September 22, 2014 Short Post

Alright so, I still haven´t gone to the pyramids...so I am really sorry that I haven´t been able to send any pictures because I haven´t actually gone but I think we are going to them next week...I just know that we are going to go before I leave this area because if I don´t get to go then I will be super sad... but anyway, yeah sorry about that. um...haha this is really sad because I can´t think of anything to write about this week...our numbers weren´t really all that great but it´s ok because we can just try harder next week and it will all be good. We have had a lot of little miracles that have happened to us, well, actually there´s like at least one miracle everyday and that is that we have this life that we get to live! It is so beautiful and awesome and it really is a great gift from God.

We picked up a new investigator that was actually kind of a contact on the street. We were actually looking for a man that we contacted on the street that said he wanted to learn more and so we were trying to find his house and he wasn´t home (he had already left for work) so we were also going like across the street to this other reference and she wasn´t there either so while we were leaving this lady came out from another house and we talked to her a bit and then gave her a tarjeta and told her who we were and all that and we set up an appointment with her because she said she wanted to know more. She talks a lot so we didn´t actually get to finish our whole first lesson, but we have another appointment with her and she and her daughter seem really interested so we are hoping an praying that all works out and that it is the will of the Lord to have them become members of His church. 

Um, we have something weird on our hands...I think it is like a crazy sun burn or something but Hermana Kraczek doesn´t agree. Anyway, we just don´t know what it is and it is only on our hands...I will send a pic but you will have to look closely because the lighting is weird on my camera and all that. Basically we look diseased and we don´t know how to heal ourselves because we don´t know what is wrong haha so that is pretty awesome! I am hoping it is a sunburn so that I can actually start getting tan ;) 

How is it having Evan back home!? I bet that is crazy!! Haha, I will probably be a little shell shocked too when I get home...but yeah we will just have to wait a while...a long while ;) for that to happen. But actually, it is going to fly by! The time that is. Because yeah, I already get blown away by how long I have been here...it´s already been almost two months down! It is so crazy! 

What the!? How are so many of our ward members coming to Mexico!? I was the start of something super padre!! ;) haha no es cierto pero, la verdad eso es super super padre! Mexico es la mejor! They are all gonna love it! Porter is serving in Mexico City? What mission? Like is it north, south, east, west? Which one? :) I had three Elders in my District in the MTC that are serving in Mexico City so I just wondered which mission :)

Um, Ok so also yesterday (I am so sorry! I am jumping around like a chapolinaI don´t know how to spell that in spanish but it is a grasshopper. And speaking of which, I totally ate some of those and they weren´t even bad. They just taste like crunchy seaweed haha) we went to the familia Hernandez, the first family that we baptized, and Ismael, the son, had two friends over who were interested in learning more about the Gospel so we taught them and watch the long movie of the restoration. It was really good and they have a lot of good questions. I think that they will be good investigators. 

Alright well I have officially run out of time so I gotta go but.... Les quiero muchísimo!! You are all so awesome and I hope that you have a fantastic week! I keep you in my prayers and I pray that you can all be really awesome members and better examples to your neighbors and all that because we are all missionaries and we should all be trying to save souls so...I hope yáll are doing more of that! ;) I love you a lot and I am really grateful for all of you in my life and for your love and support. Stay awesome! 

Con mucho amor, until next week,
Hermana Walker 

 

 

 

September 15, 2014 Life is Like Riding a Bicycle

Hola everyone! How are you all doing? I hope you{re doing great! I am fantastic and loving it here in the mission! It is seriously so awesome!! :) My Spanish is a little bit better, but mostly I am just able to understand more so that is amazing! The gift of tongues is so real! So, before I tie this in to the Subject, I am going to tell you a little bit about our week.

Well, our numbers were a little bit sad this week but we are trying not to be too hard on ourselves because we want to keep our chins up for this up coming week. But we had a baptism and it was really beautiful. This is one of the baptisms that we were going to have last week but he actually had some problems with the word of wisdom so we had to push it back. But he is super strong and he worked really hard to stop his habits and we are so proud of him! Jonthan (that's his name ;) ) was baptized at 3:00 pm on Sunday, like, yesterday, and he bore his testimony at the end and I felt the Spirit really strong...and cried a little. He is so awesome and his wife is the cutest! They just barely got married like two weeks ago or something and we went to their wedding. It was kind of weird and there were tons of papers to sign...but we are hoping that in a year from now they will be able to go to the temple and be sealed together! And I hope we can be invited and actually go...that would make me so happy! I love them! They are so cute and just super awesome! Oh , but his wife is a member and is a huge strength for him! They are so cute and I have great hopes for their future together, especially with the gospel more fully in their lives. 

This week I had a few good contacting days! I reached my goal three times this week and some days I even contacted more than 10 people so that was pretty awesome.

Also, we have been trying to visit two less actives for the past little while and we finally got in contact with one of them and figured out her challenges with coming to church on Sundays so we are praying for her and trying to help her resolve the issues that she is having so that she can come to church! She really loves the chapel and the classes but she is having other issues with a member so we are trying to figure out how to help get this resolved. We told her to pray to the Lord to figure out what she should do and we are praying to know how to help her as well. We still need to wait a while longer to get our answer in full but we are getting there little by little and are still going to visit her and follow up and all that. She is so cute and has so much faith and desire to follow the Savior.

On Saturday we were walking in the street and then we stopped and Hermana Kraczek asked me where I thought we should go and gave me three choices. I had no clue because they were all menos activos and they are all important so I just asked her what she thought and she wa having like an inner conflict with herself and it was actually kind of funny because she was all, "Let's go to the familia Pimmental. No let's go to Hilda. No familia Pimmental" and so on and so on and we walked up and down a tiny stretch of the calle for a while and then she finally was like, yeah no we're just gonna go to the familia Pimmental. So we went. And it was so awesome! They had been having a super hard week and one of their family members has been in the hospital and it has been really hard on them, especially hermana Pimmental because it is her sister who is in the hospital. Anyway, we just talked about the plan that God has for all of us and shared some experiences and scriptures and our testimonies.

 

We testified that God and the Savior Jesus Christ love them so much and that he will never abandon them because He has them engraven in the palms of His hands and things of that nature. They told us that they knew that God lead us to their house that night because they really needed us and our message so that was basically super cool and spiritual and I love that family a lot! We had a few more miracles and little tender mercies all throughout the week and we are helping each other to remember them each day and write them in our journals so that we can remember how blessed we are from the Lord in our lives. We really are so blessed here in this area! 

I am so thankful that our Mission President listened to the Lord through the Holy Ghost and his promptings and that he put me and Hermana Kraczek together in this area. It really is super amazing and beautiful and there is so much work here and so many people who want to here the word of God and learn more about the Restored Gospel. I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve here! (even though I am getting super fat! Puebla has like the best food in Mexico...so that is really awesome and really horrible all at the same time...)

We are trying to become better missionaries everyday and I am so grateful for the atonement and for the mercy of God because I know that we aren't perfect and some days we don't study as well as we should have or we didn't contact as many people as he set in our way or we didn't reach our goals or yeah, there are a lot of things that we fall short on sometimes. But I know that with the Savior and through His infinite atonement, we can repent and as for help to be better the next day and the Lord will forgive us and help us to be better because He knows us perfectly and He sees our potential and He wants to help us get there because He loves us so much. I am so grateful for this gospel in my life and for the Savior and His atonement. I am so grateful to be here serving the Lord and that I am able to represent the Savior Jesus Christ and wear His name along-side mine on a nametag that others can see and I really hope that I can live up to this honor. I know that I am far from perfect but I am trying to be better and be more Christ-like and to become the missionary that He knows I can be and that He wants me to be.

This is where the Subject comes in...so basically I thought of this analogy in the MTC and hopefully I haven't already shared it but if I have...oh well! You can just hear it again! :) I truly believe that this was an inspiration for me to be able to understand better and also to teach things to investigators and members in a way that is easier to understand. But yeah, it can really be applied to like a ton of things in this Gospel.  One way that it can apply is an answer to this question: If there is a God and He loves us, then why are there so many bad things that happen in this world?

This is a really great question! And this is how I answer it. First, we tell them a tiny tiny bit about the plan of Salvation and that we lived with God before our lives here and all that. But the answer comes when we reach our life on earth. I then tell them that our life here, and Heavenly Father's role in it, can be compared to riding a bike. When we are first learning how to ride a bike, we have training wheels to help us. But eventually, those wheels have to come off. At first, our parents hold on to the seat and they walk along-side us and stuff but there comes a time when they need to let go so that we can try for ourselves. This is the part that is really hard because, many times, we fall off and when this happens it hurts-really bad. WE get cuts and scrapes and bruises and sometimes we get so frustrated that we don't want to keep going. We just want to quit. But our parents never give up on us. They are always there to help us up and encourage us to try again. This is the same with our Heavenly Father. He gave us our lives so that we could learn and grow.

 

He is teaching us to ride the bike of life. He never pushes us off our bikes, but He lets us fall so that we can learn, so that we can say, "oh man, that hurt really bad last time. This time, I need to put my feet down." or "I need to put the brakes on a little bit faster" or "Dang, I need to turn a little bit slower at this corner" things like that. But, Heavenly Father also knew that this ride would be vigourous and that sometimes we would fall and not want to get back up. That is why He gave us the greatest strength we could ask for: Jesus Christ and His Atonement. With the Savior's atonement and the love of our Father in Heaven, we have two people of magnificant power cheering us on, encouraging us to get up and move forward with faith. And when we are at our weakest points and feel that it is hopeless, we have two people who will always always be there to lift us up and hold the seat for a few miles. 

I know there are days that I fall off my bike and I get a little scraped up and sometimes it hurts really bad, but Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are always there for me and they will always lift me up when I need them; they will always encourage me to get up and to seguir adelante because they love me and they want me to succeed. 

Don't let the challenges of this life and the adversary get you down. Don't put your bike in the shed and let it collect dust while Satan does a happy dance. You have the greatest beings on your side and with them, you can ride up mountains, you can pedal faster and ride farther then ever before. You can fall with faith and hope because you know that the Savior will give you the strength to get back up and pedal passed the adversary and all his flimsy attempts to crash you for good. 

I hope that you all have a really great and fantastic week!!! :) I love you all a lot! :)

Love,
Hermana Walker

Japanese Snack in Mexico! :)

Killed a Pig! ;)

 

September 8, 2014 Goals and Luis

Oh my goodness! I am so sorry!! I have absolutely no time to write today! Today is the worst day as far as email time goes but yeah so basically lots of stuff happened today and it was awesome! We went to Hermana Marci´s house today to do our laundry and while we waited for our clothes to get clean in her cool little machine thing (yeah isn´t that awesome! We don´t have to wash it by hand when we go to her house! and I can use my little tide pods still so that is super nice since I still have a whole other package I need to use). Anyway, while we were waiting we made her and her kids breaksfast! We made crepes from my memory and they actually turned out so that was cool. And she wanted the recipe so we gave it to her. She is so cute! She is basically an angel for us! She is fantastic!

 

Ok now here is the craaazzy part! And grandma...please don´t kill me...but I totally let Hermana Kraczek...cut my hair!! The ends were all dry and nasty and stuff so she basically chopped it off....and she gave me bangs so....I look really different now...Hopefully you all still will love me...and by the time I get home I should look a little bit more like I did when I left so it won´t actually be an issue for any of you but, my hair is super short now....I will attach a picture or two so you can see. She has like no real training in hair cutting but I just trusted her and I was sick of looking gross in public ;) haha well I really was sick of having hair like a desert so it´s chopped off! anyway, after the hair cut we went to Puebla and we were going to go to the pyramids but we got really distracted by this awesome fair thing that they are having that is only here for this week! So of course we had to go!!

 

There was so much stuff there! But we couldn´t take pics of videos because we aren´t supposed to look like tourists....but it was super cool! I bought one of those cool mexican jackets :) I am super excited for it! But I couldn´t pick which color I wanted so we bought the two that I wanted and we will pick later I guess. WE also bought some food there because it is super delicious and they were having like steal deals! They were really awesome! Oh yeah and Hermana Kraczek broke her glasses, like the little handle thing that goes around your ears to keep the glasses on (I don´t know the name haha) that thing just fell off on one side so a member that we encountered in Puebla and he totally fixed her glasses for free!! So basically that was pretty awesome and a miracle from our Hevenly Father! So we are going to go to the pyramids next week and I will send pics ok?

 

Um, oh yeah so I made a goal for myself that I am going to contact 10 people everyday and I totally contacted 11 yesterday so that was pretty crazy and I felt awesome and I have officially invited 5 people to be baptized although the first three were in the same lesson and they didn´t understand me... and I was actually kind of firm with Victor haha but I felt really strongly that I needed to say what I said so that is good. And Victor came to church on Sunday so that was awesome!

 

We had another baptism this last Saturday for one of our investigators named Luis. He is married to a girl that is 16! He is only 19 but still....that is so crazy to me haha. They are so young! And she is pregnant haha so that is crazy! Ok well I really need to go now! I love you all and I am so sorry that this week is lame as far as my email goes but this internet (the little shops we go to) is really slow and not good so we aren´t coming back here again But yeah I have no more time! I love you so much everyone! Have a fantastic week! 

Love always,
Hermana Walker

September 1, 2014 Hernandez Family Baptisms

Hey everyone!

So, does anyone else think it is ridiculous that four weeks has already gone by!? I can´t believe that I have already been in Mexico for a month and that I am like two months in to my mission already! The time seriously flies by so quickly! Alright well, this week was really good and a little crazy and I hope that I can write all of it, or at least a lot of it, so you can kind of see whats going on down here :)

So...We had three baptisms this week! (Woot woot!) It was super awesome! The familia Hernandez got baptized (a mom and two of her kids) and they are so amazing. They were definitely prepared by the Lord because Hermana Kraczek and I looked at their paper in our area book and we found out that they basically got baptized a month after being found by the missionaries and taking discussions so that is pretty awesome! At the baptism, Hermana Kraczek and I sang Teach me to walk in the light while the Elders played guitar and kind of sang as well so that was a really fun experience! Well, Elder Toro sang but Elder Thomas...not so much haha but that´s ok :) He said he doesn´t sing well or whatever but we don´t believe him. Oh and also, Ishmael, one of our baptisms, bore his testimony after he was baptized and it was a really great testimony.

I just think it is so awesome that they have so much faith and that they desire to follow in the Savior´s footsteps. It was so neat to be a part of that and to feel their strength and faith. It is so amazing to be a missionary and to help others find the truth that they knew before their time on earth. It feels so great to help others to come unto Christ and to share this amazing and beautiful gospel with them.

For the First 12 Weeks study that we do as companions for my first 12 weeks, as the manual implies, we went and did the family history lesson online and holy cow! That thing is so awesome! I felt the Spirit so powerfully when I was doing that and watching the videos! It was absolutely amazing and I realized how important family history really is and it also made me want to be more heavily involved in my family history work, especially since there is a whole Korean line that I can look for! I will be doing more of that when I get home for sure! (if you all save some work for me at home since I know you are all doing more with indexing and family search and all that now, which is super awesome!) :)

Haha oh yeah so this is kind of crazy...so basically, we have two more baptisms this week on Saturday! What!? Yeah crazy, I know. The Lord is so good to us because we really could work a lot harder and do so much more than we do since there is always room to improve and all that, but He just blesses us with more people that want to be baptized so it is crazy! But we are super excited that they are making their way on the path of discipleship and that they desire to follow their Savior Jesus Christ. It is so great that they are willing to take that first step through the door to eternal life and exaltation. But yeah this is all super crazy and Hermana Kraczek and I are so excited!

We went and visited one of our investigators, Victor Cruz, to see how he was doing and to share a message with him. He is so amaing because he really has so much faith! He really wants to follow the Savior and do the right things and do the will of the Lord so that is super awesome! But, I feel so bad because his ¨esposa¨ isn´t very nice to him and so the Spirit leaves really fast when she talks sometimes and it is hard. We really want to help him so that he can feel good about himself and feel the way that Heavenly Father wants him to feel because he is so loved by our Heavenly Father and he has so much potential and we just want to help him see this and realize this. He knows a lot about the Bible and we gave him a Book of Mormon the other day and so hopefully he will start reading that and fall in love with it! He´s really great and came to the baptisms we had on Saturday and he sat with some other elderly men and asked them questions so yeah, he´s basically golden! We really want him to come to church!!

Hermana Kraczek and I also went into a cake shop to see how much their cakes were one day and we were talking to this lady who makes the cakes with her mom and she is the cutest person ever! She is so happy and kind and we were just talking to her and having a great time and we told her that we are missionaries and we told her our purpose and a little about our beliefs and stuff and then we gave her a Book of Mormon and she totally started to read it and it was so awesome because she accepted it really easily and then when we saw her Book of Mormon like the next week or something, we were really excited because she had marked it up a little with questions that she had and stuff. It was so cool! She is super super cute and we love her! And we are getting her a Boo of Mormon in English because she wansts to keep practicing her English and she wants us to all read the Book of Mormon together! I am super pumped! It´s so great!

I am loving the mission and I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve and to be here with these people in this area. There is a lot of work to do and I love it when we talk to people and they are so ready and open to our message! I love my companion and I learn so much from her and we laugh and are happy all the days and it is just so great! As you could hear from the recording I sent you last week, we are just a little bit crazy...we laugh all the time!! We almost pee our pants (ehem...Heather... ;) ) it´s super fantastic!

Oh yes, so this dog that belongs to a less active member that we visit has been following us around for like four days now so we basically have an adopted pet even though we aren´t allowed to have pets and we haven´t even fed her or anything! She is really cute except she has polgas, or fleas, so that isn´t very cute. She even jumps through our gate and sleeps on our tiny little ¨porch¨like every night and she cries for us because she wants to come in but she isn´t alloesd. (and we don´t really want fleas so...we just have to keep her outside). She is actually like sleeping by my feet under the computer desk right now haha. We took a picture with her today but just ignore my appearance. I had a super crazy bun and no make up on because we were just doing our laundry and cleaning and all that fun stuff all morning so I didn´t really get ready but whatever, it´s still a great picture :)

Hermana Kraczek and I are tired of getting fat so we are going to buy a bunch of veggies today and eat them whenever we are hungry instead of eating fruit and other sweet things... We can´t really help it if the members feed us lots of meat and fruit and sweet stuff but we are going to try and be ¨vegetarians¨when we can help it ;)

Ok so in case you wanted to know what I am studying in the Book of Mormon, I just started over the other day, so I am in First Nephi :) But, something that is super cool is oracion (prayer) because sometimes Heavenly Father gives you your answer like right after you ask for it and it is super cool! I really have been focusing on ¨first seek ye to obtain my word¨ because it is important to know the words of God before we can teach them to people right? So yeah I just prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me gain a greater love for the Book of Mormon since I know it is so important to obtain the word first and then I decided that I would read the Book of Mormon from the beginning again for my personal study. And guess what happened? The Lord totally answered my prayer because I got a ton more out of the first few chapters of First Nephi than I ever had before! I actually marked a bunch of scriptures, wrote lots of notes and had the Spirit open new concepts to my mind! It was so insane how quickly I had my answer and how much more enjoyable those first chapters were! I was blown away by the tender mercies and love of God. He is so amazing and I just thought that was so cool.

I officially have missionary legs because they are really ugly and mosquitos eat them all the days but it´s totally fine :) and my feet are super gorgeous ;) I have white toes and a white band across the tops of my feet and it´s super awesome ;)

I have a lot of pictures to send this week! And I don´t have a recording because the one that I have is really long and it was more like a journal entry with me and Hermana Kraczek talking and being cray as per usual but we can make some more for next week if you want :) I love you all so much and I am so grateful for your letters and your support! Being out here is so awesome! Cody, you are going to love it! It is such a blast and you feel the Spirit all the time and you grow everyday and you just learn so much! It is incredible! I can´t wait to hear from you when you get to go out and serve and experience all these amazing things for yourself! My Spanish is coming along slowly and it is really hard but it is also really fun at the same time and I am really grateful that I get to learn this language. I am also really grateful for the gift of tongues. It is totally real! There is no way I could know this much spanish after one month without the help of the Lord. No way. Next time maybe I will try to say things to you all in Spanish or something :) But it probably won´t all be totally correct... alright well I love you all a ton and I will write more next week! :)

Love always,

Hermana Walker :)

August 25, 2014 The Hernandez family

Ok, Hi!! How are you all doing? I hope you are all doing well :)

Ok so we went on exchanges, or intercambios, and so I was with a different Hermana for 24 and it was fun so yeah that was an adventure. We also had our like three ward party where three different wards got together for an activity about how the church got started here in Mexico. It was like a play put on by the youth and it was really good. We had quite a few of our investigators come so that was awesome! Um...yeah and my mind is like rushing a hundred miles an hour so I can't really think of many other things to tell you haha, yeah kind of sad I know. But I figured out where the apostrophe is on this crazy keyboard so that is another great thing. Um, Oh yeah. So we have been teaching the familia Hernandez and they are super awesome! They ask great questions and our lessons with them are always filled with the Spirit. It is kind of bad though because our lessons are super long but it's because they ask like super great questions and they are really good at telling us when they don't understand so we teach them pretty thoroughly and we bring the second counselor of el barrio and his esposa comes too and he just knows so much! He totally helps us with our lessons so it's awesome. So anyway, they are being baptized this saturday if all goes well and so we have a lot of time set aside throughout the week so that we can teach them the lessons we haven't taught yet and review the other lessons and just make sure that they are all preped for their baptism. There are three of them in this family, the mom and her two kids, and so yeah, we have three baptisms coming up pretty soon! :)

We also have two other investigators with baptismal dates but they aren't for a few more weeks so I can talk more about them later. 

I really love Mexican food so yeah, it's all good! And I am learning to eat spicy food now because I just man up and eat it even though it makes my nose sweat. It is super super delicious even though it makes my mouth feel like it's on fire sometimes. I want to ask a bunch of the awesome ladies who feed us how they make their food so I can make it at home for y'all cuz it is super tasty and you would love it I'm sure :) yeah you are all super awesome and I love you a lot. I show people one of our family pictures when we teach about families and I bare my testimony and they all say that you are all muy bonito so that's good :) I think you are all bonito and super padre (which here that means like awesome and cool and stuff like that although I don't understand the phrase because padre is dad but yeah whatever, that's just what they say around here and I love it!)

My spanish is coming along and people tell me that my accent is good so that is super great because that means I don't sound like a gringo! And they say I read well so that is also a good thing. And when I help teach or when I bare my testimony they can understand what I am saying even though I don't know how to say things correctly but I will get it down. And I definitely believe in the gift of tongues because there is no way that I can be doing this all on my own. No way. 

But anyway, this mission is super awesome and I learn new things every single day about the Gospel and about myself and about Our Heavenly Father. This life and this Gospel are so amazing and we really are so blessed! I hope that you are all trying to be better missionaries at home because that is basically what your calling is here on earth. We all need to invite others to come unto Christ because He is their salvation and if we have the opportunity to save a soul, why wouldn't we take it? I love you all so much and I am so grateful to have you in my life and to have the knowledge that we can be together forever. It is super beautiful Have a great week alright?

Love,

Hermana Walker

 

August 18, 2014 1st Area - Cholula

Ok, Oh my gosh...today was even more crazy than last week and so guess what!? I have thirty minutes to write an email and read all the other ones I have...my inbox was super super full this week and so I will just print them off again hopefully and then I am praying that we can do way better with our time and then I can actually have the full time to email so yeah, I am super super super sorry about this! This week the email is going to be kind of lame but I am still going to try and make it worth your time.

Alright so we have been teaching a cute little old man named Gabriel and he is interested in our message and he is pretty good with keeping the commitments that we extend to him so that is awesome. He had a baptismal date but he hasn{t been coming to church because of his job and so we have to push it back and push it back but we are focusing on him and I think he feels our love for him and he knows that we care about him so hopefully he will be able to have a little miracle and just make it to church two more times at least so that he can be baptized and then hopefully he will continue to come so that he can gain a stronger testimony with each week and renew his covenants through the santa cena. 

We also went and taught this man named Hilirao and I didnt really know what was going on so i kind of just stood around for a lot of it and after a while it was hard to stay focused on what was going on because i could only pick out a few words here and there and try to make it into a coherent sentance but it wasnt working out and we talked with him for way way too long and it started raining on us but apparently he got really offended that we couldnt go into his house (he doesnt have another mujer in the home so we cant go in...its against the rules) and so he got offended and now he doesnt want us to teach him anymore so that is super super sad...we are going to go back some day in the near future and try again though. 

We picked up a new investigator named Victor and he is really nice. He lost his leg, like it is amputated at the knee, and I dont know what happened because I couldnt understand the spanish but I will ask my companion what happened, I only know that it happened recently haha. We invited him to our ward activity this friday and I hope that he can come. His niece or daughter is also invited to come and we are also hoping that she will be able to attend as well. We kind of counted her as an investigator too because she was sitting in and listening to the first lesson we had with Victor. She is also the lady who teaches the yoga classes that we take on our Pday. But today she was at the dentist and so her mom, this old super duper cute lady, let us in and she was all, Oh I know yoga! And she totally taught us and did yoga with us. She is so so funny and super cute! We invited her to the activity too. But she also teaches zumba and tichee and all these other things and she is just so funny and full of energy! She actually kind of reminds me of grandma lee...like I feel like they could be really good friends if they spoke the same language :) 

Mariana is a less active member that we visit a lot. We do service for her and we teach her lessons and she is super cute and her daughter is like the cutest little girl I have ever seen in my life! We are working to reactivate her and to teach her husband because he isnt a member and Mariana has a goal to someday go to the Temple and be sealed so we are trying to help her family achieve that goal. 

Ah! Ok I dont have time to tell you more about the people that I am already beginning to love but hopefully I can do more of that next weeek and also I don{t have my camera with me so pictures have to wait for one more week but I ate one of those nacho libre corns and my companion and I took some pics with it so those are something to look forward to ;) Um, also we had a ton of miracles this passed week! We got some free bread and a bus driver just let us have our ride for free that same day so that was pretty awesome and then my companion felt that we should go knock on this one door so we did and we invited this young woman to the activity on friday and she accepted so that was a miracle and then I had a super awesome and yet at the same time kind of hard/bad experience with the Spirit and reading this awesome talk and some verses in D&C so that was something that was cool and I think of it as a tender mercy of the Lord. My testimony has been growing so much already and was strengthened a lot this week. 

I will explain more of this later but I really have to go now! I love you all and I am so happy to be here and to be serving in this area even though it is really hard and I am realizing everyday how much I still lack but it is ok because I have the Savior on my side and a Heavenly Father who loves me and I have this glorious gospel in my life and that all makes me so happy! I will write back next week! Love you a lot!! 

Love always,

Hermana Walker

 

Aug 11th, 2014 I'm in Mexico!

Haha ok so, first of al, ¡hola! How are you all doing?

I am doing great! Except that this is my first P-day and it has been super crazy because nothing stayed on schedule and so...that means I have like no time to write this week! But that is ok because I will be a lot better next week. But anyway, I don´t know what questions you all asked or anything since I have 22 new emails this week for some reason (I´m like really popular for once in my life ;) ) and so yeah I will just print them all off and read them in my spare time (haha, spare time. What?) yeah I actually don´t have a lot of that but esta bien because I will find time since I love all of you and want to read what you wrote to me!

But yeah anyway, So i really really love my companion! She is super super awesome and way cute and we get along really well. She is from Farmington so when we get home we are totally hanging out. We already discussed it. And we are attending each other´s weddings :) haha yeah she is just so great! She has been en el campo (in the field) for six months now. That´s so crazy because I have only been here for uno semana (one week!) I still sometimes can´t believe that I am like, actually walking the streets of Mexico sometimes.

But anyway, So it is crazy here because everyone speaks Spanish. It´s like they´re Mexican or something ,) They speak really fast and some are fairly easy to understand while others I´m just like, um...what did you just say...?? and some speak like in the back of their throats and so that is super hard to understand as well but its ok because I know that I will get it down and the Lord will help me as long as I try since He called me here for a reason and I know that the Lord doesn´t ask us to do anything that He knows we can´t handle. 

Ok so the flight here was cool like the one to Dallas felt kind of long and then the whle calling my family thing didn´t work out like I wanted so that was kind of bad and there were tears but I am really grateful Hermana Peterson let me use her cell phone thing to call and that the phones were eventually able to get service so that I could talk to you guys because I didn´t realize how much talking to you would mean to me before. So yeah but the flight to Puebla seriously flew by! (no pun intended but hey, you can have one anyway) :) I honestly felt like we were only on the plane for thirty minutes and then all of a sudden we´re flying over the city and it is super gorgeous and I am freaking out just a little bit. But yeah, ah, crazy stuff! S the first night we stayed in the mission home and met the APs and the mission President and his wife. I really like them. Presidente Stellmon is a little bit more strict but he is stil really nice and he is all about getting the work done and working hard and forgetting ourselves and getting to work and al that so that is awesome. But Hermana Stellmon is so cute! She is really bubbly and fun and I like her a lot. The mission home is really pretty! Just so you know. 

The second day, or I guess technically the first ful day in Mexico, was crazy. I met my companion at the changes meeting and then I aso found out my area and I had to move all my suitcases into the back of a truck and a member drve us to our area. 

Our area is super awesome! we are in Cholula and we live in San Gabriel. It is like a pueblito or pueblo which is like a tiny town and the houses in this area are all apparently pretty big but I wouldn´t really know since I have nothing to compare it with except houses in america and that isn´t really a fair comparison haha. But yeah some of the houses here are actually like, pretty big and nice. and mostly everyone is a farmer and there are chickens and turkeys and pigs and horses and all that. um, que mas...? Oh yeah. The food. Oh my gosh. I eat so much food! They just feed us and feed us and feed us! And the food is like super rico, or super delicious. They like always start us out with a soup of some sort and then they give us the main meal with tortillas always and then sometimes we even get dessert and we aways get fruit. I ate a mango for the first time in my life and holy cow it is like the best thing ever! Me gusto mucho! I aso ate a fruit called tuna which is apparently a fruta de cactus. It is really yummy as well. We definitely need to come here and visit when I am no longer a missionary. And it wil be better then anyway because then I will actually be able to speak and understand haha. 

Um, yeah so I am running out of time....oh but speaking of which, I ost my watch....like, I lost it somewhere between the MTC and the Airport...haha I know I know, how dumb right? Well it´s ok because Hermana Kraczek and I just bought some watches today! They are actualy pretty gigante but we think they are cute and so yeah, we bought them. we both needed watches super bad. Um, ok going back to the food. Y´all better still love me when I am fat because...yeah it´s going to happen. But don´t worry, I will work really hard when I get home and then I can be skinny and it won´t be as bad haha. 

I have born my testimony a lot here since that is basically all I can do, wel and I can kind of pray but a lot of the time I say the same things...so I am working on getting better with that so that my spanish prayers can be just as meaningful as my english ones :)

One realy spiritual moment for me here was when I was bearing my testimony at a member´s house after la comida and I was bearing it about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The Spirit just overcame me and I was all choked up (but I didn´t quite cry) and I just knew without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true and that Jospeh smith was and still is a true prophet of God. The Spirit was really strong in that moment and I am so thakful to Heavenly Father for giving me that experience to make me stronger and to increase my faith and strengthen my roots of testimony. 

I am really sorry for all the typos because this keyboard is a little weird and I don´t have a lot of time so I am rushing but I need to go now. I love you all so much and I just want you to know that I know this Gospel is true and that I love being a missionary and I am really grateful for this opportunity and to be here. This work is truly amazing and although it is really hard and I am slowly becoming less attractive physically, I know that the Lord will help me make up for that spiritually and that I will be able to come closer to Him through this amazing opportunity to bring his children unto the Savior Jesus Christ. I will talk to you more next week! I love you a lot!

Love always,
Hermana Walker