#Sharethegift Week 20

How’s my favorite missionary? I'm good! This week has been pretty stressful because i have a new companion and I've just been feeling that i'm not where i should be and that i haven't been doing my hardest but i know that's not true. I'm just struggling with knowing what our menos activos and what our investigators need and knowing how to best use our miles and figuring out how to help all the people in our area progress and just doing everything that I'm supposed to do has just been stressful. 

 

  Hermana Coronado is from Peru she has been in the United States since she was 8. She's really good but so far I just really don't' feel any connection with her. I pray every night to find ways to bring us closer so that we can work better together but she's just used to doing things differently than who I was trained and so we are just trying to figure out everything together. She's knows some of the area because some of our ward used to be in her area but then when they changed the boundaries we got part of her old area. So it's good especially with one of our investigators. My grandma (crandall) found him and then hermana Coronado has been teaching him and then the other hermanas in our ward and now us. He is so close and we actually got him to accept the baptismal date for this Saturday to be baptized. We had a lesson with him on Friday that was really good. We had him kneel down and pray to know that the 13th was the right day and after he prayed he tried to say that he still didn't know but we told him to not talk and to just listen and we sat there for maybe ten minutes. And the spirit was so strong, and he told us afterwards that he would have an answer for us on Sunday. We texted our whole zone and asked them all to pray for him and on Saturday we fasted for him and on Sunday he came to church, he was crying all during testimony meeting and during Sunday school. He told us that he would give us his answer after church and so after church we met with him in a class room and had a small lesson and he told us he would be baptized on the 13th. WE were so happy! then later Sunday night we called him because when the other hermanas called to schedule the church for Saturday they were told that there were Christmas parties going on and so we couldn't do it that day (they have kori's daughter getting baptized this week!) and so we called him to see if we could move it to Friday and he said yes and then he told us that he was with his friends and the pressured him to drink and so he did, but he said he was able to only drink a little. We told him that still wasn't ok for him to do, we expressed our love for him and told him that we are here for him. We might have to push his baptism date to next week because we also need to make sure he really does have a testimony on profetas and that he has stopped drinking coffee. Tonight we have a member coming with us and he is going to give him a blessing. The week before and after baptism are always the hardest for converts it's when the adversary is going to work it's hardest. Any little thing will be done to keep these people from accepting the gospel. 

 

Yeah hermana Carbajal is still in my district and in our ward still! which makes me so happy! We might be going on an exchange this week not sure if hill or Carbajal will come with me. But I'm glad that she is still so close! 

I hope you like meet the Mormons! It's a really really good movie!!

 

Oh awesome mommy!! well even if they don't give it to the complex office there is a ups store like five minutes away from our apartment but we will see what happens if they will just give it to the complex or if i'll get a note on our door :) Thank you so much mommy!! (Re: a package I sent her)

 

awww mommy i'm so happy that you had a good birthday!!! That makes me happy :D I woke up and saw it was the 4th and i just wanted to yell happy birthday and hope that you could hear me ;) but i said it in my heart :D <3

 

That sounds like so much fun! i'm glad you and Ava got to go on a date! 

 

 awww that is the sweatest thing ever!! I'm so glad that zurgy got to bear his testimony! and little tater bugs!! Awww that is the sweetest thing ever! I bet you felt like a proud mama having your little baby go up and bare his testimony and having your best Zaners bearing his testimony! I was going to try to do mine but then it was too late and so many people were up on the stand. I could have gone up but it was already going over time so I decided not to. 

 

How is the mission life this week? It's good, i'm just trying to figure out the area and figure out how to visit all of our menos activos because we have so many! We've been able to weed out a few that are definitely not interested in coming back to church at this time. But we still have so many!! We made a new map of our area and marked it and now we just have to write all the people who live next to each other that way when our plans and back up plans don't work we have other plans and a good way to use our miles!  

 

We had an interesting night last night we were going to visit a less active family and we were sitting in the car getting ready to pray and we saw this lady walk past us pushing a stroller and hermana turned to me and said "she's crying we have to go see if she's ok" so we jumped out of the car and ran up to her and she saw us and burst into tears when we asked her if she was ok turned out her boy friend had just  beat her up. And if he had done more he probably would have killed her. It was really heart breaking. She moved here from michagin for him and they have the cutest happiest innocent five month old baby. She has no family here. She moved out for about two months and then he told her that he changed and so she decided that her baby needed his father and so she went back to him. she doesn't know what to do. he literally broke her phone in half. it was really heart breaking and she really wouldn't let us help her in any way. I really am praying for her that she will be ok and that God will protect her. We called the missionaries that cover that area in english and told them to go visit her sometime and be a friend and to share uplifting messages with her. 

Any progress with any investigators?  Only with manuel. We've tried seeing H*** and E*** but they are never home and they don't answer our text or calls. So not sure what to do with them. I don't want to give up on them but i don't know what else to do. Just got to show them that we still love them.  But other than that M*** still isn't coming to church and F*** hasn't put it as a priority to file divorce papers and get the money to do so and A*** really just doesn't care. It's frustrating but God knows best and he has a plan and i'm just going to have faith that what ever needs to happen will happen. 

 

Any word on how J*** and G*** are doing (they were investigators she found who decided to go to an English ward and not Spanish)?  I've heard that they have been going to church and i think she is getting baptized in two weeks...i think that's what they said when the missionaries called us the other day but i could be wrong. 

 

I know!! It's almost been five months! It really is crazy how fast the time has gone! It all feels like a dream really. it's crazy :D

 

You can tell spanish is getting into my head because I was trying to search for prophet in the index of the book of mormon and I realized after a while the reason why I couldn't find it is because I was looking up profeta. I was looking up the spanish word in an english book. Man...haha Spanish is really getting to my head!

On Friday I tried speaking spanish all day. I did really badly because we had district meeting but besides that I spoke in spanish for the most part of the day. I just really feel like I need to get better at it and the only way I can do that is to push myself harder. 

So I don't know if you have seen this video but please go onto christmas.mormon.org and watch the he is the gift video!! and share it with the world!! The church bought the big advertisement on youtube and so the whole world will see the video when they go onto youtube and they can watch it! It's very short but it is so powerful! Don't forget to #sharethegift! or #comparteladadiva navidad.mormon.org el es la dadiva :) Please let's get this video all over the world so that everyone can know the true meaning of Christmas!! 

#sharethegift !!!!!!!!!!!

i love you all!! 

 

Trio forever!  (MTC companions)

Shalyn and her new companion, hermana Coronado

This whole street was cover in Christmas lights!

haha just found a picture that hermana Coronado took of me when we were working on our maps haha