Monday, August 25, 2014

another week in paradise (or should I say another 6 weeks in moxee)

HOLA!

We got transfer calls on saturday and drum roll..... I am staying here with hermana mohun! I am actually super excited because I know that there is a lot of work to be done here and I have high hopes for this transfer!! 

Last pday was pretty hilarious because our zone leaders elder larsen and elder doman planned something they called the Selah Olympics (because we are the selah zone)! They went all out and each companionship was a different country and they planned events and games and we had an opening ceremony with lighters and all. It turned out super fun! Hermana Mohun and I chose Jamaica for our country and so for our treat that we brought that was supposed to be relevant to your country, we made brownies and then picked some mint leaves from the mitchells garden and put them on the top aka "special brownies" hahahaha they were a hit!! 

So as I said last week, our car was not working haha... and we didnt get it back until friday so we were without a car for a whole week. I actually loved walking but we were SO tired every night when we got home because we have a really big area and there were parts of our area that we couldn't  go to all week because by them time we got there we would of had to walk home. But yeah it was definitely a week to increase our companionship unity because we didn't have CDs or anything forcing us to talk, you name it and we probably talked about it hahaha. It was fun though! 

We had a couple of miracles from walking! We were on the sidewalk, walking into town and this truck pulled over and the guy said " ok you girls are going to think I am really weird..really weird, but something told me that I needed to stop and talk to you because I am trying to bring God into my life and I really think you girls can help me." UH.... every missionaries dream!!!! We were like.." that was the spirit telling you to pull over!" We had a cool talk with him and then passed him to the english sisters because he didn't speak spanish but it was really really awesome! and right after, we were still walking and we were talking about what had just happened and kind of praying that we would have the same thing happen but with someone that spoke spanish..... and what do you know.. we run into a guy named Adrian (a spanish speaker) and he is in the process of changing his life after a pretty rough past and has recently found God. We told him about church and he was super excited to come!! He was awesome and we are hoping to meet with him this week.

We also had a lot of service opportunities this past week, we did some cleaning and organizing for a pregnant sister in the branch... BEST DAY EVER (I know I am such a nerd, but cleaning is fun ok), and we did some yardwork for another sister in the branch and she made us waffles it was great!

On tuesday we had zone conference with President and Sister Ware!! They are the BEST. It was such a good day filled with the spirit and some great advice of things we can work on in our work. One of the things that stood out to me was how for in order for us to grow and become better missionaries and become more like the Savior we need to first be cut down, we need to first be humble, repent, and be willing to change before we can make that change. I have noticed a huge focus in the mission lately on humility. I have been applying the things we learned in zone conference or at least trying to, and I have already started to notice a difference in myself and that I have been more humble and aware of the needs of those around me. 

One quote that I loved from the meeting was, "as you submit your will to God, you are giving Him the only thing that is really yours to give." Isn't that powerful?? we have our agency and the choice to follow Christ or not which is one of the difficult things about missionary work, helping people realize that, but other than agency, all that we have was given to us and is continually given to us by our Heavenly Father. You better believe I have been saying a whole lot of gratitude prayers.

So in my book of mormon reading I about halfway done with Alma and have been finding a ton of good stuff (cuz the book of mormon is the B.O.M (literally)) and I was especially loving the part where Alma is writing letters to his sons and when I was reading this I had the thought to read my patriarchal blessing because these letters are kind of like a patriarchal blessing, they are foretelling the lives of the sons of Alma. It was super cool to read my blessing alongside these chapters in Alma and try to pick out similarities. Something someone told me at the ccm I think was that when reading your patriarchal blessing, read it as if it were a letter from Heavenly Father, that you just got it in the mail and it was the response to some questions you had asked. I recommend you all do this!! It is SO COOL because thats exactly what a patriarchal blessing is, advice from our Heavenly Father on how to press forward in our lives here.

I am really loving being a missionary and I know I still have A LONG WAY to go before I become the missionary that I want to be and that Heavenly Father wants me to be, but I am trying! 

I LOVE YOU ALL and thank you so much for all you do for me!!!!! Have a great week!!

Con mucho amor,
Hermana Wortley

pic#1 here is a picture of me in the famous HOP fields. Despite how cool they look, they are REASTY. they smell like poop oh and they are EVERYWHERE


pic#2 me and hermana mohun at the selah olympics (we won tic tak toe) and yes we have matching tie dye Yakima shirts



Monday, August 18, 2014

WHAT A WEEK

hey how are ya?

This past week was VERY rough but I will start off with something awesome that happened!! I gave my first church tour! It was SO fun. I don't know if I have mentioned Lisa yet but she is one of our investigators (although we haven't taught her that much because she LOVES to talk haha) and she also brought her two nieces and mom to the church tour so that was pretty sweet. My favorite part of the tour was showing them the chapel because the chapel really is the most sacred part of the church and there is such a strong spirit there. We went in and had a minute or so of silence and then we explained to them the sacrament and how important those few minutes are that we have to remember the Savior as we partake of the sacrament. As we bore testimony of the sacrament and of Jesus Christ I know that the spirit was there and if anything it reaffirmed to me of the importance of the atonement in our lives. We asked them at the end how they felt and they said they definitely want to come to church so thats good! we are still trying to figure out if Lisa has real intent though... we know that she has a testimony of Christ but we are not sure if she is willing to take the next step.. so I will keep you updated on her! 

The past few weeks I have gotten so excited about the book of mormon! I am cruising through it and will finish soon but whats so great is that you can read and re-read and re-read and always find something new to learn! I have also been reading a lot in the christlike attributes chapter in preach my gospel which was a HUGE blessing that got me through this week... because it was quite the week.....
LITERALLY all of our appointments fell through and it would have been different if people would have called and cancelled or something but people were just not there and these were investigators, less actives and even active members that did this. I was seriously wondering if I had a sign on my forehead that said PLEASE AVOID US. hahaha its kind of laughable now how rough our week was but I am still alive and still excited about missionary work so thats a miracle in itself! 

To top off the trial of our faith week that we had... on friday morning hermana mohun filled our chevy cruise with diesel gas....................... (on accident of course haha) but yeah we didnt realize it until we got home to do weekly planning and went to leave for dinner and the car wouldn't start. I know enough about cars to know that it wasn't a dead battery and we checked the oil and it was full so we called the zone leaders and they came to see what was up... after about 30 minutes of trying to figure it out the spirit told me to ask hermana mohun what kind of gas she put in the car hahaha only to find out that it was diesel!!! And being that she doesnt drive, she didn't realize that diesel is only for diesel cars and not for any other kind of car! but anyways we spent about another hour trying to find a member that could help us or that knew anything about cars but just our luck... all the members that knew anything about cars were out of town... and the michells (who we live with) are also out of town, so we called the vehicle coordinator of the mission and we headed out walking so we could get some work done... its about 3 miles to get to the area that we had planned on tracting so yeah by the time we got there we could only knock about 2 houses before we had to head back. And hermana mohun was REALLY struggling with all the walking that we were doing so that was hard because it felt like we were moving in slow motion haha. 

The next day saturday we got up and started planning to figure out something with our car, they ended up sending a tow truck to our house and we rode over with them to the dealership and the english sisters in our area were SO NICE to come pick us up. 

But yeah they cant look at our car until wednesday so we have been walking since friday! Which is good for me because I have been wanting to work out more hahaha not so much for hermana mohun but she is getting better at keeping a quick pace!  

After a long week of working/walking/knocking/praying we made it through alive and ready to take on another week! 

Oh yeah I forgot that we asked a less active to drive us to church on sunday and they said "oh for sure we will be there at 10:15 to pick you up" 10:15 rolls around and no one shows up... 10:30.. 10:40 and no one is answering their phones hahaha so we learned that if you ask a less active to take you to church you should probably get an active member as a back up because we missed the first half hour of church waiting and no one ever showed up... but despite all the things that went wrong this week, we were able to end strong by finding a new family to teach!! The mom's name is Alma, the dads name is Alfonzo and they have two boys Diego and David. They are ADORABLE!! Alma said that she had gone to the LDS church before with her friends in Mexico but when they moved here she didn't know where one was or anything so they said they want to come on sunday! We also told them about the daily dose classes which are english classes every week and Alma said she wants to start coming!

I know that even though it was a rough week, that the Lord was and is always watching out for us. I feel like this past week has made me a stronger person spiritually (also physically with all of the walking haha) and I know that through endurance and diligence, miracles will come!!! 

Yay for making it to the last week of the transfer! 

HAVE A GREAT WEEK I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
love hermana wortley

pic #1 this is my district (we are all super awkward)

pic #2 yakima is the palm springs of washington????



Monday, August 11, 2014

HI THERE

HI THERE PEEPS!

so I had some awesome things happen this week but first off I would just like to ask a question.. Is there a name for someone who pets every stray animal they see? I swear there is a title for that but I couldnt remember hahahaha anyways if there is please let me know so I can start calling my companion that! 

Things are good with me and my companion though! During companionship inventory this week she told me that I am helping her to be the missionary that she has wanted to be her whole mission (and she has been out a year)... so that was CRAZY! I didn't realize I was having such an impact on her by being organized and ready to work haha but yeah that was super cool. We have been working hard and dont get me wrong I still have my moments where I wonder what the heck she is doing haha but I am learning to focus on the positives! 

On tuesday we had zone meeting and it was SO GOOD. I have such a cool zone and its always fun to get together with a bunch of missionaries! 

On monday night of last week the zone leaders called me and asked if I would speak at the zone meeting and guess what the topic was?? learning to receive love from your companion..... my jaw dropped (like you know in the movie The Mask when his jaw literally drops to the ground) to the ground because receiving love from my companion was something that I was struggling with BIG TIME. Ever since being in the field I have been super independent and havent let my companion help me that much because I hate to say it but I thought I could do it by myself (which is NEVER true because we always need the help of the spirit).... but as usual, the Lord knew better that I needed to humble myself and accept the love my companion was trying to give me. It was a blessing to be able to talk in the zone meeting because if that talk helped anyone it sure helped me! 

And also I have been serving the crap out of my companion (making her bed, washing her clothes, making her breakfast) and our room is cleaner, the bathroom is cleaner, and it smells better because I have been cleaning like crazy so things are going better because we all know when things are clean, doing work is so much easier. I am such a nerd with how excited I am about the clean room hahahaha. 

On wednesday we had exchanges! I went to Yakima with Sister Gambles and Hermana Mohun stayed here with Hermana Wadsworth. It was interesting because sister gambles is an english sister so I didnt speak much spanish but it was also super fun and a really neat experience! I learned a lot from sister gambles and how I can be more bold in my teaching and in my inviting others to do things! We had a couple of great lessons this week and picked up a few new investigators!! I have a feeling that this week is going to be really good and that we are going to accomplish a ton. 

On saturday one of the members of the branch got married and since everyone in the branch is related (not even joking hahaha) the whole branch went to the wedding which means... we got to go to the wedding for dinner!!! It was beautiful, they got married in the columbia river temple and had a ring ceremony at the reception for all those who couldnt go to the temple (since they both have a bunch of non-member family members) so we were able to be there for the ring ceremony and dinner! It was so fun to go to a wedding!!!!! it was funny because hermana mohun and I sat next to the branch president and his family at dinner and we were talking with him and just like a classic branch president, he asked us to speak in church the next day! So we spent our personal study on sunday morning writing talks for church and we both put a lot of work into them and then we get to church and they say oh you're not speaking... hahaha so I have a great talk prepared for the next time they ask because we didnt end up speaking! 

Something I really had a feeling we need to work on in our area is getting the less actives back to church. It is crazy how many less actives there are. So we made a list of all the less actives in our area and things that we wanted to do to help them and then on sunday night we stopped by as many as we could that were in walking distance (because we were trying to save miles haha) and we found people that hermana mohun has never even met and she has been here since march! So along with finding new solid investigators we are going to be working on what we can do to help our less actives become active and things we can do to serve them! I am pumped about this less active work and I definitely know that it was the spirit that has been guiding us to get them back to church. 

I am happy to be a missionary and happy to have this opportunity to learn, grow, and serve the Lord!!
I love you all so much and I am so grateful for all the support you have been giving me and the prayers!!

have a great week! Mosiah 24:13-14

con mucho amor
hermana wortley


Im sorry this is the only picture I have this week and its super awkward because I remembered last night as we were about to go home that I wanted to take a picture to send in the email and so I took an awkward selfie with a giant sunflower... enjoy.


Monday, August 4, 2014

WAZZ UP

Hey hey hey my favorite people in the world!!

This week has gone by SO FAST. Today is my official 2 months mark how crazy is that?! Time is so weird here in the mission. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days and yeah its super crazy! 

we had A TON of doors slammed in our faces this week so that was exciting (imagine me saying that in a sarcastic voice haha) Im not sure what it was about this week but people just did not want to listen to us or even talk to us, but I was surprised how I didn't really let it affect my desire to continue knocking and continue looking for people to teach. I had my moments, don't get me wrong, where I was so frustrated with all of these people for not even giving us a chance and I hate to admit it but I was also frustrated with my companion because I felt like she wasn't really that motivated to find new people. We just kept trying by the same potentials over and over again and it wasn't going anywhere so thats something we are going to work on this week is focus specifically on finding NEW, SOLID investigators and people that we can teach!! but we also had some SUPER AWESOME moments this week!! 

We had a miracle (milagro) the other day that was probably one of my favorite moments of my mission so far... So Im not sure if I mentioned that my companion doesnt have her license so YAY ME I get to drive! (which is a blast except for when she zones out and forgets to tell me where to drive hahaha) but anyways we were in Union Gap just about to head home after a lesson and so I was in the car and hermana mohun was going to back me out and all of the sudden some people walked by, it was two ladies and one of them had a baby. So hermana mohun decided to say hi and give them a pass along card and THEY INVITED US BACK for another day!! so a few days later we went over to the house and It was the mom Maria and her 3 daughters Cindy(11), Juana(9), Kathy(5) and the baby boy Cristiano (no idea how to spell that haha) but anyways they are THE CUTEST FAMILY EVERRRRRRRRRRR yes I did a million R's because they are just that cute. 

We taught them the restoration and it was SO good and maria had said that she had met with missionaries before and she went and got a couple of book of mormons that they had so that was great... and then we were going to invite them to be baptized and GUESS WHAT???? Maria and her husband are already members!!!!!!! hahahaha and they didnt even say anything to us!! But Cindy and Juana are eligible for baptism so our plan is to get them back to church and get them baptized! Maria and her husband were baptized about 6 years ago in topinish (no idea how to spell that) but when they moved they didnt know where the church was and they havent been active since. but yeah we are SUPER excited about them and for them that we can help them get back to church!! 

The other awesome thing that happened this week was our service day! on saturday we woke up at 4 and headed to the church because we were going to brewster (which is about 3 hours away) to help with clean up from all the fires that have been happening. We drove up with members and we got super lucky to be in this huge van with pretty much sofas for seats so we were able to sleep a little bit on the way up there. It was crazy to see how much damage the fires had done. All of the missionaries in that area have been doing nonstop service for these past few weeks. So we all met up at a church and they assigned different stakes to different areas. Our stake (the selah stake) ended up cleaning up the remains of 3 houses that got burned down. Our job was to gather all of the metal scraps and pretty much all the scraps in general and make piles and some of the people were piling up burned trees and what not. It was SO SAD to see how much damage these fires have caused especially in brewster. We worked from about 9 until 2 and then they sent us home. But it was awesome to see how many people gathered together, and how many church members were there to help with this cleanup. Even though it was not the best circumstances, it was such a great opportunity for us to serve and to show all these nonmembers how important it is in our church to serve others and to help others. We didnt care if they were members or nonmembers, we just wanted to help. It was a really good day of service and a good day to remember our missionary purpose! 

A few random things that happened this week that you may think are funny: so we eat dinner with members every night and you would think since they are all hispanic we would have mexican food or whatever right? well this week we had pizza 4 nights in a row hahahaha it was hilarious, but every time we have had mexican food it has been great! 

Also I ran into one of the actors from nacho libre.... not really but I swear he was one of the monks from nacho libre hahaha and we ran into him a couple of times. HE WAS HILARIOUS and i felt like I was in a movie when I was talking to him. 

This week hermana mohun and I also had the opportunity to help the donimquez family paint their apartment that they rent out, the people that were renting it left it a complete mess and weren't paying rent so they booted them out and decided to do fresh paint in the whole apartment for the new renter. So once again THANK YOU MOM for teaching me how to paint because my companion had no idea how but lucky me I have seen you paint a million times! haha 

Overall it was a good week! I am hoping with the new goals that we made to find new investigators and what not, that we will have more success this week! I love you all and hope that you have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(side note: its really easy to zone out when in church when its all in spanish hahaha so live up going to church in english)

con mucho amor
hermana wortley

pic #1 our district (and zone leaders) at the clean up day

pic #2 me and hermana mohun being awkward