Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas!!!

A quick summary of the past few weeks here in Farmersville. We are finding so many people to teach!!! It's amazing to see how God has a hand in His work. One day this past week, we decided to contact a couple people the sister missionaries before us had met. We felt super prompted to ask them if they would be baptized when they know that what we teach them is true and they both said yes! It was awesome! We are also teaching an old Mexican man, Alvaro. I JUST LOVE HIM!! He's soft spoken, but is very reflective and asks amazing questions. He's one of those people who doesn't make silence awkward because you know he is thinking about what we are discussing! 

I love the Christmas season so much!!!!! I hope you all find some time to reflect on the birth of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ!!! 

The trainee becomes the trainer

This past week was so fun!!!! Thanksgiving was such a blast! We basically spent all day with a bunch of different families the ward. They are so cute!!! And we ate, A LOT. We had four dinners haha. It was crazy. But I survived. 

I'm being transferred out of Madera!!! I'm so sad. I'm sad because I love the people here so much!! I have met such such amazing people and I'm sad I don't get more time to connect with them (see end of email for a list of all the things I love about Madera). BUT I am super excited because IM TRAINING! So my new area is Farmersville and I will be in a trio. That means that I will have two companions and one will be a new missionary from the MTC (Missionary Training Center) and the other is actually one of the girls that I was in the MTC with not too long ago haha. It is a little crazy because I just got out of training so I hardly feel qualified Haha. But!!! The Lord qualifies the unqualified in His work! So I know it'll be awesome.

Our church has a I dont know what you would call it "campaign" that we do every December that's called "Light the World". It is a way to encourage people both within the church and in the community to serve one another!!! It is so great and it starts December 1st!!! You all should check it out! Essentially it just gives people inspiration for how they can share the light that comes this time of the year!!! Here is the link: https://www.mormon.org/christmas

I love you all! Have a great week!!!

Why I love Madera:

1. It is nicknamed Little Oaxaca because nearly everyone is Oaxaca, Mexico
2. Oaxaca is purely native Aztecs so many of the people speak Aztec languages like mixteco or zapateco and there are like 3 dialects within those two. It's crazy because Spanish is some of these people's second language!!!!!
3. Every weekend the bouncy houses come out. Even in winter. The same goes for parties, the go big here.
4. Random people give us uvas!
5. Everyone here works in the fields. With the changing of the seasons people travel up to 2 hours for work.
6. So many almond orchards and grape vines!!!!! I LOVE it.
7. The signs here are in Spanish first, and the small print is English
8. People who move here from Mexico can live here over 20 years and never have to learn English because everyone speaks Spanish
9. A member made us homemade pozole. I think I could have sat in the pot he made it in, it was so big.
10. Claudia and Carlos are so Mexican that they went to a Chinese restaurant and Carlos was genuinely concerned he wouldn't be able to eat a meal without tortillas
11. My first meal in madera was a pasta/spaghetti of sorts, with tostadas on the side. No meal is complete without tortillas of some form or another.
12. Even the burger place has agua fresca.
13. The ward cooked 11 turkeys in the ground for the ward Thanksgiving party.
14. Everything grows here!!!!! Grapes, almonds, olives, lemons, oranges, pomegranates, dates, todo!
15. People have their own fruit trees in their backyard (that's the dream).
16. The people here love mole. They put mole in pazole, tamales, tortillas, everything!!!
17. People are so generous!!!! Maria gave us woven flowers and dia de los muertos bread (and this was only our second time talking to her)
18. Tortillas and salsa at every meal no matter how American all the other food is.
19. One of the Hermanos in the ward said he really cut back on his tortilla intake when he got married. Instead of 30 or 40 at every meal, now he only eats 15 or 20.
20. Hermana Nava was like my madera mom when I got sick. She is so thoughtful! And hilarious. She taught us a lot about life.
21. Hermana giron knocks doors to find people for us to teach.
22. There was a two week period where I had a pomegranate a day.
23. La actividad de la día de acción de gracias, hicieron una "stuffing" tan mexicana. And with all the insides of the turkeys.
24. La mixteca ice cream. Best ice cream every!!!!! Some of the best flavors: chili mango, leche quemada, coco, and at least 7 random flavors of fruits I've never heard of. You really can't go wrong.
25. Fruit stand man Max. They have fruit stands everywhere especially on the weekends. And they are soooooo good. Topped with tajin and chamoy.
26. Our neighbor plays banda o mariachi music every morning. We always know when it's coming because we can hear the bluetooth turn on.
27. One of the families in the ward calls us missionaries the "Wolfpack". Everytime we see him he makes us howl with him (he has a sick handle bar mustache and I don't think he has teeth so need less to say I don't understand him very well but I do understand the howling hahaha)
28. When they announced that the members weren't going to feed us anymore the Vazquez family was not happy Haha. Lucio asked who decided that, if it was the prophet. Wasn't satisfied until he heard that elder uchtdorf was at the meeting where it was announced to all the mission presidents.
29. One Saturday night we passed by one of our friends we are teaching to see if they could come to church the next day and there were two ladies who we thought were testigos de jehová till they started pulling out Mexican version of Mary kay products. So we got facials instead of teaching a lesson.
30. Its funny how many door contacts we have had with drunk shirtless Mexican men. 

Fotos: 

1-4 Thanksgiving dinners

5-6 sad goodbyes 

7 HERMANA MALMSTROM MI AMOR

Cambios

This past week they announced that the members of our ward (congregation) won't be feeding us anymore. Usually us as missionaries would eat with members every night. But now we will be cooking for ourselves every meal of the day! Well except for holidays and the occasional meal with a member on a weekend or something. All the missions in Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California are doing this! It was really funny because the hermanas in the ward were not super happy about it. They love feeding us and they really don't think we know how to feed ourselves!!! 

The ward here is great! I know I say that a lot haha but it's so true! We had a Thanksgiving activity this past weekend and they cooked ELEVEN turkeys!!! In the ground!!!! It was so fun! We got to go help. They cooked them in one of the members backyard. This family's house is so cool!!! They have everything growing there. Their own grape vine, at least 5 different types of chilis, raspberries, lemons, a bunch of pomegranate trees, tangerines, avocado, dates, and probably more but those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head haha!

Other than that, the work is great here!! We are finding more people to teach about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! It is awesome!!!!! I'm so excited for Thanksgiving this week. It is such a great time of the year!! I am so grateful for all I have. My friends and family, the gospel, my Savior Jesus Christ, the opportunity to be a missionary, my mission and where I'm serving, I could go on and on!!!!! 

Happy Thanksgiving!! I love you all! 

Dia de Los Muertos

This week was awesome! We are teaching some amazing people. We also met a lot of new people this past week that want to know more about Christ and His Gospel!!! The people here are so generous and loving! This lady gave us hand woven flowers from Oaxaca and that was only our second time talking to her!! She is so sweet and I feel like so many people here are the same way! They are so generous with what they have even if we hardly know them! Also she let us take some of her traditional Day of the Dead bread!! It was kind of stale because it had been sitting out for a few days haha!! I haven't eaten it because it is just too cute. It was so cool to see the traditions this week for the Day of the Dead. So many people made ofrendas. Pictured below are some of the traditional flowers that they import from Mexico for the Holiday. It is so expensive!!!! 

I don't have any more time but I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon!!!!!! 

Have a great week. I love you all!!

desafios, milagros, y comida

This week was really eventful!!!!! also I just feel motivated to write more. haha most preparation days it is so hard to remember what happened that week! But I am going to try today! 

First of all, one of the hermanas in our ward told on us to our ward mission leader because we apparently did not do enough to talk to a lady at church. I dont know. it was this less active that just came to church for a food order and didn't even want to talk to us. Anyway we had to go apologize to the Hermana who told on us. And when we were there, basically the Hermana was telling us how to be missionaries ahhahaha. Which was kinda whack but we just took it!

Also our ward had a trunk or treat this past week!!! It would have been super fun! If it had started on time. Haha it started over an hour and a half late (becuase we are on hispanic time) and one of our friends that we invited with all his kids came multiple times and since hardly anyone was there he just kept leaving. which we didn't even know he had come multiple times, till the damage was done and he didn't want to come at all. And we were supposed to have a lesson with him after the activity but that fell through and he acts like hes not mad at us but he also is kind of avoiding us. So that was not fun. Hopefully all is well between him and us but we will see haha. 

BUT on the blessings side of things. We taught Gabriel the Word of Wisdom and he is down to live it!!! He hasn't had coffee or beer since the lesson (as far as we know haha) Both of which he drank before. 

Also we found a new family to teach and they are great. Also we talked to two less active families (one is a single mom and the other her husband is not supportive/member). They were both so so sweet and I think they are ready to come back to churc h they just need a LOT of support right now. 

Some miscellaneous funny things. 

Oaxacans love mole. It's basically a sauce of every random thing in the kitchen you can think of. The signature ingredient is cocoa powder. They also put in bananas, almonds, toasted bread, and honestly so many random things but it somehow tastes nothing like any of those ingredients haha. They put it in everything. We have had it traditional style (chicken smothered in mole with rice, beans, and tortillas). Also one of the members made us tamales this week and one of the kinds she made was mole (they were soooooooo good). And they also use it like a salsa in pazole (which we are also starting to get a lot lately and I love it). We were teaching our friend Gabriel the other day and trying to use a comparison in teaching with his favorite dulce and he said he didn't really have one. He's more into Mole hahahha. He said Mole is his favorite food and I think that perfectly sums up Oaxacan's love for Mole. 

Speaking of food. The hermana that made us tamales also made us chocoflan for desert, which was awesome!!!! GET THIS! You put the cake part in the pan first and then the flan part on top, and in the oven, THEY SWITCH PLACES!!!! It's that WILD?! Anyway we had to take it to go, so we left their house and within the time of walking from their door to our car with our chocoflan in our hands, two cars drove by commenting on our cake. Haha if I knew all it took was carrying around a plate with cake on it to get people to talk to us, I would have changed up my proselyting tactics months ago!!!! 

Biked this week so that was fun. Honestly like 5 things went wrong. First of all, my bike doesnt even have a kickstand so that was annoying, my chain fell off (easy fix though), I'm too short for my bike. AHha but other than that I actually really fun!!! It is great weather here right now. 

Sadly I saw a cat get hit by a car last night... It was like seizing and then it died.. It was so sad. There are stray animals EVERYWHERE!!!! ANd some of them aren't even stray they just don't stay at home. 

I think that about sums up my week. I know I am missing some details but you get the gist

I love you all!!!!

(Pics: we got a bunch of pomegranates this past week I LOVVVVEEEEE it. And I wore Halloween socks to trunk or treat!) 

Mission Life

This week was full of funny and sweet moments. 

Last Monday we were in a lesson with Gabriel and he was shocked to find out that I am 19 because he thought I was 15 hahaha. 

Tuesday we were in the park and started talking to two guys playing basketball. One of them is a member, but doesn't go to church much anymore. This was our second time running into him and he kept telling us he had been thinking he needed to go back but just still hadn't. So I made a bet with him that if I made a 3 pointer than he would have to go to church. Ladies and Gentleman it was nothing but net. And we ended up visiting his parents last night who also haven't been to church in a while and they said he went!!! I don't know if it was the shot that did it or the spirit but I'm so glad he went!

Wednesday we had dinner with our friends Claudia and Carlos!!! They are from Guerrero, Mexico so Claudia made us Enchiladas Guerrero style. They were yuummmmmm. 

Saturday we had a lesson with Gabriel and at the end of all our lessons we have been asking him to pray but he hasn't felt comfortable. This lesson, we talked to him more about it, tried assuring him that it doesn't have to be perfect, and he did it!!!! It was so sweet because it was his first prayer ever out loud!!! And it was awesome! 

Being a missionary is super hard, super tiring, and embarrassing sometimes (especially when trying to learn a new language). But it is also so so fun, and all worth it when I get to see people grow their faith in Jesus Christ!!

One transfer done and dusted

Welp one transfer down!! (1 transfer = 6 weeks). It seems like I just got to California haha. Man the next 16 ish months are going to fly by!!!

One of our friends that we met a couple weeks ago, Gabriel, came to church this week! He's like mid-late twenties. He just got here from Oaxaca, Mexico about 4 months ago. He's really cool! I think he really wants to know more!! I'm super excited to keep teaching him and helping him develop a stronger faith in Christ and learn how to apply the gospel of Jesus Christ into his life! 

We are still teaching our friends Claudia and Carlos. They are the sweetest! They want to have us over for dinner because they feel bad that they never feed us when we come over, haha. 

Life is good here in Madera, California!!! We do so much every day, but when it comes time to sit down and write about it, I can hardly think of anything to say haha!!! 

But I just want you all to know how much a appreciate your support! I love being a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know that the same gospel and authority that Christ established while He was on the earth has been restored through Joseph Smith. I am grateful for the knowledge that I have that I am a child of God, that God has a plan for me, and that part of that plan was to come to Earth to learn and grow. Most importantly, that despite all the trials and tribulations of the world, I can find peace and Christ and the knowledge that I will be able to live with my family for eternity. I know that is the same for us all!!! I love the Book of Mormon and know that just like the Bible, it testifies of Jesus Christ. Y'all should read it 

I hope you all have a great week!!! I love you all. 

Pictures: 

All us Missionaries serving in the Madera 3rd ward!!!!! Woop woop! 

All the fruit people give us!!!!! (it is almost pomegranate season my friends) 

The missionaries in my district! (some of them are being transferred to a different area)  

Making tortillas with members

I love burritos!!! 

Making tortillas with members (part 2)