Hermana Medeiros Texas Houston Mission: 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.