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!!!

I Think it's Spring!

Hello my friends!!

So we had an amazing week!!!
We have been working so much with  members to get referrals and it's
working! We have a few things set up with our members where they can
introduce us to their friends.
Also another miracle is that Jillian MOVED UP HER BAPTISMAL DATE TO
THE 13th of February!!!
We are so pumped!! This week our mission president is coming with us
to teach her! And we are so stoked!
We were able to get a good amount of new investigators and we are so
blessed right now!
The one new investigator we are really excited about is Cristian, his
whole family are members and he isn't and he has been coming to church
for over a month now and we have been setting a good foundation with
him and he's super nice and totally prepared to receive the gospel!
His family has been so patient with him, we see that they don't push
or pressure anything on him and just let him be. But they have not
given up hope. Last week me and Hermana French have prayed all week
that the Sunday that just passed we will be able to ask Cristian to
have a lesson with us and that he would be accepting. And he was!! :)
his sister sat in the lesson and her face screamed pure joy as she
testified of the gospel and how much she loves him! And it was such a
sweet lesson , he was very accepting and humble. So we are very
excited for that!
Another miracle that happened this week that a few minutes after
sacrament started these two guy walked in and us and the elders and
the bishopric were making faces to each to figure out who invited them
and no one knew. So we all had our eyes on them and a member sat next
to them and was super nice to them and we see that they shook our
members hands and got up to leave , me and an elder make eye contact
and mouth "GO TALK TO THEM" . And he goes and then after sacrament all
of us missionaries (there's 6 of us) get together to find out who
those guys were. And the elder that talked with them said that they
were walking by the church and felt like they should go inside. He got
their information and they are in our area, we gave them a call and
said that they plan on coming back to church next Sunday!
Things are BLOOMING like its spring!!!
You know what I did the last 8 weeks before all this beautiful things
been happening? Knocking doors for 6 hours straight and talking to
people on the street. Was it hard? Yes, especially in the cold. Was is
a little discouraging ? Yes it was. But NO EFFORT IS WASTED! And we
are seeing wonderful things happening!! We are so excited! Please pray
for Jillian to stay on date for the 13th of February and for Cristian
and our other investigators to progress!

We went on exchanges! I got to be with Hermana Hayward who is a new
missionary and I loved being with her greenie Fire! !! She has the
strongest testimony of the plan of salvation I ever heard! She's going
to accomplish beautiful things in this mission!
Every week as I go on exchanges with hermanas I can see that those
exchanges are more for me to learn from them then for them to learn
from me! I am grateful for the position the Lord has given me so that
I can be more worthy to be called his daughter and be the person he
needs me to be and to learn the things he needs me to learn.

This is how I feel every time we leave the apartment 

And then this is how I feel when we didn't have the day we expected 

The Savior is there. He loves us. Sssoooo much!!
Love you all!!
Have a great week!
And know that He knows better. When we really trust in Heavenly Father,  What we don't know or   Don't understand doesn't matter.
Keep going.

It's COLD!!!

Hello all!!

 This week has been cold!!!! So cold!! You all have no idea!!!!
But besides it being really cold , the work does not stop! We have
been trying very hard this  week to be grateful we get to do the Lords
work with cold feet and cold noses! Like seriously when will be the
next time in my life that I get to be a full time set apart servant of
God in below 0 degrees trying to bring happiness to others with
nothing else in my kind and nothing else to do BUT to do the Lords
work! IM SO HAPPY TO BE HERE IN THIS BEAUTIFUL STRANGE LAND CALLED
CHICAGO AND ENJOYING ALL THAT COMES WITH IT. cold weather, loud
noises, crazy driving, trains, talented people at every corner trying
to get known, crazy people , delicious food, meeting every race you
can think of and learning a few words in their language and eating
their food, CHICAGO IS AMAZING! THIS WORK IS AMAZING! I rather be no
where else.
So that was me letting everyone know that positivity is KEY!!



I will NOT tolerate damaged thinking!!! I have decided get any negative or discouraging thought out of my head as fast as any person would when they have a bad thought! I will not dwell on any sort of negativity . NEGATIVITY WAS NOT MADE BY MY FATHER IN HEAVEN SO IT IS NOT A PART OF ME.  I embrace hard times where I grow and learn but having a bad attitude is something that I have decided to not get to
me. There's enough of that in the world and if I remember correctly we are not of this world.
Okay I'm done with the ranting. Before I get to some highlights , I testify that the hope of Gods light is real. Being in darkness is a choice. God is right there and
is ready to help us and uplift us, but we must be humble enough to have our hearts and eyes open to small victories every day and accept the small and big victories that we caused in our day. And seeing our
blessings ! That's what this week is about.
Small victories and blessings !!

Victory
Finding 2 more new investigators

Blessing
Having a heater in our apartment

Victory
Being able to go to zone conference, the zone leaders contacted us to
use our STL Magic and uplift our whole zone and be proud of them!

Blessing / victory
An older member who literally forces us to call her grandma fed us 1
giant plate of rice with gandules and meat and once we were done she
took our plates and pounded pasta on our plates and told us we had to
finish it all

Victory /blessing
Having investigators at church :)

Blessing
Having an awesome companion that I love so much

Blessing
Having an electric blanket cause our apartment is freezing and our
heater only warms our living room.

Victory
Being able to not slow down with freezing wind whipping us in the face.


COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS AND VICTORIES THIS WEEK! I dare you!

Love you all !