APRIL 03, 2017

PURE JOY IN THE JOURNEY 

Fam, Friends, I love you!! 

Life is always great out here, I promise I'm not making it up. It’s equally as hard, but it’s what makes it great.

Last P-day we went to Marco Island. It was amazing! It reminded me a lot of Coronado Island and when the girls and I would all go down there! It was honestly so great! The Water here is SO blue. It’s amazing. Everyone needs to retire here. I understand the logic of every single old person here now. It’s fantastic. The weather is perfect (except for starting in a few weeks) and the trees are so green. On Marco Island, there are these huge boats and beautiful houses and so many amazing shops. It made me so happy. I’ll be sure to send pictures, even though they won’t do it much justice. 

Right now, we are still teaching the Gonzalez family, but now just the WHOLE family (including aunts and uncles). It’s been quite the experience. Sister Tyrrell taught them by herself one day because I had to go on splits and stay home with a sister who got a gnarly black eye (another story, another time). But Sister Tyrrell did so great! I’m so proud of her! She went out with an English sister so she flew solo the whole time-- it was awesome! Go Sister Tyrrell!!! 

BLASS! BLASS IS AMAZING! Teaching him is such an amazing experience. We had the most powerful/spiritual lesson with him this week. I honestly felt like I was in the temple. It was amazing. Everyone was in tears at least one time in the lesson. We taught him the Plan of Salvation. I love this lesson, it’s the hardest to teach in Spanish because of all the "tenses" but the most amazing experience. Watch Blass finally understand WHY we are here, WHY God loves us, WHY we have families was amazing. There is just a little "spark" that people get in their eye when they finally understand and feel the true love that our Savior has for them. The best part was when he understood the WHY behind baptism, and the even better part is that he is getting baptized THIS weekend :) we are so excited for him! Teach Blass has meant so much to me. I am so thankful for this experience. 

Guys I love this work! I love the scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I LOVED conference. Wasn't it amazing? This Church is so true. I love the calling that I have been given to invite others to come unto Christ. Simple Invite. We met a really awesome guy named Ramon last night, we taught him the restoration and at first, he just wasn't sure. He hates "religion", but when we told him our purpose as missionaries and why we want to share this message with him, our pure testimony, that was when his heart changed. I know this is true, I want everyone to know of the blessings of the Restored Gospel. This is the SAME church that Jesus Christ himself established. 

I love you all! Thank you for all that you do for me!!! I pray for you every single day! Have a great week :) 

MARCH 27, 2017

HUMILIDAD ES LA CLAVE!

HOLA! LES QUIERO MUCHO! 

I say it ALL the time but, this week was so fast! so fast! It’s scary! 

On Monday after emailing/shopping/the usual, we went over to the everglades and biked this super cool place called "the rookery". It was so fun! We headed out there with pretty much our whole zone. The Rookery is this 11 mile train through a nature preserve in the everglades. There were so many alligators. It felt like I was in the zoo except there weren't any gates and we had to seriously almost push the gators off of the trail (I kept pretty far back when the elders were doing that...not my thing..) It was so great though! I love this area and all the missionaries in this zone. It’s been such a blast! Ill for sure send some pictures. 

Remember the Cuban man, Blass, that I talked about last week? He is still so awesome. He came to church this week and loved it all so much. He lives with members so that is even better! Blass is so great! Although, the only down side of him being serious "straight off the boat" is that his accent is SO thick. I maybe had a mini panic-attack because I couldn't understand a word that he was say at all. My Spanish has gotten pretty decent so that hasn't happened to me in a while. Needless to say, I was really humbled. We went home that night and my "WSB President" side really kicked in. We are now enacting "project three weeks to THRIVE" and there is a really detailed Spanish study calendar that we follow religiously. It’s going to be great! Humility is key. 

I am really excited for general conference. 2nd one on the mission! woo! Last time was so great. The apostles/prophet almost always speaks on the pure and simple elements of the gospel. The General Woman's Session was amazing. We watched it in our Bishops house with a bunch of the relief society sisters. It was my first time watching/listening to a talk in Spanish and I truly believe that your mission language is the language that you can preach/feel the spirit the most in because I have never watched a conference that amazing. It was wonderful. For me it was all about the importance of REMEMBERING our savior and his sacrifice for us and then expressing gratitude for that sacrifice by serving and doing as he would do. 

Last night we met such a cool family! The Gonzales family! They are hilarious. Sister Tyrrell taught them her first week in the mission about 4 months ago but they decided to stop teaching them but last night we just felt really impressed to go knock their door. The whole time walking over there we had no idea what we should say to them or what they needed to hear but we knew they needed us to visit them. They opened right up and invited us in! We shared such a powerful lesson with them. The husband Bobby speak Portuguese, English, and spanish ALL Together all the SAME TIME. (Miami Struggles) but hey, the gift of tongues is real!!! They are so excited to learn more and are just the coolest people!! I love them!

That’s really all I have for this week! Here’s a classic scripture that I will always love and Alma 7 is one of my favorite chapters right now! 

ALMA 7:23-24
23 And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.
24 And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works

I love you ALL! SO much! I love this gospel even more. I am so thankful for this opportunity I have to be here! I pray for you all every day! I love you!!talk to you next week!!! 

MARCH 20, 2017

FE ES COMO UNA SEMILLA...

Hola!!! Ustedes son los mejores! 

I love you all! So much! 

I'm pretty sure I say this every week but this week went by SO fast. It was insane! So packed full of hard work and miracles. I loved every minute of it! I’ll go through some highlights real quick!

We had Zone Conference on Wednesday, it was such a blast! The energy in this mission is so insane. Right now there is a huge push for 100 baptisms in the month of April. We are calling it "the RISE of the FFLM" and everyone is going so hard and we are all really united in this goal. It’s been amazing. Also, zone conference is fun because I get to see my friends that are serving on the East Coast right now, which is always nice! 

We had so many inspired lessons this past week. Ahhh, you guys have no idea how awesome life is right now. I'm so excited just writing this email. I LOVE LIFE. so much pure happiness. We met two really cool families this week. On Friday we knocked into these two boys, 17 and 14, they were immediately really open to talking to us about how they have always known who God was but their family doesn't really talk about him that much. Five minutes later, their Mom comes from around the corner and recognizes us immediately. She invited us in and told us all about how she grew up in Honduras, was baptized with her mom when she was 12, graduated from seminary, and then moved and couldn’t find a church near her so she ended up going inactive. She then went on to tell us that she never stopped believing in the Mormon church and she "owes everything" to this church. She married a Non Member who is kinda anti, which is a little rough. But the whole time her kids were sitting in while we were talking and were so interested. They loved and understood the resto so well and all of her Boys want to know more. (Let’s hope her husband is down too..) 

We also met another woman who has a similar situation. We knocked into her also. She is from Venezuela, all of her daughters are members but she went inactive when she came her 8 months and never moved her records over. She is just the sweetest woman though. I love her. 

We are teaching this super cool Cuban guy named Blass right now too. He has only been here for about a month. Teaching him has really taught me to appreciate the fact that I was born in America. Since Cuba is a communist country, religion just doesn’t really exist. Most of the Cubans I have met on my mission either practice "Santaria" (I don’t know the word in English) or are "Catholic" but don’t really have any real knowledge of God. Blass grew up without any religion at all. So we have had to take it from the very basics with him. But it’s been an amazing experience already to just watch someone start to understand the pure LOVE that our father in Heaven has for us. 

OH! We are teaching this guy named Jose right now and HE IS THE BEST. He is neighbors with one of the members in our ward. I love this guy so much. He came here about 3 months ago, from Puerto Rico, and our member found him at a bus stop without a place to live. He took him in immediately. He then lost his wife a month ago, and is now working so much to provide for his whole family in Puerto Rico. He is one of the hardest working people I have ever met. I love him, I honestly don’t think I could say it enough. We taught him the Plan of Salvation last week and the Restoration and Book of Mormon this past week. He just has so much desire and pure faith it’s amazing. In the middle of the lesson he just stopped us and looked at us and started telling us how wonderfully thankful he was for us and how much he is grateful for our sacrifice and how he feels so much peace when we are with him. It was a moment in my mission that I never want to forget. 

My scripture of the week is in Alma 32:12. Go check it out. Be humble and repentance will be the only choice. 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! Thank you so much for your support! I pray for you all every day! Have a great week! Talk to you next week!