I've Grown A Foot Or Two!

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 :)