Family!! :)

I hope you all had a wonderful week this week! :) This week was awesome and exciting here in the good old land of Florida. There has been some crazy storms lately which means it is officially summer! Yay!! This transfer we got a new sister in the house so I am officially the oldest. It’s weird, but I love all the girls so much. Our house is the best! So much fun.

This week we went to eat with Brother White and his family. Best bbq chicken ever! And guess what? He said the prayer for the food and he said that was the first prayer he said in years. His wife was very impressed. We know that she will join the church because of his example. It was a fun time. We love their family so much.

Last p-day we went to Sister Boga’s house and hung out with her and had lunch. She is another awesome less active. I don’t know if i told you about her but she is amazing! We love her so much. She is really into gardening and she has this huge garden, so every time we come over she teaches us lot about planting. When we were talking with her she asked us what the biggest challenge is as a missionary and we said reaching our goals and getting good numbers, because of how much pressure there is in the mission. She said something awesome that really helped us. She said that numbers don’t matter. She said it’s better to baptize 2 good strong people and have them be in the church forever then baptize 30 people and have them all fall away. She said if we baptize 2 solid people, those two solid people will effect generations and by them millions of people can be baptized.  She compared it to a plant. When you are planting a potted plant into the ground you can see it has a bunch of small roots but they soon quickly either die or fall off. It is the couple strong roots that stay and give life to the plant. She said don’t worry about numbers worry about baptizing solid people so the church can have those strong roots. It was awesome. Sister Boga is the best and has such a strong testimony of the church. She is just stubborn, but we know she will become active again.

So we dropped Mike and Emma but we have Lynn who is amazing! I think I told you about her last week. We got to teach her for the first time and we taught her the restoration. It was super powerful and she understood it great. She just had a couple a questions about the priesthood and other rumors about us but all those were easily answered and fixed. She told us that last Sunday they woke up late to go to their church and it was 45 min away so she told her son that they needed to find another church that is closer. So they knelt in prayer and asked Heavenly Father to guide them to a church and they ended up at ours. So cool right! She was definitely meant to be there! She has been reading the Book of Mormon and has been praying for an answer if the church is true as well if Joseph Smith was a prophet. She says she hasn’t received an answer yet but that it feels good. We are excited to continue to help her progress! :) She is so willing to learn.

I have some other sad but good news. Sister Calvo has finished her mission:( but the good news is she lives here in Florida! I don’t know if i ever told you guys the story but Sister Calvo lived in Spain and about a year before she got her mission call her mom moved here to Florida. So when Sister Calvo got her call to Florida she was surprised. What is super cool is her ward is the Spanish ward in the building I go to!! This is why I was supposed to stay! hahah What was a huge blessing it was last Wednesday. We were at the church to pick up dinner the young women made for us (super awesome by the way) and in walks in Sister Calvo and her family which is like my Spanish family. She was there to be released from her mission. It was like a big family reunion!! They all said they missed me. I gave Sister Calvo a huge hug and she asked me if I wanted to stay for her releasing and I was like yes! So she went in to have her interview with the Stake President and then we all got together. She gave her last testimony as being a missionary which was sad and then they asked her to remover her tag and that’s what got me. It was probably the saddest thing to see. I don’t know how to explain it but seeing her remove her tag was super hard. The rest of the night I was holding on to mine. I didn’t want to take it off. It made me realize how fast time goes and how I don’t want my mission to end at all. I know I will always be a missionary but still... it makes me sick to think about. So now Sister Calvo comes out with us to teach and knock doors. Which is weird but so much fun! She is for sure still a missionary!! I get to see her at church:)

This family in our ward, the Riggin’s, are from Seattle and are amazing. A young couple in their late 20s with two awesome kids! We go over to their house every Sunday. Brother Riggin’s is a golfer and him and his family are going to Seattle for the US Open so they will be in Lynnwood for a week with family and they said they want to come visit you guys. They said they can take stuff home for me or pick stuff up from you guys and they want to take pictures. That will be the week of June 13th. I am super excited for you all to meet them!

This week I was reading in Ether and I was reading how the Jaredites were in the barges and how they had to go through fierce winds and crazy stuff but they were still being pushed towards the Promised Land. I never thought much about this scripture but as I read it this time it made me think about how this is like how our trials are. They can be crazy and toss us to and fro but we are still being pushed towards the Promised Land. It made me think of as well this story about this family who went rafting and when they went through the rapids it was super scary and they fought to stay on the raft. But after the trip the dad said that even though at the time going through the rapids was super scary it was the best part. When we are going through trials they may seem hard to bare but in the end as we look back we will find that it was during those times that we grew the most and were able to come closer to our Father in Heaven. :)

A quote that I heard was "If you were the only Book of Mormon people would read what would they read" something to think about :)

I almost forgot about Skyping! I will be Skyping around 7pm or so my time so for you guys it will be 4. Does that work? I will call you guys before I get on to warn you:)) I can’t wait to see all your faces!! Super excited that Lauryn will be there!

Ii love you all sooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Have an awesome week!

 Family!!

So this week!! First off transfers came and..... me and Sister King are staying!! Yay! I am so happy because I love this ward and area and her so much!! :) It’s going to be another great six weeks.

        

This was a pic we took on our first day together

 As for Physical Therapy, my last one I scheduled got canceled but I am not going to re-schedule. I have all the exercises plus one from dad so I think I am good. As for the doctor apt, Sister Richarson came with me as well (President’s wife) Everything came back negative except some things to do with my connective tissue and as well I have a bit of inflammation in the liver. So out of the 20 things that would qualify me for lupus only 2 came back positive. Not by a whole lot but a enough to where she wants to keep an eye on me. She also thinks I can have connective tissue diseases, but lupus is also connected to hair loss. So I am not sure. Where does my back pain come into play? So all of these things are up in the air but don't stress about it. I will get the second opinion and get my eyes checked and all that fun stuff and let you know. :) But everything will be okay :)

           

Sock sliding party

 Last week on Monday night we went to go see Rachel and we knocked on her door (she was home) but no one answered. Her dogs would bark and then get quite real fast then bark again. She didn't answer the door. Later that night she texted us saying that she doesn't want us to come back again :((( I was heartbroken and may have cried lots. It was hard because I know I promised her I would bring the gospel to her but she rejected it. I am so thankful that we have such a loving Heavenly Father and hopefully she will accept it in the spirit world. In fact I know she will.

So after that sad bit, the next day we prayed about a spot to knock doors, determined to find a family. In our prayers we were really specific and asked to find a family of four with two girls. So we go to where we were inspired to knock, It was like the 5th door that we knocked and Gloria answered the door. We asked if we could share a prayer with her and she said yes. Guess what? She had two daughters! One was like 3 and the other was 7 and they are amazing. So we said the prayer with them and they loved it! We invited them to be baptized and she looked at her 7 year old daughter and said, “do you want to be baptized again?” Me and Sister King were amazed because usually it’s a fight because people are like well I have already been baptized before why do I have to be baptized again?  It was awesome that Gloria right away saw the need and understood why she needed to be baptized again and she said that she was looking for a church. Me and Sister King were so happy. The next day we went over and taught her the restoration and she loved it. It was a good powerful lesson and she asked a lot of good questions and we gave her a Book of Mormon and set her with a date for May 9th. She was so excited for the opportunity to be baptized and come to church. But just wait..... So Sunday comes around. We hadn't been able to see her after we taught her the restoration, so we go to her house to see if she and her family were coming to church and she opens the door and says that she has some stuff she needs to talk to us about before she comes to church and that they are sleeping. So needless to say one of our strengths this week was getting people antied!  But that's okay because God is good and blessed us with a miracle. On our way to church we were sad but we knew God was going to bless us with a miracle.

 During gospel principles, in walks Lynn. She is a mom with a son named Christopher who is 9 and goes to scouts at the church and she thought that she should come and check out the church. She loved gospel principles and Relief Society. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she wants to be baptized! She is Haitian. We are going to go see her this week and we are super excited.

            

 Brother White and his family are doing amazing. He takes us out every week for meals. Tonight we are going to go eat with their family and we are having BBQ chicken. Yummy. They are amazing. His wife will soon be baptized. She will just take some time but that's okay. It’s all in God’s timetable! :)

           

 So this week I was reading in Ether when Moroni is writing and he starts talking about how he isn't mighty in writing, how he has weaknesses and how the people will mock him for his writing. I was thinking about how much this related to me in a way. I have weakness and especially right now I have felt often times that I should just go home. I can’t do this work, I am not good enough. But as I was pondering, I realized that if Moroni gave up writing and just stopped we would not have the book of Ether, we would not have his amazing testimony. At the end, he continued writing in a way he thought was sufficient but he continued in faith and now the scriptures in Moroni are some of the most looked up scriptures on the internet and his testimony has changed so many people’s lives. This came from a man who thought he wasn't mighty in writing. Heavenly Father really does take weak things and makes them become strong. In the song I Know My Father Lives, it says at the end ".. and he tells me that I can, and he tells me that I can" I know Heavenly Father is right there beside us telling us we can. With whatever trials we are going through, He knows us and our potential. we just can’t lose sight of that!! :)

            

 Check this article out! https://www.lds.org/church/news/joseph-smith-atop-smithsonian-magazines-top-religious-figures-list?lang=eng

Joseph Smith atop Smithsonian Magazine’s Top Religious Figures List by R Scott Lloyd its super cool!

            

 Thanks for all you do!! I miss you tons! So excited for another week or miracles and adventures!!

Briaunna

Family!!

Physical Therapy has been going good. Its helping. My last one is on the 23rd. It has been helping with the inflammation and pain.

​Elders tagging our car with a "I love One Direction" balloon. Silly elders haha

So this week we dropped Lisa and Angel the Jamaican family. They are great but just not quite ready yet. They just got really contentious and when we would teach them the spirit wasn't there. So we had to drop them. :( But I know that soon they will be ready to continue moving forward. They just need time.

1 Year Mark

We haven't been able to see Rachel, but tomorrow we will. She was dog sitting last week but we called her every day and she is reading a chapter a day in the Book of Mormon and loves it! She is amazing. We love her to death! We will continue to teach her this week :) Super excited!!

Went to the Temple with Rachel!!

This week we had interviews with mission president. I love interviews with him. So amazing. This one was super spiritual. We always have to go in with a question to ask him and my question this time was "How did you learn to trust God and what were some of the experiences you had that helped strengthen that trust?" He told me an amazing story. When president was young, his mom passed away when he was 7. A year later his dad re married and president and his step mom did not get along. So every summer he went to Canada to be with his step moms mom and dad. He loved them so much and they loved them. He spent a lot of time with his grandma and he would brush her hair for a quarter an hour and they would just talk as he brushed her hair. Well later on her spine started literally crumbling. When he was on his mission she wrote to him and said I can’t wait till you get back because I want you to give me a priesthood blessing because I know you can heal me. So after his mission he went to go see her in the hospital and he gave her that blessing. When the doctors took an x ray a couple days after he gave the blessing, there was bone where there wasn't before. Her spine had rebuilt itself. He said that his grandmother had faith. Lots of it. He said that's the key to trusting in Heavenly Father is faith. It was super good. I love learning from him! :)

Closest to sand we can go!

This week we have been working a lot with less actives and one of those families is the Whites. They are Vietnamese. Brother White, who is the member, is adopted and grew up here in the states. He is amazing and his adoption story is amazing. Anyways, he has a little girl who is 4 and we love her and his wife is awesome as well but catholic. They have us over every week and feed us amazing food! This week it was that soup I sent a pic of (Pho). He took us out to eat at a Chinese place and it was like really authentic Chinese food! I had whole baby squid, chicken feet, and surprise soup! haha Half the stuff I ate I didn't even know what going in my mouth. We also had shrimp in this rice thing and for desert, which was the best, was this white bun thing. It was like a roll that had a crème in the middle. It was a crazy experience but so much fun! And yesterday he came to church with his daughter for the first time in a long time and loved it! He really wants to go to the temple and get sealed as a family! We love them.

First time eating Pho at the White's home.

The other family is the Espinosa family who we love we are going to see them tonight so cool!! They are the best!

  

This week we found and are teaching Mike and Emma. They are from Trinidad. They have had contact with the church before. They love to can so they have been to the cannery. We taught them the restoration and it went really well! Mike was super interested and loved it and Emma was really quiet. She didn't say much but it seemed like she liked it. We gave them a Book of Mormon and they are going to church next week. They also have a daughter Abby who is 13. We haven't met her yet though. We are seeing them tonight and super excited about it!! We don't have a lot of people to teach so we are happy.

Yesterday we were visiting with a member and his son and his son isn't a member but he is practically a dry Mormon. He asked us a question. He asked "When Jesus comes and calls us, will you be able to recognize his voice?" That made me think? Will I be able to recognize His voice? It made me think of Mary when she was at the tomb and she was crying and Jesus called her and she knew it was the voice of her Savior. So I decided to get to know my Savior better. I made it a point to read the New Testament every day and study more about the atonement. It’s something really cool to think about.

​Got locked out of our house, so we ate Wendy's and chilled in the mothers lounge at church building for our dinner hour....

I was reading in Mormon 8:25 and it was talking about all the things the prophets went through for the church and it made me think of the previous dispensations. The prophets of old were able to go through failure, torture, and torment because they knew they were laying the ground work for us. They would be a part of the success we would have in this dispensation. That’s probably what gave them hope and helped them endure knowing that they needed to do this for us because they knew we would have success but we needed the foundation they set. It’s crazy all the sacrifices people have made leading up to this point for the church. Because of their faith and trust, they knew this church was true and they would do anything to make sure it was spread through all four corners of the earth. I love this gospel sooo much!! It has changed my life so much. It is true!! I have never hungered so much to read the scriptures. :) I am so grateful for all the prophets who gave their lives so we can have the Book of Mormon :)

 

Planning and studying in our princess room

Thanks so much for all the scriptures dad!!! I love them, thanks for all that you do!! I love you all so much! Hope you all have a great week!! :) Miss you!

Briaunna