Kidnapping! Transfer! Christmas Phone Call!

First of all – Some of you may have heard that two sisters in Carolyn’s mission were abducted on Wednesday, Dec 19^th.  It was change day.  They were held for almost 3 days and were rescued by a Guatemalan Kidnapping Task Force and the FBI!  One of the men was wanted for murdering one of his kidnapping victims last June.  According to the news reports, Hna Trevino said they never cried, taught them some of the discussions, and felt as if they were being encircled by angels the whole time!  What a blessing their safe return was.  Here are a couple of links to stories about it.

Az Fox News report

Washington Post article

Deseret News article

Our Christmas day phone call was awesome!  Of course our first questions were about the kidnapping.  They were told about it by the mission office and were told not to talk to anyone about it.  When it was over, they were all notified.  She has always felt safe!  

She has been called to be the Retention Leader for her new zone.  The sister from Mesa that was abducted is the Retention Leader for the whole mission, so she will be meeting with her monthly.  The Retention Leader is responsible to keep tabs on all members who were baptized within the last year and make sure they are attending their meetings.  

So she finally has a phone and will be going to Guatemala City monthly for meetings with Hna Trevino. 

Her new companion is a “Norte” from Paragonah, about 15 minutes north of Cedar!  This is her companion's last change and she will be coming home in February.  It will be fun for us to get to meet her and attend her homecoming!  

She is enjoying all her Christmas presents, but doesn’t want to wear any of her new clothes because she just sweats all day long!  

She really loves her new area.  There are 18 missionaries in her zone and they are the only sisters.  They are looking forward to the mission almost doubling in size in early 2013.  She’s happy!  Just truly happy!  It was great to hear her voice and hard to hang up!

New companion - Hna Neighbor from Paragoonah!

Well, here is her email from Monday, December 24^th:

I´m in La Gomera which is in a different zone but it´s about an hour away from Escuintla. YEAH HNA NEIGHBOR IS MY COMP AND SHE´S THE HNA FROM PARAGONAH!! Legit right?! 

¡Feliz Navidad! Well this week has been just a little bit crazy getting to know the people and the area. I think Heavenly Father has been preparing me to be here with Hna. Neighbor. I´m super happy she is my companion and I´m really happy to be here in La Gomera right now even though the heat is KILLING ME! haha But it's really great here and all the people are really nice. Since it´s Hna. Neighbor´s last change she wants to have 17 baptisms so we are going to be working really hard this change! The people here have been really receptive and the members here are really great too. Hna. Neighbor walks faster than I run so that's going to take some getting use to haha but she´s great a WAY hard worker so I´m happy for that. I don´t know I just have never been happier than now in my mission. All have my companions have been great but I don´t know I just really think Heavenly Father is giving me A LOT of help to get accustomed to the area and everything because seriously everyday I´m just really happy (even though I think I´m going to have shin splints from walking so fast and I sweat SO much). The branch is really cool and we have a few really good investigators. The Law of Chastity is the biggest problem here because everyone has an extra wife or husband OR they´re 14 years old and pregnant. None of that really matters though because I feel like we´re going to have a lot of success in this area.  

Anyway we changed houses the day after I got here and we´re probably going to change houses again too so things have been really busy and I haven’t taken any pictures but next week I PINKY PROMISE I will send pictures. The houses here suck and our shower is always cold but it´s really refreshing since (I promise this is the last time I´ll say it) IT´S SO FREAKING HOT ALL THE TIME!! 

Well I just want to tell you that I love you both so much and I hope you have a good rest of your day and I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow! At 3 30 then would be the best. LOVE YOU!! 

Getting Transferred Tomorrow!

So here is the news....WE´RE BOTH GETTING TRANSFERRED ..they’re closing the area for hermanas and sending elders. We think the district leader is going to be in our area because they have split the zone so they need a new district. I still don’t know if I’m going to be senior companion but I got called to be the retention leader for the zone that I will be in (where ever that is...) so things were crazy yesterday with all the packing and stuff. ALSO we will be writing the 24th to let you know everything about the phone calls. The only sisters that are entering are ones that are waiting for visas so no one from the US right now. Transfers are tomorrow.

OH and I got lots of packages :) Hna Alvarado and Hna Garcia from Ecuador got their packages but Hna Garcia who is my comp right now (well til tomorrow) didn't get hers and I didn't get my package with the towels or undershirts...sorry I already opened everything :) haha THANK YOU SO SO SO SO MUCH! I LOVE IT ALL! And Janice sent me lots of clothes and stuff too that I love so thank you :) ALSO the NY Time’s article got cut off in the middle if you can send it to me right now and I can print it.

This week has been really good! A little crazy but good.

The first thing I want to talk about is our HUGE miracle of W...she´s the teenager that just started coming to church by herself. When we talked to her last week she said she wanted to get baptized and then the next time we taught her Hna Garcia said that if she wanted she could get baptized this weekend and she said yes! She had already talked to her family about it and everything so that was great. She couldn't get baptized on Sunday though....but she got baptized yesterday!! It was like the biggest miracle that I have had in my mission so far so I’m super grateful for that! Her mom says that she is super happy about it all so that is great too! She’s a really good example for her family.

Our neighbor V is attending church with us always so that is great and we challenged her to get baptized December 30 and she said yes! She is really great so hopefully all goes well with her.

A isn't reading his assignments so we don’t know what to do with them. Hopefully the other missionaries that come to our area can make a difference..Sometimes it just takes a new perspective. 

We went and taught a guy that’s in the army and he was SUPER PILAS. Seriously understood everything - had great questions...your perfect example of a golden investigator. We asked if he was a member that’s how golden he was..he said no that he had never talked to the missionaries before or gone to church or anything and then we were going to leave him with a Book of Mormon but he said he already had one because someone he works with gave it to him. Then we started talking more and then he said yeah I got baptized when I was 8 because one morning my mom said "get a white shirt ready you’re going to get baptized" haha so we’re checking in to that because if he’s not a member he can get baptized..If he is a member he can get reactivated and baptize his wife! haha

The temple was great. Really early but great. We had good food and we went and painted a school after so that was fun :) yeah I am still planning on coming home in August. Yesterday I tried to make the Pita Bread but it just turned out to be whole wheat tortillas haha it didn´t bubble :(

Well my time is up...just to remind you I will be writing on Monday to let you know about the phone call! I love you both SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much and I hope you have a wonderful week and I will write you on Monday and TALK to you on Tuesday!!! LOVE YOU!

Monday, December 10^th

Neither one of you said anything about the fact that I´ve been gone NINE months already!! You must not miss me....haha jk I know you do because I´m your favorite daughter.

This week has been pretty decent we had ALMOST 27 lessons! Yesterday we did divisions with the ward missionaries which was really cool! The 3 of them are all planning on going on missions ever since Pres.Monson said they can go at 19 they have been getting their paperwork done so that´s really exciting. They are awesome and so ready to go and are teaching parts of the lesson without any problems so that´s awesome.

This week we had a lesson with A & M that went well. We read in 2 Nephi 9 and talked about what Heavenly Father expects of us. A seems to be changing little by little. We went back another time in the week and taught the importance of reading and praying and doing everything he needs to so that he will be able to receive an answer. The only problem is that he is still going to an Evangelical church.

We taught O the Word of wisdom because he had questions about it and when we were talking he said he was going to give up drinking coffee and tea right on the spot! He said that he believes that it´s an important commandment so he wants to complete it. We also taught him this week about the Book of Mormon and he said that he would read it to see if it is true.

We taught a new investigator named E who told us a story about how her son fell out of a tree and they took him to the hospital practically dead and both his arms were broken but she went and prayed and went back the next day and the doctor said that they took another set of x-rays and that his arms weren't broken anymore and that he was fine and could go home! that was cool...now we just need to meet her son because it´s obvious that God has a purpose for him...and he needs to get baptized! 

We taught a girl named P and at the end of the lesson she showed us a picture of her brothers baptism and then said I was baptized too but I don't have any pictures. Well that was a surprise! We´re going to teach her again tonight to get her dats to make sure she really is baptized because she doesn't remember anything about the church and we're also going to teach her mom because supposedly she´s NOT baptized...as far as we know.

Yesterday after church we taught W. She said she wants to get baptized!! Now we just have to teach her basically every lesson haha but she comes to church every week by herself so she´s pretty awesome. She´s going to girls camp with the young women next week too so that should be fun for her. We put a goal for her baptism for the 23rd.

One of our recent converts that hasn't attended since his baptism in like Feb. came to church yesterday too!! That was really cool to see him there. We gave one of the ward missionaries the assignment to pass by for him yesterday and she did and he came to church!!! 

Tomorrow we are going to the temple..I would love for you to go at the same time as me but it will be impossible seeing as our session is at....5:30 in the MORNING which would be 4:30 there and there won’t be a session that early... we have to leave our house at 3:45 AM yuck..

Oh well at least we get to go to the temple.   Guatemala City Temple

As for the phone call we still don't know. It depends on if I have changes or not and we won't know until next week sorry :( I think we will be able to call to tell you our number and what time to call at but I'm not sure.

 

The picture I sent with the weekly email is what I´m doing with the money..They´re gift baskets with beans, rice, sugar, morcaf (I’ll bring some home so you can try it but it´s Mormon coffee), powdered milk, soup, and cookies. I am also buying toys for some of the kids here. That´s not all of the baskets just all the ones we had finished at the time

well ya es la hora.... I love you sooooooooo much daddy! I hope you have a great week! Talk to you for real in 2 weeks! And see you in 8 months...wow que baggy haha LOVE YOU!

December 5^th

This week went pretty well. Sometimes I feel like we´re just planting seeds though instead of finding people who are really interested right now. 

We have been teaching a lady named M and she seemed really interested and said that whatever God tells her is right she will do. The last time we went to teach her one of the houses in the apartment place that she lives in was having a church meeting and then last night she said that her family has been getting a lot of problems for receiving us and that the owner of the room that she is renting said her and her family will have to move for listening to us. We explained that we are always going to see opposition but that if she still wants to learn more God will help her through her trials. We´re going to call her this weekend to see if she has moved or not and to see if she still wants to receive the lessons.

We taught O the restoration and we asked if he knew of any churches that are formed in the same way Christ formed it (prophet, apostles, priesthood...etc) and he said yeah...Your church! haha it was cool. He´s really receptive and this week he came to church all by himself! That was great. We just need to keep teaching him more and he can be baptized!

We also taught I and D..They have been having problems with their neighbors too but it doesn't seem to be important to them thankfully. They want to keep listening to the gospel so hopefully all goes well with them!

This week with A and M we had kind of a family night with the bishop’s family. It was basically testimonies so that went really well. Only M and her daughters came to church this week, A didn't. He´s been going to an Evangelical church during the week I guess. Last night we taught them and we can see that he´s changing little by little but he still needs to gain a testimony.

We had to drop M because he doesn't want to progress. It made me a little sad but I hope that he changes in the future so that he will be able to have an eternal family like he says that he wants.

The rainy season has been over for a month now... My health is good...

We've already started on our Secret Santa project. I´ll send you pictures soon. We´re going to give the baskets to the bishops wife to hand out since we want it to be more anonymous but we have PLENTY of money right now so I probably won´t use the 100 you just put in. But thank you for giving me money to do the project it´s really cool :) 

Love you all, have a great week!