Jesus came to church!!!

HELLO

well there were a lot of things that went wrong this week haha but I don't know if I have ever been as happy as I was when Jesus came to church!! I know for all you gringos, (because I am straight up latino now) you probably read that as Jesus came to church rather than the spanish pronunciation of Hay-sus so I hope you got a good laugh! But it was so great! We had an awesome lesson with Jesus on saturday and hermano and hermana Varela (my adopted Mexican grandparents) came with us.. and he committed to coming to church. which was awesome but we weren't 100% sure if he was going to make it because he had committed to coming the week before too, and we waited and waited and he never showed up... but this week we met him at 7-11 and he was not only early... he also brought a friend!! We were about 15 minutes early to church so we went and sat in the chapel and explained what we were going to do at church and talked a little bit about the sacrament. The only thing that was hilarious was that the lesson in sunday school was on the law of chastity so that was interesting haha! I was so grateful for the branch though because they were all so welcoming and I don't think there was one person that didn't shake their hands or introduce themselves so that was great! We have a lesson with him tomorrow so we will see how he liked church and hopefully continue teaching him and his friend!

On saturday we had the opportunity to go to a womens broadcast because Linda K. Burton was up in Wenatche and our stake was included in the broadcast! It was so good. She talked a lot about our purpose as women in the church and also how we can progress with and through the atonement. Once again the atonement is INCREDIBLE. I forgot my notebook or else I would write some quotes from her I will try to remember it next week! 

Towards the end of the week things started getting better and more people were home, but the beginning of the week was kind of rough! Luckily we only have about 2 weeks left of apple picking season and then we'll be able to find all of our investigators that dropped of the face of the earth! The saddest part of the week was that we had to stop teaching Maribel :( Me and and Hermana Bailey love her so much but she just wasn't willing to act, and we know that without action then there is no way that we can progress. The elders came with us on wednesday to give her a blessing to help her with her drug problem and to get some guidance. The blessing was really powerful and she was smiling and we knew that she felt the spirit after, but after about 10 minutes she went right back to her old "i don't know" attitude. It broke our hearts but we know that she isn't ready at this point to make the gospel a priority, but one day she will be and she will be amazing!! 

Last night after dinner we were knocking and it kind of seemed that no one was interested and it was kind of a bleh couple of hours but as we were headed to the car so we could go to a lesson I was felt like we needed to knock two more doors, and these were doors that we had knocked a couple of weeks ago but no one was home. So we knocked them... and we had a couple of miracles!! One of the apartments was a girl named Yesi and she told us that her and her boyfriend were looking for a church but that they had no idea where to start.... MIRACLE! :) and the next door it was a guy named fernando who told us to come back tomorrow which is today! Also hermana bailey was laughing at me because fernando spoke to us in english but I was speaking back to him in spanish and I didn't even notice hahaha its just an instinct to speak to hispanics in spanish! 

Hermana Bailey and I are working really hard and we have a bunch of goals that we are going to be working towards this week as we seek to become better and more effective missionaries! I love being a missionary. and I 

LOVE ALL OF YOU!!! have a great week :)

con mucho amor

hermana wortley

#1 our investigator sofia with her new puppy... SHE IS SO CUTE/HILARIOUS

#2 me and hermana bailey being cool

A week of starting fresh...

Hey everyone!!

This week was a good one! The reason why I titled my email a week of starting fresh is because that is what we had to do this week... all of our investigators either dropped off the face of the earth or weren't progressing so we had to start fresh with our teaching pool! I felt bad because as I have been training Hermana Bailey and we haven't been able to find any of the investigators that we were teaching before she got here! Dang apple picking season... haha. 

This was a huge leap of faith on our part because its kind of hard to do missionary work if you aren't teaching people haha but we felt that by taking a break from the people that we were teaching to look for those who are really searching for the gospel that we would be blessed for our efforts! 

So as I was saying our main focus this week was finding with faith. Hermana Bailey and I talked a lot about whether or not we have been truly acting in faith.. and we came to the conclusion that yes we have faith, I mean we chose to come on missions and we are striving to fulfill our purpose, but we weren't necessarily allowing the Lord to do His part. A couple of weeks back Sister Wilcox, aka Brooke, sent me an awesome talk about faith and how no matter how hard something is or if it may not seem like its really making a difference, IT IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE. So as we have been applying finding with faith we have been able to talk to a ton of people not just about the message that we share, but about what this message can do to change their lives. It has been awesome! 

At district meeting this past week we had a training on OYMs which just stands for Open Your Mouth.. aka talking to people haha. As missionaries it is our responsibility to talk with everyone that we see because everyone deserves to hear and everyone needs to hear about this message. But I feel like a lot of the time missionaries, including myself, get caught in kind of a rote presentation of how we approach people... so what we talked about in district meeting was changing things up! Our district leader challenged us in our OYMs to not use the phrases: we have a message, can we leave you with a card, here is a website to check out... and there were a couple more that I cant remember haha! but it was hilarious because after district meeting Hermana Bailey and I went out to work and we were super pumped to apply the things that we learned.. but the first person we saw we said every single rote phrase that there is hahaha literally all of them... after we talked to him we walked away and just started laughing our heads off because it was everything we were challenged not to say! So right after we said ok for the rest of the day we are going to be completely UN-rote. and we did it! We had some awkward moments where we had to think of things to say but as we used the scriptures and testified from the heart it became so much easier! We felt that we were truly giving people a chance to hear the message rather than just telling about the message!

So yesterday during studies in the morning we got a phone call from one of the members saying that she was sick and was wondering if we could teach young womens! Well it was really short notice being that church was in a half hour haha but we teach people all day so we accepted the challenge! It went pretty well! we taught about the Christlike attributes in preach my gospel and how we can work on developing them. But young women are so hard to teach! haha we felt like we were teaching a wall because no one was participating and they were all on their phones except two of them... So I gained a huge appreciation for youth leaders yesterday! growing up I always had the best leaders who were always so patient and willing to help us out. So THANK YOU to all my young womens leaders and sunday school teachers. I seriously learned so much from young women's and was truly blessed with amazing leaders! 

We also had exchanges this week! I was with Sister Peatross from West Jordan and no Cortney she doesn't know you or any Maples :( I got really excited when she said where she was from though! haha The theme for the exchange was Finding Joy in the Lord's Work. We had such a good day as we focused on why we do missionary work... and thats because it makes us happy! The gospel brings us so much joy that all we want to do is see it bring happiness to others! I am excited to continue applying finding joy in the Lords work as we look for new investigators! 

Update on Maribel (the one who does weed haha).. She is all the way in 1 Nephi chapter 11 in her reading!! She said she was bored the other day so she started to read! We are still having some issues with her smoking thing and the fact that she doesn't really want to stop haha... but that fact that she has been reading is progress!

Random thought from my studies this morning... In 2 Nephi 33:3 it talks about how Nephi is crying unto God in faith because he knows that He will hear his cry. I LOVED this verse because it is exactly what Hermana Bailey and I have been trying to apply. Praying in faith and believing that we are going to get answers and believing that we will find new people to teach! I also like this verse because it says that Nephi has a pillow which I don't know why I think is so hilarious but it is. Just picture Nephi sleeping in a tent with a fancy fluffy pillow.... oh how I love the Book of Mormon!!! 

I LOVE YOU ALL so much and I hope you have a super rad awesome week full of miracles and good things!! 

con mucho amor

hermana wortley

tengo la gripe :/

hola peeps!

This week was SO GOOD. Seriously it has been one of my favorite weeks of my mission so far... I'm not even sure if I can pick out anything particular that made it so awesome but yeah it was great. So to explain the title of my email... yes tengo la gripe (aka a cold haha). I have been super sick since friday with a nose that won't stop running and a brick in my chest haha... but although I have been kind of a walking zombie we have had some super awesome miracles! 

I LOVE hermana bailey. She is so sweet and guys.... she thinks I'm funny!! haha I know it sounds dumb but its a tender mercy when your companion thinks you're funny. She is from Mesa Arizona and did a year of school at ASU before her mission. She has a twin brother who is on a mission in Scotland (or somewhere like that.. haha) and yeah she is pretty great! So far being a trainer has been great! I feel like since I haven't even been out that long that we are learning together and working together and I feel like we have already grown so much just in one week! President Ware told me that out of all the companionships that they were considering while preparing for transfers, he had one of the strongest impressions or feelings that hermana bailey and I needed to be paired together. So that was really cool to hear! We have been talking to so many people and working hard. I felt bad because in her last area they didn't walk very much and I have been making her walk a lot and she got a blister :/ but she has had such a good attitude. But hey what's a trainer if you don't work your greenie hard right??

Ok now for the miracles.. we were walking on I think thursday night and doing a bunch of knocking and we saw a lady sitting on her front porch so we went to talk to her and at first she was in kind of a bad mood, she said that her phone was shut off and that she had a bad day at work.. but we started to tell her about what we do as missionaries and her whole countenance changed. We asked her if she had ever heard about the book of mormon and she said that one of her co-workers actually gave her a copy but she hadn't had a chance to read it. We taught her a simple restoration lesson about why we have the book of mormon and the spirit was so strong! We said a prayer with her and she said that she knew God had sent us there for a reason that night because she felt so much better and she told us that she would pray about and read the book of mormon... so AWESOME referral for the english sisters in our area haha! 

For our next miracle.. some of the elders in our branch had a baptism on saturday and our investigator Maribel came!! I seriously don't think I have ever prayed as hard as I did that she would come and what do you know.. my prayer was answered! The only thing that we are struggling with her is that she does drugs... which is kind of a big thing haha. WHY DOES WEED HAVE TO BE LEGAL HERE?? I feel like we have had some really solid lessons with her but sometimes she is so zoned out and out of it because of the drugs.. we have a lesson with her tonight and we are going to talk about the word of wisdom so pray that she will have a desire to make that change because if she doesn't we are going to have to drop her :(

On friday hermana bailey and I went to the Doctrine of Christ training for all the people that came out at the same time as her. As all the meetings we have with President Ware, it was awesome! One of the things they focused on was in 1 Nephi chapter 17. This is the chapter where Nephi is commanded to build a ship and something they focused on was in verse 9 how it says: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?... This verse just shows how ready, faithful and willing nephi was to do the work of the Lord. He started from the very basics, he first asked where do I go to get the materials so I can make tools, so I can build the ship that thou wanted have him build. In the meeting we talked about how this applies to missionary work and that sometimes, more often than not, we need to start at the very basics to build our ships (or ourselves/testimonies). And as the chapter goes on they explained that if we don't have our ships built.. then we won't be able to help others to get to the other side, we won't be able to carry anyone. The scriptures are THE best!

I am so grateful to be a missionary and to have this time to serve the Lord! I LOVE YOU ALL!! :) have a fantaby week!

con mucho amor

hermana wortley

(sorry no pictures I am trying to hurry because its columbus day and there are a buttload of missionaries waiting for the computers!! but I have a hilarious picture of me being sick with tissues up my nose so get excited for that next week LOL) 

"actively responding to His invitation to come unto Him"

Hola everyone!!

So this week was a super awesome week! There were some really great things that happened with our investigators and conference was amazing!!

One of my favorite talks was Jorg Klebingat. His was the one where he started out by saying, 'what if you had a personal interview with the Savior today?' His talk was so straight up and straight forward about how we can and need to change! I loved the 6 steps he gave us as we move forward in our spiritual progression..
1. take responsibility for your own spiritual well-being
2. take responsibility for your own physical well-being
3. embrace  voluntary obedience wholeheartedly
4. become really, really good at repenting
5. become really, really good at forgiving
6. accept trials, set backs, and surprises as part of mortality

I loved all the talks this conference and I especially loved how it was the first conference where they had people speak in their native language! Richard G. Scotts was crazy good, and I want to print off Elder Bednar's and hand it to everyone I meet haha.

Something Hermana Mohun and I have been talking about is how we are going to apply the things we learned during conference because we always hear awesome things and we are super motivated and excited to change for like a week after conference, but the things we learn and hear are meant to last longer than just a week or so! So yea, I am excited to apply the things I got out of conference!

We had a couple of sweet lessons this week with one of our investigators named Maribel. She is HILARIOUS. She comes up with questions out of no where and she is so innocent and sweet. We had been praying about a date for her that we could invite her to be baptized on, and so in one of our lessons this week I invited her, and her response was to die for... she said "wait, you're going to baptize me on Nov. 1st?" and we said "no.. remember, someone who has the priesthood will be the one to baptized you and we are just inviting you because we think you'll be ready on that date" It was really funny.. but I guess you had to be there hahaha.

We also had a great lesson with Hugo and Erica! Hugo really understands the importance of only one true church and he was asking super solid questions! They were really excited about coming to church... but they didn't come :( One day we will have investigators at church!!
Also, it was cool because remember our investigator Elena who had a baptismal date? Well she went MIA for a couple of weeks and so we weren't sure what happened.. but we found her this week! She also said that she will have more time to read in the Book of Mormon this week and will pray to know if what we have been teaching is true. She is the best.

Ok I love the hispanic people, but there were two days this week where we had two dinners because people just gave us plates of food before we could even say we already ate! hahaha Last night I was super full from dinner and then we were knocking and a family invited us in and then before I knew it, I was eating chicken and tortillas... haha!

So for the biggest news of the week... we had transfer calls and drum roll.. I am staying here and training!! I was so humbled when I got the call from President Ware and still feel  humbled that the Lord trusts me enough to train already! I am so excited and pretty nervous, but it is going to be really good. I am going to be training Hermana Bailey from Mesa, AZ and yeah, transfers are Wednesday so that should be exciting!

I am so grateful for this opportunity I have to be a missionary, and so grateful for all of you!! I love you all!!

con mucho amor
hermana wortley :)

#1 awkward self timer conference picture haha
#2 weekly planning with apples