THE PLAN OF SALVATION AND THE BOM

Hello friends and family!!
There are two things I'm going to write today.
One will be the plan of salvation and the other will be about the Book
of Mormon.


So a few weeks ago, me and my companion were walking the crazy streets
of Chicago when we craved little Caesars and cause we only had $5.
There was this young man walking down the street and we asked him if
he knew where the closest little Caesars would be. He said no and we
got to talking and he told us how he is going through a hard time
right now so we got his info and sent it to the English elders who
cover our area.
The next time we saw them they told us how awesome this guy is. His
name is Tommy.
The day we found him is the day he decided to stop using drugs. The
elders would spent time with him every day to help him and he would
get invited to members houses all time and FHE. He was getting some
serious support. We randomly saw him on the street again and he told
us how grateful he was that we talked to him and how he has never felt
so much love and support in his entire life.
Every Time we saw the elders they would tell us about the progress of
Tommy and how he tells everyone the funny way we met.
Few weeks passed.
One morning I got the impression to get a picture of Christ and I
wrote a note to Tommy and I gave it to the elders to give to him.
This week we had zone conference and one of the elders came up to me
and said "hey I have to talk to you, Tommy died yesterday of an
overdose"
I can't really remember my expression but I didn't say anything and
then he said "last time we saw him we gave him your note and he loved
it"
The elders went to the funeral service and we saw them later that day
and brought me the little program that they handed out with a cute
poem and a picture of angels in heaven.
They said that everyone there knew who they were because Tommy talked
so fondly about those elders and that his parents asked "where are the
two girls that asked him where a little Caesars was"


I felt pure peace. Pure peace to know that we did what the Lord has
called us to do and give warning to everyone. Tommy already knows
about the gospel and he missed his baptismal date by a month and half.
But I know that he is going to accept it ssooo fast in the spirit
world because of the mercy of the Lord who commanded everyone to go
and preach the gospel.

The plan of Salvation is real. There is ONE plan and there is ONE way
to gain the eternal happiness we are promised. It starts with faith in
Jesus Christ.
How do we gain Faith in Jesus Christ?
THE BOOK OF MORMON!
I won't tell the whole lesson. But this past week we had an
appointment with an investigator who is a part member family and is
SUPER PREPARED!!
At the end of the lesson I felt impressed to ask him some questions
and they were:
Have you prayed specifically to know if the BOM is true?
Why do you think we ask you to read the BOM?
Out of all the things we have been teaching you what do you know
without a doubt that is true?

He couldn't answer. He's progressing he hasn't missed a day of church
the past 3 months and quit coffee and committed to pay tithing.
But the testimony is what is needed not just willingness.

Authority and power filled the room when we looked at Cristian in the
eyes and told him
"EVERYTHING WEIGHS ON THIS BOOK!!!
You have to read it!!! The only way you'll know anything we taught is
true Is if you read and pray about the BOM! You have to read it
EVERYDAY! "

 The Book of Mormon testifies of Christ and his gospel that is now
restored! It's living proof that Joseph Smith restored it and that
every little detail about this  gospel is 100 % true and that it will
never ever fail!!

That is my testimony to you all brother and sisters!
Life can be eternal with our families and happiness.

The way the rest of our lives go depend on our daily scripture study.

I love you all! I want all of you to feel the burning goodness I feel
when I read the Book of Mormon and remember the wonderful plan God has
for us!

I love you all and I pray for y'all.

                  Trio life for 3 hours

"The hands of God" 

Relief society annual celebration

Lol at our skills with an iPad camera

Hermana Curapil

Miracles and Then Another One and a Few More

This week we were able to see so many miracles!
We finally found a less active family that are never home!! And it was
awesome cause the mom told us that lately she's been feeling
Unsatisfied and that she's been missing something else. Her kids
joined us and we were able to get a good relationship going.
We also visited another less active who is going through a hard time
so we been actually setting citas with her. And she gave us a
referral! He's a young English speaking guy but still! It was awesome
how excited she got!
There's also another girl Alicia who is 19. Her mom is active and
she's not. She's been warming up to us. And was so excited when we
came over , she likes to bake and she baked us all the things we told
we liked. It was awesome for so many reasons! The lesson was the best
part! She just opened up and was able to be herself.
I also went on exchanges with Hermana Chabert.
She's so wonderful and a great example of a lot of things!
As me and Hermana rowbury planned out the exchange, it didn't feel
right to have citas that day. So I decided to stop fighting the
prompting and cancel or move the citas we had that day except our
lunch member cita and do 8 hours of straight walking and contacting!
We sure were exhausted at the end of that night! But it felt great!!
We got a ton of PNIs and set up cita right then and there and even met
a good amount of people who had friends and family who are already
Mormon.
We even contacted white people! We contacted this one lady that just
lit up as we in unity shared our excitement of the BOM and started
testify of it. The bus came and she said she's going to go to the
website on it so that missionaries can visit her and thanked us for
talking to her! At the end of the exchange Hermana Chabert told me
that she really needed it. She really needed to do 8 hours of
contacting and that she felt great.  She's a little stressed with
everything that is going on with Hermana Allen and the area. But she's
doing all good things and wants to be a good companion to Hermana
Allen and serve the ward.
The elders had a baptism and Cristian came. Once Olga got in that
water and he leaned over to me and Hermana rowbury and said "that'll
soon be me right?" And excitedly told us about how he stopped drinking
coffee for a straight week! His dark bags under his eyes were a
beautiful sight #tendermerciesforamissionary

I read a "miracle of a mission" this week and something stuck out to
me that hasn't before.
"For as long as we live we will be bearing testimony of the divinity
of the Church, and of the salvation of the Lord and of the Restoration
of the gospel and of God’s love for His children. Until I cannot move
my lips one more time, that is what we will do."

 It made me feel really excited that for the rest of my life I can
keep strengthening my testimony of the Savior and the restoration of
the this gospel and hope that nothing will ever stop me from sharing
that testimony with others and that it'll help me in time of need.
And it made me feel really excited that I'll never ever stop living
this gospel and I'm so grateful for the covenants I could make in the
temple , I know that it'll bless me for the rest of my life and my
families.
Until I cannot move my lips one more time either on this mission or
not as a missionary that is what I will do.

Like Paul , I will fight a good fight,  I will finish my course, I
will keep the faith

I was able to do what my parents have trained me to do my whole life! I translated the whole first hour of sacrament for our ward conference for the stake people who didn't speak Spanish. It was awesome! 

Hermana Chabert! 
Everyone thinks we are twins. Even our mission president get us mixed up

We just happen to walk by the most sketchiest parts of our area this week.

#wheninchicago #mycheeks 

Cute faces. Cute friends for life 

Saw this. Took a picture and then I dreamt that
it was in front of our apartment #weirdfunfact

Missionary Work and One Unfortunate Event

Hello my friends!!

I hope you all had a fantastic week!!  Hermana Rowbury and I saw a huge miracle! We were able to put Cristian on date! We were eating and all of a sudden he said "I've been thinking about this baptism thing and I want
to do it"

We dropped our jaws and set a date for the 14th of May.! He still said he needed some time to prepare cause otherwise he could get baptized next week! He's come to church 11 times in a row now!! Ahhh we are so pumped!
 
We had a district contacting activity where we passed out a TON of book of Mormons in English , Spanish and Polish. If you look at the picture I'm holding a Polish BOM and you won't know what it says ha!!

I really think our district looks like
super models here! We met a guy
who read the whole Book of Mormon!  

We also had sisters conference! And that was the most stressful thing ever to put together. But it went amazing!! It was super uplifting for the Sisters and Hermanas in our mission! 

I also can't believe it has already been 6 months since our last sister conference and A YEAR since my first 

Could I have any more gauze on my finger?

I also cut my finger while cleaning the church. There was a crack on the sink and I swiped my finger right across that sharp marble and blood went everywhere....like everywhere. I played it cool and kept cleaning until my glove was filled with blood and my companion freaked out. We called our mission nurse and we went to the ER. IT WAS AWESOME! While the nurse dude was registering me in, I accidentally go blood all over his desk cause the napkins weren't cutting it. What made it super hilarious is that the guy was trying so hard to laugh and the fact that my companion couldn't stop laughing either. He made us sit down and he had to sanitize everything.

I have the best companion ever. I was having a rough day and beating myself up and went to bed and woke up to this :) post it with wonderful things written on them Add caption

Also I don't know my right from my left and my companion is about sick of it ...so she did this.

Those are the main things about this week! Hope this information was satisfying to everytime! 

Have a great week!! 

Love you all! 

Meet Jillian!

Hello  family and friends! 

Our week was great!! We couldn't do much because Hermana Rowbury was sick, but we were still able to have a cool lesson with Jillian and her family and with Hermana French (she asked to stay an extra week to be at Jillian's baptism) and her dad and sister. Hermana French asked if we could teach her about eternal
families and have her dad bear testimony of how much of a fight against the natural man and the adversary there is to get to the temple
.
We showed the Mormon message "temple are a beacon" and while they were watching that I had an impression to share an experience about one of my best friend, Kirsten . She wasn't sealed to her parents and that always weighed on her shoulders. And I told them about when we were 15 we went to EFY and a speaker or someone important came up to her and told her "hey don't give up, it'll happen someday" and that always stuck with her. 

She and I were endowed on the same day. And after our session we went into the sealing room and I got to watch my best friend get sealed to her family. I'm very close with them and it was such a cool experience of seeing them there after all that they been through. The spirit was so strong!!! Hermana Rowbury then asked Hermano French how he feels about being together with "Amber" (lol Hermana French). After a while of being separated. And he got a little emotional and talked bout how grateful he is for his daughters because they are a great example to him. And it was such a sweet experience. 

Jillian and her family were glued to every word we had to say. It was amazing! At Jillians baptism, she looked so happy and excited!!!! The baptism was so sweet and tender! She had a lot of her friends and family come who
aren't members and she kept introducing us as "my missionaries" or "these are my missionaries". It was sweet!! :)
P.S Hermana Rowbury and I are BFFs.

The windiest day of our life! Walking around was rough!
We were so sore the day after from walking against the wind all day

Ya my face is barely in this pic
but look how cute my comp is

Jillian barely smiles so this was a big deal

Jillian and her Family

Hermana French, Jillian, Hermana Curapil, Hermana Rowberry, and Elder

Good Week in a Few Words.

We had a wonderful week!
We ate a lot of food.
We had a powerful zone training.
We made someone cry with a really good lesson.
We had an awesome stake conference.
We had some snow. And had to walk in the nice snow for a couple hours
at night and people looked at us like we were crazy. Their exact words
were "we aren't interested but you girls are amazing, keep going"
I love the gospel.


I'm also getting a new companion! Hermana Rowbury! So excited to see miracles with her! 









































This is all I have time for, sorry! 

But love you all!! 

Can't Stop Won't Stop

Hello friends and family!!!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my life?!
Well I do!! Why? Cause this week we had this amazing experience of who we are!
Elder Soares from the seventy came to our mission and gathered all the
leaders of the mission and made us understand why we are leaders and
why we are missionaries!
The answer is obviously children of God. But what he made very clear
is that our purpose right now as missionaries was our purpose in the
pre-existence and will be forever our purpose especially in the spirit
world. What's our purpose?
To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them recurve the
restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement,
repented , baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring
to the end.
That will forever be my purpose!
He mentioned that we are the great and noble ones of this last dispensation!
And how it's up to us as leaders to help our missionaries understand
this as well. This Wednesday me and Hermana French get to teach this
Wednesday at zone training meeting about this and we already planned
it out and we just know it's going to be a sacred experience. So I
know all this applies to all of you back home or on a mission or
whoever and wherever you are reading this.
So we are going to do this exercise and we hope it works well with you too!

So since you have to be reading this just pretend you have your eyes closed.

Now I'm going to ask some questions and you answer them in your head.

What do you think the pre-existence looks like?
How often do you think you spoke with Heavenly Father?
How do you think you felt when Heavenly Father presented his plan to
you and knew of the challenges you are going to face ?
How do you think you felt when he told you who your family was going to be?
What do you think the people you are meant to help on this earth told you?
Did they tell you to not give up on them?
Did they tell you to keep searching for them?
Now imagine there's a door and once you pass that door is when you go
through the veil and come to earth.

You are standing right in front of this door.
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are right there with you.
What do you think they said?
Did they hug you, give you a handshake , kiss you on the cheek?
Did they look right into your eyes ?
Did they tell you that they love you and they need you to be strong
and faithful?

Okay now.
Think of all the answers to those questions.

I testify that Heavenly Father prepared every single one of us. Every
single one of us has a sacred purpose on earth and he is counting on
us to bring back others with us.
When we enter his presence , he needs us to be hand in hand with our
family and loved ones!

So get to work and PREACH THE GOSPEL!!!!


So right now I am in the sky cause it's been a year since I felt I am
not capable enough to be the Lords servant. I have struggled to see
what others see in me. For some reason I just denied and denied and at
time made myself miserable by dwelling on my weaknesses. Brothers and
sisters I am on a turning point right now.
It took me a year to realize my potential and to know that I am
capable and that I am not as weak as I think I am because of my
Savior.
Me and my companion feel so good to know that we exceeded every goal
we made last week. We literally set very high goals maybe even a
little unrealistic goals and we humbled ourselves hardcore and worked
so hard and we have reach every single one of this goals and even
passed some of them !!!
I'm so humbled to know that every thing I did this week is something
that I wouldn't be capable to do with relying on the Savior, relying
on my companion and relying on my mission president and district
leader and anyone around me. Not relying on myself was probably the
hardest thing I ever did BUT it got me where I needed to be for the
children of God who are lost and hurt! I'm so grateful for this plan
and this wonderful growing experience .
I love this Gospel. I do and I plan on showing it for the rest of my life.
Have a good week everyone!

An elder brought mustaches to district meeting.....

Custard with my favorite senior sisters

Going on exchanges to a walking area and it hailed. It was funny how much it hurt to get whipped by those little pebbles of ice with the whipping wind. 

Start Fast, Run Hard, You Can Rest Later

Hello beautiful people!!

It's been a wonderful week!!
We had a lesson with Jillian and her family with our mission president
and it was amazing!! Jillian feels so prepared and excited to be
baptized! It's in two weeks so please keep her in your prayers so that
nothing changes!

Another awesome thing! I get to go back to my last area for a
baptism!! And I'm so pumped! Please also pray everything goes well for
Gaby on the 20th of February!

We walked a ton this week!! And we were able to  A LOT of potential
investigators and they are people who are sincerely interested! So we
are super awesome for all the appointments we have with them this
week!

There's a reporter who is doing a story on missionaries and she's been
with us this week and she just takes a lot of notes and asks us a
millions questions and it's so awesome how blown away she is! She
can't believe how people actually listen to us and open up to us from
the very beginning. And now that I think about it, missionary work is
kind of awesome!! After 4 hours of missionary work we were walking and
she says "are you guys tired? Cause I'm exhausted and all I'm doing is
observing?" And me and Hermana French just look at each other not
really trying to admit that we are super tired and tell her that being
tired is something that kind of never goes away for missionaries , we
just become used to it and we just keep going cause we love our Lord.
After she left , me and Hermana French kept trying to work hard and we
were talking about what Tess (the reporter ) said. And I said to
Hermana French "Hermana you know what's crazy? We could  stop for five
minutes and get a quick sip of water. But are we going to right now.
No!! Isn't that crazy how we know that sore feet and runny noses is
what's going to bring us joy at the end of our day instead of a quick
rest ?" and she laughed and said "haha yeah that's so true. But we
love the Lord and we are gonna keep working until a sip of water and a
quick 5 minutes rest is very very needed"
At that moment I just thought to myself how crazy missionaries are! We
just go and go and go until we can't anymore because we know how
important this work is and we love this gospel so much!
I'm so grateful that I can be doing this work right now in my life
before it got too late. I am learning so much about Heavenly Father
and our savior. I am so in love with this gospel and with Chicago. I'm
so grateful for sore feet and cold noses and raggedy skirts and the
awesome friends I have made. I'm so grateful I can NEVER EVER regret
not knowing if a mission was something I should've done.
I love you all!!! Keep going!!



Highlights
- there's this super old Hermana in our ward and she got super mad at
us cause we didn't go over to eat and she told us that next time she
was going to hit us with a wooden spoon and then we were helping her
peel potatoes and she was a critic and told us we are never gonna find
a husband. HA!!


- going to the art museum for free cause we true Chicagoans


- my companion is super awkward around kids and we were teaching a less active in the library and the little girl forced her to play with her and it was awesome 

You are capable, competent, creative, careful.
Prove it!!!