Hola Friends and Family!

So I am in Stafford. Its the most Northern part of our mission :) This week has been a little crazy because the transfer day got moved to Tuesday due to a "snow storm" that was coming. So I have been here since Tuesday. My new companion is Hermana Clark. She is from Park City. She has been on her mission since September. So yes, I am the senior companion and am expected to know more Spanish hahah. That also means I get to drive. So that is fun. Virginia roads are super crazy!

My last night in Henrico was a blast. We had a family home evening and our investigators came! It was so sad to tell them that I would be leaving. But hopefully I will be able to go back for their baptism. :)

My area in Stafford doesn't have a ton of investigators so we are spending our time doing a lot of finding. We haven't found any Hispanics to teach this week but we have found some English referrals that were super cool! One of them took the Book of Mormon and then wanted to give us a donations haha!!

We have an investigator whose name is Cindy. She wanted to be baptized last year but her parents will not let her. They won't let her come to church either but her faith is incredible. She shared her testimony with us about reading your scriptures every day and doing the little things to maintain her testimony. She is so incredible and is trying to move to San Diego so that she can be baptized. I have only met her once but have learned so much from her.

I have been reading some conferences talks lately and a lot of them tell the story of Joseph Smith in liberty jail when he is told "thine afflictions will be but a moment" and then basically gets told, so "endure it well". It has really helped me keep an eternal perspective about moments that are hard! Hard times will pass :)

I love you all so much!!

Me with Hermana Clark

Last Week in Henrico

Hola amigos!! 

Your relief society lesson is awesome. I have had a self check on what "my rudder" is this week. Is it wanting to find people and teach people for numbers and so we will look good to the mission president or is it because I love the gospel and want everyone to have it? I love this gospel and this work and that is why I am here. It has been good to check and make sure that I have the right mindset for this work :)

This week has been super cool! We have been teaching this couple, Angel and Gisella since I got to Virginia and this week, We put them on date for baptism!!! We were having a lesson with them and it was getting late. We had like 5 minutes before we needed to leave but we felt like we should extend the baptismal invitation. We had been talking about the plan of salvation and we just finished talking about the 3 kingdoms of glory. Gisella was excited but Angel was pretty tentative to accept the date. We explained that it is like a goal to work towards and he said yes! Then they came to church on Sunday!!

On Friday we were able to watch President Monson's funeral and that was really great. I am so grateful that we have been given prophets to guide the church today. We are so blessed to have that. I am also happy that President Monson is with his wife and is no longer suffering physical pain.

We went to a recent convert's house, Joaquin, to teach him about faith and the lesson was going really well. Then his mom came in (she has investigated the church before but then loss interest) and some things happened with her boyfriend and she was pretty upset. She sat down with us and we talked to her about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how it can help her through all of her problems. She said she wanted to start coming to church again. She came on Sunday! She brought Joaquin (who hasn't been to church for 2 months), and the rest of her family! It was so so awesome!! Our church starts at 1:50 which is super late but its nice because more people are coming! We had another less active that we have been working with come to church and she hasn't come for over 2 years!! It is so awesome!!

On Saturday we got the call saying I will be leaving Henrico. I am super super thankful for the time that I have had to serve here. This branch is so amazing! I am excited to go to a different part of Virginia and serve! I will let you know about an address next Monday!

I love you all so much!!

District pic! 

This lady asked if we wanted a picture with her so we said sure!

A Week Into 2018

Hola friends and family!!

It is super cold here. Very different than Utah.  It has snowed here but not a ton. Just a couple of inches. But it hasn't melted because it is so cold. As a mission we found over 200 new investigators this week which is super awesome. Sadly we only found 1. Not many people were too happy to listen to us with it being so cold. We haven't had many appointment so we have spent a lot of time outside. So I appreciate the hat and gloves you sent me :)

So we found an investigator like a week and a half ago and we couldn't tell how interested she was but we had a return appointment with her. We had invited her to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon. We got there and she said she had only read part of it so we asked if we could finish it with her.... she had actually read the entire intro, the testimonies of the witnesses and part of Joseph Smith's testimony! It was so awesome. That like never happens. So we read the first chapter of 1 Nephi with her and she seemed to really like it! I am so excited to keep meeting with her!

Last night we had dinner at a member's house with one of our investigators and it was awesome. We asked each of the members to share their conversion story and the spirit was so strong. They talked about some of the fears that they had before getting baptized and it was the exact same fears that our investigator has! It was super cool!!

The passing of President Monson was super sad but it was his time. I am sure he was greeted with open arms by so many on the other side.

I hope you had all had a great week!!

Tracting in the snow

Joaquin and I making the ugly cat face

2018????

 Hola friends!

Its been a minute and I can't believe it is already 2018! That's insane!

We had our all mission Christmas Conference and Sheri Dew came and spoke to us and it was incredible. She talked about how we all have a divine orbit that we are on. It is so precise that even seconds of time matter and we are always where we need to be. It was super cool. We saw that action right after the Christmas Conference. We had about 20 minutes to find in between the conference and dinner. So we drove to this street and we were driving down the street and Hermana Whetten said "we should try that house" and so we stopped and knocked. We met this guy, Elias. He is super interested. We have met with him a lot and he has come to church. It was so cool to see that we were exactly where we needed to be at the exact time.

We have been doing a lot of finding lately. I used to not like finding too much but now I like it!  Its super fun! We get to talk to so many different people all the time!

We went on exchanges on Saturday and it was super fun. we went finding all day and only found 1 new investigator and they weren't even Hispanic haha!! But then we went and had dinner with a member from the English ward and it was awesome. This member has been a member for just over a year and is about to go through the temple. He had some of his nonmember friends over and we shared the restoration with them. It was super cool :)

For new years we ate with our investigators, Angel and Gisella and then we had to be in the apartment by 6:30. So I spent the night reading "The Infinite Atonement" and it was so awesome. That book is the coolest thing in the world.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Pictures from Christmas conference, our district and Christmas time!!!

Hermana Anderson and Sister Campbell

 

It is almost Christmas!?!?!

Hola amigos!!!

 I ALMOST CRIED OPENING UP THE PACKAGE SAYING I AM GOING TO BE AN AUNT. WOW. I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

This week has gone by so fast!! We taught the investigator twice that came to church with the less active last week! He seems pretty interested and says he will read the book of mormon to know if it is true :)

We also are working with a couple of less actives and getting them to come back! We found a new investigator, Sandra, this week. She wants to practice her fatih but says its super hard with her kids. But she seems really interested and we have an appointment with her tonight! I am excited.

We also went on exchanges with the sister training leaders this week. We had a weird day! We encountered someone walking their cat...leash and all... We did a ton of finding and didn't find too many people that were interested. We ate dinner with a family from Taylorsville so that was fun. I also gave away a Spanish Book of Mormon by myself so that was fun haha!

We had a lesson with one of our investigators that is super hard to contact and he says he would like to be baptized!! So that was awesome!! This week is going to be a busy week! We have an all mission conference tomorrow where everyone in the mission comes to one place! So That will be super fun!! I hope you all had a great week and have a Merry Christmas!!

Transfer #3

 Hola friends!

This week I got a new companion. Her name is Hermana Whetten. She is from Allen, Texas but was born in Mexico. She was fluent in Spanish before she came out on her mission so I will be able to learn a lot from her! I am excited. She has been out for a little over 6 months.

We got snow here. More than I was expecting! Probably like 2 inches but it did stick for a couple of days. It was interesting to drive in the snow in Virginia without street lights. Don't worry, we are alive. We were supposed to have a Christmas party on Friday but it got canceled because our branch does not like to drive in the snow so we had to go the next morning and take down all the decorations they had put up! Then we had a branch dinner at our branch presidents house. It was a little crowded but it worked and we had 3 investigators there!

We went around to find some less actives to invite to the party and we knocked on the door and asked for the less active and they said he had passed away on Monday. So that was super sad and one of the most awkward door knocking experiences I have ever had.

We are going to restart teaching some of our investigators, Angel and Gisella. We had stopped teaching them for a while but they say they want to know if this is the true church or not so we are going to go through all the lessons with them! I am super excited!!

On Sunday we had a less active bring a friend to church! So that was exciting and we got a return appointment for this week. We have been doing a lot of finding because we don't have a ton of investigators right now... So hopefully we will find more people to teach this week.

What are we doing to light the world? Well one of our members who is our neighbor was sick this week so we made her a little care package thing and brought her dinner from the party :)

We don't see many nativities in Virginia but a lot of house put a ton of Christmas lights up... an unnecessary amount. Apparently there is a thing called the tacky lights tour and that originated in Richmond.

I hope you are having a great Christmas season. We have encountered a few people who don't celebrate Christmas because "we don't know the exact day of Christ's birth". But we should celebrate it not because He was born but because He live and He atoned for our sins. I love you all so very much!!

Hermana Whetten and I

Hermana Whetten and I with our little tree

End of Training!

Hola amigos!!

Things are so great. I love this area so much. We have the best members!

So we got a call saturday and Hermana Coleman will be leaving this week and I will get a new companion on Wednesday! We are super sad but she has been here for 6 months so we new it was coming. I am so excited to stay in Henrico! I love it here so much... I would stay here my whole mission if I could.

Anyways.. this week was awesome! Last Sunday we had talked to this guy on Facebook who was super interested in the Book of Mormon so we told him we could give him one and he was super excited. So we met him in his high school parking lot and gave him a Book of Mormon! Then we did the same thing but on saturday with another guy! It is so awesome!

On Tuesday we had a lesson with Javier and a member, Hermano Escoto. He is so cool. Javier has a lot of questions, some that we can't answer in Spanish and some that we just don't know the answer in English or Spanish. So we got Hermano Escoto to come with us. It was the best decision we have ever made because he just answered all the questions without a problem. It was so so awesome. Then after the lesson we told him how cool he was and all he said was "why?" He is so humble it is so so cool.  Members of the church are so powerful and so so important to missionary work. I had no idea before my mission but wow, now I understand.

We were at Chick-Fil-a last Monday and we saw our investigators eating with a friend so we went and talked to them. Well their friend, Fabiola, invited us over for lunch so we could talk about God with her. So we get there and she is not too interested in our church and was not at all open about the Book of Mormon so we decided to show her the light the world video and she then said "we don't believe in Christmas". It was super awkward. We didn't even know what to say. But it was good and she still likes us and wants to have us over again.

I hope you are all watching the light the world videos and participating!! Service is so awesome and is such a great way to share the love of God with everyone!! I love you all so much!!

Us and our members that always come 

 Me with the Escoto family. I love them so much.

Us and Hermano Escoto at chick fill a 

Us with Javier and Kevyn (a returned missionary member)

We went and got pho with a member