SERIOUSLY???

:(

i am online.. and no emails....... come on!! i know its break and we just Skyped a few days ago... but come on!!



*Parental Confession*

--We are so sad that we slept right through Monday morning email time. So sorry, Raini Girl! Please forgive us.

Christmas Skype!!!!

Well. It was so great to have this week.. It went incredibly fast because I just couldn't wait for Christmas to come and then it all of the sudden happened! And now here we are already to another Monday.. but...
Honestly the best part was to get to talk to you all on Christmas. thank you so much for that :) Sometimes, I feel like I don't even have a family lol. I just feel like I am me and that's it because I have gotten to used to being out here so far away.. but then when i get to talk to you it is just like good old times! haha. I love that we just laugh so much when we do those skype calls.

Anyways.. So we had a fun week! The couple days before Christmas and Christmas Eve, we were able to do some really great stuff. We went caroling on Monday night for FHE with a family in the ward and that was just really special. It isnt really something that hispanic people do, so it was fun to share a tradition with them (even though our family doesnt really go caroling.. other white people usually do and they come to our house soo.. yeah hahaha)
Then we got to meet ___ family. ____ is 16- a recent convert of the elders in our ward.. they wanted us to go over and try to teach her mom! she has a step dad too but they didn't think he was really that interested. UNTIL he has come to church the past couple of weeks and the Christmas dinner too.. and then last night they had dinner there and the mom and dad decided to set a marriage date for Saturday because they want to be married and get baptized!!!!! so that is pretty much the miracle of the week right there. amazing.. and i love that the examples of the children are what effect the parents so much! Like Daisy.. she was baptized exactly 1 year ago yesterday and it is just so neat because in this past year her brother and mom have been baptized too. so great!! these youth are amazing.

Speaking of Daisy and her mom.. we got to see them on Christmas eve eve and it was so great because we shared with them Luke 2. We all went around and read a verse like we always do on Christmas eve at Grama and Grandpas! and we told them to keep it as a tradition to do every year :) that was neat.

Then! Christmas eve! We had district meeting.. and ate food.. and did some studies. Then we got to go with the English sisters in our district to sing at an old folks place. it was really special too. they loved it and I don't know what it is, but when I go to places like that I can just feel an instant love and care for those people.. it was a really great experience. We got to sing in Spanish and English :)
then we went and ate a ton of food at the ____'s.. goodness. She made so much!!!! And, soooo good!!1 But the good news is that i now know how to make flan and choco-flan too!!
then we went out to another families house, and they wanted us to eat too!!! and they made even more food than the ___'s!!!! so that was insane. I was dying on the way home haha i was SO full. my stomach has never been that stuffed in my life. i thought my birthday was bad.. this was even worse!

Then Christmas day- opened all the presents! :) that was great :) and then we got to do studies as normal and then go talk to y'alL!!!! and then ate SO much at the bishop's.. it was sooooo yummy :)

since then it has been a little rough getting lessons with people because everyone is still hanging out with their family and what not.. but we did get to see ____ and ____ which was a miracle because it was the day after Christmas and we just were in the area and everything else wasnt working out! so that was pretty amazing. :) unfortunately she isnt doing super good in the ways of getting back on track with everything like she had wanted to just a couple of months ago. she is working 2 jobs with ridiculous hours so it is just craziness all the time. she hardly sees her daughter and shes falling back into other bad habits. But once January is over she is hoping to be able to change her schedule to be able to come to church again and have more time to be with ___.. and then hopefully she will be able to be baptized at that point then.

____ and her girls are doing good! I gave them the Pero you sent to help them stop drinking coffee.. they really really want to! they really want to be baptized! we are still hoping for mid-January with them.

well.. this week was generally just really good because of the holidays and everything. but we are really going to have to crack down this week and get to work finding new people after the new years because our teaching pool is back to being really low.
I love you all and i will talk to you again soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Hermana Weller

Feliz Navidad!!!

Hellooooooo and Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!! :D I seriously can't believe that it is going to be Christmas THIS week. I am SOOOOOO excited to get to talk to y'all.. ugh. Cant wait :)



Well.. This has been a great week. Again. Lots of learning experiences. Some quick highlights of it--


So Monday we had a really crazy preparation day, but after that we went and had dinner with a family that is less active. They told us they are looking for new jobs so that they don't have to work on Sundays! woo! and THEN they were like oh.. and we have some family we really want you to go and see, but we don't want them to know we sent you there. So that was amazing.


So the next day we went and acted like we were just contacting.. ya know knocking doors.. the norm! We said the normal thing that we usually do when people open the door and then he was like, "Just a minute..." and he left the door for a little bit. When he left, I said, "I know I have met him before!!" .. so then when he came back and welcomed us in, I said, "Haven't I met you before??" and he was like, "Yeah! remember I am _____'s sister! (the family we had saw the night before) and I met you at her other sister's house one time.." and I was like, "Oohhhh yeah!"


I realized when I had actually met him in the past.. so that was kinda neat that he recognized me too. and then we just chatted a little bit. He told us that he knows that our church is the true church because the sisters in the past had taught him and he felt it then, and when he went to church he just knew.. and he said, "I was supposed to be baptized then, but I didn't end up doing it. But its never too late right??" And we were like, "uhhhh no!!" haha so we have a return apt. for this week with him and all of his family! He wants his mom to learn too.. I really hope we can have good lessons with them, because the ______ family is so great. and they said if we could get them to help their family join the church we would forever be in their hearts :) and I just can only imagine.. how amazing that would be for their family to have them all in the church and eventually go and get sealed :) ahh!! we are so excited. it was such a blessing that they gave us that referral! we are gonna go there for one of the many Christmas dinners.. lol.


Then, that same day something really really hard happened as well. I have never had this kind of an experience and it was really hard to deal with, but I think the Lord just really wanted us to learn this specific lesson right now. So we haven't had any contact with ____ or ____ for about 2 weeks.. They haven't been answering our calls or texting us back or anything. I was really scared because we taught about the temple the last time we saw _____ and I was just hoping that she didn't come across anything untrue or anti-Mormon online or anything like that.. So we decided to just stop by and try to talk to them to know what exactly was going on. So we went, and they didn't answer. We were writing a note to leave on the door when they walked up! They let us in.. but I could just feel it was really weird. Something was off.. and I didn't want to leave until I knew why. So we sat down and started talking some.. and then finally _____ told us that she is basically SO confused and she is scared of making any kind of changes from what she is comfortable with... and she has obviously been getting a lot of people telling her a lot of different things. She doesn't understand why we need the Book of Mormon which made me sad because I thought we had pretty well taught her that.. and she feels like she doesn't know enough about the Bible to start reading in the Book of Mormon so she still hasn't read out of it to know if it is true or not.. She has been going to some pastor's Bible study class to learn more about the Bible and have him interpret its words.... It was so hard. I just wanted to cry. I was just like LET US HELP YOU! Plus, I was frustrated because it felt like she hadn't told us her real doubts this whole time of us coming over.. and if we would have known better we could have helped her overcome those doubts. So I was disappointed with the situation and I wanted to cry because she just wants the truth.. and now she is SO confused. It just makes me sad :/ but afterwards i just was thinking and trying to receive the comfort I needed to be able to keep going that day and not let it affect me.. and I did. I felt the Spirit and I just felt a reassurance that it was okay.. at least we were able to help her to this point of her earnestly seeking. and by the end of her journey she will come back to where she started because this is where the truth is. She just needs some time and she will eventually come around. I was really grateful for this experience though because it all of the sudden put everything with our other investigators into perspective..

Everyone has doubts.. everyone has some kinds of concerns or fears about being baptized even if you can tell they have received that spiritual confirmation.. even though you have shared the most spiritual lessons with them.. and you have fasted and prayed for them so much. They all have worries about this big change they are committing to. and we have to make sure that we figure out what those are and make sure to help them find the way of overcoming those hurdles. So it was really good because it made us re-evaluate our relationships with our other investigators right now and talk about what we could do to make sure that we have super trust with them.. that they feel comfortable enough to express to us their concerns and worries and how we can ask them about those.

So we got to see _____ and her girls this week and we decided to just talk all about that.. and really figure out if they are really working towards being baptized and if they have anything that is holding them back from doing that.. ____ said she wants to change her life.. and that is why she wants to be baptized :) ____ said she wants eternal life :) and _____ said she wants "to be clean and be like born again". We were so impressed and excited when they answered that way!! haha then we talked about any concerns they had, and really ____ is just having a hard time giving up coffee! It is a toughy lol. And then since _____ is going to a different church (and has been for 6 years) it is really hard for her to want to change.. but we made some plans as to how we are going to get her some good friends in this ward :) _____ is just ready. she has no worries lol :) so it was really good. it is just so much better when it is really open and they feel like they can tell you whatever.


OH! we finally got to give the Book of Mormon to that man that called us a couple of weeks ago wanting it! We met up with him and he told us that he is actually a Pastor!! but he said he respects us SO much and just is so impressed with how "disciplined" we are with our faith and that we are out here with nothing really in return.. just out of our love and faith in the Savior. So that was really neat. he said he is going to read it!! and we hope to hear about it soon :)


We had our ward Christmas party Saturday!.. oh man.. I cant wait to be able to come back and party with these people! They are so much fun!! and i love to dance.. but as a missionary i guess we probably shouldn't be dancing and stuff. so I had to pull it together and fight the urge! lol.



I really just can't wait to get to talk to y'all and see your faces.. honestly. I am gonna freak out!! also we realized the other day that I will talk to you for Mother's Day and then come home like a week later!!! haha.. Anyways.

I love you so much. I am so grateful for this Christmas season and for the love of the Lord for each and every single one of us. I love Him so much. and I know He loves me. Merry Christmas!!!!!! <3

-Hermana Weller :)

Only 10 Days Til Christmas!!!

I don't know where my life is going.. time is just absolutely FLYING by... But my companion and I were just talking the other day about HOW happy we are. Honestly, I don't think I have ever been as happy in my entire LIFE than right now.. It is the best feeling ever. I love being a missionary of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This week we actually had some really neat experiences and some special meetings! We had a Sisters Conference which was really good as well as a special meeting for just Spanish Elders and Sisters! So the Sisters conference was good because ALL the sisters in the mission came up and President and Sister Bernhisel taught us.. it was all about the priesthood and womanhood, and how impactful we are as women.. We talked a lot about the roll of moms in their families and it was just really good.. if anyone ever has questions about women and the priesthood, Gordon B. Hinckley has the BEST quotes haha. It was fun to get to see all the sisters and my old companions :) I miss Sister Ashworth!! She is so funny.. Then, we had the Spanish missionaries conference and Elder Zwick from the quorum of the 70 came and talked to us!!! (perks of being a Spanish missionary!!) it was really neat because that was the first time ever that we have had a meeting all in Spanish!!! and President and Sister Bernhisel and the assistants had to use headphones!! hahahaha, the roles were reversed. it was nice for once...haha But he talked a lot about the importance of virtue, and how that is really what we need to have written on our hearts.. He talked about learning by faith. and how through the rest of our lives we are going to have to keep learning by faith. And there was a lot of revelation that I personally received from both of those conferences because I have been working A LOT on putting more trust than ever and having more faith than ever in the Lord.. I want to see more miracles and so I know that miracles only come according to our faith :) and something that I read this week in my personally study that kinda hit me was about Alma, and how when Alma the younger (his son) was visited by the angel and converted it was BECAUSE of the FAITH OF HIS FATHER.. Alma had so much faith in the Lord that He would answer his prayers, as well as he had SO much faith in his son, that he could actually change and be converted.. that an angel came and appeared to his son.. His prayers were definitely answered. and from reading that and studying a lot lately how I can put more trust and more faith in the Lord, I realized that according to MY faith, I CAN have an effect on other people.. and I need to have more faith in THEM too. See them as they can become, and trust that they WILL come to know everything is true and achieve the baptismal dates we have prayerfully decided for them.

This week we were out trying to find new people to teach.. and no one was letting us in to teach them. So finally we drove to a new street to knock and before we got out of the car we prayed. and we had a very mighty prayer to be able to find someone to teach at that moment.. and we got out of the car and just started walking towards one of the houses right in front of us.. we didn't even say anything to each other, we just walked over to the house and I thought maybe it was just my companion following my lead. But when a Dominican woman opened the door and let us in because we started talking about Christmas and "He is the Gift" we knew God had heard us :) afterwards, we talked about it and my companion said that she had felt like that house too.. so it was just kinda neat that we just started going for it. and it resulted in finding someone new who is really open and has great potential.

Another thing going along with everything that I have learned in my personal study this week with faith and in the meetings too.. was last night we were visiting with a less active family and the daughter started telling us all the things that she didn't like about her mom.. and how her mom is so annoying, yada yada..she's 15..go figure...haha But, ya know, we aren't really supposed to like be counselors for people, so....I just thought of something to share with her... it was neat because it was second point of the first lesson we teach investigators. It is "The Gospel Blesses Families". So we talked about how living the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our families is what will bring us the most happiness.. even when its really tough. And so we took the first 2 principles of the gospel- 1. Faith and 2. Repentance and broke those words down into what words are associated with those words.. 1. trust, belief, hope, etc. 2. change, forgiveness, saying you are sorry, humility, etc. and then talked about how those things are the GOSPEL. and we need to apply them with each other.. not just having faith in Christ and repenting when we sin.. but having faith in one another as family members and then applying the principles of repentance with each other too.. we have to be willing to forgive each other and ask for forgiveness and be willing to change. And I had really never thought of these things until all of the sudden I was teaching them last night haha. The spirit truly gave me in that moment what I needed to say, and I too learned something really really valuable for myself for my future family.

So, we got to see _____ and her family twice this week! We had really good lessons with them about the 10 commandments, the Sabbath day, chastity, the Word of Wisdom, and fasting.. It was so neat because she honestly is just so willing to accept these things into her life right now and do them.. they were a little concerned about coffee with the Word Of Wisdom, but they are going to try they said to stop!! It was really fun when we talked with them about the spirit this last time, and how they have felt when we come and visit with them.. they are just SO happy. (and so are we!!) and i just cant even explain most of the time just how grateful and happy I am to have the gospel in my life and to see in the lives of others working.. They came to church again yesterday. They are still moving towards the 27th for baptism!! :)

Well, we haven't been able to get in contact with ___ and ____ in about 2 weeks now.. :( I am worried why they aren't talking to us any more.. but, maybe its just not their time yet.

Well.. I love you all so much and I am so so so so glad that Christmas is only 10 days away and that I will get to talk to you then :) WOOOHOOOO! haha. Thank you so much for everything, and I really hope that this year you can think of a new way to remember Christ, and that you can #SHARETHEGIFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO FORTH AND DO IT!

love.

-Hermana Weller-

Mamita Chula

Great week for sure!!!! :) como siempre.. haha

So I had a really great study earlier this week that really put me in my place haha. I was reading this talk "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary" and it just really hit me this time when i was reading it the part when it was talking about TALKING WITH EVERYONE, and how the Lord has truly COMMANDED us to do that.. to preach the gospel to EVERY person.. every single person that we see is His daughter or son.. and they need what we have. and I dont know how or what happened, but literally it was just like an over night change. I just from then on have had NO FEAR and I have literally just been talking to everyone I see. If there is someone outside, it doesnt matter if they dont speak spanish, we go and talk to them. And we think we have seen HUGE blessings from that. This week we had 2 days where we taught 5 lessons and by the end of those days.. we were literally EXHAUSTED. it says in that talk also that consecrated missionaries put every drop of energy into the work.. and honestly by the end of that day... I felt like that is what I had done. It was a very rewarding feeling :) we felt super accomplished.

A neat experience with that that we had this week was, we went over to invite ___ (our old investigator) to the community Christmas activity that we had this weekend. (it was amazing... i will tell you more about it in a bit!) and when we pulled up to her house there were some men outside of her neighbors house. SO of course.. we went to go and talk to them. They were luckily Hispanic :) so we wanted to just invite them to come to the activity too, but then they started asking us questions and stuff because they had heard of Mormons before.. had watched videos on Youtube or something I guess.. anyways.. it was a very interesting conversation. and they were talking super fast, and I got a little lost at times... but by the end we gave them Restoration pamphlets because literally everything they are really confused about in their religion is answered with the Restoration, and then gave them #HeistheGift cards and an invitation to the activity. We wrote our number on the back of the pamphlet and told him to call us if he had any questions about what the pamphlet said. The next morning... we got a call. He read the entire pamphlet!!! He wanted to know if we could give him a Book of Mormon because he wants to read it and know the doctrine that it teaches in there for himself. :O It was so great. He made it clear that he just wanted to meet up and get the Book and be able to read it on his own.. he isn't interested in changing his religion, so we are going to meet up with him this week. and then hopefully we get another phone call telling us that he read the entire Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized lol. ;) #miracles!! #talkwitheveryone!

After that though, we had a really good lesson again with _____ and her girls. :) they are so cute! and we invited them to be baptized on the 27th of this month.. they said yes, they are going to pray about it. We are really excited for that :)

Then we got to see ______ and _____ twice this week! We had a couple really good lessons, and we showed _____ how she is really really close to having learned everything she needs to know to be baptized! she really wants to, but now _____ has 2 jobs.. and is working insane hours. and she is working Sundays ---- sooo. we will see what we can do this week to help her understand and realize again how big of a step this is that her daughter is wanting to take.

Oh.. the title of this email is "mamita chula" because there is this less active woman that we visit and her kids are now coming back to church every week! which is super great.. but she calls me mamita chula. like ALL the time haha everything is "siiii mamita chula", "gracias mamita chula" haha its so funny.. so we have been using that one jokingly a lot lately ;) *for those who don't know, it means something like "pretty mama" or "cute thing"

Miracle at the Food Bank this week when we did service there!! We have started praying before going into the food bank to have more experiences and opportunities while we are there to share the gospel!! and this day was amazing. We went in and got paired up with this lady from Colombia!! we got to speak Spanish with her! She of course asked us lots of questions about what we did as missionaries and stuff.. and she had known a Mormon in the past.. and then we invited her to go to the community event too! We don't think she ended up coming because she wasn't there at least when we were there.. but that is okay. We just really hope we can serve with her again at the food bank and this time get her phone number or address so we can actually come and visit her :) she was sooo nice. It was amazing.

We also had a very long interesting conversation with one of the other main guys there about religion and controversial topics like gay marriage and stuff like that.. it was interesting. but good.. the Lord is seriously blessing us so much. I love it :)

SO. the Community Christmas event was amazing. They had gathered together like 300 nativity scenes and decorated the gym really really nice and there were choirs from other churches and schools in the community singing the entire time. it was Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We went and helped work it on Thursday and saturday. It was just so good!!! It brought a lot of people into the building to feel the Spirit and help them remember the true meaning of Christmas :)) There were some familiar nativities there too, which was neat. I felt right at home!








Pues.. I love you all so so so so so much. Hope that you have already watched the #HeistheGift video and have tried sharing it in many different ways :) it is a great way to talk with random people!!! love you again! have a good one.

-Hermana Weller <3

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hola Familia,

Mom: (my middle school Spanish teacher)I love spanish!! haha :) i bet you never thought you would hear me say that now did you?!?! ;)

Well Happy Late Thanksgiving!!! :) Hope it was a good one.

I know you want to know how mine was.. so I will tell you quickly because we acually didnt do a whole lot!! So in the morning we had organized to go and play sports with the women/girls while the men played too.. turns out the elders told us a totally different place of where the men were going to be (...elders...) but it turned out fine because we just had a few people and it was really fun :)




I was really hoping that I was going to feel good enough to play and everything because all week I had been feeling really gross just nauseous a lot.. but it was all good! We had a ton of fun :) It was pretty cold, but it was fine.

Then we went home and showered and did our normal studies and then went over to Daisy's house. We thought we were going to be eating pretty soon to when we had gone over there, so we had told a couple other people that we would go and be with them too.. but turned out we didn't eat until like 5.. so we spent a couple hours just playing some games and listening to Christmas music. Then we ate with her family... and we ate: enchiladas, arroz con pollo, and tacos. hahaha... no turkey in sight.. no stuffing or mashed potatoes... no pie. Although it was yummy, it wasn't our typical Thanksgiving! BUT, that was actually okay because we started eating and I just felt AWFUL. I thought I was going to throw up all over the place haha.. SOOO we went home and I just crawled up into bed haha. But we had a good 1st half of the day at least!

Okay but back tracking to the first half of the week now..


so we got to see ____ again, como siempre! But ____ was out shopping for Thanksgiving food with her husband so it was just us and _____... But it was amazing because we had prepared to teach her about the temple and the word of wisdom. and when we got there she told us about how she recently started reading the old testament from the beginning and she was just reading the other day about the temple they built and all the different things that they would do there and how specific it was and we were just like... this is perfect! because we wanted to teach you about how we have those same temples on the earth TODAY! :) we brought some pictures of our temples and talked about how sacred they are and everything.. then talked about the WOW and she actually really liked it! She has a hard time with coffee, but she totally understands why we shouldn't drink it. We are really really trying to get a firm date still with her for bautismo though.. that is really our focus this week. Ether 12:6.. she has to just take some steps into the dark to know.


Well we had a really good week in finding.. We had 6 new investigators this week.. Makes up for all the past weeks that we have been struggling for sure!! The members have been helping us with that :) 4 of them were because of members..

We are teaching a new family- a single mom and her 2 girls. They are so great.. We taught the plan of salvation the other day and when we invited them to be baptized she said yes.. she has been through kinda a lot in her life and it is really really hard to be a single mom.. so she really just wants that fresh start. that "pagina en blanca". They came to church yesterday.. so good :)


We met a man the other day when we decided to knock the door next to a potential investigator.. and he is amazing.. unfortunately he doesn't speak any Spanish.. but the English elders have a treat coming for them! he told us he LOVES Mormon Tabernacle Choir and then he randomly was like..oh you know something else I really agree with you about? baptism by immersion like Christ was. ahahaha.. What?? and then he told us just a lot of good things have been going on in his life recently and he is starting to go back to church.. so basically the Lord lead us to Him and we really felt like it was inspired getting to talk to him and pass him onto English elders.


oh!! the other day ____, one of the members from Wallace who I really loved, and we were friends (she is my age) came and we had lunch together!!!!!!!! :) it was the best!! She is so sweet.. she gave me a really cute ring so that i don't ever forget her! haha i love her! :)

Here we are:





I am so excited for this time of year.. I honestly am so grateful I get to be a missionary right now at this time. With the whole #heisthegift thing, we just have been given a bunch of cards to give out with that on them, and we have been watching the video with some of our members. But I had an amazing study this morning.. I just read the different accounts in the scriptures that talk about the Savior's birth.. I am incredibly grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ, I love Him SO much. I am so grateful that He was willing to do what He did so that I have the opportunity and chance to change every single day!

This week I had an impacting study in realizing that the mandate from the Lord to TALK WITH EVERYONE is really a commandment.. not just a suggestion. and in order for me to be a "consecrated missionary" I need to do it. and So with the help of the Lord, I have been able to change (rather quickly too) and have the courage to just be awkward sometimes and literally talk to every single person we see. Its been really great so far. I love it!


Last night I got to eat a real thanksgiving dinner with our bishop's family.. :) I was superrr grateful for that as well.

Honestly, I hope you all know how grateful I am for you and everything you do for me. I am so grateful that I have had this gospel my whole life.. I am grateful my grandparents had the courage to search and find the truth of the restored gospel!! I am so grateful that when I was 8 I was able to be baptized by my dad, by the restored priesthood, and that I have always been able to rely on him to be able to give me a blessing or help me in any way. and that I have been able to have the greatest gift-- the gift of the Holy Ghost since I was so young.. and that through having that wonderful gift I have been able to develop my own testimony of my Savior and this gospel in general. I am so grateful that for this next 6 months I get to share this with EVERYONE here that crosses my path :) I am grateful for the women in my life as well that are so strong and have helped me know the things of the gospel. I just feel so blessed. and I am so glad I am here on a mission. Even though it is hard at this time to see all the families getting together, I am so happy I am here, and that this special spirit of this time of year is something I get to help others truly embrace and love as much as I do.


Have a GREAT week, and never forget the many things you are blessed with!!!! Show your gratitude for those things this week by DOING something :)


Y'all are the best.


Love,


Hermana Weller