Feliz dia de los Padres! Feliz 8 meses hoy

First, I want to wish my dad the best fathers day because my dad is the coolest guy in the whole world. and the best example ever. love you daddy!

so we got the best news last week. so the rule for going to the temple is different for every mission. our rule is that you cant go unless you reactivate a less active family and go with them, or you take someone you baptized a year later.. both these things are very uncommon so basically we just can never go which is super sad because we need the strength and blessings of the temple! but our president says missionaries are not here to do work for the dead, but for the salvation of the living. which is true. anyways, our president knows that we are kind of lacking in faith so he said that we can go to the temple! this tuesday as a district, what a great birthday present!! im super excited.

so like i said, we are struggling a little bit in the mish. two weeks ago, our district leader told us that the spanish side of the mission was struggling and not getting as many baptisms as english. so president told our DL that we needed to set 8 baptismal dates as a district before we go to the temple together, so we can take the names there with us and pray for them. there is 10 missionaries in our district. he then proceeded to teach a really cool lesson on faith. to be honest, i didnt see how this was possible. it has been really hard in this area to set dates because no body keeps commitments! but none of wanted to let president down. so like miraculously, on tuesday me and my comp set 6 baptismal dates in our area. it was the cooolest of my life. when we called and told our leaders they were so relieved. and president was happy but said, "You know what,  I'm not even surprised because you and Hermana Perry are amazing missionaries" that was nice. so the rest of the district got 4, we surpassed our goal of 8!

The people we have dates with our Claudia. She is 18 and just super awesome and reads in the book of mormon and just knows its true and just started coming to church and is super excited to be baptized. Shes amazing

Then Marnie and Mariana. they are from Columbia and super awesome. its a mom and daughter. their aunt that lives in columbia is member over there! they have all the lessons and finally just started coming to church. they also read so much in the BOM and understand.

and then the Hernandez family who i talked about last week in my letter! 

sometimes its hard being on a mission because all your friends forget about you, but thank you so much to all my family that sent me birthday presents! #familyfirst

so this morning i was studying on my wonderful ipad, two ensign talks called The Path to Palmyra, and The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon. It reminded me a lot of my Church History Tour Trip. I really really loved them.  im just going to insert some direct quotes. and invite you all the increase and strengthen your testimony of Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon. So we can be prepared and ready to share our testimonies and bring others unto the fold of Christ.

"Decide now to become a student of the life of the Prophet Joseph

Smith. There is power and wisdom in his life like no other, save the
life of the Savior Himself."

"From beginning to end, Book of Mormon testimony and history show that
God is anxiously willing to work with, heal, and bless those
who--despite their sins and imperfections--turn to Him in genuine
contrition and faith."

"Like Joseph Smith, you need not lead a perfect life in order to be a

powerful instrument in God’s hands. Mistakes, failure, and confusion
were part of Joseph’s life and mission, and they are going to be part
of yours too. But do not despair. Do not be tempted to think that “all
is lost.” All is not lost and will never be lost for those who look to
the God of mercy and live."

Tan Line Season

so nothing new about the weather, its hot and humid and i still want to die. we have some tropical storm warnings this week and im just going to copy the message we got from our leaders this morning:

"hello missionaries. there is a high chance of serious tropical storm this week! please be prepared! keep an emergency bag in your car with water, clothes, snacks, ect. keep your car with a full tank of gas, and dont drive towards water that look questionable! also keep your service clothes in the car; we might be helping a lot of people this week. we love you all and want you to be safe!"

now im going to talk about the Hernandez family! so we found this family going through our contacts on the phone. we called and they said we could come by and visit the family. It is a mom, dad, and two kids ages 13 and 6. they have missionaries before a while ago, and had assisted church, and all have book of mormons. i don't know why the missionaries stopped visiting them. the mom told us that they have been having some seriously family problems, and its true. they are just not unified. my wonderful companion shared the scripture in Heleman 5:12 about how our lives need to be founded on the rock of our Redeemer. they agreed. they started praying and reading together as a family. we had the temple tours yesterday and they came and it was amazinggggg. the dad said, "well we need to be baptized so we can go in and be sealed here as a family" and the mom was like well yeah, we need to go to church first. so they are going to be baptized!

speaking of baptism, on Saturday my two investigators Amanda and Vanessa Alcaraz got baptized! it was the best day ever. pictures attached.

also we found this guy knocking and he actually wanted us to teach his mom, but when we went to visit, she wasnt home, but we taught him the restoration, and he was like, "i knew that there had to be more scripture than just the bible!"  he has a ton of questions about everything. we told him to read the BOM and it would answer them he said he'd read the book of mormon. and wants to know more about the plan of salvation and wants us to come back to teach his whole family!

iPads:)

so this week nothing too eventful or exciting happened.

but we did get our iPads! we cant do much, basically just the gospel library app and everything else is super protected and blocked. but its cool

our week was kinda slow and sad but yesterday, i got a call from my old investigators in bear creek, Amanda, Vanessa, and Judy Alcaraz, and they asked me if I would give the talk at their baptism this Saturday!! i seriously couldn't believe it. i started teaching them in January and when i was there they were not progressing at all, but they loved us. I am so excited for them and am thankful the Lord answered my prayers. they started going to church finally and really like it. I'm super nervous to give the talk, but i am so happy. In missionary work, no effort is ever wasted.

i never cherished it before my mission, but i love the word of God so much, especially the Book of Mormon. if everybody in the world knew how happy it could make you, everyone would read it all the time! this week i also read a talk i really liked in the Ensign by Henry B. Eyring called, Families can be together forever, he says; "We owe our families the kind of relationship we can take into the presence of God. We must try not to give offense or take offense." i really like that quote. it reminds me of my dad. he is really good at not taking offense and just loving everyone even if they dont like him. 

love you, take care! :)

la semana de tormentos y no mias

So this past week was the most eventful, interesting, hardest week of my mission so far..

I have a lot to say so be prepared, but you'll want to read it, because you will laugh in pitty of my life.

So for those of you not cool enough to know spanish, the subject is, The week of storms and no miles.. 

so as missionaries with cars, we only get a limited amount of miles for each month, and we you reach the limit, you walk. so this last week, we reached our limit. Which meant 6 days of walking in horrrrible weather. 

So if any of yall keep up on Houston news, we have been experiencing a little bit of bad weather lately.. like tornadoes and such. so last monday night, it was storming really really bad. we got home safe to our apartment but the other missionaries in our zone did not. their cars were flooded and some apartments. while they were driving the water went up to the windows, and water started coming up through the floor boards so they had to leave their cars through the windows and walk home. the it was kinda scary, the next day tuesday, we had a mission wide conference for the ipads, so president had called us super late on monday and asked us to go pick up the other missionaries for the conference. we did it but were not pleased because we had no miles. in the morning when went out to the roads it looked like a zombie apocalypse. there were stranded cars everywhere. and life flight helicopters. the water on the roads was so high it completely covered trucks. so we had to end up taking a detour to the conference to avoid flooded roads. we ended up taking a toll road but didnt know it, and when we realized, we realized none of us had any money. we legit dug through our purses to find change. and we found the exact amount of 1.75 that we needed. that was a miracle.

the conference was super long and boring. it was a 5 hour training on how we should and should not use the ipads. and we didnt even get them! we have to read some pamphlets first and do some more online-training before we get them this friday. after the training we went back to our area and started our day, walking! I was sweating so much i looked vagabunda(homeless). it was interesting. 

early wednesday morning it started raining just as hard. i had a dentist appointment but i called and cancelled it because there was no way we were leaving the house! once it stopped we went out, walking once again. i stopped wearing makeup or even trying to get ready because you just sweat so much it doesnt matter. it literally blows my mind how my sister rode a bike her whole mission in florida. I know now why God put me in a car mission because i would of probably already quit if i wasnt. today was the day i got super sunburnt. it was hot. but we did find two new investigators that let us in and teach them right away. that was nice.

thursday was the same thing, a lot of walking and sweating. i think the most annoying thing is all the hispanic guys who always honk at us or whistle or try to give us rides.. super creepy

friday was the same but the coolest thing ever happened. a member in our ward, Aurora, took us out to eat. her son just left on his mission to alaska! she is super beautiful and young and single. she was telling us how she hadnt been to the temple yet but she was preparing to go. and she asked me if I would be her escort! i was liked stunned, but so happy! i havent been to the temple in like over 7 months. ha i dont know how im going to help her because i wont even know what im doing.. also this morning, we had district meeting. it was only 4 miles away to the church, so walked. and it was so humid and hot and gross. we arrived to the meeting looking very much vagabunda

saturday, we were walking a lot again, but today it was raining! yay.. we had our umbrellas and were walking from one cita to the next and my companion(who is a saint) saw a lady walking with her little boy and gave them her umbrella! she literally is so Christlike. i am very blessed! she has not complained once this whole week, she is definitely the better half.

yesterday, our investigator that we have been teaching for two months finally came to church for the first time! that was cool. we also found one of my old investigators from bear creek and started teaching her again her name is matilda and she has three adorable girls and the cutest puppy(pictures attached)

well its the start of June! so we have more miles and i'll stop complaining now. but also my birthday is this month and i dont want to get any older so im praying for time to slow down!

dios les bendiga!

the two year old is holding a Jesus pass along card in her hand, so cute! :)