Second 9 - Letter 65 - Santa Rosa, CA

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hola familia y amigos! Feliz dia del pavo! Well this week has been interesting. I feel like not that much has been happening. I will start out with that we went to the temple and it was wonderful. I am so thankful that we have the opportunity to go and worship in the house of the Lord. I learned so much and I just feel rejuvenated.

Another wonderful thing that happened this week is that I went on exchanges to Healdsberg again (this time we did not walk the dogs). I was with Sister Henry who has been out for about a year. We had great conversations about how much the mission has changed since we both got here and that can be a little overwhelming. It was so nice to talk to someone who was able to understand some of the things that have been on my mind and I think that it really helped her as well. Also a funny thing that happened on that exchange is that I was lying on the floor and Sister Henry was like oh my gosh there is a slug and I did not believe her for a second and then I looked behind me and there was a huge slug. It was harmless so we decided to let it crawl around for a while and we had a photo shoot.

Other things that happened this week..... We saw Marta and she really wants this. She really wants to be baptized and she wants to have the time to read and to really pray it is just difficult with everything that is going on with her family. When we are teaching her I feel such a deep love for her and I know that she is going to be baptized.

We also saw one of our less actives Juan Carlos this week. He has a hard time going to church because he has to work but we had a powerful lesson with him about the importance of church and the importance of partaking of the sacrament.

We have a new investigator this week her name is Maria. She is such a miracle! We first met her daughter who is 14 and we have her a pamphlet. Then we went by to see her and to hopefully meet the rest of her family. When we went by the pamphlet was hanging on a clip outside of the door we either thought it could be really bad or really good. Thankfully it was really good! They put it out there because they live on a busy street and they sometimes do not feel that safe so they thought that Jesus Christ could protect them. So we finally taught the mom, Maria yesterday. She is really searching for the truth and the only thing that is stopping her is that she cannot read but that is not a problem for us!

Oh and just for those of you who know that I love to be in control and keep people in line last night we had a meeting with the zone leadership and the elders were kind of out of control and so I just kept keeping them in line! I really enjoy having the opportunity to serve around all of these wonderful elders.

This week really was great and this next week will be even better. We are having Thanksgiving dinner with our branch president and his family and some other families from the stake. We will also be doing a lot of service which will be fun!

Enjoy thanksgiving and don't forget to count your many blessings!

Love,

Hermana Andrews

My thanksgiving gift to all of you!

Pictures!

1. Hermana Whiteley and I at the temple

2. The slug :)

It is about time I sent Halloween pictures since we are now celebrating thanksgiving!

3. Trunk or treat!

4. Minnie Mouse and Batman

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Second 9 - Letter 64 - Santa Rosa, CA

Walk the Dog

Bueno! So this week has been good! I conquered one of my greatest fears! So for those of you who know me really well you know that I do not care for dogs and I used to be very terrified of them. Well, this week I was on exchanges with Sister Buckner in Healdsberg (which is about 30 mins north of Santa Rosa) and every morning they walk with one of their investigators Jennifer and they help her walk her dogs. I found this out and I got super nervous to the point that I had a hard time sleeping. I woke up that morning and I decided that I was just going to do it. All I had to do was hold the leash and walk and I would be ok. I did it and I did it with confidence! I walked Cleo a black lab and I survived. It was actually a little bit fun! This really helped me realize that we just need to conquer our fears. We just need to do it! If we live in fear we are going to miss out on a lot of great things in life.

This week we have seen a lot of little miracles and I know that it is because we are having more faith and better attitudes. We set two baptismal dates this week! The first is with Marta she is a former investigator that we started teaching again this week. When we taught her before she was always really busy taking care of her grandkids who are little devils and so it was hard to teach her but this week we were able to teach her twice without her grandkids there so it was awesome. She really wants to get baptized but wants to make sure she is ready so we set a date for the 21st of December. We also found the perfect member to come with us her name is Lilia and she is a recent convert so we are excited for that. The other date is with Bonnie she is 20 years old and her boyfriend is a member and we have been teaching her for a while. Her and her boyfriend Ezequiel have a daughter together and I think that they are realizing that the gospel will help them have the marriage and family that they want to have. She wants to get baptized they just need to get married so we also set a date for the 21st with her as well.

We also had an amazing zone car wash this week. For some reason I got designated as the advertiser with one of the other sisters, Sister Carter. WE had so much fun standing on one of the main street corners holding signs and yelling. We even got smart and would push the cross walk button so that the light would turn red and we would have prime audience to advertise to. It was so fun! The things that you do as a missionary are crazy but so fun!

We have been contacting at least 10 people each day this week and we have met so many wonderful people. It is amazing how many people are willing to talk to us and to open up to us! I used to not enjoy contacting but now that I have just started doing it I really like it because I am having the opportunity to meet so many amazing people.

This week we also had interviews with President Alba. I love him so much. He always knows the right questions to ask me to open up about things that are bothering me. I know that he is truly called of God and that he is here to help me.

This weekend was a busy weekend for the branch. WE had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner party. It was so fun to mingle with the members and to get to know them better and then yesterday we had a farewell for Ana Navarro who is going to serve her mission in Mexico. It is so fun to see missionaries getting ready to leave on their missions and I just get so excited for them because this is the greatest work ever.

Well, this week really has been great and this week is going to be even better. WE are going to the temple on Thursday so nothing tops that!

I hope that you all have a great week and that you conquer your fears! Just walk the dog! I know that you can do it! God will give us strength to do hard things.

Thank you for your prayers they give me the strength to do hard things!

Love you so much!

Hermana Hillary

Second 9 - Letter 63 - Santa Rosa, CA

Stand in Holy Places

Well, hello! I hope you are having a great day! This week has been great! We have seen so many amazing miracles! Things have not really gone the way we hoped but nonetheless there have been miracles. This week I have kind of struggled remaining positive and having faith but during a hard time I found a video that I love (https://www.lds.org/youth/video/stand-2013-theme-song?lang=eng). This video was the theme song for this years mutual theme, Stand in Holy Places. I don't want to give away the video but as I watched it tears streamed down my face because I realized that I have prepared myself to stand in holy places. It was just a moment where I realized how far I have come and what a privilege it is to be able to stay that I Stand in Holy Places. I have also been thinking about how we are the creators of holy places. We can create our own holy places. This week my desk has been my holy place as I have tried to study the things that the Lord wouldst have me know. I have received such wonderful guidance. So, I have realized that as long as I make sure that I Stand in Holy Places and have a good attitude miracles will happen. So, what are your holy places? How can you better stand in holy places?

That thought has just been on my mind for a while but now moving on.... This weekend we had Stake Conference. It was amazing! I have been so blessed to attend many Stake conferences on my mission! The Saturday night session was all about missionary work. A ward mission leader in one of the wards spoke about how he relates sharing the gospel to sharing his families famous jam. He told of how his family loves sharing their jam with everyone that we know. I thought of what our family is known for or what we share. I thought of how I want everyone to try Mom's lemon meltaway cookies because they are truly life changing  (if you have not tried hopefully you have the chance someday soon). Sharing the gospel is really just as simple as sharing our favorite family treat. The gospel is just as precious and delicious as lemon meltaways or jam but why is it harder to share? We must share the gospel more so it is not as hard and so it becomes just as easy as sharing cookies or jam.  President and Sister Alba also spoke! Sister Alba shared what they learned at the mission presidents seminar that attended with Elder Ballard. She mentioned four things that members can do to help missionaries. 1) Be a member present at lessons, go out with the missionaries 2) Open up your homes to the missionaries, let them teach you 3) Pray for missionary experiences but also pray for the missionaries investigators 4) Open your mouth. I love these 4 things because they are the things that we missionaries need the most. They are not too hard but they require a little bit of work because this work was not meant to be easy. then the theme of the Sunday Conference was Peace. I enjoyed hearing more about how we can receive the peace that the gospel brings! I have needed more peace in my life this week and so it was a great reminder that it is my choice. I can choose to be a peacemaker!

Also this week some of the miracles that we saw is that we:

-saw our miracle family (The Hernandez) and we were able to teach them a little bit more about the Book of Mormon, they went to Las Vegas this weekend but hopefully we will see them again soon

- contacted over 25 people one day

- found a new investigator from our contacting her name is Juana and she is really searching for the truth

- found a less active member that is really wanting to come back to church

There were so many so those are just a few! One last story! So Friday night we went to an appointment and they were not home it was a little after 8 and super dark we were going to go back home and finish our weekly planning but we decided that we needed to talk to someone so we found a house nearby that had a lot of lights on and we knocked. Someone came to the window but would not answer the door we just kind of waited there for a while but no one came so we walked away and I just yelled Buenas Noches kind of out of spite:). Then we were almost to our car and we heard some people talking. It was the couple from the house we knocked. We went and talked to them and realized that the wife was deaf. The husband was so sweet and he let us in and we were able to bless their home. They have a daughter who has down syndrome and the wife has a lot of health problems so it was a sweet experience to be able to serve them. This experience was a great reminder that you just never know the story behind the door or who is in need of your help.

I hope you all have a great week! Stand in Holy Places, Share "the jam", and Look for miracles!

Thank you for all of your support and prayers. I have felt it this week!

Love you!

Hermana Hillary

Second 9 - Letter 62 - Santa Rosa, CA

For God So Loves all of His Children that He Sent Me!

Hello hello! Well transfers have come and gone and I am now serving with the wonderful Hermana Whiteley! She is from Middleton, Idaho which is near Boise, she is 19 years old and she has been on her mission for 5 months. This is her second area and she is a very hard working missionary.

Well this week has been interesting! To welcome Hermana Whiteley to Santa Rosa I got the flu! I started out having a bad cold and then on Friday I got the flu! In the words of the mission nurse Sister Stewart "Sister you have the flu so stay away from people and tell your companion to watch herself. She is next". Hahaha! So that is exactly what we did! All day Saturday we stayed away from people and I slept practically all day! I am feeling better and Hermana Whiteley has a little cold and we are hoping she does not get the flu. So that was a fun way to start this transfer but nonetheless we have been seeing miracles.

Before transfers I had a neat opportunity on facebook. A little while ago I was going through my friend requests and I saw that I had one from a lady named Tina and we had a mutual friend. The mutual friend was Alba, one of the less active members that I worked with in Fairfield (my first area). Tina happens to be Alba's younger sister and she is really interested in learning about the church. I have taught her twice on facebook and this week she started asking me questions about things that we believe in and what we do at our church so I asked her if she would like to go to church. She told me that she lives right next to the church in Concord, California (which is kind of by Oakland) and she went once and she liked it a lot better than the catholic church. I then testified that the reason why she liked it a lot better is because our church is the only true church on the earth. I promised her that she would feel the Spirit at church. It was a powerful lesson and it still blows my mind that it was all done through facebook chat. I do not know if she went to church because we have not had much online time with being sick and all but I hope she did but if not I will just invite her to go next week!

So before I got sick I was able to participate in Zone Meeting! We have two brand new zone leaders, Elder Perez and Elder Waite (new to he area and first time zone leaders) so it has been really fun trying to learn together and figure out what we are supposed to do as leaders to help our zone. We are really trying to help build more unity in our zone so we came up with the idea to do Secret Sisters or Secret Missionaries. Each companion chose another companionships names and then we are supposed to serve that companionship for a week. It has been a lot of fun and I can already feel more love in the Santa Rosa air! I also had the privilege of teaching in Zone Meeting! I taught about our purpose as missionaries and I shared the bible video For God so loved the world to help us remember that we must serve and teach as Christ did. As I was studying I realized that For God so loved the world that He sent His Only Begotten Son but also For God so loves all of His children that He sends missionaries out to share the gospel. This hit me so hard and helped me remember that I am here serving as a missionary to share God's love with all His children and to bring them back to Him! Then today when I was thinking about sharing this with all of you I thought God loves all of His children so he has sent each and everyone of us to help teach the rest of His children about the gospel this is not just about us missionaries. Every member of this church has a missionary purpose. Each and everyone of you have been sent to your specific location to share the gospel and to be a great example. I hope that we do not take this responsibility lightly. It is a privilege to share the gospel and to help others. Sometimes it is hard (most of the time it is hard) but the Savior's life was hard as well and we are following His example! We must remember that He knows how we feel and He will help us to do this!

Yesterday at church I had one of those hard moments. I was still not feeling very well and I just felt discouraged because we had not done anything to get anyone at church and then one of the members came up to me and said "My son-in-law came to church. Will you go say hi to him". I said Yes, of course and then asked what his son-in-laws name was. The hermano looked at me funny and then told me his son-in-laws name was Luis. I then had a duh moment. Luis is one of the less active members we have been working with and so then I got so excited that he came to church! I went over and said Hi to him and asked him if he now had Sundays off and he said yes. Later on when he bore his testimony he said that it had been over a year since he had gone to church and that over the last month he had started to change. He explained that it all started when he got invited to the weekly sports night. The hermano in charge of the sports night started encouraging him to pray about getting Sunday's off to come to church. He started praying and realizing that being with his family was more important than his work. Last Wednesday he quit his job and within a few days he found a new job with better hours. He has realized that God wanted him to be at church so he provided a way. What a miracle and it all started with a member! See members hold such an important role in this work! I love this miracle because it was all done in simple acts of service and faith. I know that if we look for simple ways to serve others the way  that Chirst did we will be blessed with these opportunities and they will produce life changing miracles in the end.

My challenge to all of you this week is to watch this bible video.

http://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/for-god-so-loved-the-world?lang=eng

 For God So Loved the World and then to pray for ways that you can follow his example this week by sharing the gospel with others. The simpler the better!

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that He loves and He wants us to follow His example!

Love you all so much!

Hermana Hillary