Week 16

Oh my goodness hello hello! I'm trying to think of anything noteworthy to share hahaha oh my goodness well first of all I'm all mind blown right now after looking at pictures of sister boudesocque with my family!! That was so fun to see! So so cool. Okay so this week was super busy. just doing a lot of missionary work. its funny because literally everyone will ask, "so what have you been up to?" the worst question hahaha oh you know just going about the lord's work. and honestly depending on the hour that could be anything. but anywho, on saturday we had an exchange and for the FOURTH TIME IN A ROW, i stayed in the area with an English comp. I want to shake my district leader because i was just like oh my word AGAIN? give me a break! (classic prideful Mallory) I even asked him, Elder Pacheco! Are you sure you want me to stay in the area again? he told me he would pray again and let me know. that night he called me and was like, yup i think you need to stay still... sorry! so i was like alrighty then. so Friday was really tough. Probably one of the hardest days on the mission. I don't know why but it was just really hard, i was feeling down on Spanish, and sometimes when you have a Latin comp, you can feel pretty invisible because if I'm not like 110% energetic mode, i feel like i lose the interest of other Hispanics sometimes. So yeah anyway, Friday was not fun. So we exchanged that night and i planned for the next day and went to bed and that was that! so we went about our day and I'm not kidding you... miracle after miracle happened. we did a service that morning and then I felt like we should go try this old investigador family that we have and what do you know... THEY WERE ACTUALLY HOME! we went over at like 10:30and they had us come in and fed us rice and beans and chicken for breakfast... yum... felt kinda sick the rest of the day hahah and we had a really nice lesson with them! and later on that day I felt like we should go by a less actives home and HER HUSBAND WAS THERE WHICH IS SO HUGE HE IS NEVER HOME. and so we sat down with him and we just invited him to come back and on my word the spirit was so strong you could have cut it with a knife. and the wife started crying say that the spirit brought us here and just crying and crying. After we left, my sister training leader said, "i have NO idea what just happened, but the spirit was SO STRONG. tell me everything" and that was such a testimony builder to me, like the spirit it a presence. we don't have to understand or know what is going on exactly, but when its there, you can really truly feel it. Then after we met with Alfredo and he had gotten in a car accident earlier that day! It wasn't his fault thought some lady just side swiped him. it really shook him up and gave him a super reality check about how like we don't have time to procrastinate the day of our repentance. We recommitted him to a baptismal date for the 27th because he couldn't come to stake conference. but yeah so i am super hoping that everything works out for him! I brought a picture of a temple to the lesson and we talked a lot about eternal families and how that is only possible by the covenants we make in the temple and he was getting really excited about baptism and all that and he was was just like, "will you come when i go to the temple??" I was just like YES ALFREDO BUT GET BAPTIZED FIRST! I just love that little Guatemalan guy. anyways. we are in super finding mode because we have dropped almost all of our investigadors. Sister Detrinidad is too pretty and funny. we have more creepers than investagadores. but yeah that's it for today! Love you all!

americanizing the niceraguaenca 

one of my favorite members hermana acevedo and the daughter of a less active that always lets us in hahaha 

Week 15

So how great was this weekend?? Seriously General Conference this week felt like Christmas! It was so remarkable to see the conference center all full and to see the prophet speaking to us. It was also so bizarre to think that I was there just a year ago! It was during conference last year that I made the decision to serve a mission! What I even loved more about this conference is that some speakers spake in their native languages! How genius! We watched the Saturday afternoon session in English (because we didn't have any investagadores with us for that session) but then an Area 70 went up and spoke in Spanish and so we ran over to the Spanish room and watched him give his talk in Spanish. You should have seen the faces of some of our Spanish members. They were smiling so big. It just goes to show how the kingdom of God is a worldwide kingdom. It is a fulfilment of the prophecy that the gospel will be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. We had two investagadores with us for the Sunday session (Alfredo came with his wife hna cajas and our other investagador Ernesto). The spirit was so strong! When it was the prophet's turn to speak I leaned over to ernesto and i speak "escuche bien! el es el profeta de Dios!" I felt the spirit so strong within me when i said that. I know its true! Ernesto accepted a baptismal date for November 2nd :) I was wishing we had an investagador with us for the Sunday afternoon session because Elder Bednars talk WAS AMAZING. it was such a good reminder even for me as a missionary and i am sure that it was a good reminder for members everywhere as to why sharing the gospel is so important. I got the chills when he told the story about his sons and how when his son got his scratch all fixed up, and he IMMEDIATELY went out to his friends and gave them band aids and lotion so that they could feel the relief that he felt. THAT is why we need to open our mouths and share the good news! not to check it off and say we did it, and not out of obligation, but because we recognize that peace and relief that the gospel brings and then we share it out of sincere love for our family and friends. 

SO EVERY MEMBER OF THE CHURCH READING THIS NOW: make it a priority to fast and pray this week to know who is around you is prepared to learn and receive the message of the restoration of the fullness of the gospel. As a representative of Jesus Christ, I KNOW that someone will come to mind. There are people everywhere all around us that have been prepared and are looking for something that they are missing and they don't know what it is. It is simple... it is the gospel! I wish i had done this before my mission so badly! 

This week was kinda slow other than that... we had over 25 hours of meetings this week! We had leadership training and oh my goodness it was so amazing i didn't want it to end! learning the fundamentals was just so nice and refreshing. I might be the only missionary in the world that loves role plays... am i weird? probably. But its such a wonderful time to really think and not be afraid of saying something wrong because its practice! and then you have other missionaries right there and they say... oh maybe try this... and then you get to redo and the spirit is so strong! 

ONE MORE THING! we saw the movie Meet the Mormons! so good. everyone go see it in a theatre near you. also definitely cried when the missionary left his family and the airport.... too close to home i just did that almost 5 months ago hahaha 

actually i lied one more thing. So after the training we had planned to go try a less active. I've been in this area for 4 months now and we have only been able to talk to her once and it was when we was bringing groceries in so not for every long. I was thinking to myself, "why in the world are we trying her right now, theres traffic and everything, shes never home, we should just call here" and then the impression came to us, "well why don't we just do what we told the Lord we would do last night when we planned" well flip. so we went and she wasn't there and we were walking back to the car and LO AND BEHOLD MARGARITA IS WALKING UP THE SIDEWALK TO HER HOME! she said today was super rare because she never gets off work this early. she felt impressed that it was no coincidence and so we taught her right there in the side walk. Told her that the Lord wants her to come back and partake of the blessings of his atonement. and so we set an appt with her for tonight. I learned something very important. When we plan by the spirit, and then EXECUTE our plans, we are showing the lord that he can trust us, we are leading out by faith. its might not seem reasonable or maybe just seem like a waste of time, but when we do it anyway the lord will recognize our faith and will bless us.

Love you all! I couldn't be happier :)

Week 14

HEY EVERYONE. this week is such a blur as always hahaha I love my comp. she is seriously so funny. she speaks SO FAST but I'm always able to catch when she says, "como, en serio" which is "like seriously" so she just makes me laugh. She always jokes that I will be speaking like a Nicaraguan after our time together. I hope so! People are even saying that they are seeing a difference in my accent. I just tell them I'll take any accent except a gringa accent. Not much to report this week just that I am happy and loving being a missionary! Something that really hit me was something that happened in one of our appts with our investigator alfredo. Okay so as a missionary, sometimes it seems like you aren't always seeing the fruits of your labors. We were teaching alfredo about sacrifice and the spirit was strong and talking about how he needs to make changes and pray in order to be able to come to church on Sundays. I was feeling kind of discouraged because I felt like a broken record ya know? and I wasn't seeing any results. And I was just feeling like maybe it was my fault as a missionary that nothing was happening. At the end of the lesson, Alfredo prayed beautifully and Hermana Detrinidad commented on how he gives such beautiful prayers. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "I had no idea how to pray before this missionary came to me and taught me. Shes an angel!" It clearly was not just me. I remember the first time sister boudesocque and I taught him and he wouldn't say the prayer after the first lesson. And I remember again that he would be so nervous to pray that we would use a paper to help him pray. And now he is praying so well and praying daily! He is also reading the book of Mormon everyday! He tells us at the beginning of every lesson where is his in the book of Mormon and the new things he learns. He is in Alma in like chapter 40 i think and talking about how he didn't realize everyone would resurrect (wow i just spelled that so wrong. spelling has gone down the drain). But when he put his hand on my shoulder and said that, the spirit confirmed to me that my labor in the Lord's vineyard was producing fruits. Sometimes, its just hard to see. I was reading in True to the Faith (FAMILIES EVERYWHERE MUST READ THAT BOOK. Seriously so inspired and great Family Home Evening material) where is says the conversion is not a miraculous event, but a quiet process. That is so true. I have seen that in my life as well. I have never had a life changing event or earth shattering doubts about the gospel. I've simply always known that it was true. But as I see people making changes no matter how big or small, I am reminded why i know these things, this message which we share, is true. 

Also, Women's conference was so good! I loved President Uchtdorf's talk the most. Something he said hit me like a ton of bricks. As a missionary, sometimes its easy to lost in the "okay if you want this blessing... you have to do this. And you cant have this blessing... if you don't do this" but he changed that WHOLE outlook for me. When he said "Heavenly Father is constantly raining blessings upon us, but it is our fear, doubt and sin that, like an umbrella, block those blessings from reaching us," That's when it all made sense to me! I have SO many blessings that frankly, I didn't do anything to deserve. But my willingness, or rather, my ability to recognize them has varied depending on the level of my faith. Now I see how truly blessed I have been my whole life. I just love this gospel and I love my Father in Heaven. My relationship with him how grown so much as i can feel the love he has for his children.