A little late this week...

Hello everyone!

Sorry it's a bit later in the week, but Monday the library was closed for Veteran's Day, and yesterday we had zone conference, so we weren't able to email until today.  Our zone conference was great!  We learned a lot of great things that will definitely make a difference in our work.  We are really excited to go try it out!

 

We've had a pretty good week.  We found some new investigators this week.  They had been attending the church for about two years, pretty regularly, and then they started working on Sundays.  One of their sons got baptized, so it was good to be able to meet with him!  They are excited to have the missionaries in their home again.  Maybe now they'll be in a position to get baptized.  

 

We are still working with our 12 yr. old.  She's so great!  She loves when we come by, and is reading in the Book of Mormon.  We just have to get her to church, which is tricky, given her crazy family situation.  We've got some one to go over and get her, but the real problem is making sure she's there.   We are going to go see her later tonight though, which should be really good, and should help us be able to find a way to get her to church.  

 

The mission has been having a big "de-junking" project.  Missionaries have been bringing all of their extra stuff to the mission office.  We've been cleaning it and getting it ready for a community outreach program that happened on Saturday.  But before that they did a "missionary mall."  So all the missionaries got to come up to Houston, and we looked for stuff we needed, (we happened to need a blender)  and then they opened it up to the public.  Missionaries had been inviting investigators and members and others to come.  And the best part was that it was all free!  The mission figured that we might as well give all this stuff that we had just lying around to those who could really need it. 

 

One of the ladies that I taught while I was in Houston 4 came with the sisters to take a look around, so I got to talk to her for a minute, and I learned that she is getting baptized this week!  It's been really cool to see how the people that I've met with are now coming into the gospel.  I had taught this lady for a few weeks, but it was really good to see how much she's grown!  It's been a really good week!  We ended up teaching a lot of people.  We've got a few investigators, and our next step is to help them get ready to be baptized.  We've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we are really excited for it!

 

Well, I think that's about it!

Love you lots!

Amber

 

Also, I forgot to tell you about Thanksgiving.  We don't really know what we'll be doing, but we did get invited to eat with one of the counselors in the branch presidency.  They actually belong to one of the English wards, but because there isn't enough leadership in the branch, the stake calls some people from the other wards to help.  So it looks like it'll be a good old fashioned thanksgiving.  The branch is also having a Thanksgiving activity the Saturday after, so we'll also get to try Thanksgiving-Mexican style!  We're both kinda excited about it.  But I imagine our plans will fill up as the weeks go on.

November 5, 2012

Hello family!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween.  We had to spend Halloween inside, well, we worked til 6, and then came in and did the rest of our studies. Halloween was actually a really good day.  We ended up having 5 lessons that day.  We've been busy teaching, and finding new people to teach.  We've also been looking for less actives this week.  We also cover the singles branch in the stake, so we've been trying to make them a focus this last little bit.  We've been going out with members to look for less actives, and we've been trying to get referrals from them.  One day it will happen, we will just have to be persistent.

Other than it being Halloween, I feel like has been a pretty uneventful week.  We didn't have to go to transfer meeting, which means we get to stay together, but it also means that we had to plan lessons for Wednesday morning.  We've got a baptismal date with a 12 yr. old.  Her family (mom, brother, uncles, cousins) are all less active members, except for the few that are active.  She's really sweet, and really likes to learn, and likes to talk with us.  We also found a less active for our YSA branch, who wants to come back to church, and she's really neat.  Things have bene going really well.  It always seems like we spend so long knocking on doors where no one is home or driving around trying to find someone to teach, but when we get home for the night, and add all our lessons up, it usually turns out to be a pretty good day. 

This email seems to be pretty short, but I can't think of anything else that has really been going on.  We just keep looking for new people to teach, and helping the people we are teaching come to church, and keep their commitments!

Well...

Love you lots!

October 29, 2012

Hello everybody!

We got our transfer calls today!  Hna. Cardoza and I are staying together for another transfer!

We're pretty excited!

This week has been pretty good!

We've gotten to spend some time with some more members this week, which is always good.  We've only had three Sundays of actual church this transfer, so I still feel like I'm meeting people. 

We found a few more people to teach.  It looks like there is some good potential in all of them.  (Plus I'm trying to be optimistic and have the faith that all will get baptized!)  I've learned that as long as missionaries have the faith, that the Lord will work miracles!  So if I have the faith and am opitmistic, the Lord will take care of the rest.  But that if I think that some one isn't going to get baptized then I am probably right.

We've found quite a few new people, but we haven't been able to get back to see them.  I think that is my least favorite part of missionary work.  Setting the return appointments, and them not being home, and then trying and trying and never finding them.  We do have a lot of people in the area that work a ton.  They are never home!  It's crazy how much some people work!

And we've been working with some less actives.  Some are a little more willing to come to church than others, but we are helping them come back, and we are not giving up on anyone just yet. 

We had stake conference this weekend.  It was really good!  Everyone seemed to enjoy it!

The branch, and the english wards in the building, had a trunk or treat on Friday night.  It was really cold!  All of the members have told us that winter has officially begun.  The cold isn't too bad, it just has this nasty bitterness to it.  I'm going to blame that on the humidity.  Although Hna. Cardoza says it feels just like spring time in Seattle.  Last night, a member asked us why we weren't shivering.  We told him that is because we are used to the cold, and that this is nothing!

Well, I think that's about it for now!

Love you lots!

Short and Sweet

Well, this weekend was pretty good.  We met the wife of one of our investigators and started to teach her too.  The branch had a halloween party last weekend, which was kinda fun, and some of the less-actives that we invited showed up.  Everyone seemed to have a good time.  Hna. Cardoza and went as each other (we switched name tags.)  We taught a few people this weekend. 

Nothing else too crazy or exciting happened.

 

Well, love you all lots!

A Little Late this week....

Surprise!  It's your weekly email!

I know it's a little late, but it's got a great story attached.

We went to the temple today.  We're now allowed to attend the temple once a quarter, on our P-day, so long as a member drives us.  But because the temple is closed on Monday, we get to change our P-day.  So this week, it's Friday.  (This also means that we get P-day again on Monday!)
We've still been working on finding new investigators, and helping them get to baptism.  So it's been pretty busy.  We had a ton of lessons fall through last week.  No one was ever home. 
On Saturday, the area presidency came to speak to all three Houston Missions.  It was a lot of fun, and they gave great talks.  I know I learned a lot!  That evening, the branch was having a baptism for an 8 year old member, so we spent most of the afternoon trying to get an investigator there.  He's been kinda sick, so we managed to get him to the church for a blessing from the elders, and then he just kinda hung around until the baptism.  Two other wards had baptisms that same time, so he saw a few people get baptized. 

This week has been a little bit better than last week, we've found a new investigator, and we've found a few more lessons. 

We went on exchanges yesterday, I got to stay here and have Hna. Kennedy with me. 

The last two weeks haven't been too exciting, sorry.  We just keep looking for people to teach.  We've got a few people that we've taught one or two times, but we've been having problems getting in touch with them, especially since everyone is home for only two hours everyday, and they are all at home at the same time, but we never manage to find anyone.  It's kinda frustrating.  But I know that the Lord has people for us to teach, we just have to go out and find them.

Well, I think that's it for now!

Talk to you soon!

Love, Amber

October 8, 2012

Hello family!

 

Wasn't conference just great!! I can't believe it's over though, it all went by so fast.  We got to watch conference at one of the buildings in our stake, but other than the missionaries, there were only two other members there on Saturday, a handful Sunday morning, and somewhere in between for Sunday afternoon.  There were a lot of people who stayed home and watched I guess.  But we had a grea time!   I was all excited about the temple in Peru!  That's where Simon is from, and I know a couple other members who lived there or served missions there.  I think this is the first time that a foreign temple announcement has been so real for me, knowing how it really will impact the members there.  Then we heard about the missionaries!  We are all stoked, and a few of the elders were talking about how their little brothers or sisters could leave right now, or before they get back.  We all thought it was really neat.  As we walked out of Saturday morning session we were all talking about it and remembering how conference used to be like 80 hours long every session, and that the last two hours had just flown by. 

(We also think we need to put some signs on our cars that say "Questions? Ask the missionaries...they can help you!"

We didn't get any investigators to conference, but we got some recent converts who we weren't sure would be able to make it so that was fun.  The ward that meet in the building also did a pot-luck in between Sunday sessions. 

But other than conference...

We found a few more new people to teach this week.  We'll go back and see them tomorrow or wednesday.  We taught some less actives this week.  We stopped by on Monday, talked with them, and then set up an appointment to come back later.  The day we stopped by was the day that Hermano's father had passed away.  It was really neat to see the Lord prepare them and us to be in the right place and the right time.  It's been a pretty good week. 

They have cut down on MTC time.  Hna. Cardoza said that her group was one of the last to do 9 weeks at the MTC, now they'll do 6.  We've also had that 12 week program thing for a while.  I had the privilege of doing when I got to Texas, since they had done it as a mission, and I didn't get to do it.  It really just means and extra hour of comp study and a program to follow.  New missionaries don't really learn how to teach the lessons at the MTC, so they get to learn it in the field!

I keep forgetting my camera, so I'll get some pictures next week!

Well....I think that's it for now!

Love you lots!

October 1, 2012

Hello family!

Things are going really good here in Texas!  It is cooling down quite
a bit.  It was actually kinda chilly yesterday.  

This week has been kinda crazy, and really long and fast at the same time.  We've been
trying to get in contact with a lot of people who used to be
investigating the church, and we've found a family that used to meet
with the missionaries.  We are really excited for them.  We also have
a couple of other really promising new investigators as well. 

We've been working with some less-actives, and one of them actually came
to church yesterday!  Yay!  

They did make a new ward in our stake, thus the big fancy meeting.  It doesn't really effect us, but our
meeting time has changed, and the youth and primary programs are now
combined with one of the English wards.

Our zone conference with Elder Ellis was really good.  We were really
spiritually fed by the messages that he and his wife shared.
And Saturday we got to go to the Relief Society broadcast.  We went
with a member, and they invited an investigator that we have.  So that
was really good.  She really liked it.  We were really blessed by the
messages they shared.

We've been having a great time, and I'm getting to know the area
(which is really big) and the members.

Well, love you lots!
Hope you all have a great week!
Love, Amber