Week #52 - Walk week

This week has certainly been interesting to say the least.

We spent the first part of the week washing, drying and moving all of our clothes into the Otter Creek sisters' apartment because our apartment was being sprayed again by the terminator. So, that was quite an adventure and then we had to move back in... yikes.

Also, this week is our turn on bike week. However, Hermana Stevens is not allowed to ride a bike for another 3 months because if she were to fall and hurt the bones again she would have to have surgery... yeah.... When your area is an big as ours, literally everything south of Coronel Glen and Asher that is A LOT of walking. No worries we set up a ton of appointments with members to go teaching with us.

Monday evening we walked to Alex trailers and found some new investigators.  

Tuesday we were supposed to have a member come with us but she never responded to our texts. So we set out walking to our apartment (no biggie it's only a 15 minute drive on the highway) An hour later we were 10 minutes late for our apartment and MAYBE halfway there. So we called our appointment and she actually said that she had forgotten to call us but that she needed to cancel. So we set back towards home.

Tuesday evening we just caught a ride with the Otter Creek sisters and worked in the same areas that they were working in.

Wednesday we had an awesome zone conference. President Wakolo is really focusing on the individual conversion of the missionaries and increasing our spiritual capacity. He doesn't care how many we baptize but how devoted we are as disciples of Christ. And that is really inspiring.

We got dropped off in Bryant by the STLs and did more spiritual harvesting. I never knew how many English members there were until I stood on the edge of the road waiting for our member to come pick us up and drive us home. So many people honking, waving and stopping to see if we needed a ride! Crazy stuff.

Thursday was a testimony builder for me. Miracles are real, I know that they are! And I know without a doubt that anything and everything that is important to us is important to our Heavenly Father. Really in our area the only plausible place to walk to is Alex and our member that was going to come out with us had some crazy goings on. So we walked to Alex planning on Spiritual harvesting ALL DAY LONG. We went we spiritual harvested for about an hour and a half and we were able to talk with some wonderful people. A little later we stopped and prayed to figure out where we needed to go we felt like we needed to go to the second part of the trailer park but instead of taking the shortcut (which we were standing right next to) we felt like we needed to go and visit Elizabeth (she wasn't home) But now we were going to be walking to the second part of the trailer park on the main road.  We had walked maybe a minute when a member from the Benton ward pulled over and asked us if we needed a ride. We gladly accepted and she dropped us off in the Mabelvale Pike trailers (yeah, I know that is a lot of trailers, but it really is where most of the Hispanics live). We had no appointments and we had pretty much spiritual harvested this park out but we started walking and decided to knock #21 one more time. Lo and behold all I had to do was say, "Hola soy Hermana Ives" and the next thing I knew the door was swung open wide and Abel and Benita said, "Pasen se!"

We had an awesome hour long first appointment with them and it was absolutely amazing! I truly know that they have been prepared by God because there is no way we would have found them without His help and His hand leading and guiding us to them that day!

 

After our appointment we started our long walk home... no kidding right after we had finished our last gulps of water we were walking past an elementary school and the security guard called out, "Can I talk to you ladies?" She asked us if we wanted to fill up our water bottles and then asked us where we were coming from and where we were going. She then offered us a ride home! Hallelujah!

Thursday evening we had our Book of Mormon class and it was awesome like always. I love book of Mormon class! In a couple of weeks we are going to be doing Lehi's dream! We are so excited!

Friday we had weekly planning and we actually had people to truly plan for! It was so exciting! Our gigantic whiteboard is finally being used to its full capacity! Woot woot!

Hermana Barrientos was able to come teaching with us in the evening and we took her to meet Abel and Benita. They love to talk and love the Lord. We had a 2 hour lesson with them! It is so amazing to see them make connections to read in the Book of Mormon and to understand.

Saturday once again spiritual harvesting. And English members are super awesome at giving rides! YES!

And that brings us to Sunday when we finally got a car again! Woot woot. Super great!

The gospel is true!

Love,

Hermana Ives

Week #51 - Asphyxiation...

Dear family.

 

I'm glad to hear that you are all well and/or on the mend! Sounds like you have had a crazy week. Just makes me feel loved that I was able to contribute to the craziness in my own small and unique way.

 

Let me share the crazy happenstances that happened to me.

 

Monday: We had a pretty normal P-day. Nothing too new. We were able to eat some super spicy salsa verde! It was, dare I say, delicious?

And we were able to teach some lessons.

 

Tuesday: Sooo... today, Hermana Stevens discovered that she had bedbugs... so morning studies went out the window as we sprayed with permetherin (that is supposed to kill them, we just happened to have some extra from the last time missionaries had bedbugs in this apartment.) Small problem... I think I am allergic to permetherin. I started having breathing problems so we got out of the apartment and I got super sick to my stomach, my throat started burning, and I had an awesome headache.

Yeah, we txted the Mission nurse and she told me to not go back to the apartment... so we got to have a sleep over at the Otter Creek sisters' apartment.

 

We had an awesome lesson about families with Sarah. Even though I felt super sick. She is from a family of 10 kids and she has 5 of her own and almost a billion grandkids (alright so billion was a big exageration... but she does have a lot.)

We were able to meet Dilan's parents! That was super cool.

 

Wednesday: We had exchanges.. Super stressful just because you have to plan two full days of proslyting activities in the same area for 24 hours... but they were good.  I learned a lot.

 

Thursday: Sister Stevens got discharged from the Doctor's today. But she can't go on a bike for 3 months because if she were to fall again she would have to have surgery. ...Soooo, walk week this next week is going to be a thing... and it is going to be ridiculous!

 

Friday: we had interviews with President Wakolo. He has a super deep voice. Kinda sounds like Mufasa from Lion King. It was super awesome. I love our new mission president.

 

Saturday: We spent most of the day packing. our apartment because the exterminaters are coming today... yeah, it is super duper crazy.

I got to go

Sorry this letter is super scattered and not very well written. Oh well

Love yall!

Hermana Ives

Week #50 - Oh what a beautiful weeeeeeek!!!!

Hola familia!

Alrighty I am excited to tell you about this week! There have been some awesome goings ons!

Monday: it twas awesome we had the Ottercreek sisters over and we made tortillas and microwave chocolate cake! It was awesome to associate with some sisters other than the Spanish ones. So that was really fun. Our AC still wasn't working... so it got pretty hot, but that's besides the point.

I can't say this past week has been the best as far as sleeping goes. But a majority of that has to go to it being unbearably hot in the evenings. So sleep has not been the greatest but studies have been better just because of the sheer amount of time that you would rather been studying in the morning than laying in bed not being able to sleep =D Yup yup. Silver linings!

Tuesday: We had an awesome evening! The Sister Training Leaders came and made threesomes with us and the North sisters. So meeting up with them kind of shot our miles in the foot. But we did have a wonderful evening and met a lot of new investigators. Several of which had met with missionaries previously in their native lands! It is really cool to be able to see the different teaching styles of different sisters as well.

Wednesday: Our car had issues so we took it to the Good year in our area. (mistake number one) And then we left our car in their care (mistake number 2) We received a call an hour later saying, "we popped one of your tires... would you like us to replace the other ones too?" and then they tried to make us pay for the tire that they had popped! We will probably not be taking the Lord's car to their shop ever again. But positive we were able to meet with Flor y Roberto Barrientos (the branch president's brother and his family) and we watched Finding Faith in Christ. It is so cool how strong the Spirit was. It was also interesting to see that if we do not allow ourselves to feel it we can miss it completely no matter how strong it is present.

Thursday: WEEKLY PLANNING, note to self. NEVER get behind in updating the area book. That is a grand mistake that takes a very long time to remedy. However this week's planning session was awesome because we had the opportunity to actually plan for some investigators instead of just finding activities! Boo yeah! It is going to be great!

Friday: we had an awesome zone meeting! I really love how President Wakolo is all about increasing our spiritual capacity in order to help our investigators. It is really just making sure that you are converted to the gospel yourself before you try to help someone else become converted.  And he is very big on trying things that have never been done before. So instead of being instructed and then doing role plays we made a huge list of things that we needed help with as missionaries in our own perspective areas and then we broke off into 5 groups to discuss 3-4 of those topics on the board. And then the last 25 minutes was spent having the group leaders relate what had been found in the groups. It was really neat. I loved it so much better than regular zone meetings.

Hermana Stevens and I have decided to own our zone goal of 15 baptisms. So we have decided that as a companionship we are going to help 15 souls enter the waters of baptism.

We had an awesome lesson with Dilan! He is 14 years old just like Joseph Smith and we asked him to pray right there with us for him to know if it was true or not. So he did and received his answer! It was super cool to be able to see prayers be answered so quickly!  Heavenly Father really does hear and answer!

We were also able to meet with Juanni. She had met with missionaries before in Mexico. She really liked comparing our beliefs with her own Catholic beliefs and seeing all the similarities. We explained the differences and the importance of having a prophet as well. I think that having her see that it really isn't all that different will be helpful for her in making the transition.

Friday evening we were able to meet Mario. A friend of President Barrientos. He invited us to come and join his women's soccer team that he coaches. We had to decline but we invited him to come to the soccer activity that the Elders have every other Saturday! He was pretty excited about that. So we are excited for him to go and then get taught by the Elders.

Saturday: We had an awesome lesson with Ariseli. She was a referral from hno Zaragosa. She really wants to have God in her life for her kids. She has a 5 year old son and a set of 7 year old twin girls! Such a beautiful family. She believed everything we taught and wants to learn more. She said she was coming to church... we aren't quite sure why she didn't come or call us back.. but we are going back by tonight.

Sunday: This is probably my favorite story of all. We went to Olga's house and her husband and another guy were outside grilling. We asked if she was home and he said to go inside. We went in and started talking with Olga and her friend Veronica.  We had an awesome lesson about the Book of Mormon and Olga shared with us how she really doesn't like reading so she has been listening to it on You Tube! As we were getting ready to say good bye another lady walked in. She looked oddly familiar but it took awhile for me to place where I had seen her. As it turns out we had Spiritual harvested her earlier that week. She has responded to us with, "I'm Catholic and I don't have any friends for you to teach." How awkward that she walked into her friend's house and there we were teaching them! Gotta love missionary work!

The gospel is true!

Love Hermana Ives

Week #49 - Shall we say... stressful?

Hola familia!

Como esta?  This week has been CRAZY!

Monday:] we saw our miracle of the week. We were spiritual harvesting in the Azalea area, and as we were walking down the street we saw a lady that was clearly Hispanic but she went back into her home before we could talk to her. And so we continued walking but I made note of the house number in my handi-dandi planner. We were able to talk to some other people and as we were walking back to our car we were passing that first house again and we decided to heed a prompting and go and knock it even though by the way the lady had retreated into the house made us think that she was not very interested in talking. Anyways, we knocked she answered the door and was shocked that we spoke Spanish. We were able to share some of our message and she was very interested to have a pamphlet and read it. She said that this was her sister's house and that she was only visiting and that she was leaving tomorrow. But that the next time she was in town, about a month that she would like to come to our church! We are excited to go back and contact her sister! And I am excited for her to come to church in a month.

Tuesday:'( We were able to teach Olga again today! Our visits are very short with her. But she is so amazing! We were able to teach her some more about the Book of Mormon and the role of prophets.

We also went to an authentic Chinese restaurant for lunch! Delicious!

Sister Stevens got her splint off. She is now sporting a brace... it has Velcro... and she likes to pretend it is an instrument... nuff said...

It was just an emotionally stressful day... but what is super great about our companionship is that we never have emotional/mental breakdowns at the same time... otherwise that would be completely disastrous! lol   Yeah, this beautiful little branch has had trouble with rumors for forever. And a certain rumor has made one of our favorite families not want to ever come back to the Spanish branch... so that was super depressing to hear (especially since we didn't even know there was a rumor going on...)

Wednesday xP we decided to go all the way out to Benton to contact a less active family. It was an awesome lesson. And we committed them to read the Book of Mormon every day hopefully together... but they have crazy work schedules so that might not turn out.

We also heartattacked the family that is struggling right now. And that reduced our stress a lot. Just knowing that we were being proactive about a problem.

Thusday :\ Stake Outreach was tonight. Mormons' time is bad... Hispanic Mormon time is 5 times worse! We got to the church at 6:50pm because the outreach was supposed to happen at 7pm. 7:45pm people actually start showing up... however no sisters like branch president had said there would be... soooo, that was super awkward.  But we were able to meet some awesome less actives that I hadn't ever met before.

Viernes :) Weekly planning. and scrambled egg jaozi. Yummy!

We were able to set up a church tour with Olga for Saturday! I am so excited it is going to be my very first church tour. I have been wanting to do one SOOOO bad.

Sabado :D We went spiritual harvesting with a determination to share a scripture with everyone we met... so we ended up doubling the lessons that we taught this week! yeah! It was super awesome and productive! However... Olga never showed up to our church tour... so that was pretty sad.

Domingo 8) we had 2 people coming to church and neither of them showed up... I swear church/Sundays have NEVER been this stressful. But now they are the most stressful/stress reducing thing ever. It is really weird but the atonement is real.

We even had an impromptu district meeting with President Wakolo and the APs. It was super awesome. Just to hear how much they expect of us and how we need to pick up our game. I loved it.

And yeah, we have also started a newsletter from us to the branch. Highlighting a miracle that happened in our missionary work, a Study highlight, and a quote from the
Apostles.  You can put it into Google translate...

Yup,

I love my mission, and I love y'all

Hermana Ives