great efforts to be completely bold and loving in extending commitments. We’ve also tried to bring members with us to every single lesson with our less-active members. It has been magical 🙂 The Spirit and the love is always so strong, and I mean, I guess it’s working. We’ve have 3 families come back! 🙂
• Thursday: Zone Conference! 🙂 I love Zone Conferences! It was very tragic, however, to learn upon arriving that it would actually be my LAST Zone Conference, and that I would be giving my departing testimony D: Wah. But with the help of the Lord, I got through it, and learned some amazing things about the power of service, family history, and so much more. Just a reminder to look on yakimamission.wordpress.com for more pictures and news updates from the Washington Yakima Mission 🙂
• Friday: Weekly Planning NIGHTMARE, helping someone move, and the return of Joshua (the 18 year old golden referral from week #1 with Hermana Harston.) We were helping Joshua’s hispanic family members pack some clothes when randomly showed up, and he told us that 1. the English Elders never came by, and 2. That since we met him, he’s read up to Chapter 13 in 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, knows it’s true, and that he wants to come to church. So now that his MOM is interested in meeting with us, after noticing the change in her son, we invited them both to church! Unfortunately, neither were able to able to come to church this past Sunday 😦 But next week for SURE! So that was super awesome. Hermana Harston also had the biggest headache ever, so while she was waiting for her head ache to die down, I painted her toe nails. Unfortunately, we didn’t have toe-separators, so I had to resort to a random collection of pens/toenail clippers/etc that were within reach.
• Saturday: Women’s Broadcast was way good. Que mas puedo decir. We did everything we could the night before to get people to go to it, and then no one went. But the Spirit was there, so that was nice. Learned lots 🙂
• Sunday: When isn’t the day of rest awesome? Honestly, seeing so many people come to church, finding out that our Ward Mission Leader has had a change of heart and wants to help the Lords vision come to pass, watching Presidente Sanchez encourage (with “all the feeling of a tender parent”) the branch to reach out to one another, ahh “) There is nothing better.

So all in all, this week was very full of joy 🙂 Exchanges are tonight, and I’m staying in the area with Hermana Bailey (my companion from the CCM).

Have a great week, y’all! 🙂