Week 36

Just so this letter makes a little bit more sense...I asked Ali a few questions in my email to her the first 3 paragraphs are her answers.

My question: What have you learned about why it’s important to be obedient on your mission?

    honestly being obedient on your mission is the only way to get anything done. Like you can be disobedient and you will still see progress in the missionary work, but you wont see progress in yourself and you won't be happy. it's just not worth it. the time i was most obedient in the mission was when i was the happiest. i would wake up pumped to go out and to find and teach and i felt that as myself and as a missionary i was progressing the best. Just be stinkin obedient! it is just way better! Sometimes i would wonder why we even need to be obedient if we are seeing success. but there's a quote in preach my gospel that talks about obedience is showing how much you love the Lord, so whenever I am struggling with being obedient, because every missionary does, i try to remember that and continue to keep working. 

My question: What was the hardest day in your mission and what helped you get through it?

   I cant look back on my mission and think of the hardest day. but when you have hard days the only way to help them is to work. which honestly sucks sometimes because you're like, theres no way that working is going to help me and i don't want to go out, it has been such a crappy day. butttt when you do go out and work at the end of the day you look back and you realize that you showed the Lord that you did everything you could. It makes it all worth it man.

My question: What was your spiritual high this week? When did you feel the spirit the most?

    A spiritual high we had this week was when the town got dead and there was nobody out so then we knew it was time to knock some doors. so when we go chapping we usually pick a name off the less active list or a former someone that the missionaries used to teach and knock on their door and then knock in that neighborhood. we rolled up to this neighborhood and the minute we were about to park we both just felt that it wasn't right so we decided to choose another name and go somewhere else. we got to another neighborhood and it felt better, so we got out and the first door we knocked on this chick named Lorraine opened the door. we said we were sharing a message about families and started talking with her and she started crying and told us she had lost her daughter a couple weeks back and that she didn't feel support from her church. so we talked with her and shared a little bit about the great plan of happiness that God has for all of us, His children, here on this earth and she invited us back to her crib for this Tuesday to hear more of this message. After we went our seperate ways me and Sister Linco just were in awe of what just happened. we had no words. we just were like what the heck just happened? i think it really relates to going back to obedience. the day before i had really set a goal to be more obedient and being obedient plays a role with being in tune with the spirit. I am so grateful for the gift of the holy ghost that our Father in Heaven has provided for all of His children here on this earth. I don't know if on Tuesday if she will let us back into her home, but I do know that she felt the spirit enough to invite us back and sometimes that is all that matters, planting that small seed. But yeah that is my small spiritualness for the week. haha sorry i have been so bad at writing the past couple months haha. 

    Our homegirl Natasha was baptized this last Saturday! that was such a special experience for all of us. We had a good group of the branch members that came out to support her and it was awesome! And our boi Garry was at the baptism and it got him so excited for his baptism that is coming up this weekend! he kept telling everyone that was at the baptism that he would be doing the same thing this next week. 

    On pday this week we went up to Inverness which is literally so beautiful! it's the prettiest place i have seen in my mission. but we had a district pday and we went on this hike that was suppossed to be about an hour long and at the top of the mountain was supposed to be a castle. well the hike lasted about 10 minutes and we got to the top and there was nothing there. it was quite dissapointing hahha but we had a fun time. 

    On Wednesday we went down to Aberdeen for exchanges and i was with my homie Sister Lough. it was good day! If you look up Aberdeen all the buildings and homes are just made of granite so it looks quite depressing but cool at the same time haha. 

   Thats about all for this week love you all! 

1. Natashas baptism 

2. me cleaning the font. it was way gross! they haven't had a baptism since march so there was bugs all over it so we had to clean it

3. district council
4. my district

5. inverness view

6. and aberdeen

Week 35

Today my email is gonna be written by me spanish compannion,so excuse her.

This is a day by day email,fuego!

Monday:

 We went to the beach  in Aberdeen and it started raining.

 Sister Neilson demonstrated her basketball abilities and showed everyone who runs the world.

 Nothing else.

Tuesday:

 I do not remember but it was a good day because we had dinner at the Dawsons and whenever there is dinner at the dawsons one knows it's a good day.

Wednesday:

We contacted people on the street and my compannion ended up talking to an English lawyer who started talking to her and she didnt did not know how to answer him back in Spanish.
Also dinner with branch president plus 2 other random missionaries.

Thursday:

We spent the day with Lee, a recent convert who loves the missionaries and especially feed them so we ate some pizzas with him and then we went to do a lesson with him while we walked and we ended up in the middle of a field. See picture below for more information of what happened that day.

Friday:

I do not remember either but we also had dinner at the Dawsons so it was probably a good day.

Saturday:

Natasha had her baptismal interview and it went perfect!She will be baptized next Saturday wohoo! We also went to visit Lee at his workshop and he got us to fix his car. There goes another photo.

Sunday:
Sister Neilson got in trouble with the Gospel Principles teacher AGAIN. We were in the middle of the lesson when Trish, a recent convert, was waving at her because she wanted to come in, and Sister Neilson waved her back trying to speak sign language maybe? So the teacher said, and these were her exact words in the exact same way she said it,: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT TO SAY SISTER? and sis neilson was like TRISH IS TRYING TO COME IN AND I'M JUST TELLING HER TO COME IN, and there were no chairs for her so we interrupted the class so that she could have a seat, it was fun.
In the afternoon we had a first lesson with this really cool chick named Chloe who showed up 30 minutes before and after that we got invited to branch president's house for dinner and after that we had a Lesson with Lee in the top of a hill and good things like that keep happening to us and we are scared. :)

HIghlight of the week: we adopted 2 new pets that used to live in the darkest corner of our room, Felicia and Roberto. It was love at eighth sight and we married them and they sent us a picture of their honeymoon in Florida.

And today we'll go to Inverness  :)
Aguante Argentina

the beach we went to

this is natasha teaching us the restoration

felicia and roberto on their honeymoon

pic of one of our daily drives

A Message from Lee Dickens

Today Alan & I got a facebook message & pictures from a recent convert in the area Ali is serving. His name is Lee Dickens and he had the sisters over for dinner. It is one of those times when you are a proud parent. :)


we have all just been for a walk up over the farm after pizza. had an amazing chat about life /the future and the gospel. she's one cool missionary! Total credit to you guys ... don't think I've laughed so much in my life ... Honestly, She's amazing. I've met heaps of missionaries. some are great friends, some are just missionaries, but in the short time I've spent with her she tops the lot

Honestly... the first night I met her I had just drove 1100miles and was really tired and upset that I hadn't a chance to say bye to our prev sister and she was so quiet. I thought, oh no this will be a struggle ........ the next day I ordered the kebabtisum and holy coke. within 20 mins I was literally trying not to pee myself.. and felt like we had been pals for years ...trust me, she will be fine

basically every missionary that comes into the mission usually gets a dirty big kebab. (Elgin usually has newbies so I've always done it) but usually the first companion does it. however I found she didn't have it so I had to fix that

She got me a cracker tho as I was half way thru mine she told me to "one bite it " so said if she could I will... hence the pic of her trying to squeeze it in lol

Yep .. definitely a bit of a rebel lol ..

Week 34

So last week we got move calls and i got moved to Elgin, Scotland! It was sad leaving Ireland. so i went from the very bottom of Ireland to the highest part of Scotland you can go. so it was a day and a half journey to get here but it was great! i am training another girl named Sister Linco who is from Argentina! She is way cool and a homie. Elgin is exactly what you would picture serving in Scotland and Ireland would be like lots of green hills and these cottages in the middle of these hills. 

We get a car so that is freakin sick. I was driving and i was about to go onto the roundabout but then instead of turning left into it i turned right and drove on the wrong side so that was chill. 

We got a call the day i got into Elgin saying that everybody will be getting new moves because of the whole garda card thing that missionaries in Ireland who dont have a garda card will be leaving because i guess they cracked down so everyone is moving. And most missionaries dont even have garda cards so it was insane. the whole mission did a 24 hour fast. i was pretty confident i would stay in elgin though. So a ton of missionaries got new moves but me and Sister Linco stayed in Elgin! 

Sister Linco is a homie and is like exactly like Leti, it's way fun! We met some really cool people this week and had some great on the spot lessons, it's a small area but has a lot of potential!

I already got in trouble at church so that is fun, making great first impressions. Me and sister Linco were in gospel doctrines class and i leaned over to her to ask her something about one of the people we were teaching and i looked back up to the teacher and she had stopped talking and was looking directly at me and was like, "is there something that you want to say to the whole class?" and i was like, “no". it gave me flashbacks to freakin highschool!

We have met some really cool people this week, and we are preparing one of our friends to be baptized next week named natasha. she is so excited. it is so cute hahaha

this is a picture that describes me

Week 33

i got moved to the top of Scotland! like the highest place you can go for sisters besides the islands, so i was traveling from 6am-10pm yesterday and all this morning and i finally made it to my new area. its called elgin. 

our friend Fausto got baptized last week!

love you!

Week 32

The pday ruins were cool. I think the ruins was like an old castle. i don’t know. but it was very beautiful when you got to the top of it. 

Fiona got baptized it was so cute! She had to get dunked like 5 times though because when she would go under the water she would just float on the water and she got a belly and it was just stick out of the water. i was dying, cute girl. 

homeboys are good they are still taking the lessons, the one i think will be for sure is bukhosi. 

we have move calls this week and i think i will be moving, but i hope to stay in the republic. 

yes i write in my journals sometimes hahha i need to be better at that. 

we taught a guy last night named alex who had referred himself online and we went over and he was just like i am lost and i know that God is there and want to learn more. he is pretty cool.

my homegirl fiona

it was a party after the baptism

the ruins

Week 31

our district

Week 30

So my homegirl Sister Carabott peaced out of here, sooo i have gotten a new companion but stayed in Limerick which is such a blessing because we have a great teaching pool right now. I was very sad to say bye to Sister Carabott but it is for the best:) 

We went street finding on Saturday and I started talking to this guy named Bukohsi and he is from Zimbabwe. We started talking about the book of mormon and he was so interested that we sat down right then and there and we started to teach him. He said he only had a couple minutes to sit because his cousin was coming. Well 15 minutes into the lesson his cousin Menzie rollls up and he sits down and we start teaching him as well. they both really liked what we shared with them and they both accepted a baptism date for the end of this month! It was sick. Then we invited them to church and Menzie said that he would be able to make it, but Bukohsi said he was going to be out of town on sunday. SO the next day, on Sunday, we go to pick Menzie up from the bus stop and he and his friend walk off the bus and he says he "i hope you don't mind that i brought my other cousin Bryan with me?" We were like lets gooo! IT was awesome, Menzie rolled up wearing a leather jacket with his named written on the back of it haha. But the church service started and at the end of church Menzie said that he felt very happy there and that he believes everything that we teach him and what the church says and that he is so excited for his baptism. And Bryan loved it so much that he wanted to be baptized as well! So we put him on date also! Menzie said he was going to go home and tell Bukohsi how great church was and that he needs to come with him next week! it was amazing! 

Then later that Sunday our branch president comes up to me and my companion and says, "this family that is in our branch comes to church every sunday but aren't baptized and their 8 year old daughter just said she wanted to be baptized." so we are teaching that family right now. they are from Nigeria. there names are Gledys (the mom), Hillary (12 yr old sister), and Fiona (8 yrs old). So Fiona is getting baptized next week and we are going to try to get her family to be baptized with her :) It was a week of miracles, thats all i am going to say. I swear God was like these girls are struggling, i will give em some good people lol. 

I went on exchanges this week with my homegirl Sister Osmond in Dublin and it was great. we had a fun time and she helped me with a lot of things. It was a crazy week with everything going on so we decided that we were going to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. probably not the best idea for my wallet butttttt it was worth it. We sat at the bar and just ordered appetizers and i felt like a normal person again lol. it was great! 

1 .Me and Elder Haynes with our tall ice creams 

2. Me and Sister Carabott eating food

3. Me and sister carabott on our last day together

Week 29

i really dont know what to write about this week. it was a pretty frustrating week to be honest.

Yesterday we went to a members house for a dinner appointment and teach our investigator Rodrigo who we haven't taught in a long time. I was really excited to finally teach him and so after dinner we started to teach him and the member family started going off about how great the temple is and how they were able to get sealed together and started talking about the freakin 12 tribes of Israel! it was insane haha but very frustrating. but we got him back on track so we were able to make it out all right.

We were teaching our investigator Mike who was so set for baptism and he was so excited to be baptized. then we taught him the law of chastity and he dropped the ball. he is living with his girlfriend and their daughter. He said he was going to go home and talk with her about everything and next day we met with him and apparently she freaked out on him and got upset that he was investigating the church sooooo he told us that in the next couple of days he will tell us what he wants to do about his baptism so that sucked. very sad.

Then we taught our friend Ali, that one dude that we met on the street that was from Brazil who named his dog Salt after Salt Lake City. we go to meet him and he completely just dropped us as well. It was actually very sad. it has been an interesting week haha.

Me and my companion were doing companion study in Burger King and she was pretty upset about something so i got up in the window sill and danced in the window. if that doesn't make anybody happy i don't know what will.

We met with our friend Lisa who has been taught everything and she was struggling a little bit the past couple weeks. we sat down with her and she was so great and had been keeping her commitments! Then we sat there and asked her all the baptismal questions and she accepted all of them which is so amazing because when the missionaries first started teaching her she had no belief in God at all. The spirit was so strong during her lesson, we all got emotional haha.

I hope you all have a good week :)