Hola Mi' Familia

It sounds like everyone is healthy and happy! That is what I pray for before I come check emails every week. :) Thanks for your emails and the updates.

It sounded like you guys had a fun night last night with the Birthday celebrations. :) I was thinking of you Mike, Carter, and Kyson!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY again!

 

Can y'all believe it's already fall?! When I see all the kids heading to school in the morning I can't believe it. Time is flying! (Matt 24:22)

 

This week was alright. I mean, every week is great as a missionary, but this one was a little bit rougher because we are still trying to transition into the new way of things and its different. But we did get to have a zone conference with President Ashton, and that was an answer to my prayers because I had been feeling really overwhelmed with our area not doing as well as it had been before and we got some really good training on what he expects of us, and how he wants us to do the work now.

 

President Saylin was sooo focused on us finding finding finding new investigators and President Ashton is more focused on us working with Less actives which is really good but I felt like we were loosing all our investigators we had been teaching when we transitioned into this new way of work. But now we have direction on what he wants us to do to find people to teach and still work with less actives. As we started doing this the rest of the week we saw miracles on sunday at church! There are 3 sisters in the ward we have been working with to get to church for several weeks, and all three of them came! And two of them brought their kids. When we walked in to Sacrament meeting and I saw D. Hamby (a recent convert of a year that has fallen less active) sitting there waiting for us I was soooo happy! I cant describe the joy of the mission, it's different than anything else. We also had 2 investigators there at church! Yesterday was a great day, especially to end a week that wasn't the greatest. :)

 

Man, President Saylin and President Ashton are sooo different! President Ashton took our Texas Houston South Mission handbook and cut all the rules in half. He told us he wants us to become more Spritually Self reliant instead of focusing on relying on rules, or on getting all of our guidance from him. I am excited about this because I know it's going to be a great trait to have for my whole life. I hope that I can learn to rely fully on the spirit!

 

During zone conference the assistants asked me and Sister Moreno to present the way we work with less-actives in our ward to the mission. I wish they'd stop picking on us!!!! Especially since my companion won't speak much. haha But it was good, and several people told us they are going to try to apply it in their area. What we did was last week for our weekly planning we spent 2 hours dividing our area into 6 smaller areas and marked where each less active lives so we can be more efficiant with our miles, time, and lessons. I hope we can see good things happening with this new way!

 

As for SOME of the rules changing in our mission.... we now get to go to the temple quarterly!!! So we are going to be going in the next few weeks. :) We also can listen to any music as long as it invites the spirit. We are excited.

 

Oh! Cool experience this week. So I wasn't feeling the best on Saturday so we came in so I could grab some food and water, and as we were getting ready to leave I had a feeling that we should go try to visit Marlon... I didn't know why I felt that because we had decided earlier in the week we would just wait for him to contact us. Well right after I had that feeling Sister Moreno came out of the bathroom and said " I feel like we need to go visit Marlon." (she had never even met him yet). So we left right away to head to his apartment. When we got there no one answered. We waited for about 5 minutes at his door, and right when we were getting ready to walk away Marlon and his mom pulled up to their apartment! It was a miracle! We hadn't been able to contact him or see him in almost 3 weeks. He still wants to be baptized, but has been really busy starting high school , and his mom working. So we have an appointment with him later this week to visit with him and his mom. Keep them in your prayers!!! I am so grateful for the promptings from the Spirit! :)

 

Another cool thing, I was able to say my first prayer in spanish at a less-active members home. I was so nervous, but I'm glad I did it.... and atleast no one laughed. ;) Tonight we have another lesson with a family who are potential investigators and the husband speaks english, but the wife only speaks spanish so I practiced this morning to say a few things in the lesson tonight in spanish. Pray for me.... I'll need it!

 

Sister Moreno's english is getting better! She just needs the confidence now because her and I speak lots together now, but she is very very very shy in the lessons. I hope by the time she leaves this english area she can feel confident in her english because it's getting good. (I hope my english gets better too cause I'm supposed to be helping her with her grammer every morning and there are some things I need help on too! haha)

 

One last thing I wanted to share from this week that really hit me hard was from a lesson we had last night. This man who lives right under us saw this show about our church last week and ever since then he has had soooo many questions for us. So we stopped by to teach him and his wife, and during the lesson he turns to me and said, "I have a question for you... I can see God's light so strongly in your eyes, can you tell me how I can get that too?"

I was taken back, but smiled and said that is what we as missionaries are here for! Every single person that is here on earth can have the light of Christ in their countenances. It's up to the person if they want to retain it or not. I'm so glad that others can see it in me, because maybe that'll help others see that we are different. We are in the world but not of the world.

 

I love you all soo much! I pray for you daily!

 

Erianne