November 13, 2012

We’re doing good and doing much better! Someday when we come down
there’s a restaurant where we will NOT go. A member took us there and
we both ended up with food poisoning. Not fun, I haven’t thrown up in
a long time.

We're working really hard so not much to report on, just that we're
teaching lots of people!

We went to the RS activity the other night with a new member and
learned about canning salsa and beans. We tried the ones they’d made
last month and it was so good!

Sister Taylor, the mission presidents wife came out with us this week
to see some people. She’s does really well speaking Spanish,
especially since she never gets time to practice it!

We’re working with a lot of people right now who are really
progressing. Once they can get to church a little more or once we can
see them a little more they’ll be ready to be baptized!

Stake conference this weekend was very interesting. The Saturday
session was all about patriarchs and patriarchal blessings. Our stake
has three stake patriarchs. Then the next morning they had a special
broadcast from salt lake. Did any of you see it? It was really really
awesome! They were talking about the gathering of Israel and other
things like that. Holland and Eyring gave some powerful talks.

Love you all! See you soon!

Birthday Pictures

It was Hermana Pousimas birthday so i made her a cake. It was really good :)

November 5 - Pictures

Hermana Zayas asked for a planner since she goes out with the missionaries a lot so I made her one for her birthday.

I think it turned out pretty good. It kind of turned out looking like a Tiki head.

It's a trap!

November 5, 2012

Well, I can feel it coming so I’ll just apologize now. There’s only a few more weeks left so I’ll save most of my stories for when I get back so my emails are going to be a little shorter. Wow only five more weeks! I’m on the lookout today for milk that expires after I do. We had a really good week with some cool things that happened.

We found so many people this week that want to talk to us. Some families too. One of them is Maria and her aunt and son. Maria is so awesome! We’ve only seen her twice but she’s already planning to be baptized on the 24^th! She didn’t show up to church so we went by to see if everything was okay. Turns out that she couldn’t get work off in the morning and was really sad about it. So we started talking and she mentioned that she’d been reading but that she fell asleep. So we decided to read together to get her going and ended up reading a couple of chapters and then teaching her most of the plan of salvation. She understands the scriptures really well and she really wants to learn. Her aunt is so cute, the first time we came by we asked her to pray at the end and she looked down and said she didn’t know how, that she could only do The Lords Prayer. So we taught her how to pray and afterwards she was crying and said she was sad that she hadn’t known how to pray. But she said she would practice and that it would be better next time. We assured her that it was fine.

For Halloween we got lucky and a member could take us to the ward party. It was so fun! Too late we thought of going dressed as Elders (like just putting a tie on), but it would have been a good idea. Then we went home and rested a bit. The next day during the night we carved pumpkins and they came out pretty good, it was fun! I’ll send pictures.

So in our area lives one of the councilors to the mission president, Presidente Zayas. I love the Zayas family, they’re so great! Well One of their grandsons that lives with them, Carlos, has a friend across the street that the whole time we were teaching him to get him ready to be baptized this friend sat in for the lessons. Well we invited him to take the lessons and his mom was okay with it so we started teaching him. He came to church on Sunday and those two punked me! After the last hour Carlitos came up stone faced and I asked where his friend went. He told me, “He didn’t want to come. He didn’t want to come to church.” My heart sank and I asked where he was. He told me he went home. I told him that it was okay, that he didn’t have to come if he didn’t want to. Then he smiled and said, “Nah, he’s right there.” He was hiding behind me! They got me good.

Love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Watson

November 5, 2012 - Halloween Party Pictures

Hermana Greenwood kicked butt at the hula hoop contest!

Add caption

Rosita (Hna Pousimas stuffed animal) got too curious about my pumpkin.

Some of the Rodriguez family from my ward.

October 22, 2012

We had a very very full week but it was very good! Hermana Greenwood and I are getting a long great and she’s really improving in her Spanish and in her confidence. She’s been giving more of the lessons now and now that she knows these people she knows better how to work with them.

This week we went on an exchange that was a little different. Something they decided to do now is to have exchanges with English Sisters. I was so excited to go with a Sister I know pretty well since we lived in the same apartment for a while. She’s got the same amount of time as me in the mission so we’ll be going home together. It was very fun but very interesting because  I could see the symptoms of Trunkyitis. She’s having a very hard time and it makes me very thankful that I’m not going through that. Of course I think about home and have been thinking about what I’m going to do when I get back, but it doesn’t distract me, and I’m not trying to deny that I’m going home like this Sister was, she didn’t even want to talk about it. So it made for a very interesting day, especially since she can’t speak Spanish.

We got very lucky this weekend, sorry they told us not to tell much about it until now. Elders Andersen, Maynes, and Bishop Causse toured our mission. On Saturday we had a special conference with them in the morning and it was powerful! The Hermanas get spoiled in the mission, no matter what time we show up they always have us sit right up front, and I had the best seat. I was asked to give a prayer so I got the end of the second aisle. During his speech Elder Andersen decided to come down from the podium and speak to us closer and for about 80 percent of his talk I was about a foot away from him. It was so cool. At the end of his talk he stopped and started to cry and bore testimony that he knows that Christ lives. I could feel the spirit so strongly and I know that he really is a special witness of Chirst. It was a very good conference.

Then on Sunday we got lucky again! They were coming down to Phoenix so that they could train the priesthood and speak in our stake and we just happen to go to the stake center so we were actually there with him again while most of the people in the stake just got to watch it from the other buildings. It was really cool because he speaks Spanish pretty well and he stopped part way into his talk and said, “Now Brothers and Sisters, I’m going to give most of my talk in Spanish, so you’re going to get the chance to see how it is for your brothers and sisters all the time.” It was very cool, I’d been really sad up to that point because they’d run out of headphones for the translators and so most of the members there couldn’t understand what they were saying but sat reverently anyways listening. It was a very good experience for the English speaking members.

Well I love you all! Have a great week!

Mark's Baptism

Mark's Baptism

He's a funny guy! It was such a good baptism!

October 15, 2012

Well to update you all I had an interesting week. But it was really long because first of all I got sick. It’s happened a few times and it’s never fun, but this is the first time I’ve actually been sick enough to have to stay in bed all day. I don’t know what hit me but it wasn’t fun, I just suddenly got it and slept all day. It slows down the work so much, and it’s really boring to just stay in all day. I’m glad I haven’t gotten sick more while I’ve been out here.

I didn’t get the chance to tell all of you last week but I asked for an extension last Monday. I’d prayed about it and my answer was that I needed to ask. I didn’t really feel that I’d get it but I felt I should ask. I was right. On Wednesday, the day I was sick, we got a call from our president that he was on his way to talk to us. So I got a little more dressed and we went for a walk. He told me that it would be best if I went home at the appointed time and enjoyed Christmas with my family. He explained why and we had a good chat.

We had a fun experience this week. A few months ago we had the chance to teach this guy named Mark. He wasn’t Spanish speaking but we couldn’t get in touch with his Elders and his best friend was in our ward so we started teaching him because he was ready. As soon as we could get in contact with the right Elders we handed him over. He’s great! He got baptized this week and we got permission to go and see him. He gave the best testimony afterwards and came up from the water with a fist pump. Picture of him coming, the only non Mexican besides us.

 

I had a thought and wanted to tell you before I forgot. As an early Christmas present can you order the Ensign in Spanish for me? I thought it'd be a great way to keep up on my spanish. Gracias!

Even with just seven weeks left I don’t really feel trunky. I feel about the same as I did my whole mission, I always knew it was going to end and I didn’t count down the days, or try to pretend it wasn’t coming. I think that kept me from going crazy like some missionaries do :) I’m really excited to come back home and see you all and I’m really excited to come back here afterwards and see these people again and keep contact with them. Actually I was invited to go to Pueblo Mexico next year, that’d be cool since most of the members I know have family there.

 

Oh and mom thank you for sending the money, I found out the day I was sick that we were out of medicine and had to run out to get some, thank you!!!

Love you all!

Hermana Watson

October 8 - Pictures!

We found that almost in my bag. It was tiny!

Some of the Elders cleaning up after lunch on sunday. They kicked out all the hermanas, they were very happy :)

Hermana Pousima, Elder Castanos, Elder Jones, and me.

October 8, 2012

Well we had somewhat of an exciting week. I have officially seen my first scorpion! I was in the gym watching the Elders play basketball and picked my bag up from the floor. Two seconds later I saw something out of the corner of my eye and looked down to see a scorpion right where my bag had been a moment before! I’ll send a picture. Of course once I told them the Elders started playing with it and letting it sting their shoes. Just to be safe I dumped out my bag. They caught it in a cup and released it outside in the field. Not sure what kind it was, want to check it out?

Saturday night we were just getting into bed at 10:30 when all of the sudden the group of kids that always play outside our door came running up pounding on the door and crying. We opened it to see them all sobbing and crying, “Someone’s dying!” Hermana Pousima and I ran outside fully expecting to see that someone got stabbed or something. They took us upstairs to their apartment. They live with their three grandmas and one of them was on the couch grabbing her head and crying. I called 911 and Hermana Pousima went over to find out what happened. Our wonderful neighbor took all of the kids to her apartment and got them calmed down and something to eat. We went and got a little more dressed and called the elders, then flagged down the fire truck. They got their before the Elders so they couldn’t give her a blessing, but it was okay. Turned out she has a tumor in her brain and something happened with it. The shipped her out and most of their family went with. Her two sisters stayed behind to care for the kids and we went over and gave her a hug and asked if she’d like us to come pray with her. They accepted and we spoke with them for a bit then prayed together. We haven’t heard yet how she’s doing. But it was so good to see all the people in our apartments just come together to help them out.

The next day in conference we were both so tired, I feel asleep during Elder Bednars talk. I’m going to see if I can watch it now that I’m a little more awake.

Speaking of conference I love watching it with missionaries, it’s like our superbowl. And this time was especially exciting. When they announced the age change we were all in shock. One brother jumped out of his seat the moment he finished speaking and ran into the hall to call his daughter, she’s now able to go. This is going to change so many things. Elder Holland, in the news conference on the missionary changes, on why the changes are being made: "God is hastening his work and he needs more and more willing and more worthy missionaries to spread the light and the truth and the hope and the salvation of gospel truth to a darkened world." It’s true, we can all feel the pace picking up and feel how things are moving forward. This is going to make the missionary force explode. It’ll make it possible for so many more young men and women to go. I was thinking about it and without that year wait I’ll bet so many more young men will go because nothing will keep them from it. They won’t have time to make mistakes that will keep them from it.

This is an exciting time. Jeremiah 16:16  Love you all!

Hermana Watson