Busy but great week! Week 18

This week has been so busy...it's been literally so crazy. We realized last night that we have a total of 57 families in our area and 32 of them are less actives!! Only 25 out of the 57 are active! We have so many people and we are constantly running from appointment to appointment. This week we would teach a lesson and then get into the car and hurry to our next lesson. It's been really stressful because we are trying to see all of our menos activos and we don't have time to visit the investigators that we have. But we might have come up with a solution but we have to talk to president about it and we will see. If it works out I will tell you about it next week.  Yeah yesterday it was 80 degrees and I thought that it felt so good!  It's rained a lot though. It hasn't been hard rain it's been really light but still I like the rain! :)

So the other day I did some family history because Hermana had to do something on the computers and I was looking at a few lines but I really didn't feel good about any of them and so I went looking a little bit and found a line I haven't tried ever I don't think and so I put in the husbands name and I found a document that had his name, his wife's full name, his dad and her mom and then I typed in her mom's name and I found her and her husband and her grandparents! I felt so happy! It was so much fun to be able to do it and to find like 5 people! I love doing family history so much I wish I could just do it all day sometimes or at least just be able to do it when I want!

Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?  Oh yes...we have 4 let me repeat 4 thanksgiving dinners! And hopefully no one else will ask us! but we don't have time anyways. I really am so thankful for all the people that want to have us over but sometimes I just wish people hated us so they didn't ask us...but I really am so grateful because they just want to serve us and help us and do what ever they can for us. It's just going to be hard to stomach 4 dinners but we are trying to spread them apart we just have to ask what time they are planning on eating and hopefully our plan of doing one every two hours will work. but I'm literally not going to eat at all this week or next week!

These past 4 months have flown by! and the weeks go by so fast. I know at the end of January I will have a year left! How crazy is that! 

That’s super exciting that you got so many commitments to baptism last week!  How did things go this week?  Things were just really busy just constantly trying to go visit the people that we need to visit, we haven't had any time to go out finding. How are H and E doing?  well we haven't been able to see them since last Sunday. And they didn't come to our ward thanksgiving party and they haven't been texting us back when we text them. We are going to stop by tonight before our FHE appointment and see if they are home and see what is going on. How many baptisms do you have coming up? Well the one that we had for this week the members daughter, they realized they were going to be out of town so they moved hers to December 14th. But the other hermanas have a baptism this Friday with a wonderful couple. They literally met them like 2 weeks ago and they saw them every day, they got married and the wife is going to be getting baptized on Friday. Her husband can't because he needs approval to be baptized and she was going to wait but she wants to be able to start paying her tithing so she decided to keep the date on Friday. They are the cutest couple and we are hopefully going to get them to come with us to H and E if they are still wanting us to visit them and they will be able to share their experience of getting married and the wife can share her feelings about baptism and just everything. They live in the same area as H and E so it shouldn't be to hard.  

How was your zone conference?  Zone conference was good, we had our cars checked and so we had to leave early to go find a place where we could vacuum it and we cleaned out all the water bottles that we have in our car because every place we go we either get water bottles or coke. Seriously I drink coke at almost every dinner appointment. But anyways at Zone conferences we meet with a big group of a couple zones and president speaks and other people from the mission speak and then we have a lesson by president and we have lunch and we do some role playing. I hate role playing ugh if I hate one thing it's that. I don't know why but it's just something that I've never liked to do and I'm trying to like it but it's just hard to like it sometimes.   Are transfers in a week and a half? Yup next Tuesday is when we get new companions is ours is being transferred. And Hermana is probably going to get transferred and I will get my training breaker.  On Sunday our district leader will text us a list of the people in our district who are leaving. and then on Tuesday is when we find out whose going where.  

Aww that was sweet of her! I'm glad that you got to go out :) (My HT's wife and I went to the temple together this week while her husband and daughters took care of my kids) That family is really nice I love them! Man...I still think about them all the time I really hope that they are doing ok I can't imagine how hard it must be for the kids...(Wood family- our HT's brother and family that Shalyn used to work for.  The mom passed away in August)

What are your plans for the rest of today?  we are going to go to walmart because we need a few things and then Hermana wants to go help Koch pack but we really don't have the miles for it because we go over 40 every day and we have to keep it at that or we are going to be screwed at the end of this week. especially if she has to go get her crown this week. because that will be two trips that are quite a bit of miles. But it really just depends.

This week was good but we found out that M*** drinks! So we need to have the word of wisdom lesson because when the last Hermana's taught him they didn't explain it very well because he thinks it's ok to have 2-3 a week because he doesn't get drunk over them. When he was first found he smoked but he said he wanted to stop but we have to figure out if he did or not. He's supposed to be getting baptized next Saturday and hopefully we will be able to work with him and get him to have the desire to stop doing those things. 

We had a ward Thanksgiving dinner last weekend. We tried to talk to everyone. Literally we split up and just started talking to everyone because so many people brought their friends who aren't members and it was really fun but really exhausting. But we spent the first hour just talking and getting to know the people that were there and then we ate and it was really good food and then we talked more and tried to get more people in our ward to talk to our investigators that came to the party because no one was talking to them! It's really frustrating that our ward does not fellowship the less actives or the investigators. We just got a new bishop on Sunday and so hopefully he will be able to kick things more into gear and help our ward become more willing to help the missionaries. Because there is only so much we can do for our less actives. But the ward needs to take care of them and fellowship them and work with them and love them. I love the ward I am in but sometimes it's just frustrating that they don't want to come out to lessons or talk to the people that come and visit. Things will get better we just have to work with them a little more. ​

We made our Christmas planners this week, well mainly Hermana made mine I helped a little bit. we also decorated for Christmas last night with a few decorations that we had in our closet. Our little apartment is really cute. We've been listening to Christmas music all week. Definitely getting the Christmas spirit!

This morning we had a pancake breakfast with a couple missionary who are leaving at the beginning of December. It was fun and I got to hang out with Hermana Provost and we found a bunch of hymns that you can mix together. Like how you can sing There is a Green Hill Far Away and play Upon the Cross of Calvary. And you can switch them too. It's so pretty! And now we are just here emailing.

Seriously being a missionary is the best thing ever. Yeah it's hard and exhausting and sometimes frustrating but every day is always so worth it. To be able to talk to people about the gospel and to see them want to make the changes in their lives it's really just amazing. I love being able to teach all the people that we teach because they are all children of God too and they deserve to hear the sweet message of the gospel. And even if they don't accept it now maybe they will later in the future. Right now could just be their preparing time. Planting the seeds in their heart that way when it is their time they can know that it is what they want in their life. But the message of the gospel is so sweet and can bring happiness to any home and I really love it. I know that what I teach is true and that it changes lives. There's so much I want to be able to do because I know I have my weaknesses when it comes to teaching and speaking Spanish but I know that God is always with me as long as I try to teach and speak and just open my mouth because he can fill my mouth with the words that I need to say. Being a missionary is the best thing ever no matter how hard or tiring or frustrating it is. Every day is a good day. Every day there are miracles. 

Shalyn at church on Sunday

Hermanas with Roccio who was visiting their ward

Zone conference

This is us with brother and sister Chapel with our director for the choir on Tuesday at the Lutheran church.

This sweet little boy drew us a picture when we were helping his mom make a Christmas wreath for her door! I love this little boy!

These are the invitations we made for our ward thanksgiving party  aren't they cute? :)

Part of our decorations for Christmas :D

Her Zone (she is second row from bottom 1st person on Left)

We skipped fall and went straight to winter- Week 17

 Hi mommy!!!  I only have about an hour right now because hermana has to get a root canal...and her appointment is at 130 so we are emailing till about 12 and then after the root canal sometime later today we will come back on (She gets 90 minutes of email time a week). I will probably just wait to send my pictures when we come back. On Wednesday morning she woke up in the middle of night with really bad pain in her mouth and so we went to the dentist and they referred her to someone who could do the root canal and today was just going to be the consultation but they had an opening so they squeezed her in and they are going to do it for free!

It has been freezing here. The weather has definitely dropped and today when we got in the car it was 38 degrees. It's up to about 46 right now, but it's a bone chilling cold! It makes me just want to go to Starbucks every day so that I can get hot chocolate. haha I'll just have to make some of the packet hot chocolate that we have in our pantry.

This week has been really busy we've had so many appointments with members, menos activos and our investigators. On Wednesday we got two bap dates! One of them is with an investigator who has had many different missionaries in the past couple months because of the boundary change but he has been investigating for a little while now and we were able to extend a bap date invitation and he accepted it. His baptism is on December 6th! And then the next bap date we got is for an 8 year old girl whose family is really inactive. She has never been to church before. She doesn't really count as our baptism because she is still nine but her bap is on the 29th of this month! On Thursday we visited another investigator who had her bap date set for the middle of January and we asked her why she was waiting so long and she didn't know and so we extended the invitation to be baptized on the 13th of December and she looked at us and told us that her birthday is on the 14th so she would be getting the gift of the holy ghost on her birthday and she accepted it! It was pretty amazing and we were so happy that we were able to help get these people to progress more and more. 

We visited H*** y E*** last night and we are really trying to get them to see that they need to make a decision and do something and then they will receive their answer. They told us they will have an answer for us soon on if they are going to get married or not. Hermana and I talked about it on the way home and we both feel that they just need to get married and then they will receive their answer and also we feel that H*** will get baptized first because he is so ready. Every time he talks you can see it in his eyes and he knows that he needs to get baptized. He even told us. We asked  him what the first step he could take and he said that he needs to get baptized. We feel that he will get baptized first and then E***. And then I realized he could get baptized first and then slowly E*** will progress and become ready and then he can baptize her!! We feel really strongly that H*** is so ready they just need to make that commitment and just buy the license to be married. They are so cute and last night at their house i tried herbal tea for the first time....don't think i'll drink it again but it was OK. They always give us cookies and they are so wonderful! 

We had the biggest dinner yesterday. It was this soup that had at least a couple pounds of meat...an entire potato and a think corn and rice and other stuff and it was in a HUGE bowl! It was a blessing I was able to finish it. 

We got to be helpers to Santa this week! There is a hermano in our ward who is Santa! He has a website that you can go on and you buy a letter to send to your kid from Santa. You personalize it any way you want and then he sends it. Hermana is the voice for the commercial that will be on Facebook and on YouTube and on the website. We helped stuff envelops and it is so cute! This hermano is so cool! He is an amazing photographer and does so many cool things. I kind of realized how much I love doing computer things, like making websites and making videos and playing around with different things on the computer.  I think I might major in graphic design or something like that. I think that would be so much fun! We will see how I feel about it in a year and two months. haha. He also does things for the tooth fairy and he might start doing something with the Easter bunny too. He was talking about what he wanted to do with his website and i got really excited trying to figure out how you could do different things and man i just love it!!

I'm glad that you felt so good in the temple! I wish we could go more often!! I want to go!!

That is really awesome mommy! I'm glad that you were able to receive more strength in the blessing. A couple weeks ago when we both got blessings from the Sapps (a couple missionary who just left this month) I was told that God knows that the adversary has worn me down...(which is kind of scary to hear) but then it said how God is pleased with how I am enduring the trials in my life. Blessings are so interesting I think! 

 I never really blamed God for the bad things in my life that happened but I stopped trusting in him and having faith. I always wanted to say that I had faith in Him but in reality it was so hard. But that's something I've been working on more and more since I've been on my mission and it's definitely been helpful to always trust in Him and to stay faithful even when it seems like the last thing that you want to do. God notices all. He notices how hard we try when we don't want to. He notices when we grow when we fall. He really does see and know everything. 

  

Tomorrow we are singing in an choir at a Lutheran church interfaith. People from many different religions are singing too and it's going to be so awesome!! 

We had a missionary farewell party on Friday and that was pretty fun. Lots of yummy food and we were able to talk to a lot of people. One of the hermano's in our ward shared a joke and it was hilarious. 

One day there was a catholic preacher walking down the street after the services were over down the way he see's a little boy with a box it seemed as though he was selling something. As he got closer he heard the boy yelling puppies catholic puppies for sale!! He talked to the boy for a little while and then he kept walking. a few days later after the services he was waiting for everyone to leave sot hat he could go see if the boy was still on the corner of the street selling the puppies. As he walked in the direction he heard the boy yelling puppies for sale! Mormon puppies for sale. The catholic preacher hearing the boy selling Mormon puppies was really angry so he ran up to the boy and asked him what happened. Last week he had been selling Catholic puppies and now he was selling Mormon puppies. when he asked the boy what had happened he said "they finally opened their eyes" 

I thought the joke was really funny. He would tell part of it in Spanish and then go back and say it in English because not everyone there spoke Spanish. 

Anyways I'm ready for another week of greatness!! I love being a missionary more than anything! I hope you all have a great week!!!

​A Birthday party during district meeting for the two Christensens!​

Apparently it is a tradition in their area to smash cake into the birthday person's face.  He didn't think Hermana Koch would really do it.

The girl in the middle is leaving on her mission soon

This sweet girl is leaving on her mission to California in a few weeks! She had a farewell party on Friday!

We got to work with Santa this week

Week 16!!!

Hi Everyone!

The mission work has been kind of hectic we are still trying to visit all the new people that we have in our area. We have a ton of menos activos and so we spent basically two days going through and just visiting everyone. On Tuesday we didn't do anything because we had a zone conference with Elder Corbridge of the seventy. He and his wife sat at our table to eat lunch! It was really exciting to eat and talk with a general authority. And then after the conference was over we had to figure out our area map so we can really split the area better and figure out our boundaries. That took the rest of the night.

On Wednesday Hermana Carbajal had to go to the doctor. Afterwards we just visited the menos activos and  met a ton of people. On Thursday we stayed in all day because Hermana Carbajal got really sick and was really tired and she really wasn't doing well and so we stayed in so that she could rest and get better. She is doing a lot better now. On Friday we just visited more menos activos  and got in with a lot of different people and were able to get to know a lot of them and try to figure out why they are inactive and a lot of them are because they didn't' like it when they switched the ward boundaries and now they have to come to our ward. But hopefully we will be able to get them to come back to church.

We've met with H*** and E*** the past two nights and we are seeing them again tonight! On Saturday we talked about how they need to get married and E*** isn't sure if she wants that because no one in her family is married they are only together. Last night we watched the testaments with them and we were able to talk more about taking a step of faith. But I just don't think they understand that baptism and marriage is that step of faith. They need to set a date and have that as a real goal and then I think they will start feeling it more because we've tried expressing that god wants them to work and that He won't just give them an answer right away. I shared how coming on a mission was a leap of faith for me because I didn't want to come and I never received a direct answer on if I should come on a mission or not. But I've been told in a blessing I got a couple weeks ago and the one I got from Hickman that this is where I need to be. We are seeing them again tonight and we are going to set a date and get them closer to the goal. Because they know that it's true. They are so amazing and golden and perfect but they just need to take that step of faith and decide to get married and decide to get baptized.

We lost J*** and G*** because J*** is being stubborn. He refuses to come to our Spanish ward. So they are going to have the English sisters teach them. They called us and told us that G*** couldn't read the book of Mormon in English but that J*** was way into the lesson. We are hoping maybe they will be able to reactivate him and if they need us they will call us because G*** doesn't understand English very well and it would be so much better for her to learn in Spanish but God has a plan and what ever needs to happen will happen!

We haven't been able to meet with D***. They forgot about our appointment with them and we haven't been able to set up another one. But, hopefully we will will see them this week. They are having us over for dinner on Sunday so hopefully we will start teaching her then.

On Saturday we were trying to visit a lot of people and we met one of our investigator's brother in law and we committed him to start taking the lessons and to be baptized once he knows it's true and we almost were able to set a date with him. We are going to go see him later this week. We are supposed to have a baptism at the end of this week but we haven't been able to meet with him. He was one that the elders were teaching and now we have him. but he still needs all the lessons and he is never home! so we don't know if it will happen or not but we have faith!

Things have been really good here, just trying to learn more Spanish each day and to keep learning. We have a huge new area that we are still trying to visit everyone and start finding those people that we need to find!  My favorite part about being a missionary is when I can share my testimony because I feel that it is really the only time I can talk. When ever I share it in a lesson I don't know what I'm saying half the time. Words just come out and Hermana Carbajal always tells me how wonderful I'm doing and that she can always feel the spirit when I share my testimony in a lesson. I know that understanding will come with time!

Sometimes it's hard for me to know when I am feeling the spirit but last Monday we taught our investigators who are so close and I bore my testimony at the end and I just felt like my body was on fire. My mind was blank and I wasn't even thinking but words were coming out and they were in Spanish. I've had a few of those experiences and I'm so grateful for them :) Never give up! I love being here and being a missionary is the best thing that I ever could have done!

Hope all is well with all of y'all!! :D

Love you all!

Three Elder Christensens haha!

You're never too old to wear a Burger King Crown

Working on piecing together our maps.

I hit my leg on the bench at the church last Tuesday...lovely bruise...

We went to old spring town and did some contacting! It's like the north pole!

They sell all things Texas in this store!

Fried oreos...YUM!

Funnel cake...YUM!

Me trying the fried oreos :)

So we had some extra time on Saturday morning...so Hermana decided to give me bangs...haha

NO ONE TOLD US IT WAS DAYLIGHT SAVINGS!!!

 Hi Everyone!

Ha-ha yeah sister Ardmore called me and she was asking about the song we sang, the first thing she said when I answered the phone was that she was talking to you! So I told her to tell you that I got the memory card and that I love you so much! I haven't been able to watch it yet because for some reason it didn't show up on the memory card but i just plugged it into the computer and all the videos are on there so I will watch them in a little bit! I love the picture that little bumbles (her special name for Cole) drew for me it is so sweet! And I loved the picture and creeper thingy from Avery :) I have the best siblings in the world!

Oh wow...Tate doesn't like candy? haha oh that little boy he is so sweet for sharing! Our Halloween was basically another P-day. We had zone meeting in the morning until about 130 and then we went out to eat with our elders at chick-fil-a and then we took them back to their apartment and we went to walmart to buy some things that we needed so that we could make pumpkin bread and gluten free pumpkin bread. And, we wanted to find a pumpkin but at the pumpkin patch they were way way expensive to get a decent size one to carve was almost $30. So we decided to dye my hair and we got free ice cream because every month we have a house check and if we pass we get a coupon for free blue bell and we hadn't used last months coupon so we had two so we each chose an ice cream that we wanted. Then, we had to come home because it was almost 6 and we didn't' really have time to do much else and so we did our weekly planning, and then we both baked, we dyed my hair, decorated a part of our apartment and then watched the Emma Smith movie once my hair was done. We went to bed a little late but Halloween was really fun! We were bummed we couldn't' see any of the other missionaries because we had to stay in our apartments.

Oh the temple was really really good! Jocylin and her mom both received their endowments. The video was in Spanish but I was able to get a head set but I couldn't figure out how to adjust it and so through my left ear I got English and through my right ear I heard the Spanish.  But the temple was so good. In the Celestial room she hugged her mom and it was a really good sight to see. That family has been through a lot and so for the daughter and the mom go through the same day was really special. We were sad though because the elders weren't given permission to go. Mainly because it was both girls getting their endowments and so president didn't see a reason to allow the elders to go. But it was really good! and yeah the temple is so pretty! I can't wait till we can go again!

How did things go w/ H and E?   Did you talk to them?  We haven't been able to see them! We were going to see them on Thursday but they had to cancel and then on Saturday they had to work late and on Sunday they had to work and so they weren't able to come to church but they sent us a text today saying that we can come over at seven! We changed what we are teaching them. We are going to teach them about baptism and share a scripture in Mosiah 18 8-10 i think because in verse ten it asks what you have against being baptized and we want to see if they have any doubts and then that scripture is a good lead into talking about them about getting married! We see them at seven tonight!

Are your zone meetings in Spanish or English?  It's kind of a mixture. We do somethings in Spanish but a lot of things are mainly in English


How is your Spanish?  Is it getting any easier to speak/understand?  It's kind of easier to speak but understanding is the worst. I have been told that it is normally the hardest thing for people- to understand. Hermana Hill only has a few months left and she says she still struggles with understanding. But it will slowly get easier I hope!

How is Fast and Testimony meeting in your ward?  Do a lot of kids get up?  Zaners bore is testimony today!  We really don't have a lot of kids in our ward and it's mainly the older kids and the parents that get up. It's pretty good. I don't' remember if I told you or not but last testimony meeting I bore my testimony, I was going to yesterday but then I decided not to because there was already too many people up there and like five minutes left.


So on Monday we helped the elders and the other hermanas move apartments. It basically took all day.

on Tuesday...oh man today was so stressful! We went to a new part of our area and we were trying to find one of our investigators house and our GPS died and we got stuck in traffic and we were late to his appointment and we had to cancel for the second time with another investigator because we had no idea where he lived and our gps was dead and the directions he was giving us didn't make since so we went home a little early and we watched one of the church movies. We only went home like a half hour early but still it was just really stressful once our gps died!. 

On Wednesday we had our 8 week training with president and that went pretty good! We were able to visit pretty much everyone that we wanted to visit. We only had to cancel with one person because the meeting went over and she couldn't meet with us any other time. That was the day I ate the pig skin stuff. Yuck it was all rubbery. 

On Thursday we emailed and then we went to the store to print out some pictures for the elders and we ran into J***!! We met his wife and he said that the other sisters haven't been coming by to see him and so we have to figure that out! We were looking at the Halloween stuff and we found this mask...it is the funniest thing ever. I have the picture that I will send soon! We tried to go see W***  with the elders and wasn't home. He left an hour before we got there. We really don't' know what to do with him anymore and it's really sad that he got offended. But there's not much we can do when an almost 40 year old man still listens to his mom about what he should and shouldn't do (tithing) and doesn't want to talk to us anymore. 

On Friday I dyed my hair :) I have lots of funny pictures from that because it looked like I had blood all around my head and it was perfect for Halloween! And at the zone meeting we made a goal to invite someone to be baptized every day! It will be tricky but we've done it two days now! So far it has been pretty good!

On Saturday it was 48 degrees at 730 and so we went to star bucks and got hot chocolate and there was this guy in front of us who we started talking to and he was so sweet! he bought our drinks for us! we went on an exchange with the other Hermanas. Carbajal went with Koch to their area and I stayed here with Hermana Hill. We tried to go visit J*** and G*** but they weren't home and then we went to see M*** who has a baptismal date for the first of January (going to try to help her make it a sooner date) and then we went to the temple which was amazing! And then we tried to go see H*** and E*** but they had to work late so we went to sonic and ate dinner and then came back home. 

On Sunday...no one told us it was Day light savings!! Hermana C took her ipod with her (what we normally use as an alarm clock and so we just used my clock and we got up at the right time and got ready and went to church and when we got there no one was there. We called the other hermanas and we asked if we missed a memo and they asked us why we were at church. The time change was nothing that we had thought about! It was crazy because all morning I had the feeling look at the phone, look at the phone and I did but I never noticed the time and I was confused because I thought maybe someone was trying to get a hold of us. So we showed up to church over an hour early but we ended up having to pick up the elders and so it was alright. So yesterday we were up at 530 :P Ev*** came to church! We passed him off to the elders but still! He came! No one else did. We are thinking about dropping J*** and G*** because they never answer our calls and they keep cancelling appointments and there is really not much we can do when they do that. It's really sad and I don't want to drop them but we don't' know what else we can do. We went over to the P***'s last night for dinner and we hung out with them for a while and we got permission to start teaching their cousin! Hopefully we will get her mom and her grandma to listen to the lessons too! We then tried to see W*** and when we drove up we saw some one looking through the window but when we knocked no one answered which made us upset because we knew they were home but he wouldn't answer the door :( the life of a missionary...

Anyways This week has been pretty great! I Love being a missionary and wouldn't change it for the world!

Love you all!!

This is the mask that we found at CVS!! There was this lady that looked up and she freaked out. She was laughing so hard when she came up to us. She said that she was about to ask what was wrong with my face....I was laughing so hard I was crying!

My hair for our 8 week training

Hermana Haslam and I

Hermana Woodard and I

Her Zone

Elders in her Zone

Hermanas in her Zone

Pumpkin Patch

More pumpkin patch

Houston Temple at night

Houston Temple at Night

After the temple

Dying her hair

After!  Looks great!

Another beautiful after picture