Dear Family! 

Hola! It’s crazy that it is so hot there! It hasn't been like that here, well sorta, lots and lots of rain. I brought Washington with me, go figure but that's okay I love it! My favorite thing to do is at the end of the day we usually walk and I love the walk home when it is cool and there is lightning. The lightning storms are awesome. It is a great way to end the day.

I am getting more comfortable speaking Spanish in lessons. Speaking in front of big groups of people makes me nervous still but I will warm up soon. When we Skype I should be able to answer every question in Spanish. That's my goal.

The president is awesome! I love him more and more. We get to have an interview with him this Friday and I am so excited! He is the best and reminds we a lot of grandpa Carter so he feels like family to me.  Oh, this week I got a package from the Robinson’s and it was great! I got a bunch of junk food! And two things of fruit snacks. They all wrote letters and it was really cute. Caison is adorable let me tell ya. I miss all my little cousins so much!

Kathy and her mission call opening

  So this week! One of my favorite things that happened was one of the Young Women who goes out with us a lot got her mission call! She invited us to come and it was crazy! All the people here make a party out of everything! There was a bunch of people and food, it was crazy but she is going so Barcelona Spain!!! It reminded me of my mission call opening and when I invited the sisters to come! Who knew I would be one of the sisters at one of the yw mission call opening as well! It was a great experience and I was so happy for her! It was crazy it seems like just yesterday I opened my mission call.

    We found some great new investigators this week! One is named Esteban. We found him harvesting and wanted to more and was really interested. We came back the next day and introduced him to the Book or Mormon. He said he was going to read it all the way through. He was so excited! We are going to see him again today and see how it is going. We are so excited for him!

Another was Mina and Dyanna. Mina is 50 and lives alone. Her husband was murdered in Honduras 14 years ago. She makes the best baliatas. Which you guys should make sometime! They are just homemade tortillas, refried beans, Mexican crème and Mexican cheese. Sooo good! I can’t get enough of this Honduran food. Anyways she is reading the Book of Mormon but has a hard time praying so we are working with her on that. But she is so nice and loves learning. Dyanna just moved here from Cuba with her son who is 2. She is a single mom and very humble she has very little but always offers us what she has to eat. She is reading the Book of Mormon and loves learning about the gospel she is so elect. We love her.

Another cool experience this week. We were harvesting and knocked on this door. This wonderful lady about 60 answered the door and invited us in to pray with her. After she told us that her mom lives with her and that she is 100 years old! She came out to see us and is so healthy and talks and hears great! She is awesome. While we were talking to them it started raining so hard! They wouldn't let us leave because we were riding bikes and they didn't want us to get wet. So after an hour of being there the rain died down and we left. The streets were flooded and our bikes and helmets were soaked but we didn't care. We started on our way and got so soaked but we were laughing the whole entire way to our next appointment which was Daisy’s house. When she opened the door her mom freaked out because we were so wet and gave us a towel and blankets and fed us a warm meal of rice and pork. It was such a blessing that we knocked on that families door because they were so nice to let us stay and wait till the rain stopped because it could of been a lot worse and we were so thankful for Daisy’s family. It was a fun blessed experience.

  This week in district training we learned about having gratitude and humility. Having gratitude and humility is having an eye of faith for the future. In Doctrine and Covenants 78:19 it talks about if we give thanks we will be blessed. Some of the ways we can show gratitude is by smiling, identifying miracles, and not being lazy. In 1 Nephi 18:16-19 is an example of how to be grateful. Nephi at the time was tied up on the ship and his circumstances were terrible and it seems like he didn't have anything to be grateful for but he still gave thanks to the Lord. We need to be thankful in our circumstances. In Mathew 26:38-39 it talks about humility. Humility coupled with gratitude brings great success. 

 In my personal study I have been studying a lot about faith and what faith is and how I can have better faith. I learned that to have faith in Christ we must have a hope in Christ. Which leads to an assurance in Christ. Elder Bednar said that assurance and hope make it possible for us to walk to the edge of the darkness expecting and trusting that the light to make and illuminate the way. An example of that is in 1 Nephi 4:6-7. Having that hope and assurance leads to action which leads to evidence which leads to a stronger hope and assurance in Christ and Heavenly Father. Faith is an action word and is something we must act instead of being acted upon. We need to exercise that agency we have. Instead of waiting for someone to teach us the gospel we should study for ourselves. Joseph Smith said the best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask it from books but to go to God in prayer and obtain divine teaching. This is called learning by faith. When Moses was parting the Red Sea, the people didn't just wait on the shore for the sea to part the started walking into the sea. They got their feet wet first before the sea parted and they walked on dry ground. We need to act and get our feet wet first. This shows Heavenly Father that we have faith in Him and then he will give us the evidence we need. When we learn and act in faith we need to have an open heat and mind and put of the natural man when we do this we become teach able and are willing to do whatever Heavenly Father wants us to do and he gives us miracles.

  Another cool experience that happened this week was with this less active Lui. He recently started drinking again and was having a really hard time as we were visiting him a talk came to my mind. It was from that new guy in our ward who I thought looked kind of like Ryan Carter. He gave a talk about a guy when he was on his mission who had a smoking problem and they promised him that whenever he felt like smoking that if he just held on tight to the Book of Mormon he wouldn't have the desire to smoke anymore. I had a strong impression I needed to make that same promise to Lui and so I did. The next day he called us and said that he was holding on tight to the Book of Mormon but needed help so we prayed with him and now he sleeps with the Book of Mormon and reads it and his drinking problem is getting better. It was so cool. I felt the spirit so strong as I made this promise to him. So grateful for the Spirit.

My Pic Wall

    I hope you guys have an amazing week! I pray for you guys every day! Thanks so much for all your support!! I love you guys like crazy! wish you could be here with me! Oh and another cool food I tried is seviche!  Tell everyone hi for me!! you guys are the best! :)

Love,

 Briaunna :)