Week #44 - sups

Hellos and what's sups?!?

 

This past week has been a little cray cray. But good. Being in a Spanish area is super hard to readjust to. But the food is delicious! ;)

 

Last Monday I decided to finally take an actual nap so I slept for 4 hours straight. So for anyone who is waiting for a letter from me...I am sorry... just have to be patient. We were able to find 3 new investigators (so it was a great start to our weekly goal of 9!)

 

Tuesday Hermana Stevens and I decided to start a fast from English! It was pretty awesome but I think I might have to work up to a full 24 hour fast from English... I made it until about dinner time and then I was done not being able to communicate effectively... Plus complete Spanish takes a LOT of brain work and my brain felt like it had been beaten into a nice creamy pulp by 5pm.... We had an awesome RS activity at Hermana Benitez's home. I can't tell you what we made all I know is that is was delicious....

 

Wednesday we were able to do a lot of Spiritual harvesting. In the sun with the humidity it really was/is quite enjoyable... (that was sarcasm if you didn't catch it...) But there are always blessings that accompany difficulties. (the hard thing that I learned on Sunday was that the blessings don't always accompany the trials right away... in fact it may take several YEARS before the blessings can be seen/realized) Oh, the virtue of patience...

 

Did you know that teaching the Word of Wisdom in Spanish is difficult when you don't know the terms for plant anatomy... but I think we got across the point that she could still drink herbal tea just not TEA tea... yeah...she eventually pulled out a bag of flowers labeled in Spanish and handed it to Sister Stevens (who had no idea what it was) I however was able to recognize it without l ooking at the label! It was chamomile, thank you mom for drying chamomile so that I could quickly identify it on my mission! (see! Blessings that were realized several YEARS later!)

 

So many investigators found. So much work accomplished. So many China stories swapped.. (no china towns in our area...we actually looked)

 

But all in all pretty good.

The gospel is true.

The Book of Mormon is the convincing evidence of the restoration.

And if you don't know anything else. Always remember that you are a child of God!

Love ya,

Hermana Ives

Week #43 - Estoy en Little Rock

Hola mi familia!

Estoy en Little Rock! Otra vez. Pero este tiempo estoy en el sur! Yeah! I am companions with Hermana Alice Stevens otra vez! She has a crazy love of Chinese too... so we shall see what language we decide to study during language study. Lol, just kidding, it will be Spanish... but maybe on P-days! Anywho, it is awesome! She speaks Spanish super bien! ... i kinda speak Spanish so it is going to be great. I really need to work on understanding native speakers now... that's the hard part.

the apartment in Little Rock is SOOOOOOO much nicer than the last apartment I was in. It is actually cockroach free! YEAH.

The address is: 44 Nadina Circle, Apt #12, Little Rock, AR 72210

So some mail would be awesome ;)

I am glad that you had an awesome time at the cousin reunion! Did gma Caye go? (I know she isn't a cousin... but still.)

Passing Warren off to the elders was easy because all of our investigators had dropped us... but hard because I love them all so much! I am really going to miss teaching everyone. And all the poeple in the branch have been so amazing I really didn't want to leave just because of them.

Erma cried when I told her that I really was leaving! Sad :'(   I am really gonna miss her lima beans and okra.

We are essentially rebuilding the area her because Hermana Millington had to go home because of health issues which prevented her from doing much proselyting... but it is going to be aweomse and we are going to hit it hard and find teach and baptize!

It was so much fun being in a Spanish branch again! I have missed hearing so much Spanish! We had a RS activity where we learned how to make Chilean empenadas and Kuchen. So delicious! And Hermana Arroyo gave us some homemade tamaleas! They weren't spicy they were super moist and they were DELICIOUS!

...mmmm....yeah so that is what has happened....

I love yall!

El evangelio es verdadero!

Hermana Ives

Week #42: 5 Days to Summer Solstice

Hola mi familia y amigos!

Ummm... what a week! It has been truly crazy and busy. Funny that the attribute I have been working on this week has been diligence and the motto for this week has been, "diligence until the end!"

Fasting is amazing and it brings miracles. I was especially able to see this with Ebony this week. We were able to teach her and her spirit felt completely different and she was excited about the gospel. It was neat being able to go through the baptismal interview questions with her and have her understand and testify of truth. She was a little concerned about her date on the 22nd because she is still struggling with quitting smoking. But I know with enough faith and prayers she can do it and I know how much it is going to bless her entire family as well!

Days have been pretty long, hot, and not much success. But as we were spiritual harvesting after a couple of doors that never opened we felt prompted to knock this one home. The door opened and a lady and her two little girls opened the door. She was super interested in having us come back and in hearing more about our message. She is amazing and she has the cutest little girls. I'm just sad that our return appointment is after transfers :(  oh well, the next missionaries will do fabulously I am sure. 

Zone Conference was on Thursday. It was our last meeting with President and Sister Petersen and the senior office missionaries Elder and Sister Shaw. It was a pretty awesome meeting but then came the time for departing missionaries' testimonies and I pretty much lost it. I am going to miss the Petersens sooooooo much! They have taught me so much about the gospel and how to be a better missionary and to truly love to repent. I was able to achieve my hold to the rod (memorizing a scripture for each point in the missionary lessons) it was pretty awesome I'm just not sure how to pack it all in my suitcase! 

Oh, another piece of news... President Petersen came up to us at zone conference and announced that the worst apartment in the mission was being closed. (yup, it's official, I have lived in the worst apartment in the mission for 6 months!) Also, he doesn't have enough sisters to keep the area open...(several have left because of medical issues) So good ole Warren is going to be closed and the Monticello elders will be covering our area as well. I have super mixed emotions about it. I really feel like it is the best thing for Warren to have the priesthood teaching here. And I think it will help the members realize how much more they need to be supporting the missionaries in the work, we truly can't do it without them!

We went on exchanges on Friday and Saturday... During the pink tomato festival... on bike week...sister William's bike decided to freak out and malfunction. So walking was fun. No one wanted to talk to us. Or if they did they quickly told us they were baptist and NOT interested in changing any time soon... exchanges were pretty difficult because everything that we had set up fell through (just like the rest of the week) I can really see how the Lord has been preparing the missionaries and the area to be shut down. It is super heartbreaking but I know in the long run it is going to be best for the area. I am just not excited to have to tell Sister Bryant... She isn't going to be too excited about that. 

Pink Tomato festival really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. but there were definitely some cute clothes that I would have gotten if I weren't a missionary (not because they are immodest but kind of super expensive...) We didn't even get funnel cake or cotton candy (what is wrong with us?) 

Saturday and Sunday was Stake Conference and it was AWESOME! Elder Parker of the seventy came and presided! On Saturday we had a missionary choir and we sang the Spirit of God. It was super powerful... President and Sister Petersen cried... and that was pretty hard to see. :'(

So both Sister Williams and I received the call that we are being transferred.... Fun stuff,

 Love yall 

Hermana Ives

Week #41: A Week of Faith

Hola everybody!

This week has been a week of faith... or should I say a trial of said faith? It is crazy how when you are working on a certain attribute all the trials of life seem focused on that attribute! Ridiculous! Everyone of our investigators seem to be dropping/avoiding us like the plague!

We have had the opportunity to do lots of spiritual harvesting to try to increase our teaching pool. It is always interesting and thought provoking when you knock on doors that are completely NOT interested. And the thought always is, "Heavenly Father? Why did I knock that door? What was the point? If anything they are more ticked than they were before we knocked..." But alas we are just planting seeds! Oh joy ;)

Friday was a pretty interesting day, I like to term it as the day of promptings. We felt prompted to go street contact this lady so we did and we were able to set a return appointment and she said her neighbor would be over to listen as well! We felt prompted to share Mosiah 2:17 with an inactive member and as sis Williams was reading he was mouthing the verse (I was super confused because he hadn't been reading his Book of Mormon for like 12 years at least.) Then come to find out he had just read that chapter the night before we came over and he was completely shocked that we had picked that scripture to share. It was just an awesome testimony that God really is aware of each of us and what each one of us need. It helped him and us to be able to feel God's love for him!

We had made the decision that we weren't going to contact this one investigator anymore unless we saw him out and about and he sought us out...well, we had the prompting that we needed to make cupcakes to take to Potluck on Sunday...so as we went to the store lo and behold the before mentioned investigator walking out of the store and asking us why we haven't been by to see him. He then explained that he had been staying at his mom's house trying to better live the law of Chastity! How awesome is that?!?

Saturday was going to be an awesome day! we had lessons planned for every hour of the day... and we only saw one of them... they ALL fell through. It is bad but I really prefer just dropping by because it feels like people purposely avoid us... we were able to meet Kenneth and Norma and they are Super into canning. It made me feel right at home to talk about food storage and all that fun stuff!

Sunday was cool we were able to give talks in Sacrament. I taught Gospel Principles and Potluck was delicious. I have decided that I really love teaching in the church! Spirit is strong, the gospel is true and the people want to listen and learn. SOOOO amazing. Plus Gospel Principles was so cool because the topic was Baptism and we had 3 recent converts share their testimonies of their baptisms! So neat to see their faces glow as they talked about that special experience!

I was able to make some interesting concoctions this week. I made a ground turkey meatloaf! It was really good. I made some thrown together soup. Egg salad... pretty fun stuff. I think I've actually decided that when I get back I am going to go back to the basics. I want to study message therapy and culinary art! book yeah! Fun stuff. 

Well... I think that was pretty much our week.

mail box was a little empty this past week though... ahem... ;)

LOVES,

Hermana Ives

Week #40: Repentance = Change

Hello Beautifuls!

How is everyone doing this glorious week! I love how Heavenly Father always follow ups difficult times with rainbows, lollipops, and rainbows. Everything is always made right through him. 

Something that finally clicked in my brain this week. It probably was a causation of my mission's mid-life crisis (do you realized that I only have 5 transfers left??? Say WHAT?!?!?!?!)  Anywho, are you ready for this revolutionary thought? REPENTANCE = CHANGE. So I know that that really isn't that profound but really repentance is just a fresh view about yourself, about your Savior, and about the world. Every time we change we are utilizing the Atonement in our lives and we are allowing our will to be lifted to a higher plane! Repentance is glorious and joyous because change is glorious!!  And the fact that we have the opportunity to repent and change daily is such a magnificent miracle!

I love that there are miracles surrounding us daily all we have to do is open our eyes! Just like your glasses. If we open our eyes exercise our faith that He is truly there for us in our time of need then miracles upon miracles will happen. 

Sister Williams and I has the opportunity to teach RS this past Sunday on the VT message for June. To tell the truth I was pretty terrified to teach something other than the missionary lessons. But I have never enjoyed a teaching experience more than being able to share personal stories of service and being able to hear theirs as well. The RS is such an amazing program and it truly has so much potential to continue changing the world!

I am glad to hear that you and Gma Caye are starting to go to the temple together! I am hoping that I will be able to go to the temple soon! I have really been missing that opportunity! 

We had interviews with President Petersen this last Wednesday! I learned a lot and I found out that I am going to be transferred to a Spanish area. To tell the truth I am a little nervous but SUPER pumped! It is going to be great! Maybe I'll be serving in Barttlet TN so I can go to the temple! I am going to be super sad to be leaving Warren! I have met so many wonderful people and I have been changed and have learned so much from my experiences here.

On Thursday we were able to see miracles happen in Warren. woot woot! We talked to everyone in sight and invited EVERYONE to baptism... yeah, pretty much just fulfilling our purpose... anywho, it was an awesome day we were able to teach a total of 9 lessons! I don't think I have ever taught that many lessons in one day! Crazy stuff! We were also able to commit 3 people to baptism! Holla!

I love you so much! I am truly grateful for your prayers! I am so grateful for this awesome work and I hope and pray each of you are able to have a missionary moment this week and feel of the love that Heavenly Father has for each of His precious children!

Love,

Hermana Ives.

Trying to eat better...
and yes I do cook when I can

 

Week #39: Hump Day

Hey family! How is everything going?
This week has been pretty good. We have been able to teach a lot with members this week and honestly the highlight has probably been working with Ebony Williams and having Erma Zendejas come with us. We met early in the week with ebony and she told us that she wanted to be baptized on June 22! And she knew that she needed to come to church twice before she could be baptized so she asked if we could find her a ride to come to church. Well she has four kids and two of them are in car seats...do you know how difficult it is to find enough seats for that many people especially in the same car? Pretty intense... Any who we were able to take Sister Zendejas with us and oh boy, if ebony hadn't been prepared by the lord she would have dropped us like a hot potato! Erma kept going on about the word of wisdom and how she had to be clean and holy before she could step into that holy water! It was so strong and powerful and ebony made the decision then and there that she would be completely through with cigarettes on the 29th of may! We were finally able to get her a ride and when she was at church she felt like the speaker was talking directly to her and her needs. That speaker just happened to my the stake president who was visiting for the week and had prepared an entirely different message but felt wrongly impressed to speak about the symbolism of the sacrament, baptism, and the temple! ....during the meeting ebony asked me what a seventies was... After i explained she said, oh I want to be one of them too!....sooooo we might have some explaining to do... But we will deal with that when we get there.

I lost my planner this week. There is nothing quite as disconcerting as a missionary as not having your planner. I was pretty lost but I was able to find it again! Whew! (which reminds me... Mom, do you want me to send home my planners? Because I was thinking about tossing them... I have all the important information that I need/want elsewhere...)

Yup....ummmm... I am now officially on the downhill slope of my mission! I have overcome hump day and am now speedily flying through my mission. I can't hardly believe at I have been out that long...

Yep, yep... Sorry about not sending pictures last time... My bad. I switched all my pictures over from my memory card to my USB and forgot to email them teehee, please forgive me.

Man, washing a house that sounds like a blast... If I had been there though everyone would the a lot wetter than they needed to be...me and my silly lack of self control.

Sea foam chocolate??? Ummm....that sounds kind of gross to be completely honest...but what ever floats your boat I guess...

Love,
Hermana Ives

Week #38: Humility... why did I pray for humility?

Hey familia!

So this week has been, ummmm, crazy??? You know that Christ-like attribute thingy we are doing in 9 weeks? Yeah well I have developed this weird complex about praying for Christ-like attributes because I know that Heavenly Father will give me experiences to test those attributes... and when you are working on an attribute such as humility, that's just not very much fun... to be honest this hasn't been the funnest week. But I have learned a ton and I know without a doubt that the promise in Ether 12:27 is true and that as we truly do humble ourselves and work on improving ourselves, Heavenly Father will turn those weaknesses into strengths and into ways that we can bless others with those new found strengths. 

We had an awesome p-day in Monticello. I bought some new skirts, an ugly tie and we had some pretty delicious Italian food! Talk about yummy! We went shopping and I have found that the 70s are coming back into style...who knew! But I am looking forward to rocking that look when I get back! lol, jk...kind of...

We tried to teach Tacho... he pretty much "commended me to pray to know that God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are one, and that they are spirit"... So, I made a deal that I would pray about that if he would pray to know that the Book of Mormon was true... Being Bible bashed in English is bad...being Bible bashed in Spanish is ten times worse! 

We have a recent convert Alvin. Whose goal is to visit every temple in the world, starting with the one in Salt Lake City! We are so excited to start working with him to get him ready to make that step to be worthy to go and to live worthy to those covenants. 

We saw Barbara, she is a 12 year old that is just living in a super hard situation. We were talking to her about random stuff and temples... she eventually said that she didn't want us to get married in the temple. We asked her why and apparently something I said hurt her feelings... I still have no idea what I said or did! But somehow she forgave me and we are friends again. Sister Williams were able to have a heart-to-heart and that was really special. Barbara endures a lot of bullying not only from her school mates but by her own family as well... It is sad to see it and to know how much the gospel could help her and her family but she has no way to come and participate and we can't talk to the mom because she is always working and the step dad is always drinking... 

We had a crazy lesson with Darrius. He has a baptismal date for the 7th of June... We felt super prompted to go through the interview questions with him... mind you that we had only taught him the restoration... yeah, that was pretty intense and we felt so bad about throwing all the commitments to him, to live the law of Chastity, Word of Wisdom, and to learn about Thomas S. Monson... but we were so prompted and he is so prepared by the Lord! He is excited to start working on it all and to really devote his life to God! =D

Sister Williams and I are working on sorting through our investigators and how we can best help a lot of them to become progressing. Sister Williams is awesome and we are going to be working on building more trust with the members. We passed around a sign up sheet in RS for splits and a lot of the sisters signed up! We are super excited to start working with them more and to get them truly pumped up about missionary work. I think the meeting with Elder Kapishka really helped a lot of the auxiliary leaders in our branch excited about reaching out and retaining! Oh yeah, on Friday Elder Kapishka and Elder Merideth came to our zone meeting and shared some wonderful insights! I learned so much and I felt like a lot of the things that they were saying were said just for me! The Spirit was the true teacher in that meeting and I want to be able to teach like them someday! 

Yesterday we were talking to an older lady and her daughter walked in and bashed us with the Bible... I thought that it was very interesting that as these ladies were trying to tell us how we were being deceived by men that wrote the Book of Mormon.As Beverly was waving around the Book of Mormon and quoting Revelations about not adding to God's words..the Spirit witnessed so strong to me of the truthfulness. And all I could feel was how much Heavenly Father loved these women and how sad He was that they were rejecting the fullness that He so much wanted for them. We tried to leave with a prayer but they essentially told us that we were too unrighteous/unworthy to pray... so that was a new and interesting experience! lol, wow...

So, yeah, mission life is great! I made some good food this week and I took pictures as evidence as well!

I love you! This work is awesome!

Hermana Ives