longest week, shortest year

WHAT!!!!! dang its been a super long week, I feel like I haven't talked to you all since last year ;) ahhh, okay that joke is old. haha but what the heck, I come home this summer... eeek! well im excited haha. my mission has been amazing so far!

Brrr it's cold here in Vancouver Washington.  Comp Hermana R & I.

lets see if I can even update you all on anything.. its been a crazy week! well like I mentioned we are supposed to have a baptism this week... as of right now we don't know if that will happen.. Satan is working so hard on our investigators, the cute little girls we are teaching are super sick :/ we are praying so hard for a miracle! if not this weekend, then next weekend for sure :)

Monday we had a funny moment... we ran into a part member family in Winco who are in our branch here, but they are from Chile.. any way the husband isn't a member and so we were giving hugs to all the girls and then he gave me a hug and a fat kiss on my cheek HAHA I didn't know what to do!!! I was so embarrassed, he didn't know!! hahahaha so oops. later that night we were tracting and found an old guy from Ukraine, he spoke little English.. all he could say was a couple words.. he was so proud of what we are doing that he hugged us too. BAHAHA trust me, I try so hard to extend my hand for a hand shake, but they go in for a hug, its awkward when they don't understand English either!! well we continued tracting and found a cute English lady, we introduced who we were and she said "yeah I know..(smiling)" we said "Oh how did you know?!" she responded "I see your tag" we said "oh awesome!! so you speak Spanish!?" she said "no... I speak oh man what is it(mumbling to herself) well its not Russian.. OH its Mexican, I speak Mexican!" HAHAH we started laughing and responded "oh really? what do you know how to say?" she said "hola...." and that was it hahahahahahah. it made my night, now I don't feel too much like a gringa ;)

Luggage over the head brings good luck in travel  ~  Representing California

Tuesday, new years eve!!!! well last year I spent the night dancing and having fun.... this year I spent it teaching people and sleeping... hmm... but ill share with you what we did in between that :) hahaha we had district meeting, taught an investigator, then worked and had dinner with members... I ate cabeza be vaca... yes, cow head. it tasted just like beef. and later that night a member form el Salvador made some bomb tamalies and gave us some! so we did a Hispanic tradition. we got a suitcase and ran around the block, holding it over our head!! apparently it brings more opportunities to travel, we thought it was perfect since me and my comp both go home this year.. well we decided to make it more fun and dress up crazy haha. then we ate cheesecake and called it a night. we set the alarm to wake up at midnight and scream and bang pots together.. but I slept through that, my comp got up, blasted some church music and did it!! but I was knocked out and didn't hear a thing! hahaha so she just went back to sleep.

My New Years goals

Wednesday, new years day.. 2014!! I finished reading Doctrine and Covenants! awesome stuff :) we had no appointments set this day.. we did our weekly planning and then went out for the day.. by the end of the night we taught 3 lessons, one with a member present, and we got our oyms(talking with new people) and many other goals. it was a great day :) we ate delicious Colombian food with the whole family of the 2 little girls that we are teaching, the G/A family.

Thursday I started the day on exchanges with an English sister. then got back with my comp. we met a funny old guy who was telling us how he is a ladies man.. hahahaah it was hilarious! we had such an amazing lesson with the family we have been teaching for a while, J and R. we brought the garcias along.. they are all from the same country, and we shared a powerful Mormon message about the temple dedication in El Salvador... which is where they are all from!! it was amazing!! J accepted to be baptized on January 25th!!!! we will hopefully help her reach this goal :)

Friday i was on exchanges in my area with an English sister. we worked hard even though our number didn't show it. but that's okay :) we went to the library to do facebook and i overheard someones phone go off... their ring tone was a song from imagine dragons. the same ring tone i had at home. gah satan is putting things in my path to make me "trunky"(counting down the days to go home) haha oops.

Saturday I was on exchanges with an English sister in Rainer, a small little town. such a beautiful area, it reminded me of Hood River! we had a full day teaching english people. here is an amazing experience we had: a while ago this sister and her companion had met a guy that spoke Spanish, she felt impressed for us to visit him so that i could talk to him. she couldn't remember where he lived. so we parked the car and prayed.... we then drove a little bit. we got out and started walking and felt impressed to go to this home, the door was open and all we could see were stairs. she wasn't sure if we should go in, but i just did anyway haha. i walked up the stairs and realized that there were 3 different doors, it was like a little apartment. we knocked the first door and lone behold, we found him!! Alejandro :) i started talking to him and ended up having a 30 minute lesson with him outside!!! ALL Spanish and all by myself! well i totally knew the spirit had put into my mouth the things to say because i was talking so fast and after that i couldn't remember what i said haha. but it as really cool, he is form El Salvador and he has a bible that missionaries gave him in his country! he still had it :) so i shared with him about the Book of Mormon and gave it to him. he was super excited and interested to read it, and wants to eventually come to church! it was an amazing miracle and was all done by the spirit :)

Bed for a queen!

sunday was again another amazing day. we didn't know if anyone was going to come to church. well we got out of our meeting and we had a voicemail from J! she said she wanted a ride to go to church! so we quickly drove over there.. she wasn't home and she doesn't have her own cellphone, but her husband said she was walking to the store.. we didn't know where, but me and the member i drove with felt impressed to drive till we could find her! we went a back road and found her walking, all dressed in her church clothes. i saw her and got out! gave her a big hug and she started crying.... i cant speak perfect Spanish so i didn't know what was wrong or how to help her. i just hugged her and told her i loved her... she was having a rough morning and just wanted to go to church with us! we missionaries and the members in the branch and the only people she knows here in Vancouver. she needed someone to talk to and she needed something uplifting, and church yesterday as so spiritual and truly for her :) ah it was a great sunday meeting! for dinner we had some more delicious Colombian food, haha my favorite!!! we also achieved our goal of talking to 10 new people every day for the week!! yay! we talked to 78 new people this week about the church and invited them all to do something! we never see the fruits of our labors, but we are planting so many seeds.

i truly love this gospel and i love these, people, my brothers and sisters! this is truly a hard work, so many people are prepared and now satan is trying even harder to stop Gods work... but he will never be able to!!! we are working even harder, i want to cry every day because we work so hard to help these people find the TRUE happiness they are searching for. i wont stop, ever!! i love you all, hurrah for this new year!! so many things will happen! don't give up, keep to your goals you have set!!