Hermana Medeiros Texas Houston Mission: Week 30

How did your week go? This week was pretty good, the weekend was really busy because we had meetings and stake conference and baptism but it was good. :) Last Monday we had two FHE lessons and they were pretty good, we got fed at both of them. Luckily at the second one we got to serve ourselves and there were other people there so we hardly had to eat! It was really nice since we were so full from the first house.

On Tuesday we wanted something sweet so we went to walmart and got brownies and cookies and then ate some in the car haha it was so good! then we took one of our investigators to the dentist so we could help translate but they ended up finding someone that could translate for the dentist so we helped her fill out the paper which was all in English and then just sat there till her son was done. We also helped the young women president paint things for new beginnings and that was a lot of fun. We got to try matte. It was NASTY!!!! But apparently it is really good for you. Luckily she is white and she used to hate it so we didn't have to drink it haha. It's an Argentinian drink.

On Wednesday we ate with the less active who gave us the 3 oranges last time. We didn't think she was feeding us, we had just gotten done eating at a members house and we were supposed to just be having a lesson but nope she had a huge bowl of soup ready for us and then after i was done with my soup she gave me an orange, I was dying. and I finished the first orange and she put a second one on my plate! I couldn't do it so I asked her if I could take it home and she said yes. I was so grateful I didn't have to eat it.

On Thursday we taught English class. I mainly taught it because Rupp was trying to figure something out with a couple people and it was really fun teaching English class. We had an investigator, a less active and a member there and it was so much fun. I really felt a new love because i was helping these people in another way. It was really great.

On Friday we had zone conference. It was really good. I got to play the piano for Carbajal :) We got our black boxes in our car. They can see everything basically. It keeps us from going about 7 over the speed limit and it can detect a lot of other things. It's really not as bad as everyone was making it out to be. It's just annoying sometimes haha. It's just there to keep us safe. We had the elders baptism that night and it was so good. He didn't tell his wife he was getting baptized until they were at the church. I got to see some people from the woodlands and it was great! It was a pretty fun night :)

On Saturday we had Claudia's baptism and it was so great. At first I had decided we weren't going to go because I felt it wasn't productive and it was a lot of miles. But I decided I wanted to go and I am so grateful that we did. I didn't think that I really had any connection with her but when she saw me she jumped out of her seat and hugged me. Throughout that whole baptism I realized how much she meant to me and how much I loved her. I am so grateful that we went. All of our appointments fell through and so we heart attacked some people in our area. We heart attacked a member who calls us their daughters, a less active we are working with and then we also did the house of the old man whose wife just died. We then had stake conference and we got to sing with young single adults and so that was fun. Every time we got told to stand up, because we were sitting in the regular benches everyone else took that as they needed to stand up to, which ended in everyone in the church laughing. It was really funny. I understood so much more than I did my first stake conference in this mission. Rupp had been craving pizza so we went and got pizza on our way home and there was a member who was also getting pizza and they gave us one of the pies they had. It was so nice :) so our valentines dinner was pizza and pie.

Sunday I decided to make valentine pancakes. I used the cookie cutters to make the shapes. we had stake conference and after it they had sandwiches for us to eat. They were so good. We then had Leo's baptism. And that was a blast. I played the piano at his baptism. The kids were all so happy to see me. A few days before the baptism we were at target and I found pokemon cards and I remembered that he loved them so I bought him a back and then some snickers and when I gave them to him after his baptism he just stared at them for a minute and then said 'THANK YOU!!! THESE ARE MY FAVORITE! He gave me three big hugs :) Claudia was at the baptism of Leo and I was talking to her and she was saying how sad she was that they moved me and she asked me if I was going to be able to come the next Sunday when she gets the holy ghost and I had to tell her no but I would be there in spirit. I love Claudia so much!

Then yesterday we just kind of hung out with the elders at the church. We went back to our apartment to change and we were so tired so we took a nap and set the alarm but it was only on vibrate and we were both out and so we woke up when someone texted us and we were a little late to our dinner appointment but luckily they are really nice haha.

I'm glad that you liked the valentines day cards :)

yay!! I am so happy that you got a job! That is so exciting!!!

Yay! I'm not the only one who thinks jalapenos are spicy! Ahh everything is still so hot to me! it kills me, I don't know how I handled THREE Habanero peppers. I have no idea.

How has everything been this week? Pretty good just visiting people and trying to work as hard as we can. Are any investigators progressing? nope :( we might have some soon but it depends on if they can get transferred over to our ward or not. We hope they can!

How is your faith doing? it's growing each day. Every day is another learning experience. Some days it's better than others but we just have to keep our eyes on the vision. And then nothing can weaken your faith.

Did you have any experiences on how it grew this week? Kind of. On Saturday for some reason as the day went on it started getting really rough for me and I just felt like crap. I talked to the STLS a little bit before stake conference started and then I talked to my comp and I was just feeling really crappy. I was complaining in my head and was hating everything wondering why as soon as I start to feel better I get shoved down again and I was done. I didn't want to deal with it anymore. The conference started and I started thinking, I was saying how going home is the last thing that I want to do and that I know that I am here and I need to finish my mission with a good attitude. And so I started thinking of all the things I want to do while on my mission and then I started thinking more and more and trying to tell myself all the things I want to do and I realized that I want to be a way so that one day I can train and I realized that I really would love to train sometime while on my mission. And as I started making that my goal I realized all the things I need to fix before I can even think about wanting to train and I felt so much better. I had tried doing things like that before but I had never really made a goal but my faith grew because now I have a goal to be working towards and I know I need to be better if I ever want to think about training.

Also at Zone Conference, the missionary department was here and installed 'black boxes' in the cars to make sure they're driving safely and obeying traffic rules. This is how she explained it, "They have a gps on the inside of them and it's hooked up to a program that is updating the speeds of the streets and when we start going to fast it will give us a red light and then tell us to slow down. It says check your speed. We also have to have a card to log onto our car. We have to slide it before we start driving so that they know who is driving, it also can tell if we have our seat belts on, if we catch air while driving across pot holes or rail road tracks and all this other stuff. It's pretty crazy. And every thing goes to President. We all start off as a green missionary, and if we continually make the red light go off we get to a yellow light which if we go two transfers with being a yellow missionary you have to take a driving class. Then, if you get a transfer as a red missionary you lose your driving privileges for a couple transfers or for the rest of your mission.

During Zone Conference we found out our mission has about 270 missionaries and they are going to bump it down to 200! Those who are just Asl missionaries, just spanish missionaries or any sort of specialized missionary may no longer be that, spanish missionaries may also start teaching in english as well. Also president is not going to have 6 missionaries in a ward anymore. So like the woodlands one of the areas is going to be taken out. And hermana Carbajal was pretty sure she was going to be white washed and so she asked President if she needs to prepare her area to be white washed and he told her that he thinks he wants her to train. So my guess is that president will take coronado and woodard out and then the elders will move to where they live and take over the south and there will just be two areas. I just can't wait to see what is going to happen this transfer.