A prayer of gratitude

This week was one of MIRACLES! I started the week with a goal that for the entire week that I would only give prayers of gratitude. In the beginning it was really hard cause I would catch myself asking for things and would have to back track and start my  prayers over and just give thanks cause you`re always just in the habbit of asking for certain things like for your family and investigators, etc. But I thought it `d be a great way to show my gratitude to the Lord for being in this sector, it was a rough start, but we are starting to see the fruits of our hard work.

We did our usual 2 exchanges this week, first with Hna.Thomas who used to be in this sector. She`s like a good luck charm, whenever I do exchanges with her I have an awesome day! We were able to put some more investigators with a baptismal date and find some good new people  including a newly wed couple of evangelicals who are so tough! They have their doctrine so mixed up and are so set in their ways it`s difficult to teach them the restoration because they don`t understand the apostasy and that prophets communicate with God face to face, but I`m ready with some bible verses for next time!

Then we got a call from the office, turns out someone who recieved a temple pass-along card from us ACTUALLY called the number on the back and asked where the temple was in Chile and has a lot of problems in her life right now and wanted us to visit her. It was the ONLY time one of the atleast 100 cards I give out weekly worked, woohooo!!! So statistically speaking 1 out of every 5000 cards given out gets us a referal, haha!

Also there was an earthquake during our district meeting, that was fun, and it drizzled the other day!!! I miss the rain so much, I just want to hear a thunder storm and I`ll be happy :) We`re moving into fall so the weather is cooling down and is a bit weird, but a good thing for missionaries!

Now the low-down on our progressing investigators:

David, Carolina, and Benjamin are our golden family who are progressing towards a baptismal date for March 16th. She didn`t go to church last sunday cause she felt bad she didn`t have a skirt and wanted to go appropriately dressed to show respect for God, so this week she bought a skirt and we went with the whole family to Stake Conference! We had the amazing opportunity to participate in a regional conference only for Chile by sattelite and they talked about mainly the importance of families, eternal marriage, and obeying the law of chastity. David and Carolina aren`t married and we taught her about the law of chastity this week but David was at work so it couldn`t of been more perfect cause it was JUST what they needed to hear! She said she`s always dreamed of being dressed in white and having a wedding and that her and David had plans to get married that didn`t follow through but that they still want to do it and are gonna talk about it! Woohoo!!!

Then we have Ricardo, who we feared was going to turn into an eternal investigator because although he would get baptized tomorrow if he could, he isn`t married to his baby-momma either and so he can`t. This week we had a special lesson with him and his partner who is less-active, Gloria, and taught them about charity, the pure love of Christ and how even though they are going through a rough spot in their relationship they can fall in love again if they first love like Christ did. That friday we took them to the temple and got a tour from the sister  missionaries. We were able to take them in as far as the lobby where the recommendation desk is at and as the temple doors closed behind us it was evident we were no longer in the world. I haven`t been inside the temple in almost a year, we`re only allowed to go in April as missonaries, but when I stood in the lobby amidst the silence and the soft organ music playing in the background the sweetest sensation came over me and it was as if I was back home after a long long time. My eyes teared up as the spirit reconfirmed to me that this was the literal House of God, I could feel His presence, and the memory of the covenants I`ve made therein and more that I will someday make to my eternal companion overwhelmed me. Having to wait 4 more months until I can go back inside is killing me!!! Ricardo and Gloria felt something special, too. They said they felt as though there was more people surrounding them although it was just the  5 of us the 2 sisters and the brother at the desk, and we bore testimony that the temple is a piece of heaven on earth, that the ordinances there are for the living and the dead and that the veil between us and them is very thin within the temple walls. It was a special day for all of us, one I`ll never forget. Later that week Ricardo also assisted the Stake Conference, upon hearing the broadcast given by several Elders of the 70, one of the primary general leaders and Elder Cook of the 12 Apostles on marriage and saving ordinances he came upto us and  said "this week I`m going to the registro civil and I`m gonna pick a date for Gloria and I to get married." It was as if a bomb landed in the room, Hna.Ireland and I almost shouted for joy! We`re going to see him tonight to work out the details on what they need for the civil ceremony! So looks like my goal for 2014 of marrying an investigator so they can get baptized was also the will of the Lord and we`re going to have 2 weddings in march!!! YEAH!

Lastly, after the saturday session of the conference a girl came upto me and introduced herself as Paula the girlfriend of one of the YSA age men in the stake. She said we had visited her mom and as she described to me where she lived I remembered having contacted her mom one day knocking on doors this week, we had set an appointment and passed by several times with no luck, but something kept telling me to keep trying and in fact we had passed by that evening just before the conference! Then she pronounced the most angelical words any missionary would die to hear "I want to be baptized!"...wait-what-when?! "as soon as possible!", okay can we come over today?! Hahahaha! So crazzyyyy!!!! We set an appointment, she has the required assistance for sacrament meeting so we literally just need to teach her the discussions and dunk her! I told her to pick a date for herself, usually we pray about and challenge them to prepare for a certain date, but her circumstance is special so I thought it`d be more special for her to get baptized on a sunday of her choice.

Guy seriously, missonary work is so awesome!!!! There is nothing more amazing for than this!!! They say that a missionaries last 6 months are when they`re at their peak, this was made evident this week as I hit my 1 year mark and broke new personal records having 7 investigators at church 6 of which are progressing towards a baptismal date, and soon Paula when she picks a date tomorrow! Truly a week of miracles and so many more to come next month as we help our brothers and sisters come unto Christ through the waters of baptism, all because of a prayer of gratitude.

Hna.Ibarra

Dog bites, holy shoes and sector attack!

When will the mission NOT be crazy...NEVER! But not complaining because it`s what keeps me pumped and motivated to keep going and on my toes for what the Lord`s gonna throw next at us! 

This week we started out doing exchanges with my sisters in Curacavi aka the sector that is the love of my life! Hna.Stum came with Hna.Flores and I, this is her last transfer so I was eager to learn from her experience and get advice to help me in my last 6 months in Chile. We headed out to a street to knock on doors when all of a sudden I hear Hna.Flores scream and a dog barking. Dogs bark at us all the time and she is super super scared of dogs so I didn`t think it was anything unusual until I saw her limping and crying and blood on her foot. Some dog from the street bit her foot, it wasn`t too bad, only one fang tooth punctured the skin so she had a little dot but since it was a dog from the street protocol is that she get the rabi`s shot- did I mention her second greatest fear after dogs are needles? We were near a store and the owner came out and made a huge show and kicked the dog and gave us a bandaid and directed us to the nearest clinic. So we walked over but they told us the vaccination clinic opens at 2 again after lunch and we were too early, so we went home, at lunch and then returned. They directed us to 5 different places before finally telling us that the emergency hours are at 5pm and they can`t attend her now so we just cleaned her wound again, made sure she wasn`t foaming from the mouth and headed out to our lessons. Later that night while we were getting ready for bed we got a call from out mission president. I thought he was just checking up on the dog situation, but then he switched from talking spanish to talking english-this usually means he wants to be understood and that it`s something serious so I listened attentively as he told me that another sister had to go home because of knee problems and that Hna.Flores was gonna get emergency transferred to Lo Ovalle in Quilicura- nooooooo!!!!! We just got her a couple weeks ago! She`s been emergency transfered 3 times already because of similar situations and I knew she`d be upset now that she was getting used to the sector, so I let president break the news to her. She was super sad and cried it out a bit, but Hna.Stum and I assured her that this shows the confidence that not only Pdt. Essig but the Lord has in her to help when there`s a problem. So the next day we helped her pack and took her to her new sector and finished out our exchanges. I was relieved to have my companion Hna.Ireland back after 4 days without her, she was said though cause she didn`t get to say good-bye to Hna.Flores, but I`m sure we`ll see eachother around sometime soon. 

Later in the week we had interviews with President.YAY!!!! I love having interviews with him, he asked about my concerns with the sisters in my zone and sent me off with a scripture. Usually if he doesn`t have much to say it`s a good thing cause he`s not worried about anything and moves on to the next missionary. That same day we had what`s called an Ataque de Sector aka Sector Attack, where missionaries from the MTC in Chile who are soon to go to the field go on splits with us for a couple of hours to see what it`s like. I went with Hna.Truman from Las Vegas and we knocked on doors and visited a less active and I had her practice contacting and bearing her testimony and offering the prayers. In the beginning that`s usually the only thing the gringos can do since they`re still learning the language, but she did a great job and it was fun to show her what the mission is like. 

Lastly, we had some AWESOME lessons!!! One was a newly wed couple who are expecting their 1st baby, Betty y Alejandro. They were a referal but we don`t remember from who, but they are SUPER receptive! Their new baby and the death of a relative has influenced them to want to be closer to God. They we`re so normal during the prayer (usually people will have their eyes open or feel awkward) and when we invited them to be baptized they immediately said yes that they`d love that cause they`d never been baptized! WOHOO! The biggest perk is that they`re already married so it`s gonna be a lot easier to help them progress and enter the waters of baptism. We also had a lesson with our golden family David, Carolina & their son Benjamin. We taught them about prophets, it was about our 5th lesson but they still hadn`t been able to ask if the Book of Mormon is true, so at the end of the lesson we kneeled in prayer and invited David to say it and ask if it was true. Afterwards, there was a pause, the spirit flooded the room, I opened my eyes to see all of them in deep meditation, listening, and waiting. I knew they were asking with real intent and after a couple minutes we all sat down and I asked them what they felt. Carolina had tears in her eyes and couldn`t even speak. She couldn`t explain the feeling she had inside nor why she was crying so uncontrolably, it is what EVERY missionary wants their investigators to feel and we testified to her that it was the Holy Ghost confirming to them that these things were true, that that was what it felt like. It was incredible.

There is no greater call, rank, position, job, or status than being a representative of the Lord. There is no greater thing I can be doing in my life right now than this. I thank God daily for the privilege to wear the name of His son on my heart everyday and to be a part of miracles weekly. Thanks everyone for your love and support!

xoxo,

Hna.Ibarra

22!

So this week I kicked it off with my 22nd birthday! Feels so weird, I still feel 21, but it was the best day this week. I woke up to my desk being heart attacked by my lovely companion Hna.Ireland, a birthday card and brownies, yum!!! Then after studying and singing my favorite hymn (More Holiness Give Me) we went to our neighbors house who is less active and seperated with 2 kids and did service for her. We cut her lawn and pulled out the weeds and washed the windows of her house and the best part was that her front neighbor saw us and asked her why we were cleaning and she told her neighbor that we do service and she said she`d love us to come help her out sometime! So after cleaning up and heading out to our appointments we stopped by her neighbors and asked what we can help her with and she told us to come next week to help with her yard and that she`ll give us lunch, awesome!!! Then we went to a couple appointments with the branch counselor and visited some less active neighbors of his so they can meet eachother and fellowship and set up a FHE with one of the less active families who were sealed and the mom is a RM actually! These two families have a ton in common and after being less actives for some time as well I know they can motivate this family to come back to church. Then we went to lunch at a sister`s house, she loves cooking and so when we go over it`s like eating at a restaurant. She puts the table all fancy and cooks THE BEST food. She made an extra special cuban lunch for me and made rice, black beans, sweet plantains, chicken, and for dessert torta de tres leches, pretty much died and went to heaven!!! To die for good!!! Then we had an awesome lesson with Franco our most promising investigator at this point with some of the YSA who are fellowshipping him and had a couple more lessons. We wrapped up the night and we`re on our way home when a woman on a swing-set with her child said "hola hermanas!" We didn`t recognize her so we went upto her to see who she was and introduce ourselves and she said her name was Evelyn, she`s a less active member who moved and lives in the street right before our and that her whole family is members of the church, sealed in the temple and that her parents are actually temple workers, but that her and her sister are less-active. She said she`s married and has one kid but her husband isn`t a member, but that her biggest goal this new year is to come back to church and get sealed to her husband...we were like, "Okaay!!!! Can we write down your info?!" and quickly set an appointment. It was a small miracle and we`re hoping to help her out in her desires to come back to the fold and with her family as well! All in all, I couldn`t of spent my birthday a better way than serving the Lord in this labor of love!

Other fun activities that happened this week is that my poor companion Hna.Ireland got water poisoning when she went on exchanges in a more rural area called Lampa, she was vomiting all day and we had to leave her with members for 2 days so we could go out and work, but she had a speedy recovery and is now super! Also today for p-day some of the other Hermanas and our companionship got together and made a work-out video for the sisters in the mission to help give them ideas for their exercises in the morning. It`s funny because anyone who knows me knows how much I hate working out or physical activities, but it`s one of my favorite things now in the mission! haha! Definitely wanna keep it up afterwards. 

But anyways, thank you everyone for the birthday wishes- my sister sent me all my FB messages and it was so great to hear from so many long-lost friends, you are just so disconnected when your out in the field, so I appreciate it a ton!!! ´Till next week!!!

xoxo,

Hna.Ibarra

Alah, Kolob and Joseph Smith in the same sentence

What a crazy week! Let´s talk about some of the cool lessons we had this week. I´ll start with Cristian, the inspiration for this weeks title. He´s a Mapuche (which are the indigenous people of Chile) and has many interesting beliefs, however his beliefs don´t contradict the gospel, in fact, they support the gospel and there are many similarities, but they just have different names for things. He works in an observatory in Antofagasta and spends most of his time contemplating the stars and outer space which is pretty cool. Our first visit with him he explained that he believes that the beings who created us are extra-terrestrial aliens haha (true because Heavenly Father is not from Earth but dwells on another planet that is not terrestrial) and that they have an energy that can be transfered and gives light and life to all things on Earth (also true, this energy is known as the light of Christ) and that they have created many other worlds and not just ours (also true). As we confirmed the truth of his beliefs and explaiond the correct terms for these principles we taught him the plan of Salvation and left him with a Book of Mormon to read and explained it´s ancient origins and how these people were the ancestors of the indigenous people of the America´s including the Mapuche. A couple days later we visited him to teach the restoration and he read the introduction of the Book of Mormon and the chapter we left him Alma 22 about King Lamoni´s father who believes in a great spirit and learns from Ammon that it is God. He brought up that God has many names, like Alah or this great spirit that was mentioned in the Book of Mormon and then, the most incredible part, he said that he believed in Kolob and that he found it in the Book of Mormon. My jaw hit the floor and my companions and I just stared at eachother. "hold up, hold up, hold up...kolob?!", He said "yes, kolob, the beings that created us live on a planet near this star." We were all so taken back, no one knew what to say. "Where did you hear about that?", He said  "in my studies, and actually I found it in your Book of mormon in the back where there´s a dictionary of words (the topical guide) and it agrees with my beliefs, do you teach this to everyone you visit?" we answered "uhhhhh...no not really, but it´s true!" We then taught him the restoration of the gospel and testified of the truth of these things and invited him to be baptized. He said yes and we´re crossing our fingers it´ll happen!

We also found a golden family, David, Carolina & Benjamin their 9 year old son. Everytime you meet investigators with kids we eagerly ask for their age and once they say 8 or above I think every missionary gives a mental "YESSS!!!!" hahaha They aren´t married but planned on it before but things always came up and it never happened. They came to church last sunday and felt super comfortable there and really want to start going to teach their son the importance of God and to strengthen the spiritual aspect of their lives. A goal of mine since the beginning of the mission and that I set for this new year is to marry a couple who´s investigating the church so they can get married and to baptize a family and they are IT! I just know it! This family is so special, and they want to do everything together as a family. They want to read the Book of Mormon together as a family (and have been), pray as a family together to know the Book of Mormon is true and go to church as a family. It is something so unique, I´ve never seen a family of investigators so united and with so much love for eachother, they are just made for the gospel of Jesus Christ! We have an appointment with them today and are going to extend a baptismal date for march.

Latsly, we have Franco who I might´ve mentioned before. He and his parents are Jehova´s Witnesses, but his parents are sepperated, in fact, his mom got excommunicated from the Jehova´s Witnesses so he lives with his dad. He was listening to missionaries last year and was going to be baptized but couldn´t obtain permission from his parents since he was 17. But now he´s 18 and is dating a member of the church and said he loves the hope this gospel brings for an eternity of happiness after this life (the Jehova´s Witnesses believe in really different doctrine and that only a certain # of chosen ones will live with God and be saved...sad). We taught him at the branch president´s house since his parents don´t want missionaries over and it was such a great lesson! We taught him the plan of salvation as well and testified of the truth that all of Gid´s children have the opportunity in this life or the next to inherit the Celestial Kingdom based on their desires and merits in this life. It was so great!

So evern though everyone´s leaving on vacation and our sector is a bit closed-minded the Lord has been guiding us through His spirit to those ready to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and change their lives forever. This Church is true and this work is true, and I feel so blessed to be anxiously engaged in so great a cause!

Love you all family & friends...´till next week!

Spiritual cookie "This should be our purpose—to persevere and endure, yes, but also to become more spiritually refined as we make our way through sunshine and sorrow. Were it not for challenges to overcome and problems to solve, we would remain much as we are, with little or no progress toward our goal of eternal life." -Pdt Thomas S. Monson

xoxo,
Hna.Ibarra

I hate summer break

So down in the Southern hemisphere we`re in the middle summer, it`s deathloy hot, but kinda nice that I don`t have to wear 20 layers of close and all the fruits in season, yummm!!! (you can`t find fruit here unless it`s in season, not like the states where they have everything pretty much year round) The past couple weeks have been tough because as we go into summer vacation everyone is going out of town, mainly to the south of Chile where it`s super green and beautiful, for several months to be with their family and we`ve lost literally half of our investigators for one reason or another, so we are again in the process of finding newbies to teach. We we`re able to contact 2 AWESOME referals and I have so much faithi in them! One is Franco, he`s 18 and used to be Jehova Witness. He wanted to be baptized when he was 17 but his parents said no, but now is dating a member and now that he`s not underage he really wants to do it! He knows the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet and we gave him a baptismal date for February. The other referal we got her name was Betty. She lives in an apartment building that`s closed with a gate so unless you have a key you can`t get in, but turns out everytime we walked by it was open! We went twice with no luck, finally yesterday we were gonna go for the last time before considering her as contacted since we could never find her and she was there! She answered the door with her partner and they let us in, not only that, but they have so many qualities we look for in people who are receptive and ready to hear the gospel: they`re newlyweds (rare to find married people in Chile and if they`re not married they can`t be baptized unless they do or move out to different apts), she`s expecting their 1st child, they don`t profess any religion but believe in God, and Alejandro her husband just lost his father a week ago! WOW! It was just so amazing to see all those qualities in one person and they loved our visit and want to learn more. Lastly, we found some investigators saturday, a man we contacted on the street. We taught them the restoration of the gospel and Pedro the father had really good questions. His partner (they`re not married) Carolina said she believes in God but doesn`t really do anything to show her faith so we invited her to pray and for them to join us at church the next day. Sunday came and we called them 15 minutes before sacrament meeting started, they said they were eating breakfast but that they`d get dressed and come!...and they did! They said they felt super comfortable at church and are looking forward to our visit this week! Seriously guys, the Lord will put people in your path who are ready to listen to the truth, who are looking for it, who need that spiritual aspect in their life-the hardest part is finding them, we need to be diligent, suffer with patience, be humble, and the Lord will reward us accordingly and guide us to His chosen vessels.

Another cool thing that happened this week is that IT RAINED! It`s a very rare occurence in Santiago cause they`re in a drought. I`ve actually been in more earthquakes than rain showers, it`s only rained like 4-5 times in the 11 months I`ve been here. Also, we did exchanges and I was able to reunite with my baby girl Hna.Broadhead! We were so happy to be companions aain even if it was for a day! She`s like my twin when she teaches and does contacts in the street, it`s funny to see how many habbits and things you pick up from your trainer. 

Lastly, today we went to Patronato which is where they have all the clothing and shoe stores and I ran into my first convert Manuel Ortiz from Til-Til!!! It was so crazy!!! I was so happy to see him, I almost cried! We took a picture because the picture we took together the day we got baptized got erasewd cause my old camera was on crack and would randomly erase pictures and I was so sad. It was a nice tender mercy from the Lord :)

Love you all!!! 

Spiritual cookie: "Let us have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval. Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully, but as the determination to live decently. A moral coward is one who is afraid to do what he thinks is right because others will disapprove or laugh. Remember that all men have their fears, but those who face their fears with dignity have courage as well."

xoxo,

Hna.Ibarra

Another 6 weeks in Nueva Renca!

So Hna.Ireland and Hna.Flores and I are staing another transfer, yay! Every transfer goes by faster and faster I seriously don´t get it! It´s funny cause on the mission you don´t really think of time as months or days but as transfers aka 6 week periods, and I only have 5 more left, eeeeeeekkkk!!!! The world needs to rotate a little slower!

To wrap up the transfer we did our last exchanges with the sisters from Curacavi my foremer sector. It was great cause I got to ask them about the members and my converts and former investigators we had and how they´re doing and give them advice to help them keep progressing in the gospel. Something super crazy and funny that happened this week is that one night while we were walking home at the end of the day we turned a corner to the main road and the houses here have walls and gates all around them and as we turned the corner there was a man (not a teenager, not a child...A MAN) crouching ontop of the wall surrounding this house and he hissed at us! I looked up and totally freaked out and he said something in a language that I don´t think exists and we booked it across the street to the other side. It was sooooo funny but also kinda creepy, a lot of sketchy people around here, haha! This week was Hna.Flores´s birthday so we celebrated by eating a lot of cake and candy thanks to the members and random people on the street who gave us free food cause we´d tell them it was our companions birthday! So my plan is to keep my b-day on the DL and not tell anyone cause that will most certainly ruin all my diet and excerising these past months. Besides that nothing crazy has happenned this week and just pumped to do exchanges with my new group of sisters and to work my head off finding the amazing people the Lord has prepared to accept this gospel. In this area we work a lot with less-actives, it´s totally different than how I´ve had to work in other sectors, but I´m learning so many new things and love rekindling the fire that was once their testimony with my own flame.

I guess today I want to take more time to write not so much about what has happenned this week but about my thoughts. This transfer I´ll have a year in the mission, I know I still have a lot of time left but in retrospect I know I really don´t and that these months are going to fly by. Recently I´ve had to fill out scholarship applications, find housing for this fall, making goals for this new year and having to think about my future after the mission and it is starting to terrify me a little, really it´s a scary thought, to think I´m going to go back to "reality" soon. But I want to speak a little here to those who have already returned from the mission, that this life- the life in the mission, is reality. THIS is real life, that is as real as life gets, a life where you are 100% dedicated to the Lord, apart from the world and it´s many distractions, a life where 24/7 you are talking to real people with real problems and trying to help them by testifying of the reality of this restored gospel and the Savior´s atonement. When you serve a mission you do this forever, you have to serve the Lord forever, you have to love others forever, you have to share the gospel forever, you have to consecrate all that you have and all that you are for this great cause, not just for 18-24 months, but for a life time. The mission is the MTC of life and what you learn here you have to take with you and live the mission always. And really I´m scared to have to go back and live in "the world" and be exposed to wordly things and have temptations and people trying to pressure or influence me to take other paths. Living the gospel is so easy as a missionary, you have a time to pray, a time to study the scriptures, you witness miracles and blessings daily, you have the companionship of the holy ghost constantly to guide you, and you always know what to do and when to do it. You have EVERY 30 minutes of your life planned for 18-24 months WITH back-up plans, goals, and how your going to accomplish them. My greatest fear right now, greater than getting married (some of ya´ll know how much that intimidates me) is that I´ll come home and not be able to keep up with it all, that I´ll slowly revert and slum back to the world I came from, the world I once knew, the world I once felt comfortable in, that I´ll go back to speaking the language and following the customs of the world I was once a part of. My greatest goal this new year is that I can be a Returned Missionary and not an Ex Missionary. Here´s the difference: the ex missionary has forgotten who he once was, what he has learned on the mission, what he expected of his investigators which is exactly what the Lord expects of each one of us, he is no longer the obedient, diligent, honest, virtuous, chaste, miracle-seeking, faith-building man or woman he was, but has once again conformed to the ways of the world. But the return missionary never forgets, never regrets, never justifies, never is the person he was before the time he consecrated his all to the Lord, but continues to lay all things upon the altar of sacrafice and to qualify daily for the companionship of the holy ghost and to receive the promised blessings of the covenants he made in the holy temple. May you never be an ex missionary is my word of advice to all of you who have served. Have a great week :)

"Never look back. Look ahead at what we still have to do." Elder Edward Dube

Hna.Gladys Ibarra 

Prospero año y felicidad!

Man what a hectic week, when is it ever not?! This week now that we finally have our stable companion in our trio who is NOT leaving we`ve had to finish doing our exchanges so we had to do 3 this week and 3 more this last week of the transfer. With all this mayhem the transfer went by super fast and it just keeps freaking me out more and more how time goes by- like 2014?! When did that happen?! Happy New Years to all!!! We had our normal missionary schedule and had to be in at 10 p.m. as usual cause it`s dangerous. So after praying and planning we just sat around talking and looking at the clock waiting for it to be midnight. That`s when I oh-so sneakidly (idk if that`s a real word?) pulled out a can of silly string and attacked  my companions with the spray! They all screamed and went running, ha ha, it was so fun! But compared to last years pitbull concert it`s gonna be a little hard to beat, I have faith next year will be better. 

So 2 miracles that happened this week, First on the day that was prognosticated (probably not real either) to be the hottest this year- 37 degrees celcius there just so happened to be a forest fire a couple of towns over and thousand of acres were burnt and completely covered the sky with smoke and it was raining ash, sounds kinda scary, but really it covered the sun and made it a lot less hot so it was a blessing in disguise and I know many prayers were answered including our mission president who always prays for us after he watches the weather reports, haha, bless his heart. Miracle number 2 was that I contacted a lady on the street, I had talked to her before but she wasn`t interested much but I thought I`d give it a second try, she let us over and turns out her son is an inactive member who is going through a lot of trials right now, he`s sepperated from his wife but she lives across the street so it`s kinda complicated, but he said that earlier he had felt a weird feeling inside, like something pricked his heart, 5 minutes later we arrived. He felt it was a sign from God and wants to start over and become active again so we we`re super excited to have talked to his mom! That`s the thing that`s so great about the mission, you see miracles everyday, and if you`re not seeing the miracles then you need to ask yourself why. Anyways, love you all family and friends! Hope you`ve set some awesome goals for this new year, here are a couple of mine:

-Complete my mission in one piece! haha

-Finish reading the Old Testament

-Marry an investigator so he/she can be baptized

-Teach and baptize a family

-Volunteer at the MTC

-Get accepted to the Nursing program

-Save money so I can buy a car

-Go hang-gliding

it`s weird because I have mission goals mixed with real life goals, I can`t believe I`ll be home this year! Aaaahhhh!!!!

p.s. my birthday is the 28th! Send me dear elders :)