1.     What has been your biggest challenge this week?

Okay so my biggest challenge this week was staying positive. We struggled this week and have been struggling to find people to teach. We would pray about everything. Where we could go knock, who we should see, what members to visit and it seemed like we kept hitting a brick wall. It was hard to stay positive but our efforts paid off! I will talk about that in a sec.

2.     What has been your biggest concern? 

My biggest concern this week was myself. All this week I was thinking, am I the one that's withholding us from blessings? Am I not being obedient enough? Am I doing something wrong? So this week I have been praying for things that I need to change and improve on so I can help us qualify for the blessings :) 

Eating with Maria, a less active

3.     What has been your biggest success? 

Here is where our efforts paid off.  We had two really cool experiences:

1.     This week we went on a full day exchange with the STLS and I got to be comps with Sister Calvo!! I was super happy to be comps again with her. So much fun. We were on our way to see a less active, but she wasn't home. As we were leaving her apartment complex, we saw this older lady sweeping outside and we asked her if we could give her a card and she said yes. Then we asked if we could share a prayer with her and she was like "no my husband is sick." We told her we could pray for him,so she let us in. They are a cute older Cuban couple. She is 70 something and her name is Segunda, which means second in Spanish. Her husband is 93 and his name is Armando. We learned that they just had a son pass away not too long ago and that Armando had seen him in a dream. So we shared a prayer with them and taught a little how families can be together forever. They were excited to learn more. It’s a little difficult to teach because Armando can’t hear well or understand much but we are excited to continue to teach them!

2.     Our second miracle happened yesterday. It was after church and we were looking for a place to knock doors. While we were praying, Sister Torralba got the impression that we needed to go to a Spanish grocery store called Sedano’s and contact there. Its pure Latin and we felt like we would have lots of success there, because we haven’t been having that much luck knocking. So we went to Sedano’s and acted like we were shopping and gave a card to whoever the spirit promoted us to talk to. We ended up getting two new investigators, Edwin and Trigenal. They are super cool and elect and want to know more about our church. We have a return appointment with them this week! We are excited to teach them. Also, we were talking to one of the workers and found out that he is a member and just moved here from Columbia and has been wondering where our church was. So we got to help them! Super cool and one of our biggest successes :)

Cutest future missionary ever!

4.     Who has been your favorite person this week?  Why?

My favorite person this week is Sister Orton. Sister Orton is a mother of a missionary who served here and went home a little while after I got here. Her mom writes a lot of the missionaries here in the mission weekly. I didn't know her daughter very well, but she writes to me every week. A little letter from her and then she includes a bunch of conference talks. Talks from devotionals and stuff like that. This week the talks she sent were inspired. It’s just what I needed. The talks were: Only 10 dollars by Emma C Miller, and the other is A Time For Faith, Not Fear by Elder Larry W Gibbons. I really want you to read these talks because they are so good!! Here are some things that i really liked from these talks! From the Only 10 Dollars talk: 

Once in my car, I began sobbing. Not because I regretted giving up the 10 dollars. Not because I felt like a do-gooder, though I did feel good about helping. But I was moved because this thought hit me: “How many times in my life have I come up short? How many times have I taken my case to the Lord in spite of feeling inadequate or unworthy to receive His blessings?”  Heavenly Father doesn’t say, “Again? This isn’t the first time this has happened; you’ve come down this road before. This is so frustrating.” The Father doesn’t call the Savior in and ask Him to explain to us why we can’t have what we so desperately need at that moment. He doesn’t tell us we should have planned a little better. The Savior paid the price for us, and we are saved by His grace, “after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). The man at the grocery store probably gave all he had and needed someone to come to his aid. He needed mercy. Justice meant the items would have to be paid for, but mercy meant that someone else could step in and pay the debt.

Quotes from the Time for Faith, Not Fear talk:

"Life is a test"

"Difficult days are a necessary part of like and give us an opportunity to build our faith and learn to rely on a power far greater than our own"

"President Packer said, faith to be faith must center around something that is not known. Faith to be faith must walk to the edge of the light and then a few steps into the darkness."

"It is hard to build faith in the noonday sun. When the night is dark and the clouds are thick we have the opportunity to put our hand in the Lord’s hand and rely on him to help us"

"Look up not down"

I have found that usually when we face our most difficult test, the Lord is there ahead of us to prepare the way through them"

"The rapids are really the best part"

"This is the lord’s work, let him do some of it"

"Let the lord do some of the heavy lifting"

Those are just some highlights from these articles. Please read the talk! Its super good!! :)

Server made me a turtle. Ahhh

5.     What has been your most significant tender mercy?

Finding investigators

 

Drivin'

6.     What are you looking forward to this week?

Teaching people

7.     Do you have a goal set for this coming week?

Goals I have set this week is to really trust in the Lord, be exactly obedient, positive and love my mission!

8.     Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?

The scripture that has helped me the most this week is D and C 84:88

Thanks for the Valentine's package!

The weather this week has been super cold!! I have been having to wear layers and layers but it’s finally starting to warm up. This week we have zone conference in Naples! A 3 hour drive!! But I am excited and can’t wait to tell you all about it!!  Thanks so much for the valentine’s package!! So amazing, I loved it!! Thanks for all the letters!! Those notes were the best and made me laugh hahah :) I love you all soo much!! Thanks for all you do!!!

Really cold, so we all got out our fuzzy socks

Herman Briaunna :)

1.     What has been your biggest challenge this week?

 So my biggest challenge this week was Spanish! Sister Torralba has been teaching me lots and has been helping me a ton to perfect my Spanish. This week I just had a hard time remembering what I learned and I was just thinking too much. So sometimes it got a little rough. Like when we were teaching the restoration to Giovanny, and I had to say the first vision, which I had memorized and have said lots of times, but I totally choked and after words I wanted to crawl under a rock. It was still an amazing powerful lesson and I got a chance again to redeem myself later on in the lesson.

We bought some Valentines doughnuts for ourselves

2.     What has been your biggest concern? 

My biggest concern this week has been finding people to teach. We dropped everyone. Yes even Giovanny. He was so elect and had been keeping commitments and reading the Book of Mormon and we had an amazing powerful lesson on the restoration. We knew he was going to get baptized but right as we ended the lesson the family that he lives with came home and looked at us like we were Satan. We just got a bad vibe from her. On Sunday, when we went to go get him from church, he didn't answer and he won’t text us back so we are pretty sure he was influenced by his family. We were so sad, but we know we will find more to teach. It’s just been rough. It always makes you think, Am I being obedient? Am I doing what I am supposed to? Am I withholding us from finding a family and receiving blessings? But miracles will happen for sure!

Valentine's Day breakfast

3.     What has been your biggest success?  My biggest success this week was saying a perfect prayer in Spanish where Sister Torralba didn't have to correct me afterwards. Yay!! Finally starting to get the hang of this. It was sure great and gave me more confidence. Elder Gibbons (greenie gave us valentines! so cute!! hahah we love him! ) 4.     Who has been your favorite person this week?  Why? My favorite person this week is Sister Alvarado. She and her husband are a young couple in our ward and super amazing. She came out with us one night and was talking about her mission and her experiences and how she wishes that she could again be fully dedicated to the Lord. To have that hour of personal study every day and just be able to only think about helping others. What she said really made me realize how special this time is and how it’s so important to not take it for granted and to love every moment. It’s so important that we use the Lord’s time wisely. She is a big example to me. :) We also had a cool experience with her as well. The person that we were going to teach with her ended canceling on us and she said that we should go see this less active family who hasn't been to church in a year. She says that they never open the door to church members but she said that we should just try. So we did and the wife opened the door! We were able to go in and uplift her and get to know her. She is super awesome and she wants us to come back again. So excited to re activate her. Sister Alvarado was really inspired.

Elders fixing our tire. What service!

    5.  What has been your most significant tender mercy?
My tender mercy this week would be not dying. Friday the 13th was super scary! We were driving to somewhere, I can’t remember. As we were driving, I look to my right and see a car that was two lanes over. It moved over to the lane next to us and you think after he switched lanes he would of stopped, right? Well nope! He kept going right into us. Yup, he hit my side of the car and sandwiched us into a median.  We hit the median and he just kept driving. Hit and run. Sister Torralba drove behind him and honked at him and finally got him to pull over and once we got out of the car he said it was our fault (he was Cuban). He said that we didn't see him and yada yada. If we didn't have our badges on it would have been different, but we were calm. We had to call the police and get all of that paper work and stuff taken care of. I am okay and so is Sister Torralba and it’s a miracle that our car just has some dings. Yeah, defiantly a tender mercy that we are okay.

Eating sushi with the Elders

    6.  What are you looking forward to this week?

What I look forward to this week is just finding new investigators. Especially a family! There is a family ready for this gospel!! :)

    7.  Do you have a goal set for this coming week?  Tell me about it.

A goal I have for this week is being bold! I need to go beyond my comfort zone because as they say, there is not learning in the comfort zone and no comfort in the learning zone.

    8.  Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?

The scripture that has had the biggest impact on me is in Mosiah chapter18, where it talks about how we should impart of our substances and server others. This week we were asked to go visit an old lady in our ward who recently went to the hospital and had her leg amputated. I was a little uneasy because I don't really like hospitals so I wasn't all that excited. Her name is Sister Carrington and I have to say I felt so bad about how selfish I was when I met her. Sister Carrington is 70 years old. She is strong in the church. She has a lot of health problems though and so does her husband, who right now lives my himself and has had 4 strokes and can’t walk. They have a son but he doesn't really help them. Even with all these challenges, she is still smiling. When we got to her room, the first thing I saw was her smile. She was beaming from ear to ear. We were there to serve her but she was serving us. Even in the hospital she was doing missionary work and giving us referrals. She is just amazing. Just a couple days ago she had some of her toes amputated as well.   She is a trooper and her testimony is so strong. After seeing her, I read that scripture and it made me think of the talk, Aren't We All Beggars? It so important that we serve others and as Disciples of Christ impart of our substances willingly and help those who are in need spiritually and physically.  Mother Teresa said "What we do is nothing but a drop in the ocean, but if we don't do it, the ocean would be one drop less." We need to do all that we can to help others. After we left seeing Sister Carrington, I was so happy and uplifted knowing that we helped and served her. She is amazing and I am so glad I got to meet her :)

Sister Carrington

I hope you all have a great week!! I love you all so much! Can’t wait to get your package!! Thanks for all you do!!!

Hermana Heacock