A 10-day sprint

Large Plates 

A 10-day sprint 

Hello everyone!! It's been a while--this week was 10 days long instead of 7. And what an eventful 10 days these have been! I apologize in advance for how long this email is about to be. My roommate is letting me borrow her keyboard, which is giving me access to some untapped potential. 

The reason our week was 10 days long is because we switched our pday to be able to go to the temple as a zone! The temple was wonderful and it was honestly exactly what I needed. The session brought tears to my eyes, as usual, and the Celestial Room really is my favorite place in the world. I love just soaking in the spirit while I’m at the temple. There’s nothing quite like it. I got to see some of my favorite people in the whole word in my favorite place in the whole world. Even President Holladay, the temple president, who is a good friend of mine, came over to sit by me in the Celestial room. We had a good chat about life and about God:)

Last Saturday we basically spent the entire day coordinating missionary work, before any missionary work was actually able to take place. Now that there are 6 missionaries in the ward instead of 4, we had to draw different boundaries and reassign a lot of the people in our teaching pools. It took about 4 hours on Saturday alone! 

Spending all day on Saturday preparing ourselves for the coming week ended up being a good thing, though. It helped us get our feet underneath us and our heads straight. We set a goal as a ward to teach 100 lessons in 1 week, because all of us were so pumped for the new challenge. 

Church on Sunday was tons of fun! The ward was so excited (and so confused) to see all 6 of us there. Bishop Perez asked those of us who were new to go up and bear our testimonies. Also! When I got there I saw a friend from my first ward--she moved here! Her name is Naomy and she was actually at the first member meal I went to over a year ago. I sat by her for Sacrament Meeting:) We also had some friends come to church! Nicole brought her cute 4 year old boy Sebastian and he was so scared to go to primary, but by the end he colored so many pictures of Jesus and he didn't want to leave. 

After church, Bishop asked all of us to meet him in his office to talk a bit about the missionary work in the Valencia ward. This was randomly one of the highlights of my week haha. We were in there with him talking about missionary work and all that good stuff for over an hour. It was a very chaotic hour, too. Some favorite quotes of mine are, "remember Elders: in the Valencia Ward, we don't follow the rules," and "you should try to find someone to teach who wants to be baptized in the ocean– we'll make a trip out of it!"

Those two quotes are a pretty accurate representation of what that jou of my life was like. But that's not all. Here's my favorite part:

Bishop asked me how long I've been out on my mission, so I told him how long, and pointed to one of the Elders in the room and said "the same as him." Because we got to Florida on the same day. Here's the kicker. He, the Elder, chimed in to say, "Ella salió conmigo," in an effort to say "we came out to the mission field together." 

Those of you who speak Spanish might already be cracking a smile. "Ella salió conmigo" translates to "she went out with me." Yes, as in, "we dated." 

So the bishop said, in Spanish, "don't worry Elder, she'll wait for you." 

This poor Elder, you guys!! It went right over his head and I certainly didn't want to be the one to explain to him what had just happened! 

Anywho, that's how my first Sunday in the Valencia ward went. All is well though, it was significantly less awkward afterward than I thought it would be. It has become quite the joke among us missionaries though. I’m never going to let that Elder forget it, and neither are any of the other missionaries who were there. 

We also had a fun lesson with Maurilio and his family after church! They are a family that sister Peterson taught when she was here in this area, so it was tons of fun to get to know them and hear about their conversion story. 

We had a couple more lessons and weekly planning and wrapped up our first sunday together! Because we weren’t going to have a pday on monday, we decided as full time missionaries in the Valencia ward to set a goal to teach 100 lessons total! Our mission as a whole has been trying to stretch ourselves and teach 30 lessons in each area every week, and many have hit that goal! It’s been cool to see the mission overcome false limitations and strive for excellence! We decided to push ourselves just a little bit further and get 100 lessons between the 3 companionships. I wish I could tell you about all of the awesome lessons we had this week, but I don’t have time for that and neither do you. Here’s some o my favorite new friends and miracle stories for the week, though:

Juan and Violeta are so great! We met Juan because he was on a walk while we were riding our bikes. We talked to him a little bit about the Book of Mormon and he was mildly interested, but not interested enough to take a book right then and there. We set up a time to come back to visit him and his wife! We went back, and read a little bit in the first chapter of the Book of Mormon with the, and taught them the story of the restoration. Violeta’s sister is a member of the church, so they were familiar with the story but had a few things wrong haha. Their interest definitely grew, but not a lot in that visit. They didn’t even want a Book of Mormon at the end because they said they already knew they weren’t going to read it. I walked away from that lesson a bit disappointed because they seemed really cool, and them rejecing he free book was a bit of a shock to me. 

We went back again later in the week (as per their request) and read a bit about the fall of Adam with the. Our discussion very obviously opened their eyes to the idea that aybe there really is more to know about God and His gospel than what is written in the Bible. Needless to say, this time they took a copy of the Book of Mormon.

Juan is always very nice and sends us a message after our visit thanking us for our visit and for helping them understand more. He even invited us over for tacos!! We went over Sunday afternoon and got to know them a bit better as we shared some mediocre tacos haha. They’re from Ecuador, so they're really cool people, but their tacos simply just aren’t as good as mexican tacos, I’ll be honest haha. Their daughter even joined us for the conversation! Her name is Kyra and she’s in high school right now, so she seemed to really enjoy having us around. We started telling her about the Book of Mormon too, and it really interested her to know that Christ visited the American continent. We watched the Book of Mormon video about it for the spiritual message at the end of the meal and they were all pretty impacted by it. We could tell that the message and the spirit really opened their eyes and their hearts. I’m really excited to see how teaching them goes. 

Mercedes and Nicole are also progressing really well! They both love reading the Book of Mormon and learning more about the Church. Nicole has come to church 3 weeks in a row, and people have started asking her if she’s a member haha. They have both said they would like to be baptized, they just want to learn more first. So, that’s what we’ll do!! 

There was also one day where me and Hermana Madsen decided to go try a Colombian restaurant in our area, and it went SO WELL!! No only was the food delicious, but we got it for free in exchange for a Book of Mormon, hehe. Okay, that’s not exactly how it went, but that’s the gist of the story. We came to the restaurant with full intentions of paying for our food, but then this very nice couple sat by us and they started talking about our name tags amongst one another (in spanish). I overheard their conversation, so I moved the hair off of my shoulder so they could see, and I introduced ourselves! We had a very delightful conversation about God and about what we believe for our entire lunch block. They then got up to pay for their food and told the cashier that our food was on them as well. They are sweethearts and we’re hoping to meet with them again this week!

Also!! Euro!! We love him so much. He is someone that the sisters had been teaching before I got here, and he is on date for baptism. We drew new boundaries, now that there are 6 missionaries in the ward, so he actually belongs to the Elder’s area. Me and Hermana Madsen have taught him a couple of lessons with the Elders so we can make the transition. One of those lessons was one of my favorites of the whole mission.The main plan for that lesson was for the Elders to give him a priesthood blessing to help him have the strength he needs to continue to progress towards baptism, even though he has some tough hurdles in his life he needs to jump over.  

We all went to his apartment complex and sat outside in the beautiful weather and just talked about how wonerful Heavenly Father is, and how wonderful Jesus Christ is, and how wonderful repentance is. I loved every second of that lesson. I also loves co-teaching with the Elders, because I got to watch missionary work happen from a third person perspective. The Elders are both incredible teachers and Euro is a fanastic human being. After the lesson, the Elders gave Euro a priesthood blessing. The spirit was so strong and so sweet. I'm grateful to have been a part of that experience. I don’t think I’ll forget it anytime soon. 

The last friend I want to tell you guys about is my bestie Oscar!!!! He’s actually a recent convert from when I was in the Buena Ventura ward. He’s always lived in the Valencia ward boundaries, but he preferred going to the Buena Ventura ward, so that’s where he was baptized. He lives up here in my area with his non-member family, which can be tough sometimes. We called him last night and had a tender conversation about how to keep the influence of the spirit in our lives, even in tough circumstances and even after we mess up. Repentance truly is a joy and I’m so grateful to have learned a bit of that joy as I’ve been out here in the Happiest Place on Earth. 

Wow, I have so much more I could write about. But I’ll spare you the novel. Life is really good, even if imperfect, here in the Valencia ward. When we first started the transfer with 6 missionaries, everyone feared there wouldn’t be enough work for the 6 of us to do. We all hustled hard and tried our best, and proved ourselves wrong. Last night, we totaled it up and we taught 104 lessons as a ward. 

It’s been so fun to let my desire to teach the gospel be what gets me out of bed in the morning and out the door for the day. We’ve biked a lot (my legs are getting stronger!!) and we’ve met so many wonderful people. This is a good life, my friends.

Small Plates 

I will go before thee

We've been biking a lot this week. That’s what happens when you share a car with another companionship and you don’t cover the same area. 

Since Hermana Madsen has been in the area longer than I have, she normally bikes in front, and leads the way. 

I was reading in Ether 1 this week, and I noticed a similar pattern. The Lord explains the plan He has for the Jaredites, i. e. their travel to the promised land via boat. It doesn’t sound like a walk in the park, but it was ultimately intended for their benefit. 

Even though their travel was a good thing, it was a hard thing. But the Lord promised them one thing: “I will go before thee.”

He was going to take them down a bumpy road. It wasn't going to be easy. But He promised them that he was going to go before them, He was going to lead them by the hand. 

That’s how our lives are too. Life can be kind of a bumpy road, but we, too, can have the promise that the Lord will lead us by the hand. He will go before us. 

Just as my companion has guided me around Orlando, treacherous as the way may be at times, I can trust that the Savior has been there before. No matter where “there” is. Anything we will ever go through, anything we will ever have to overcome, He’s gone through it. He has overcome it. We can trust that He has been there before, and that He knows how to lead us along.