"Good Lesson With Familia Aguilar" 9-28-2011

Hi Everyone!

      This week was pretty good! Better than last week. We were able to get a lot more lessons this week which was nice. Also, Randomly we were let in by two different English speaking people which doesn't happen that often. We had really good lessons. One said she was interested in learning more so we gave her as a referral to the Elders. The other one said she followed more of a pagan belief system but was open to other things. That was interesting. We left her with the phone number for the Elders because she wasn't sure about missionaries coming back. On Tuesday of last week we were able to find a lot of people who we hadn't been able to find in a while. One of them, Sylvia, we hadn't taught in about 2 months because she and her sister we never there for the appointments. We weren't too sure if they were still interested but when we stopped by on Tuesday we found Sylvia and she was so happy that we came. She kept saying it was a miracle that we came and found her again. She didn't remember much about what we taught her before and she hadn't been reading or anything but for some reason she was happy to see us. We stopped by again yesterday and reviewed lesson 1 with her. She has a little trouble understanding but I think she's getting there. On Sunday we had a really good lesson with Sandra an old investigator who we re-found and Jesús (her dad). The spirit was really strong and they both have a desire to learn more. We're excited for them and hope that it will help Laura (Sandra's sister who was baptized a little over a year ago) get more excited about coming to church again.
      Also yesterday we had a really good lesson with the Familia Aguilar (I think I've mentioned them before - they have family in my last area). They've been inactive for a while. We're not sure exactly why or for how long but we think it's kind of a touchy subject. Bianca, their 12 year old daughter hasn't been baptized so we've been working with her a little bit. Hermana Aguilar has been participating more in the lessons too and we've realized that there's a lot she doesn't remember as well so we'd decided to start over and go through a lot of the basics with both of them. Yesterday we talked about the Book of Mormon and how we can gain a testimony of it through the Spirit. As we were testifying the spirit was there really strong. The Hermana is pretty stubborn but I think she felt it too. We'd been inviting them to watch conference and at the end of the lesson we invited them again and she started saying how they thought they might be able to watch the Saturday one there in the house. To see her actually considering it was progress from before. We hope we can continue to help them make progress (even if it's only small steps at a time) to help them bring the light of the gospel back in their lives.
      I was able to watch Women's conference - well at least the last hour. We ended up getting lost on the way to the stake center because the GPS led us like 3-4 miles away from the actual church building and it took a while to figure out where it was. I LOVED President Uchtdorf's talk. I think it was probably perfect for a lot of the women who heard it too. He hit on a lot of points that many people struggle with internally I think. I'm really excited for general conference this weekend!
      Two exciting things this week. Well, at least they're exciting to me because they're out of the usual. We're going to have exchanges tomorrow with the Hermanas in Rockford and I'll be going there for the day. The other exciting thing is that Hna. Delis and I were invited to the mission council/ training meeting this Monday. It's for the zone leaders mainly but a lot of times they invite 1 or 2 companionships of sisters to go as well to have more representation I think. It's going to take all day pretty much. It's from 9-4 and it's in Naperville which is almost an hour and a half away. I'll let you know how it goes next week.
      That's really exciting about the Mormon.org campaign coming to Seattle. President Doll really wanted it to come to Chicago too because it really would bring a lot of positive attention to the church and increase media referrals but...we didn't get picked. He tells us he thinks it's because the mission as a whole is bad at reporting back on the media referrals we already get. I wish there was something I could do to help that but I've never gotten one... most of the requests that come are for English materials.
      As for Megan's teachers. It's possible that I had her Spanish teacher because I had two. I don't remember their names though. One was a man from Spain, and the other a woman from Germany who spoke like 4-5 languages. I liked them both. Also that cake looked really good. Maybe you can send me a piece =D.
     Oh, also I'm thinking about sending a box home with some of my summer clothes within the next few weeks so I don't have to lug as much stuff around the next 6 (cold) months. It's kind of a weird thought that I probably wont need them again here. 

Well, Hope you have a great week this week! I love you all!

~Hermana West

"Branch Psychologists" 9-21-2011

Hola Todos!

    Thanks for sending me a copy of the 4th missionary! Funny story. The day after I asked for it we all got copies of it to read and look over before the zone conference on Monday. So it was interesting that I'd been thinking about it. I must have secret abilities to know the future or something. Zone Conference was really good, as usual. We discussed the 4th missionary, talked about how to work with members, how to study effectively, and other various awesome topics. We had to go a long ways for zone conference because we were combined with one of the Chicago zones. Most of them are on bikes so we had to go pretty much the whole way (to one of the church buildings in Chicago). They took us all in the big van. At zone conference I was able to see some of the other hermanas and sisters who I hadn't seen in a while which was fun. It was hard to believe that one of them, Hna Mackley (who was in my zone for 5 transfers), is going home in October. It's weird how fast the time goes.

    This past week was probably one of my worst as far as finding investigator lessons. Only 3 total. It was a little depressing. Hermana Delis and I couldn't think of anything huge that we were doing wrong or differently so I guess it was just one of those weeks. Everyone's deciding that they're too busy to meet with us which is sad because we've had some amazing lessons with many of them. We had kind of an interesting experience on Saturday. Kind of a "the world is working against us" moment but also funny at the same time. We did a lot of knocking that day because 2 appointments fell through. As we were finding we kept finding only men who were home alone. We had to turn down 3-4 teaching opportunities because there wasn't a woman there. Being short on lessons that week we kept joking about how that WOULD happen to us. They all told us we could come back a different day though so hopefully we can find them again (with their wives). Yesterday made up for that though because we were able to have 4 lessons, find 2 new investigators, and find 2 people who we hadn't been able to find in a long time. So it was good. Sometimes we just have to be patient.

     Maria Pena who was on date last week freaked out a little bit. We called her before to confirm the appointment and told us she didn't want to get baptized because the idea of leaving Catholisism and everything her mom taught her was making her really depressed all week. Her Mom died pretty recently so she's feeling that somehow she's being disloyal or unappreciative of her Mom by following this religion. We were able to have a really good lesson with her where we helped her feel better about that but she still doesn't want to give us a for sure answer about baptism. She's really not in any hurry and she wants to be 100% sure that she's making the right choice. We think she could still get baptized soon but she's starting to slack more with her commitments and hasn't come to church in 3 weeks so we're trying to help her with that.

    Thanks for the pictures and updates! That's crazy that Grant is home from his mission now (refer back to last comment at end of 1st paragraph).

Other random comments.

1. I think sometimes we are the branch psychologists. Some people tell us everything. 

2. It's not cold today! yay

3. I'm a missionary!


Love you!

Hermana West

New Investigator, Juan 9-14-2011

Hola todos!

    Thanks for all the pictures! I like seeing them. The weather is starting to get cold again. I'm NOT excited. I would be ok if it stayed hot for a few more months. Today is around 60 though yesterday was in the 80s. It's doing that jumping back and forth from hot to cold thing again like it did in April and May. I'm really hoping I don't get sick this time...lots of people are. I've also been slowly pulling out my cold-weather clothes from my suitcase which is depressing not only because it's colder but because some of them are looking a little too worn out. I think I'll be fine though..I'll do an assessment once it reallystarts getting cold. Also I still haven't figured out how to clean the salt off my boots from last winter - does anyone want to google ways to get salt stains out of suede and send me the info? 
       This week was pretty good. Still more of the same as far as people being really wishy washy with their appointments but we were able to have some really cool lessons. We really only have one investigator (Maria Peña) right now who's reliable with keeping her appointments but she's awesome. She's the one who came to church 2 weeks ago. On Saturday we had a great lesson with her and she accepted October 8th as a goal for baptism! She still tells us she wants to be more sure before she actually takes the decision but she said she would pray about it. The spirit was so strong when we asked her to prepare for the 8th that I'm positive that's the right day for her and that she can be ready by then. The ward mission leader came with us and was able to bear strong testimony about baptism and the word of wisdom which is one of the obstacles to her getting baptized. It was perfect. We set a goal with her to quit drinking coffee by the 24th. She also needs to start coming to church. So we're going to keep working with her to help her progress. 
      We had a really awesome lesson with two new investigators on Friday. We contacted Juan the day before and told us to come back the next day. Turns out he's kind of been studying and searching through religions for a while and hasn't really found his place yet. When we got to the point in the lesson where we explained how the Apostles led the church after Christ left he turned to his wife and said "now this is where it gets interesting" I asked him why and he said "well this is basically where we get the birthplace of religion" and he went on for a while about that ending with the question "so what makes you different from all the other churches?" after he asked that question I felt the spirit so strongly that I could barely speak but explained to him how we have a prophet today and taught him about Joseph Smith. He really liked James 1:5  - he turned to his wife after reading it and said "wow - ME" pointing to himself. When we ended the lesson and they both said they'd be interested to learn more. So I'd say it went well. Something neat that I learned from was that when people really ask sincere questions like Juan did it really creates the perfect atmosphere for the spirit to testify. I know that as we do our part as missionaries we can be led into situations where we can help others to feel the spirit and learn about the restored Gospel. 
       This week the Municipal band from Guadelupe Zacatexas (Mexico) that was came to Woodstock. Apparently they're sister cities (Not really sure why but I think it might have something to do with the opera house). It was pretty cool - a lot of Hispanic people ended up coming. We were able to talk with a lot of people and we got some addresses from people who were interested in learning more. We're excited to follow up on those this week. Also I think it helped us to gain the trust of the member who suggested the idea to us so that was good. It was a different kind of contacting experience for me because it's kind of rare to find large groups of Hispanic people around here. It was fun.

Well I hope that everyone has a great week. Hopefully Parker gets betters soon - thats kind of scary. One more thing - You have a copy of the 4th missionary right? Can you e-mail it to me so I can print it out? Thanks!

Love you all!

Hermana West

Increased Lessons 9-7-2011

Hola Familia!

     Well it's Wednesday again so I'm e-mailing. So it's a little weird to think about this but tomorrow is my one year mark. It's hard to believe that I've been gone for a year and also that I only have 6 months left (well a little more because I get 3 extra weeks). I try not to think about it. Yesterday I got a letter from my old comp who's still in Carpentersville. She said they have 4 people with a baptismal date and that Maria Pineda, the one who came to church my last Sunday there, had a bap date for the 3rd of Sept (her letter was dated the end of august). So it made me happy to hear that the people I taught are making progress even though I'm not there to see it! 
     This week we were finally able to increase the number of lessons we had with investigators! We were also able to have some cool finding experiences. One cool experience was finding Ariadna. She's 18 and here visiting from Mexico for a few months (staying with some relatives). We found her on Monday last week and taught her the restoration it went pretty well but it was hard to get her to talk because she's kind of a quiet person. So we left not really knowing how well it went. Later that week we had our second appointment. She'd read part of the pamphlet we left her, had talked to her family in Mexico about it, and told us she really wants to know if this is true. At the end of the lesson she asked us what she would have to do to become a part of this if she decides she wanted this to be her religion! I could feel the spirit testifying as we explained about baptism and she said she would be baptized once she knows its true! 
      Another cool finding experience happened on Monday while we were working in Harvard. We had the impression that we should go knock these apartments a few streets over from where we were. So we went over to them. They're the type of apartments where you have to ring the doorbells on the outside of the building. I wasn't too excited about it because it's usually a little bit harder to find people who will talk to us, but the second button we tried buzzed us in, then let us in to share a lesson! she said she's excited to read the Book of Mormon because she loves to read! She said we could come back but told us flat out she's hard to find at home...so hopefully we can find her again to see how she likes the Book of Mormon.
     Ups and downs: These last few weeks have been full of cool finding experiences and we've been meeting lots of people with so much potential. But every single one of them is flaky with their appointments whether we call them before or not which kind of makes me want to pull my hair out and bang my head against the wall at the same time. We only have one investigator who's reliable with her appointments right now. But it's all good. I just have to be patient I guess.
     Thanks for sending the pictures from the trip it was great to see! That's exciting about Chelsea getting married this week. I still don't know anything other than that his name is Seth though. Can I get a picture or announcement or something?

Love you all!

Hermana West

English Sister Referrals - 8-31-11

Hola Todos!

   So transfer calls were yesterday and nothings changing. So I'll be here in Woodstock for at least another 6 weeks! It'll be good, despite how stressful it is here sometimes. It's crazy to hear about all the fun weather you had in the Virginia area. I heard about the earthquake last Wednesday but I figured it didn't cause too much damage at 5.8.
     This week was good again. More ups and downs but I I think I'm getting more used to that here. We finally had an investigator at church! Her name is Maria and she's been listening to the missionaries for a few months and had listened when she was younger too in Mexico. She enjoyed church. She said she felt a lot of peace and she enjoyed all 3 hours saying its good to put so much time into learning and hearing the word of God. We had a lesson with her yesterday and it went really well. She's been reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning. She's in 1 Nephi 18 now and said that she wanted to read more to find out what happens with Nephi and the boat but something came up. She said she would probably read more tonight though (without us even asking her!). We taught her the Word of Wisdom and she agreed with everything! She says it will be hard to give up the coffee but that she knows it's bad. We're really excited for her. 
    Monday of this week was also a really good day. The English sisters have been giving us a lot of referrals for Spanish which is awesome. On Monday we stopped by 4 or 5 of them and we got 3 lessons and 3 new investigators from it (almost 4)! One of them, Maria (a different one) is so ready! She had listened to the Missionaries like 5 years ago and still has her Book of Mormon. She has strong desire to find the right path. She doesn't agree with some things in the catholic church so she's been worried that she's in the wrong place with her religion. She has a desire to learn and a LOT of questions. We're excited to teach her again. That night Hna Delis and I were joking that we should just let the sisters do all the finding for us since that seems to be more successful than our own finding efforts. Sister Nardoni can get along pretty well in contacting in Spanish which is awesome...but now she's not going to be here anymore because they're switching their area to Elders. Oh well. Maybe one of the Elders will be able to speak Spanish a little.
    We were able to find some of the less active members this week too which was good except that we found another family who stopped coming because they were offended. This is the most common reason we've found in this area which is sad.  It's hard for people to work past that I think...

Other random experience this week:

1. We were knocking this door a few days ago that had spider webs all over it. One was really quite huge and we could see the legs of the spider peeking out of the little tunnel it made in its web (which is creepy). While we were standing there it decided to reveal itself and crawled out. It was HUGE. Probably the biggest spider I've seen here. Hna. Delis and I both screamed silently in horror then left (because no one was home).

Oh I realized I never sent the address to my apartment here...I forgot to bring it today too so just send mail to the mission office for now which is (in case you need it again):

1319 Butterfield Rd. Suite 522
Downers Grove, Il 60515

(Anyone who wants can send me a letter and it will be received here with much rejoicing and thanksgiving.)

Love you all!

Hermana West


Pictures!

 Last P-day we went to the church to play basketball with some other missionaries. This one is of us and the other sisters in the district. Left to right: Sister Stewart, Hna Delis, ME, and Sister Nardoni

District photo!

Corn picture. A must have for anyone serving here