Second 9 - Letter 48 - St Helena, CA

When it rains it pours . . . 

Hola! Buenos tardes! This week I am sitting at the computer in much happier spirits and a little bit better health. 

First of all, I just have to thank you all for praying for me! I feel it! Also thank you for the letters and packages they have been what I needed this week!

I just figured that I might as well give you all the run down of what I learned at physical therapy so that you all just know the truth from the source. 

I had the sweetest physical therapist named Christine. She was so funny and helpful which was an answer to my prayers. She did lots of different evaluations and realized that what is happening is that a muscle right below my shoulder (Hermana Z keeps referring to it as the traps if that makes sense to you medically smart people) is being over worked because it has to move a lot more than it should because the other muscles in that area are confined by the rod that was put in for my scoliosis. This one muscle is just constantly moving and so it is getting warn out and so it causes a lot of pain in my shoulders and neck. She told me to start doing a few things that will help this muscle rest. 1) I bought a new pillow and I also sleep hugging a pillow so that muscle is in a comfortable position 2) Ice the area at night 3) Rest my right arm as much as I can 4) Stop nodding in agreement when people talk because this causes the muscle to move even more

Sorry if this is to much info but I know that lots of you want to know so instead of making my family repeat it over and over you know it all now! All og these random things are working and I go and see her again this Friday and we are going to come up with a exercise plan and also a work on training my brain to tell this muscle to stop moving and to tell the other ones to move. It will be interesting but I know that everything will work out because I am getting the help that I need. 

After we got back from the physical therapy place last monday night we were so tired but we kept working and we had a lesson with an amazing couple who were former investigators. There names are Gilberto and Eva and we taught them about the Book of Mormon and they are so excited to read it! 

Tuesday morning I was so worried that mom and dad and Pres. and Sis. Alba were going to be so worried about me because I was a little dramatic in my e-mails. I had the mission nurse call mom and dad and then I prayed that I would be able to have an chance to meet with President Alba that day. Sure enough we got to district meeting and President Alba pulled up behind us. I was able to meet with Pres. and Sis. Alba and let them know what is going on. Pres. told me that I need to rest my little body and that I just need to give the Lord all the work I can give him right now. It was so good to talk to them and to recieve there support. I was so thankful that my prayer was answered and they thought it was funny when I told them that I had prayed them there. Also yesterday we had a fast for tow elders who are having severe medical problems and today Pres. e-mailed me and told me that he also fasted for me. He is such an amazing man and I am so thankful for all of his support!

This week the Sisters that we live with were rear ended by a drunk driver and so we spent a lot of time taking them to the hospital and just dealing with the shock. They are both safe and healthy and it was a great learning experience for all of us. It has brought us so much closer togehter and now we truly feel like sisters and we truly love each other.

So we did not have that successful of a week because we had so many other things going on but we are still seeing little miracles. We are seeing amazing things happen as we pray in faith to find those who are prepared for us and as we are exactly obedient.

I have learned that even though trials and discouragement have been raining down the blessings and miracles have been pouring in too! 

I feel so blessed to be one of the Lord's servants even though I am not 100% I do all I can to give 100% becuase I know that the Lord will help me in all that I do!

Thank you for all of your support and prayers! Do the best you can every day and the Lord loves you no matter what!

Love you all more than the local hamburger joint, Home Plate, we are obsessed with,

Hermana Andrews

Second 9 - Letter 47 - St Helena, CA

Heavenly Father Likes Broken Things, Right?

(Dear readers of Hillary's Blog - Hillary had a rough week and so just wrote a short note to her dad and I. She said it was ok to share it with you and I thought I would. We can all learn from others who do hard things. Hillary is amazing! She will appreciate all of our prayers and letters as she keeps up the great work she is doing amid the pain. I received a phone call from the mission nurse this morning, letting me know that Hillary wanted me to know she is doing better and received relief and great instructions at her appointment yesterday. She will do exercises each morning and return to therapy next week to see how things are going. Thanks for your continued support and prayers for our great Hillary!! Love, Ruth)

Mom and Dad,

So I love your letters! It sounds like you are all having a great summer! I am kind of starting to miss home a tiny bit but I am glad that you are all having fun! I am at another one of those weeks where it has been rough.

This week has been hard I know I am supposed to remain positive but it has been rough but I still try to be happy and to look for the good.

My companion has declared me as broken and I basically am. My right shoulder has basically given out. It is constantly in very hard pain and occasionally sharp pain. My back also is in sporadic sharp pain. I am finally going to physical therapy today at 5 in Santa Rosa and I am hoping that they will be able to somewhat know what is going on and help me know what to do to make it feel better. 

So with all of this pain and worrying about going to physical therapy it has been hard to be focused on the work and get things done but we are doing our best. We found three new investigators this week and they are so solid! They all have so much potential and we have the potential to teach their families as well. So miracles are happening! I love this work so much it is just hard on my body but I will make it through. Sorry to be so depressing but I am still happy and smiling and laughing so please don't worry just continue to pray and everything will work out!

Thank you for all you do for me and for your prayers!

Love,

Hill

Second 9 - Letter 46 - St Helena, CA

I am the greatest missionary!

Hey hey hey! What up? So this week has been incredible and I am so glad that I have time to share it with all of you this week! First of all, Hermana Zimmerman and I have learned a lot about sacrifices this week. We have realized that starting this area is stretching us and causing us to make more sacrifices than normal, like only e-mailing for an hour instead of 1 hour and 30 minutes but it is all so worth it.

This week we had zone conference and it was exactly what I needed! It was all about being ourselves as we use the new skills we have been given. I loved this because Hermana Zimmerman has declared that I have hit my mid mission crisis meaning that I am really trying to figure out how to be the best missionary that I can be. I have felt that I have gotten a little robotic and too caught up in the routine of things so it was great to be reminded that I have been called to be me! 

Sister Alba talked about how we can all be the greatest missionary! At first I thought that is not true I can never me great because I have this flaw and that flaw and on and on and on. Then I thought to myself Stop it!, there is nothing that is stopping you from being great.... you are the greatest missionary. Sister Alba shared many experiences about great missionaries. One of the stories she told was about President Faust and how him and one of his companions decided that they were going to be examples of missionaries who worked the hardest. They worked very hard and were exactly obedient but they did not have any baptisms. They both learned that it does not take baptisms to make you a successful missionary it just takes hard work! I realized that this is all Hermana Zimmerman and I need to do we just need to work hard and try our best every day and we will be blessed with miracles and that is all we need! 

President Alba then taught us about true conversion and how we must truly be converted in order to help others be converted. He taught us that pride will stop us from being converted and he gave us a talk by President Benson that is incredible. It made me realize that pride is such an easy sin to fall into and it can be just simply not wanting to follow the Lord's will for just a second. So I am praying for humility and trying to submit every ounce of myself to the Lord.

One of the assistants talked about the importance of bringing everything we do back to Christ. This really hit me hard because I feel like I try to do this but we can always do better. I feel like sometimes we teach about the Book of Mormon but fail to mention that it is another testament of Christ. It is such a privilige to wear Christs name right under mine every single day but I am trying to make sure that I am just not wearing it in vain and that I am truly following His example.

So this week we learned so many wonderful things and we tried our very best to be the best and although we did not see the fruits that we would have hoped for it was a good week!

We taught an amazing lesson to Jorge after Zone Conference and even thought the spirit was super strong he told us that he just feels like he needs more time to read and study on his own but he promised in the name of Jesus Christ that he would continue to read the Book of Mormon. So we will try to go and see him again in a few weeks and see how things are going. It has just been hard because he was our only progressing investigator but we know that it was the Lord's will.

We have been trying a lot of new ways to find new investigators like service tracting where we knock doors offering service or phone tracting where we go through our records and call people trying to set up appointments or share the gospel.

I am truly loving this area so much! The branch is small but great! We had a linger longer potluck yesterday after church and it was super fun! These people are salt to the earth and love us missionaries we just need to get them to help in this work! 

It is beautiful here and no matter what the circumstances are this work is a beautiful thing to be a part of!

Continue to share the gospel and to help the missionaries.

Love you!

Hermana Hillary

Second 9 - Letter 45 - St Helena, CA

Let the Light In

Hola! Que paso? So I hope you all are doing well. 

Life here is a little crazy. We are having a hard time figuring out how to do our e-mails because the Napa library is too for away to go every week and the Calistoga library is closed Monday so we have to go to the St. Helena library but it opens at 2 so we can only do 1 hour at a time and we thought we could add on our extra half an hour but we could not so I spent too much time reading e-mails yesterday and did not have the time to finish writing. I feel so bad but we are at the library doing some new missionary training so I am using my last half an hour so you can at least get a small update.

Thank goodness for lists.

Here is a list of things that are going on here:

- we had a great lesson with a less active member who speaks spanish and is going to help us to find more investigators and he was at church on Sunday so we had one Spanish speaking person at church wooo

- our miracle Jorge has a baptismal date for July 28th

- we went to the 4th of July Parade here in Calistoga

- I am getting super tan

- we live right by the fair so had a soundtrack of hick music every night

- we are doing the best we can to continue to find more people to teach and are still getting used to this area

Sorry this is so so so short but admist through all of the challenges I am doing great and letting the light of the gospel in my life!

Let the light into your life too!

Have a great day!

Love you!

Hermana Andrews

Second 9 - Letter 44 - St Helena, CA

I am the water!

Hola from St. Helena (currently we are in Napa so hello from there too!),

So I made it here safely and I am in love! It was hard to say goodbye to Novato because it was my home for 6 months and I had amazing learning experiences there but as I went to the transfer meeting on Wednesday I felt peace. I had so many of my mission friends coming up to me and telling me that they were so excited that I was going to St. Helena because that area needed Spanish sisters and I would be the perfect fit. It just made me feel so good to know that other people knew that I could do this! I was a little nervous about training and opening an area but I have an incredible companion who is so ready to help me with all of these changes. My companion is Hermana Zimmerman from Ventura, California. She is so cute and a little shy but when she opens her mouth the Spirit is felt and the people feel loved. We get a long really well and are able to help each other have confidence that we can do all of the many tasks that are being set before us.

We live with a companionship of English sisters and all four of us serve in the St. Helena Branch. The branch is pretty small and Hna. Zimmerman and I are supposed get a Spanish group going. We are not exactly sure how all of this is supposed to work but it will all work out eventualy. Right now we do not have a ton of investigators or anything because this area has basically not been touched as far as Spanish goes. The branch members are so friendly! We cover 3 small towns so it is a lot of small town folk and the nearest city is Napa which is 40 minutes away. It is very different from Mesa and from the other cities I have served in. However, I love it. Hermana Zimmerman and I spoke in church yesterday about missionary work and I was so bold! I did not feel like it was me talking...... I felt like so grown up as I testified about the blessings that will come as these members share the gospel. Since they are small town folk it is hard for them to change and do something different but things are going to change!

Many of the members came up to us after and told us how happy they are that we are here. The branch president here is incredible and he is so ready to help us in this work. He said that he called Presdient Alba a few months ago and told him that this area needed Spanish missionaries. Many other members said that they know that it is hard to find more English people to teach but that they think where the miracles will come is with the Spanish community. This is why I titled this e-mail I am the water because this branch has been in a drought of miracles, a drought of faith but it is all going to change. I ( a long with Hermana Zimmerman) am the water. The people in this area have basically been waiting for us and now their drought can end because the miracles are pouring in!

We have seen too many miralces than I can even begin to describe but here is a quick list:

- We already have an investigator with a baptismal date.... gilberto.....he is an investigator that the english sisters were teaching. He is so ready to be baptized and we are also teaching his wife and we know that she is ready to be baptized too we just have to help her realize that,

- We picked up two amazing investigators yesterday who are truly elect

-We have many people who we have contacted on the street that we have appointments with this week

The water is flowing in the form of miracles. Life is also a little stressful but all is well. I am so happy! I just feel so needed! I also feel blessed to be the one who gets to start the work in this great area. I am really so happy!

Sorry I forgot my camera cord in the car so I promis tons of beautiful pics. next week.

Also anyone who e-mailed me this week I am sorry I do not have time to e-mail back but thank you for writing me!

Here is my  address:

1714 Washington St. #2

Calistoga, CA

I lvoe you all! Thank you for your prayers they are being answered! Be the water for someone's drought!

Hermana Hillary