HHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO

Hello everyone!!

Well it was a good week, as usual, seriously though I have come to realize that we can have bad moments but all in all there is nothing better than being a missionary! One of the highlights of this week was that Jaime came to church!! I don't know if I have talked about him much but he is so awesome. He is a senior in high school and was taught by the elders in the past. We went and knocked on his door at 8:30 yesterday morning because church starts at 9, to make sure he was still planning on coming. He was asleep but he said he would hurry and get ready so that one of our members could pick him up! A couple of the young men went to pick him up and then they sat with him in church and brought him to sunday school and priesthood. The youth are so great here!! It was so cool because the sunday school teacher came up to us after and said that Jaime was participating and that he accepted the assignment to teach primary next week! haha We are excited because we have a lesson with him at one of the young men's homes this week and they invited him to mutual. 

So this week I have been studying a lot in moses and D&C and the concept that we are all children of God. It is so mind blowing and so full of deep doctrine its great. One of the verses that really stood out to me was 45:8 It says, "I came unto mine own, and mine own received me not; but unto as many as received me gave I power to do many miracles, and to become the sons of God; and even unto them that believed on my name gave I power to obtain eternal life." 

Something I have really grown to appreciate on my mission is that we are all children of God, and that we are not only His children but we have that potential to be like Him. Each one of us has that potential, no matter who you are or where you are at in your life right now or decisions that you have made... none of that should define us, it is what we do with our potential to become like our Heavenly Father that makes us who we are. But we can't do it without him. I am so grateful for the experiences that I have had so far where I have been able to truly recognize people as children of God and not just random people. The mission really puts things into perspective.

We have some pretty cool people that we are teaching right now but for a lot of them it is just a matter of getting in with them! We also have a lot of knocking planned for this week so hopefully we can find some new people to teach! I love my companion although she is a mental roller coaster hahahaha things are good here in Wenatchee!!! 

I love you all so much and could not be more grateful for you. I mean it, you are the best. HAVE A SUPER RAD WEEK!!!!!!!! 

Oh also I am going to the temple tomorrow at 9:30 my time so 10:30 your time, if you have time you should go at the same time :) :)

con mucho AMOR

HERMANA WORTLEY

this was from last week but I don't have any new pictures sorry!! this is hermana Taua from hawaii

the ginger saved our baptism

It was a week of miracles!

wow for realz it was a super crazy and stressful week but we had some pretty sweet miracles! That is one thing I have really loved about being a missionary is being more aware I guess you could say, of the miracles all around us each day! 

 First off this week was transfers and both of us were staying but we decided to take advantage of the transfer van and get dropped off at the southern part of our area down in rock island (it's not really an island if you're wondering haha) so they dropped us off around 1pm and we knocked pretty much the whole town because its not very big and we had a couple of lessons and saw a bunch of dead animals like a turtle, deer, squirrel etc... it was quite the adventure! haha And we get a call at about 5 saying that the transfer van was going to pick us up! it was so legit because we saved a bunch of miles and talked to a bunch of people! Everyone in the car was so confused why they were picking us up haha. 

Salvador got baptized on friday!! It was a crazy day. We had the whole program made and we had people to give talks and prayers, the whole shebang and the baptism was planned for 7pm.. BUT we had a dinner appointment at 5 and we show up and they hadn't started making the dinner yet but we felt super bad because it was their first time ever having missionaries over because she is a single mom and can't have the elders, long story short it ended up taking super long and we still had to fill up the font and set up chairs. Luckily we have the best zone leaders ever who happened to be planning at the church so they filled up the font and set up chairs for us, bless their hearts. So we rush from dinner to invite some people to the baptism, this is after we had already called the entire ward roster haha and then headed to the church! 

Well 7 rolls around and Salvador hadn't shown up yet so we kind of panicked, so our district held down the fort and we hopped in the car to find salvador. Turns out he was just running late because he had his two little boys with him! So back to the church and a few people were there but not as many came as they said they would. Anyways he changes we take a quick pic of course and we start the program. 

So hermano zamora was conducting and all of the sudden I look around and the person who was supposed to give the talk about baptism wasn't there! well to explain the title of my email the ginger saved our baptism!! An elder in our district who is super ginger jumped in last minute and gave the talk and he has only been out 3 transfers! Also our district sang while Salvador changed after the baptism. Oh man it was so stressful but so great!! He was so prepared and ready to be baptized. After hermana pulido and I couldn't get over how blessed we are to be serving in this area and with some of the best missionaries who were so willing to help us out when everything seemed to be going wrong haha. Salvador was confirmed on sunday and he looked so great in his white shirt and tie and so happy! There is no doubt that the gospel brings joy into peoples lives. 

Saturday we had zone training meeting which was really good! Our zone is pretty awesome because we are an all spanish zone and one of the cool things is that there are only two of us from utah and the rest are either from different countries or other crazy places! We have missionaries from brazil, el salvador, tonga, canada, chile, mexico... it is so cool!! Hermana pulido and I wore the exact same outfit to zone meeting and it was pretty hilarious to see everyones reactions. It was a great week! There are a lot of great things in store for the rest of this month!

I love you all and hope you have an awesome week! :)

con mucho amor

hermana wortley

Salvadors baptism :)

happy valentines day :)

Wenatchee for the win!

Hey peeps!

This was a good week. We saw some Krazy Kool miracles! Well like I told you last week Concepcion our investigator had read all the way to Alma 37 and she also read the Ezra Taft Benson book! This week she finished the Book of Mormon!! We went over to have a lesson with her and we sit down and she holds the book of mormon to her heart and just says "I know this book is true, I believe it with all my heart." It was one of the most powerful moments I have had on my mission. It makes you really think about all the people who don't keep their commitments and read because if they would just take the time to read and pray about the book of mormon, they would know. It's just that simple. My testimony of the book of mormon has grown so much this week as I witness the changes in these people as they just read the book! 

Our next miracle was with Reina. Her and her family were a referral from one of our members, they are the ones that live in orondo. Anyways we drove down to visit her on wednesday but they weren't home which was kind of a bummer but we did the sister missionary thing to do and left them a sticky note telling them that we would be coming back on saturday (because they don't have a phone or car). So we show up on saturday and only Reina and her daughter Arianna were home but they were waiting for us! Reina has read all the way to 3rd Nephi 11!! But get this, she not only read it but it was highlighted and marked up!!!!!!! She also had this big lunch prepared for us too, and she sent us home with leftovers. Hermana pulido and I feel like she is our adorable mexican mother. 

The funny thing was that we had a dinner appointment after that and we were super full and hermana pulido was sneakily feeding her dinner to the dog hahahaha. I am so glad she didn't tell me that she was feeding the dog during dinner until after we left or else I would have lost it hahaha. The dog ate really well that night! 

Also miracle with Salvador, we taught him all of the commandments and the plan of salvation this week. He was asking some of the most inspired questions during our lesson. It was super powerful and we were able to have members with us for both lessons which makes everything so much better. As of right now we are planning his baptism for this saturday!! He is so ready. 

Oh yeah we also had transfer calls this week and hermana pulido and I are both staying! I didn't think I was leaving but you never know. I am so grateful for all of the miracles that the Lord is showing us here in east wenatchee. He is so merciful to us!! Things are a little hard with the new spanish group that we are trying to establish and sometimes if feels like I have a backpack full of rocks on with all the pressure of this area hahaha but that's missionary work right? I am so blessed to be a missionary right now!! Thank you for all you do for me. I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

c

on amor

hermana wortley

our district

We are so weirddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

#GOHAWKS

Well we had a fabulous superbowl-less sunday!!

Man the people here were so nuts this whole past week about the superbowl. We were knocking a bunch on saturday and no joke we had a few people tell us that we could come back next week because they were preparing for the superbowl haha. Our mission president gave us permission to weekly plan during the superbowl because of how crazy it has been here in washington #gohawks 

But enough about the superbowl, we had a huge miracle this week! So last sunday we spoke in church and another set of the elders spoke also and one of them leaned over to us and said "you see that guy over there, his name is Salvador and he lives in your area but he is not a member" So we went up to him after church and set up an appointment for tuesday. We had an awesome lesson with him and come to find out that he has been going to church for 6 months now and no one has ever taught him!! So he is ready to be baptized all we need to do is teach him! haha So we put him on date for the 28th of February and he was so excited. But get this, we are at church yesterday and the bishop comes up to us and said you are teaching Salvador right? And we said yeah! and the bishop told us that he has been paying tithing and fast offerings.... we haven't even taught him those things yet! So we called him after church and asked if we could meet with him a few more times a week so that we could have his baptism sooner and he was super happy! oh man he is so great! 

We also ventured down to orondo this week! That place is so crazy, the houses are like a mile away from each other and they are hidden in the hills. So it makes for an adventurous day! Oh and I performed toe surgery on hermana pulido this week also.... so last pday she played basketball in barefeet and got a gigantic blood blister on her big toe and then the next day the blister just had so much pressure and she didnt want to pop it because a lot of times that makes it worse, so we cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide and then I got a sewing needle and cleaned that and we poked a hole in the blister to let the blood out a little bit so it would relieve some of the pressure and meanwhile I was cleaning it and then bandaged it up for her. It was hilarious. Her toe is doing a lot better! 

So there is the most adorable abuelita in our ward that was less active like a month ago and now she comes every sunday! but anyways we brought her out with us to an appointment and she is the most precious thing ever just picture the tiniest little mexican lady with white hair and pigtails and no teeth. And we asked her if we could call her abuelita and I thought she was going to cry she was so excited. Anyways the lesson that she came with us was to Concepcion, the lady who randomly came to church a couple of weeks ago. So Concepcion has read all the way to Alma 37 and also the Ezra Taft Benson relief society book!! Seriously she is so great. She wants to be baptized but she lives with her son and he isn't really ok with her changing religions so her and her husband are looking for an apartment or something so that she can continue learning about the church. People amaze me with their faith. 

We had some really great things happen this week, but also I had one of the hardest days yet on my mission. It was hard because my companion had a complete meltdown. As missionaries we would call it a code red... someone said something to her in district meeting that made her feel really bad about her progression as a missionary and when we got in the car she lost it. I felt so sad for her and we spent our lunch time trying to talk it out and makes lists of things she could work on and things she is really good at but I felt like nothing I was saying was helping. She was really doubting why she is even on a mission. She is so great but she doesn't get that we can't be perfect. I was really worried about her and almost thought I was going to have to call President Ware, but we had to head out because our lunch was over and we were walking to service. As we were walking she didn't say anything and I just knew the internal struggle that she was going through... I prayed so hard that I would know how to help her. The spirit told me that what she needed was to get to work. So I said "before we go to service we are going to knock a couple of doors" and before she could tell me no I was already crossing the street haha. The first door we knocked no one answered but the second answered and invited us right in! It was a super legit Native American lady who had met with missionaries in the past. We talked to her about the plan of salvation and the atonement... that we can only be perfected through Christ. It was a great lesson but the coolest thing about it was the change in my companion. I can't even explain it. After we left the house she was happy and you could tell she felt "lighter" if that makes any sense. 

The atonement is so real. My companion is doing so much better and we are working on some goals that we can work on to help her feel more confident as a missionary. I am blessed to be serving here. Thank you so much for all you do for me! I LOVE YOU

Fun facts: 

I am now a pro at pinochle (no idea how to spell that)

We walked for 5 hours straight because no one let us in (preparing for the superbowl haha)

We found a bunch of 80s church movies that we have started watching in spanish while we get ready in the morning 

the seahawks lost

transfer calls are this week, can you believe it??

I hit my 8 months mark this week :O

have an awesome week :)

Les quiero

hermana wortley