Jose Set a Date 3-20-2012

Hola familia!

 

     This week has been pretty good! The highlight being that Jose has finally decided on a date to get baptized! He wants to get baptized this coming saturday and is excited about it. The problem is now that we need to go talk to his wife which is a little scary because she told him recently that if he got baptized he will be dead to her. We feel good about it though so we have high hopes. So we need lots of prayers and lots of faith. We hope to be able to visit as many people as possible this week and have a many people at church as possible this week at church (my last week). One of the members this past sunday brought his daughter in-law to church this week which was a miracle becuase before she never wanted to listen to us or anything. So hopefully we'll be able to get an appointment with her this week.

    I'm e-mailing from Chicago today! I think I mentioned before that I got special permission to come because I never got to serve by the city. So We're really excited to be here. We're not sure what we're going to do yet but we're just going to have fun that's all I know. And don't worry I will take pictures. I've already taken 1 or 2. :)

    Yes I also got accepted into the University of Washington! It's really a miracle because the application process was so crazy and I had to do everything in such limited amounts of time. I have until May 1st to let them know.

    Yesterday I had my last zone conference. It was really good and they made me and Hermana Reyes (who was my companion for a week at the MTC) give our "departing" testimonies. It was so weird. I have lots of moments where it hits me that I'm almost done. Mixed feelings fro sure. I'm still a missionary though for now and I'm going to love every last minutes that I have. Today in personal study I read a verse in 3 Nephi 5:13 that' I've loved a lot on my mission and I was think about it a lot today. It says "Behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they may have eternal life". i really love that verse because It's so true and it describes being a missionary so well. I love being able to say that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ called of him to declare his word. It really helps put this work into perspective as well. How important it is and why we do it. Remembering that true purpose of what we're doing. It helps keep me focused on that purpose. I love being a missionary. 1 strong week left!

     Thanks for you e-mails this week and for all of the support you've giving me on my mission. I will be forever grateful for it! I love you all!

 

Hermana West

Maria Pena Date Set 3-12-2012

Hola Familia!

      This week has been really warm! Well not like summer warm but in the 50's and 60's. Wednesday might break the 70's. It feels so nice. Today it's raining though...but at lesat it's warm. There might be thunderstorms later.  Last Thursday we were able to set a baptismal date as a goal with Maria Peña who I was teaching for a while when I first got to the area but then we dropped her for a while. She says she really wants to know if it's true but there is still a lack of actual "action" on her part (i.e. reading and coming to church). Hopefully having this goal will motivate her. We had a really good lesson yesterday with Fransisco and his family. His son came out and started asking us all these random questions like if a person who makes money doing bad things but donates money to good causes and believes in God is good or bad. Typical teenager questions. I felt the spirit as we started explaining the importance of repentance and changing to become more like Christ. In that moment I thought wow we are really declaring repentance right now and it's awesome. Fransisco seems to be pretty interested still. It's just a matter of if he's actually willing to do something.
    Yesterday a family made food for us and there was so much meat! They gave Hna. Stuart this huge bone with tons of meat on it it was hilarious. Last preparation day we got permission to meet my old companion Hna Delis for lunch. It was really fun. I took a picture. We ate at this one place that was really good. I got a hamburger and the other three got salads. It made me feel like I was unhealthy or something. 
    I'm having a hard time remembering what happened this week. It's all just a blur to me. Time is just going that fast. I feel like I do right around finals time at school. There's so much to do that it's overwhelming and so little time to do it. Next week My preparation day will be on Tuesday because our zone meeting is on Monday. My last one! ahhhhh. We're probably going to go to the city on Tuesday also. So I'm excited.

Love you!

Hermana West

George Washington Acceptance! 2-27-2012

Hi everyone!

Well I got in to George Washington University too! man now that means I have to make a decision... still waiting on the UW

This week has been full of miracles! It's so amazing, after so many weeks of coming up short on new investigators we found 9 this week! All from knocking doors. Saturday both Hermana Stuart and I felt impressed to knock in a certain area so we did. The first door we knocked let us in and we taught a quick lesson. The second door we knocked also let us in. Turns out they were an old investigator family who I'd tried stopping by before but had discovered they'd moved. They told us they are happy where they're at still...but we must have found them again for a reason so we taught about faith in Alma 32 and felt the spirit really strong, They said we could come back and that they are opening to listening. Sunday we didn't have much to do except one appointment that ended up falling through. So we went tracting. We'd felt impressed during planning to knock a certain street that I hadn't knocked before and again the first door let us in. We talked to Fransisco while his wife busied around in the Kitchen. He has so much faith and told us he has a strong desire to lead his family in the correct path. It was a really short lesson but we're going back next week. Later 2 other families let us in. The first was a younger couple who just barely started focusing on God in their lives. They told us they would really like to know if what we shared was true. The second family let us in and we shared the restoration again. The spirit was strong and they also said they would love to learn more. So 6 new investigators just in one day.

Another miracle, Jose told us that he is thinking about getting baptized in March. So that's progress. When he told me that I asked how about this Saturday and he said it was too soon. But hopefully we can bring a calendar and have him pick a date in our appointment this week. 

Today is a really nice day out. We might actually do something. haha. I still can't believe I'm almost done with my mission. I'm freaking out a little bit. The time is going way to fast. Someone should find a job for me or something otherwise I wont know what to do with myself when I get back haha.

Happy Birthday Dad! I hope it's great

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Hermana West

Accepted to Grad School! 2-21-2012

Hola Todos!

      First off, some exciting non-missionary related news: I got accepted into the BYU graduate school! No word on the other schools yet. Ok now on to more important things. I know this is going to be an awesome transfer! Hermana Stuart is my new companion and she's from Bountiful. She has brought so much faith to this area and it's really helping me to find more motivation as well! We're working hard to see miracles here. This week we were able to find 3 new investigators which was great. All of them by knocking doors. One of them was this couple with 6 kids. They told us they thought it was so amazing that we came to their door. "why our door?", they asked. We told them that we pray all the time to be guided to the people who need our message. They seem pretty legit except for one thing that was a little bit weird. When I asked them if we could come back a different day they asked if they could ask their spiritual guide first...basically they trust this guide on all spiritual matters. I testified about the importance of asking God directly versus any other person...but I don't know if it really clicked for them. So we'll see what happens when we go back. We're hoping to be able to keep teaching them and helping them to feel the spirit. 

      Our investigators with a baptismal date didn't come to church because they wanted to go car shopping. That was a sad moment. Especially because we had a really good and bold lesson with them two days earlier. They were starting to get doubts but we promised them that if they read, prayed, and came to church they would see miracles in their lives. They said they would but for some reason will never give us a for sure answer about church. We think they're shy about coming. I hope we don't lose them because they wont come to church. 

      Saturday was a really interesting day. The first part of the day we went back to Hna Stuart's old area to go to a baptism (President Doll let missionaries go back if it's within the first week of being transferred). That ended up taking a really long time. When we got back to our area we headed over to the ward activity for a bit. The Branch President was teaching how to make homemade bread (sooo good!). Since bread making is not exactly a quick process we decided to leave to do some missionary work and then come back later to help clean up and stuff. While we were out we went to stop by Rosa (the one we ran into at McDonald's last week). As we were walking up she came out and told us that her 15 year old daughter was missing and asked if we could help translate for her at the Police Department. She was so worried. Before going in we offered a prayer with her. It turned out to be fine. She and a friend had taken the train to Chicago and weren't answering their phones (probably because they knew they were doing something they shouldn't). They ended up being able to contact her while we were at the Police Station and the officer really gave them a scare I think. Lesson learned hopefully. But I think Rosa was really grateful for our help that day. Hopefully we'll be able to keep visiting with them and her to better understand the importance of the gospel.

Love you and hope you have a great week!

Hermana West

Last Transfer 2/13/2012

Hola Familia!

      So the news of transfers is in! Hermana Freeman will be transferred the the Chicago 3rd ward (which is the area that includes "the loop" - the main tourist area of Chicago). It's going to be a night and day difference from here. Especially because it's the only area for Hermanas that doesn't have a car which means they use bikes and the bus (only while it's cold). She's excited. My new companion will be Hermana Stuart who has the same time in the mission as Hermana Freeman. We'll make the switch tomorrow. Oh also next week my e-mail will be coming on Tuesday because Monday is Presidents day.

     On Tuesday and Wednesday we had exchanges again and Hermana De Leon came with me for the day. She's from Guatemala! She's from a different part from where Barry is serving but she said that his mission is the nicest. She just barely started her mission. It was really nice to be able to speak Spanish with her for a day. Really helpful. It's just not the same trying to speak Spanish with other people who are learning. I hope I'll be able to find a way to keep improving my Spanish after my mission.

      This week we had several of our promising investigators start avoiding us - really avoiding us - like we could see them and they still didn't open the door or answer the phone when we called afterwards. It was really sad. We're not really sure why...well other than the fact that we are pretty sure they are not reading or praying. With losing more promising investigators than gaining them it's been harder to get lessons. We're going to focus a lot more on finding new investigators this coming week. I'm really hoping we can get some through member referrals because knocking doors hasn't been very fruitful lately and we're running out of old investigators that I haven't stopped by. Getting referrals though is still a challenge. They keep saying things like they have no friends, or they aren't allowed to talk about religion at work, that their friends aren't interested...the usual excuses I guess. There have been a few little miracles this week. Like finding one of our more elusive investigators at McDonalds and then her inviting us to come over afterwards, and yesterday the father-in-law of one of our investigators let us in and even though our investigators were too busy to talk to us we were able to have a nice chat with him and leave him a pamphlet that he said he would read. 

    Ruben and Rosa are still on with the goal of March 24th. Ruben expressed concerns about leaving behind alcohol and coffee in our last lesson. Her asked us if just a little was ok and we said no. Afterwards he said "yeah I know it's probably better if it's not at all...I feel really bad every time I give in, but I've been trying to stop." We thought that was a really good sign since it was probably about a year ago that the missionaries taught him the word of wisdom and we haven't reviewed it with him yet. The progress record says that when they taught it before he said he wouldn't follow it but apparently it stuck with him maybe a little more than even he wanted it to. haha. So the spirit has been working on him which is good! We just hope we can help him find the confidence he needs to actually break the habit! 

   Jose brought two of his 9 -year old granddaughters to church again. Even though we aren't able to teach them for now I think Jose bringing them to church is going to have a big positive impact on them especially because their families aren't particularly religious. They seem to like it enough to come back, so that's good!
   
    That's great to hear the Grandma's surgery went really well. I hope the recovery process goes really smoothly!

I love you all and hope this week goes well!

Hermana West

Pictures!

 Me in front of the cornfield next to the church. It snowed again this week (just a little) so I was able to get one with the snow. This winter has been nothing compared to last winter

After exchanges this week

Two Baptism Dates! 2-6-12

Hola familia!

      This week was pretty interesting! First off the most exciting thing is that two of our investigators accepted a baptismal date! It's the first time in like 4 or 5 months that anyone has actually accepted a date (they've said yes before but would never put a date). It's Ruben and Rosa who were found more than a year ago knocking doors. It was the first lesson we'd been able to have with both Ruben and Rosa together for almost 2 months because Ruben has been back and forth from Mexico. But it was awesome, the spirit was really strong when I was asking them and they accepted the 24th of March as a goal because they're "not ready yet". I could tell Rosa felt the spirit (she's always been more in tune with it) and it looked like Ruben was too. The challenge will be getting them to church. Over a year and they still haven't come to church once. They let everything else take priority and so there is always something they consider more important (practically life or death important) to do than church every week.
     Friday after going back to our car after knocking a little we realized it wouldn't start. Problem. I didn't leave the lights on or anything and it was literally only 10 minutes since we'd left it. So we had the English Elders come try to jump start us and...nothing. We ended up needing a tow truck to come take it away! Turns out it was the alternator and they told us they wouldn't be able to get a new one from the dealer until tuesday! So we've been car-less for almost 4 days now which makes missionary work in this area a lot more difficult and slow. Also it's cold. In Woodstock we live near the crossing of 2 busy highways and most of the people live on the other side of Woodstock, so walking isn't much of an option. Harvard is easier to walk around because it's smaller so the Elders were able to bring us up there on Saturday and we'll be going there again tonight. We're hoping the car will be done sooner rather than later tomorrow because if it's later we'll have to cancel a lot of our plans (in particular exchanges with the Hermanas in Rockford).
      We went out with the relief society president (Hna Camacho) Tuesday night to visit less-actives and didn't find any of them (even though we had a regular appointment with one family at 7:30). Even though we didn't find anyone I thought it was really good to spend that time with Hna Camacho and give her updates on all the less-active sisters we'd been visiting. I think she trusts us a lot. 
      President Doll called me last night to ask me if I would rather go to another area for my last 6 weeks or stay put. I said I'd be good staying here but if they needed me somewhere else that would be fine. So it sounds like I'll be staying here probably. We'll find out about changes this week and transfers are a week from tomorrow.
      I think it's weird that people who are younger than me are getting married. Marriage is for old people. haha...kidding...That's cool that Dad get's to perform the ceremony! Kevin: That's gross you threw up. bleh. haha. Elder West: That's awesome about getting to be zone leader! It'll probably keep you super busy.

I love you all hope everything goes great this week!

Hermana West

"Branch Therapists" 1-30-2012

Hola todos!    

     This week was a little hard. We weren't able to visit with a lot of our investigators this week because they 1. cancelled or 2. weren't there. Some of them for the second week in a row. This is frustrating because 1. they usually stop progressing 2. They come up with all these new doubts 3. It makes it really hard to help them because we almost have to start over sometimes. Most of our investigators right now seem to have anxiety problems over the idea of leaving being catholic (even though theynever go to church). One investigator, Alejandra, has lately taken the "oh it's all the same" stand point. For example we explained what happens at church and then she proceeded to explain about how really it was just the same as the catholic church. The standpoint of "All churches have the same God so it doesn't matter what church you go to". That's probably one of the most common viewpoints I hear. 

     The past few weeks we've been sort of the branch therapists listening to everyone complain about each other and it got me a little discouraged I think. I'm feeling better about things now and hopefully thinks will continue to improve. One good thing about being the branch therapists is that some of the less actives are coming back now! We had a really good session...lesson with one of the less actives on Saturday. She came to church the week before and paid her tithing. She said she felt happier all week long! She's planning to keep coming, start bringing her kids to the activities again, and help her 8 yr. old son get baptized as soon as possible. She came to church again yesterday and came on time for the classes this time! Another woman came again for the second week in a row too. She said it's part of her new years resolution. So that's good.

    Jose came to church again too and brought 3 of his grand daughters. They all seemed to love primary. We felt last week that we should tell Jose that if he doesn't make the decision to get baptized soon we wont be able to keep stopping by because we've taught him almost everything we can and we can't help him progress more w/o baptism. It made him really sad because he loves our visits. We're hoping that this will just give him the little push he needs and that we wont actually have to stop visiting him. About baptism he says it will be "soon" but that he will let us know when he's ready.

     I've been working on overcoming feelings of discouragement, lack of motivation, and lack of faith. It's one of the challenges of being in an area for so long - especially one where everyone around you is so negative all the time. So my studies have been a little more focused on that lately. It's helping. I think it's interesting...even though I feel bad about losing motivation temporarily I think maybe I needed the down in order to better understand how to get back up. I hope maybe I can help all the other discouraged people in the branch a little better now. They're coming up with a branch mission plan now! well at least they've started. They invited us to branch council yesterday. I saw a lot of discouragement but hopefully coming up with a plan will help. 

Branch President: "Lets try to put a goal for when the branch can be a ward. What do you all think? how long?" 
Ward mission leader (muttering) "300 years". 
<Branch President proceeds to give him a little whack on the shoulder>

I thought It was funny. I don't know if anyone else noticed.

Thanks for all the e-mails and letters! Kevin: It sounds like you had lots of fun at the Klondike Derby! I testify to the fact that wearing more socks doesn't necessarily make your feet warmer. Megan: Homecoming? whats that? but mint chocolate is good. We'll see if I make it. It depends on how persistent they are at finding me and putting me on the plane. My area is pretty big...hmmm

I love you all and hope everything goes fantastically these next few weeks! I'll be praying for Grandma hope it all goes smoothly! Talk to you next week!

Hermana West

"Steadfast and Immovable" 1-23-2012

Hola familia!

    I heard about all the snow Seattle got this past week! Craziness.  This week we had a lot of less-actives at church! One of those things that doesn't count as a number but still makes us feel good.All three less-active member lessons we had this week came! One of thecouples came for the second week in a row and another one stayedthrough sacrament meeting for the first time in 6 months. There were also a bunch from the Elders half of the area there for the second week in a row. Hopefully they're back for good and be a little more"steadfast and immovable". There's been a lot of problems with gossip and bad feelings between the members so we're hope it continues to get better.      


Still having a problem with getting our other investigators to church though (other than Jose who came again for the 16th time I think). They all seem to create these huge obstacles in their minds that aren't actually good reasons to not come to church. One couple says they don't want to come until they're more united as a couple,another couple has a different excuse every week mostly having to dowith family being in town or needing to babysit grandchildren, others I think it's just laziness.     


The family I talked about last week who came to church for 5 months but got offended asked if there was anywhere else they could go to church. That made me kind of depressed especially because we had some other investigators this week mention how important things like charity and love were. A lot of the people we teach understand these two principles better than a lot of the members here. Sometimes I feel like the branch impedes the missionary work. I'm trying really hard to stay positive though.     


Marina, who we've been teaching with her kids, finally read this past week! Her kids have been reading but not her. We could really tell the difference! She seemed way more willing and seems to understandbetter now the importance of actually following Christ instead of just passively believing. She was also more open to come to church than before. It's interesting. I can almost always tell the difference when people (including less-active members) start reading in the scriptures and praying. Those are the things that help motivate real change, invite the spirit, and make you stronger.   Well I hope you all have a fantastic week! 


love,

Hermana West


pictures!

Truck fail?

Me in front of the Woodstock Opera house. It's used in some of the
scenes of "groundhog day"

What it's looks like driving around in my area. I really liked the
way the sun was hitting the fields this day so I had my comp take a
picture

"found an old investigator (Rosa) " 1-17-2011

Hola familia!

      So my e-mail is coming Tuesday this week because yesterday the libraries were closed. Yes it snowed about 6 inches on Thursday and it's snowing again today! I think that means it's officially winter. Snow isn't as fun as a missionary. Luckily though, it hasn't been as bad as last year (yet). I'm really relieved that the grad school stuff is done. Now I can have normal preparation days. I've had a little bit of a cold this week which is mostly just annoying. I hope it goes away soon.

      This week has been interesting and has had it's ups and downs. The biggest blow this week was that Maria Mendoza (one of our investigators who's been progressing pretty well and said she wanted to get baptized) moved without telling us where and since we only had her house number we can't get a hold of her. We're not really sure why she didn't tell us. So that was really hard for us. We're a little bit closer to putting a baptismal date with Jose. Now he's saying 2 or 3 months instead of "summer". So that's a small improvement. We were pushing him really hard to set a goal for baptism at our last lesson but he still said he'd just let us know when he's ready. He went to visit his daughter this week and ended up going to church in Elgin with her. But he told us he likes it here better because he's used to it. So that's good :)

      We had a lot of less active members at church this week! Three families from the elders area and one from ours. On Friday we'd left just a small note on the door of this couple's door (Alicia and Carlos). They said it helped motivate them to decide to come to church on Sunday! It was her first time coming in about a month and I've never actually met him so it was his first time in a LONG time. They recently got into a car accident too where their car flipped over a bunch so that also might have given them a little motivation :). We're hoping they'll continue to come. We had another really good lesson with another less active yesterday. She stopped coming because of all the gossiping and she "just couldn't stand it anymore". She says she knows she needs to come back especially because her son just turned 8. We had a really nice lesson with her and she says she going to come to church! So hopefully we'll see her Sunday too.

      We found an old investigator (Rosa) this week who were being taught about a year and a half ago and had come to church with her "esposo" (Juan) and children for about 5 months. They stopped coming because of the gossip and "hypocrisy" of some of the members. I think gossip is probably one of the most destructive (non-physical) forces ever. So they're like all the less active members only not members. So I guess that makes them "less-active investigators". They never got baptized before because they we're waiting on divorce papers from Mexico to get married. We met with Rosa on Wednesday and she told us everything. She says she's willing to get over it but that Juan really wants nothing to do with the church anymore. It's a really sad situation. They both read through the entire book of Mormon and it's really obvious that Rosa still has a testimony of it (we're not sure about Juan). She got really sad when she started talking about how they used to be so excited about getting sealed in the temple. We told her that she can still have all those things but that she (and Juan) might have to start with something a little bit smaller (i.e. starting to read and pray again) but that starting to do those small things would help them both get over the negative feelings they have. She admitted that they had stopped reading and praying since they stopped coming to church as well and said that she'd like to start over again. So we have really high hopes for her! and hopefully we can meet with Juan sometime too - he's going to be a little harder though I can tell. Also they are planning to get married in February!

Well I hope that everything goes well for you all this week! Love you!

Hermana West

"Jose decided to offer a prayer" 1-9-2011

Hola Familia!

     This week has been surprisingly warm for January (in the mid-upper 40's). Everyone's been talking about how unusual it is. I'm happy though. Hopefully it will stay that way as long as possible. It's the first week now of Monday preparation day. It think it's going to be good. Apparently they're encouraging all mission presidents to have it on Monday so that the whole week is building up to Sunday without interruptions.
     Church attendance of the members was finally a little better this week and we had a really good testimony meeting! Jose came (as usual) and is continuing to see miracles with his family. He told us of an experience he had last week with his youngest son. They were trying to take a tire off the car but for the life of them couldn't get it off. After working on it for about an hour his son was about to give up, but Jose decided to offer a prayer afterward his son tried again and it came right off with little effort. He was really happy about this small moment he was able to share with his son to teach him the power of prayer. Maybe we can get him to sit in with us too on the lessons. We told Jose that his example is really making a difference and now hopefully we can convince him that the next thing he should do to be an example is get baptized :). We've been trying harder to get our other investigators to come to church but they all flaked out on us when we talked with them on Friday and Saturday. Hopefully next week.
    Last zone conference the President and Sister Doll gave us all a Book of Mormon highlighting challenge to do by our March Zone Conference. I've been really enjoying it! At first I thought it would be a bit tedious but it's actually kind of cool so I thought I'd share with you all in case you want to do it too. They told us to take a paperback copy of the BoM and read it going through highlighting in 4 different colors: 

1. Names and pronouns referring to Jesus Christ (don't get too caught up on if it's talking about God the Father or Christ) 
2. His words (as spoken by him or his prophets when they say "thus saith the Lord") 
3. His attributes 
4. Principles and doctrines contained the the BoM. 

At the bottom of every page tally up the total number of items referenced. It's been helping me read it with another perspective in mind and I feel like I'm learning a lot from it. Of course if you all wanted to do it you wouldn't necessarily have to finish it in March :)

Hope you all have a fantastic week!

love, Hermana West

above freezing + sunny - wind = warm 1/4/2011

Hi family!

      This week has been slow again. With the Holidays and kids being on break from school a good portion of our investigators told us that they probably wont be available until AFTER the holidays are over. And I think some of them went on vacation without telling us because they're not there for their regular appointments and, as usual, no one answers or responds back to our phone calls. Maria is one of them. She said she would come to church but didn't. We tried calling Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning with no response. And she wasn't there for her appointment on Monday. We hope everything's OK. I think it's probably just laziness so hopefully we can find her again this week and instill some motivation in her. Hopefully this coming week we'll be able to find our investigators again because it's COLD! Today's nice though; 35 degrees and Sunny (abovefreezing + sunny - wind = warm).      We had a really interesting appointment with Jose this week also. The good new he told us was that his daughter (and I think her family) who live in Elgin went to church on Sunday too! We'd been wondering about her ever since we gave the referral to the Elders. Good things apparently! The bad part is that near the end of the lesson while we were talking about baptism again his wife sort of exploded on us... saying that 8 years old's don't know enough either and sarcastically saying that Jose should get baptized to "see if it makes any difference"....among other not so kind things. We're not really sure what to do. We think she's holding a lot of pain inside from something because emotionally healthy people don't usually lose it in front of guests. She still doesn't want to talk to us though. Everyone in his family keeps telling him reasons why he shouldn't get baptized so it's confusing him a little I think. So I'm a little sad about that this week.      Well I'm trying to stay motivated. It's hard because a lot of the leaders in the branch seem really hopeless (about the less-actives and the branch growing in general). We tell them ideas and they take sort of a negative outlook on it. We're trying though. It's a little overwhelming sometimes but it's definitely improving. Slowely but surely.     I hope you all are excited for school again! haha. Have a great week!love,

Hermana Kristen West