October 3, 2011

Hi mom!

 

Yup, it got nice for about a week, in the 90's during the day, then jumped back up to the 110's again. But we've got a nice breeze lately so that helps. Lucky! We keep hearing about snow in other places and get jealous. Fun! Haha! I wish I could have seen that, I'll bet they both really freaked out about it. I went on exchanges this last monday and they house I stayed at had this huge fat old cat named Mr. Pip. It was cute, he jumped up on my bed and didn't want to leave.

 

Conference was amazing! Honestly it's like Christmas for missionaries, we were so excited for it! We drove to the stake center with a Sister in our ward to see it in English and it was fun watching it in a group. Everyone exclaimed and Ooooo'd when Pres. Monson spoke about the temples. By the way isn't he just the cutest! "Hello!" We all cracked up so hard! All the talks were amazing and we've been talking about them all this morning. I really liked the poem about the crows. Because the young crows have the speed, and the old crows can tell them where to go. Oh! I forgot that he was his mission president! I loved that talk!

 

Ummm, ew. And yikes. Makes me really happy that we live on the top floor of our apartment complex. A sister was teling us how their house is infested with scorpions and they get it all the time. Scary! Actually though I haven't see either tarantula's or scorpions yet, just spiders and cockroaches and the random giant centaped.

 

Us too! He's now got the priesthood and this coming saturday he's going to baptise his nephew! How cool is that? Also we had a miracle and one of the girls we've been teaching got baptised yesterday! She's been waiting for more than a year and her husband finally consented to let her do it! And yes that guy I yelled at is better. He's reading his scriptures now and coming to church. He knows it's true, he just needs a bit more time before he's ready so we're not pushing him.

 

Such a cute little boy! We're teaching him mom and older sister and he lied to us that he was eight because he wanted to get baptised. Well we were reading with them and he came and sat by me because he wanted to read too and needed help. So I whispered in his ear what to say for a bit then he got up and got his own Libro de Mormon and came back saying, "I can do it on my own now!" I still ended up doing the same thing but he did pretty good on his own, he just needed help with the big words. But after we finished the chapter he looked at me and asked, "My turn again?" "No, we finished it now for tonight." Then he closed the book saying , Oh, then smiled and let out a happy sigh and said, "Que bonita a leer!" (How beautiful to read!) Awwwww!

 

Sounds like work is going great! That course will be a blast but make sure and have fun with all that work too, not that I'm worried you won't. Office pranks are the best. We do it whenever we see the Elders bikes out somewhere. You're going to be awesome!

 

Thhhaaaannnnkkkkk yyyyoooouuuuuu! I loved the package and we both cracked up at the can dad put in. Thank you so much for doing all this for me! You're the best mom! And thank you for all the handsanitizers, they smell great and help alot! Although tell Larissa that I was squeezing one to smell it and it blew up in my face. Yup. Oh! And tell her too that if she could put the song, "Esta son las mananitas" on the cd I would love her for it forever! It's what they sing down here for every birthday/holiday/everything.

 

Love you too mom, I really appriciate the support you give me out here :) Tell everyone in the ward thank you for me!

 

Love you mom!

September 26, 2011

Hi mom!

 

Haha! Thanks, it was pretty fun actually, and it seems to ahve done some good.

 

The kermes was so much fun! We met some fun people and lots of people came! It's was crazy! I'll send a few more pictures of it. Also the man in the yello shirt was the MC and he's 80 years old. Wow! He and his wife danced later as well.

 

Yuck, sounds like no fun. Hopefully things will heal up better now. Just take it easy till then :)
Haha, dad's funny. I haven't gotten the package yet, but I finally figured out what dad put in it. That's so cute that he did that! But poor guy, hope he feels better soon.

 

Fun! Wish I could have seen it. We had our this last sunday too and the kids were so cute! Plus it really helped our one investigator. She's got a house full of kids and wants this for them to grow up in and to keep them out of the gangs here.

 

Lucky! Ah snow, won't be seeing that for a while. So funny story, Hna Kigueta got this bag of chocolates ant in the wrappers are sayins and over half of them were things like, "Catch a snowflake on your tounge" or "Enjoy the simple winter games of childhood" It mocks us down in the, once again, 107 degree heat.

 

Have fun with the party!

 

And I was happy I could send you something :) Love you so much mom!

 

So this week has gone by fast. We've had straight lessons with people, only about four hours of tracting total for the week. We've just got a lot of work right now! But we still work to our goals and let me tell you, if you do all you can and can't meet them, God helps make them happen. The mission goal is to have five new people a week who are interested to learn, it was saturday night and we had two and were sad about it, but made time to go knocking doors the next day and asked for some help. There's a saying that goes, "Dios pone los medios." Or God makes it possible. We went to church and by the end of church we had our other three! These people just showed up or their friends brought them and they all lived in our area! Wow! And we were able to focus on the lessons for that day too! It was a miracle for us!

 

One of our investigators got baptised this week! He's an amazing man and so firm in the gospel. It was sad though, all his family either couldn't go or didn't come. He showed up alone without them and wanted to be baptised still. He gets this, he knows what this is and why he needs it. He's ready to do everything he needs to get these blessing for him and his family. We're so proud of him!

 

The man I yelled at is doing much better. He's doing those basic things that he knows he should and has been coming to church again. Hopefully this is the turn around for him, but we're not holding our breathe, we'll just see how he does.

 

So today I made empanadas! Yum!It's been an adventure! A few days ago I made the filling from a pumpkin we bought. We let it all cook while we studied in the morning and at the end of it all we tried it out. I was pretty happy with it and I loved what my companion said. She had some them looked at me and said, "Who are you?! This is good!" I've discovered that I'm pretty good at baking and at mexican food in general. Awesome! I'll make them for you guys when I get home.

 

This was a great week and in six more days is conference! Woohoo!

 

As for the package, not really anything, but more recipies would be awesome! And tell Darren to give me his borstch recipie or I'll mail him a scorpion. (Actually some Elders joke about doing that to their siblings. You catch it or a tarantula and freeze it, them ship it out so it crawls out when they open it.) And ask Ribs if she's made me any CD's :)

 

Sweet! Check out the mountains and stuff near it, that's my area :)

 

Love you all!

 

Hermana Watson

September 19, 2011

Dress from the State of Guadlajara

I can't believe I forgot about this! The Kermes!

The church had a huge party last saturday for the Independance day for Mexico! It was crazy fun and we got some new investigators there! We also had Mexican dresses, I hope you all got the text from that brother! He took a picture and said, "Okay, what are your parents emails?" He's had kids out before and wanted to send that to you guys :) But anyways it was so cool! Plus all the money they donated to missionary work! Which ment we ate free, and they all wanted us to try their food so we ate a lot. The rice pudding was really good and so were the enchiladas. All of it was amazing though and we had a bit of everything! They had so many dances and music and Hermano Felix was the MC for it. He's actually pretty famous in Mexico as Pablo Felix. He was a big actor and singer there and people still recognize him and geek out over him. It's really funny! He's also 80 years old. When we found out we were more than shocked! He looks like maybe 50's if that!

Over all we had a great time! It's was crazy! I loved my dress! One of the Hermana's got it for me for the Kermes. I'll send some pictures of it, it was so cool!

September 19, 2011

The weather is finally starting to cool down a bit nad it's sooooooooo nice! It's still hot, but at least now it's not 120 anymore. More like upper 90's, but still soooo much better! We've had a great week! We're planning another baptism for this weekend for this man who is just amazing. We can easily see him being a bishop someday. His faith grew fast and strong, and now when we go over he's teaching us from the Boom of Mormon! Also this week I yelled at one of our investigators. He's been investigating for a year now and recently had fallen into this midset of, "Well, I'm not feeling anything. Plus I haven't seen any miracles yet. No blind people who can see or lame that can walk. I won't be baptised until I see a sign." But he's not reading anymore or praying, and he hadn't been to church for two months. So I got mad at him and told him, a little harsh really, that he wasn't going to see a sign or a miracle. That he needs to shape up and do those things he KNOWS he needs to do. That if he doesn't he's sinning and denying the answers that he's gotten so far. He didn't say much after a bit and just nodded. Then promised that he'd repent and said he knows he hasn't been doing the things he should be to be ready. So we told him again to do those things and said goodnight and headed home. After my companion just looked at me and laughed saying, "I was right, you're so Belle. I love it when you get, well not mad, but frustrated with our investigators and tell them off." We think that the Mexican culture is rubbing off on me. They say what they think and they are a very passionate people. But it did what we wanted it to do. He came to church the next day and is going to come to the FHE tonight. He called us this morning too and thanked us for bringing this knowledge to him. It was a pretty cool experience. Another cool thing we did this week was dump a persons coffee out when we taught her the word of wisdom. She's a great person :)

Some things about my area. There are churches EVERYWHERE. So when we tell people there's a lot of churches they just laugh and go, "Yeah there are." I mean there's one on every corner, and they're all different faiths. Also on every corner is a small drive up beer store. You meet some very interesting people at bus stops. The people down here are so ready to hear this! They are 80 percent of the time willing to listen to us. Our ward is 70% converts and so very awesome and strong! I love it here!

 

I love you all so much and can't wait to hear more from you and how everything is going! Take care and keep doing awesome!

September 12, 2011

What an awesome week! We're just on cloud nine down here! We had so many good things happen and the temperature has dropped so it's sooo much nicer outside! We're not sweatign to death as bad anymore.

 

Hope everythings going good for you guys and hold off on any packages please! I'll be sending a postcard with a new address soon!

 

The area here is amazing! The people are so humble and ready to listen to what we have to say. And when they know it's true they act o it, with a very few exceptions. We just had another baptism too! It was sort of an emergency and a miracle. This girl was suddenly carted back to Cali by her dad a week before she was going to be baptised. It was a shock to everyone, one day things were fine, the next he made them pull her out of school in the middle of the day to get on a plane to go back. She didn't want to go and was really upset at what he was doing. We told her it'd be okay and we'd figure something out. But honestly we didn't expect to ever see her again. Saturday when she was to be baptised we'd just got off the phone with a church leader telling them it was officaily cancelled. Then guess who calls? Destiny! She said, "Guess where I am right now?" "...Where?" "Arizona!!!" We yelled and jumped around and then said, "Awesome! Tomorrow you can get baptised!" Then she said, "...Actually can it be today? It's the only day my dad will be in the state and he really wants to be there." So we made some emergency phone calls and got things set up and we had a baptism!! It was crazy but it was so beautiful and after we hugged her and Hermana Kigueta laughed and said, "Look at you, trying not to smile!" She smiled at us then and said, "Actually, i'm trying not to cry." She's incredible and she's one of those that's going to change the course of her family.

 

This was a week of miracles! So the Rojas family we've been teaching. They recently told us something interesting. Apparently the day we knocked on their door they'd been waiting for two teachers from their sons school to come and talk to them. So when we came by and said, "Hola! Somos-" they said, "Come on in!" But they figured out who we were once we started talking, but they didn't mind at all. They'd been to church 20 years ago in Idaho but there weren't any Spanish wards so they had no idea what was going on, it just felt good to them. We've been teaching them for about two months now and this week we had a break through. They've all wanted to be baptised all along but they just didn't feel like they had a testimoney yet. Then that changed the other day. We were just teaching the dad because the rest of the family was busy or sick. And this man in incredible. He recently had heart surgery and can't work at all so their family had to move into a poor neighborhood and his wife makes all their money working every day as a waitress. We had a member over with us and we all talked a bit about his reading, and he's already to Alma. He loves the BoM a lot! Then we put on Finding Faith in Christ to watch together. He was so quiet during it, which is strange. He's very smart and loves to discuss things as we go in a lesson. After he just nodded and sat there quietly. After a bit he said, "Que bonita." (How beautiful.) Then we asked our member friend to share his testmoney and he did. We talked a little more then all knelt down to pray and asked him to say it. He was going along when he suddenly stopped talking. He tried to speak but he'd gotten all chocked up and couldn't. The Spirit flooded the room as soon as he'd stopped talking so we just waited and let the Holy Ghost do his work. When he spoke again he said that he's feels good about all of this, he just wants to be sure that this is what God wants him to do. He thanked God for sending us and for this gospel. Then he prayed that all over the world missionaries would be able to bring this message to everyone who's ready to listen. After he just laughed and wiped tears away and said, "Excuse me, I don't know why I'm crying." We thanked him for his time and then all left with an appointment set up for the next day. He knows everything, he's ready, and my comp and I always talk about how strong he's going to be in the church. We can see him as aBishop some day. We biked away just singing and laughing and so happy! The next day we had two Brothers give his wife a blessing of strength. He and his wife bore their testimonies that they know Joseph was a prophet and that this church is true. They are an amazing family and hopefully will be baptised this coming week! We just love them!

 

The work is booming here!

 

Love you all!

 

Hermana Watson

Pictures!

Elora, Sister Borrows and a "Nice Sister" at the Phoenix Temple site

A Translation Fail

I found this in my water bottle. Yum.

September 6, 2011

Hi mom!

 

I really do, I'm so lucky to be where I am!

 

Yeah he said he sent me a letter about it all but sounds like it was pretty amazing. It's an amazing place to be :)

 

It is a pretty scary thing, and yeah it doesn't matter how well off or not we are, it's still scary after everything that happened. There's a phrase the people here use that I really like. In english it means, "God squeezes, but he doesn't choke." And that's true, sometimes it's like with Job, he'll squeeze us a little to see if we really trust in the promises he's made to us and no matter how much it seems it's getting worse the blessings are just right around the corner. Everyone quotes it but it's true. 

You know we haven't even heard about this new movie, you'll have to let me know how it was!

 

Haha! Yup, also on that thought got any good plan for ridding an aprtment of roaches? We sprayed and people came in to kill them but they keep coming back. We tried one of those bug barrier things but it didn't do anything. I'm getting pretty good at it now actually :) Sort of like wack a mole. Also I'm glad we don't have the apartment these one sisters have. They have spiders the size of small mice. Compared roaches aren't that bad.

 

Yikes! No fun at all! I hope you're getting better quickly! That's really weird it came on so fast.

 

Love you mom! Thanks for making that blog by the way. I've gotten letters from my friends that said that it's really changed their day to read that. Bri's actually going back to church now because of it. But don't worry about being behind, just when you have time.

 

By the way you're going to be a great supervisor!

 

Things down here are going amazing! I really really got lucky and got sent to the best area in the mission. Every missionary I've talked to have said they wished they were in Montana del Sur. The ward is amazing and the bishop used to be the mission president for Phoenix Arizona mission so he gives us some amazing support. The ward is so kind to us, they're a pretty poor ward and a very poor part of Phoenix, but they always have a hug, or a kiss, or a skirt, or food they want to give us. The sisters are always feeding us, which is good and bad. The food is great, but they always load your plate and then give you seconds and then thirds, and you can't really say no or you offend them. So we roll home. I've only had one bad meal here so far though. It was some sort of horrid mix of american and mexican, a pepper casserol with chicken. It was spicey and cheesy but I kept biting down and hitting hard tendons or ligiments. I tried to chew it but that just wasn't possible so I spit it out when the hermana wasn't looking. Oh, something you need to try is Agua de melon. You take a cantelope and blend it all up and add some water and a bit of suger, it's good!

 

The work is crazy down here, the people are humble and so ready to hear this, we pick up new investigators every day and the bishop has said that our goal is two baptisms each a month, and it's surprisingly doable! We're teaching soem great families right now who just love us. It's just sad though because the dad can't work because he had heart surgery recently and the mom can never come to church or anything because she  is always working. She'd like to quit but she'd never get another job and it's all they have. They're so ready to be baptised, they just want to understand a bit more first.

 

Love you mom!