January 17, 2012

Hi mom!

 

Haha, dad said the same thing.

 

Tell me about it! It went by way too fast! Dad says I'm the next to return in our ward, weird! Crazy to think it'll be a year so soon!

 

Dad works really hard, good thing he's got a great family to love and support him and help him out where they can. Help him get his homework done! It's weird being the one in charge huh? Suddenly you can't fall back on soemone else, you have to come up with the answers. That was probably the scariest part of Kigueta being moved, because then I was in charge of the area and had to handle all the big problems. One day you two will do that, but not till you're done with all your work ;)

 

Awww poor things... I feel their pain. But hey they'll get so fat off of treats that they won't even remember the shots.

 

Wow that's great!

 

Actually I'm not sure, I haven't heard from him at all since he came home. I sent him some letters but I'm wondering if they got lost, wrong address, or he just didn't answer. He doesn't have email so I can't get in touch with him.

 

I'm good with money, I'm still working through christmas stuff :) Thanks for all you guys do for me!

 

So! Exciting week! My companion Hna Wells went home and my new comp is Hna Graves from Texas. We're getting along really well and loving the work! I do love it, there really is nothing better to do than this. We've been teaching this man named Felix for a few weeks now and ran into a small problem. He wanted to be baptised but the sunday after when we planned it he couldn't get off from work. We had two options, wait for a few weeks, or do it the next day. He prayed about it and we talked and after we started planning the baptism! He's made amazing progress in his life these few weeks and is a new person! He has so many questions and really studies things out. Actually he wants to come up to Utah in a few weeks for a vaction and see temple square and other sites. When he does you should all go say hi, he's a really cool guy. He was asking us last night when he can go into the temple. We found a girl this week that is amazing! She was really interested to read the book of mormon and has declared that if she wants to not be confused anymore she needs to read it and ask god. And she'll do it!

 

I've started running in the mornings now and finally found my runners high! I love it! Really never thought it'd be something i'd enjoy doing but I do. It's good too since all the hermanas love having us over for dinner so we get fed a lot here!

 

Well I love you all! Have a great week!

January 10, 2012

Hi mom!

 

Hope you've had a good week and things are going well at work! i'm sure they are and i'm sure you're doing awesome as the manager :)

 

This has been a crazy week! My companion Hermana Wells, just finished her mission. She goes home today. This last week was hard on her and she was a little bit cranky and kind of went a little crazy, but that just what happens when you get ready to go I think. We had two trunkies in the apartment so it was really fun :) I enjoyed being with her for these few weeks and I really learned a lot from her. (Mostly to pick up all the pennies I see while tracting, she bought a pair of Mexican heels with what she’d found over her mission!) And it was a little harder companionship that my last but it was good.

It was funny, on Sunday she told everyone that she was leaving and when she told Felix, the man we’re teaching, he was really sad about it but gave her some life advice and then tried to give her a hug, which she dodge out of as best she could. He was really confused and we just tried to explain that as Sister we can’t hug guys.

In a few week we’re going to have ward conference and the Bishop wants a choir. Ay ay ay….. I love Mexicans, but they CANNOT sing. It is a horrible sight to behold. They love it, they just can’t. They even say, “That’s a white people thing.” So the Hermana came up to me and was like, “You going to help me right?” so I ended up taking all the guys and spent an half hour teaching them. They improved a lot! But we still need to break the bass’s of the habit of singing the girls part. It was really fun though.

Right now I’m with Sister Jewkes, one of the English Sisters, until we get our new companions tomorrow. We pretty much know who my comp is, you just need to ask around a little for who’s training and you can pretty well figure it out. But that pretty much it for the week.

Love you all!

Hermana Watson

January 2, 2012

Hi mom!

Yeah finally! Missionary work is heard over the holidays! Glad you all finally got it! I was wondering when it'd get there.

Haha! Well sucks to be him. He'll just have to try harder next time. Yup, i know exactly what you mean :)

Sweet! When I get home he can go out running with me in the mornings huh? And I'll be looking forward to seeing you two at the game! That'll be so fun!

Good for her! She'll be really happy she did that too. Tell her to go to the campus by our house if she can, it's a good one and in walking distance.

Just do your best mom, I know you'll be great as it and you'll learn how to still have fun while you lead. Just go out for a walk if things start getting bad and remember we're all rooting for you!

Transfers should be fun this time since I know i'm going and I might get the chance to train. I'm really happy that i'll pretty much for sure be staying in Montana for right now since i'm the only one available that knows the area and the investigators. It's be super fun! We'll know by next saturday.

This was a fun week, even if the work has been a little slow. The holidays makes being a missionary hard because everyone is too busy to talk to you or to meet. But we had fun. We went to our wards new years party for a little bit and ate posole and watched them dance to the mexican music. We left at nine but found out afterwards that one of our investigators was there and the bishop was laughing because all the single women were out hunting that night. He had a good time. Generally he's really awesome! He's just ready to change his life. We went over this week to teach him the word of Wisdom and when we walked in the the big bottles of alcohol that lined his counter were gone! We hadn't even said anything yet! He's just been making this little, and big, changes in his life without prompting from us.

Another woman we teach is amazing. She's so ready for this and wants to follow it, she just having a really hard time with her husband. He pretty much thinks we're a cult, and they've had some fights about it. But she's stood strong and told him to not judge it until he comes and talsk to us. He's slowly softening and being more okay with the idea of her being baptised.

Sister Jewkes who lives with us was telling us scary stories New Years night. She used to serve on a reservation and told us how they lived in this trailer in the middle of nowhere with the closest nightbor across a field. And how skinwalkers would attack the house in the night and just sit there all night knocking on the bedroom wall and walking on top of the roof chanting. Creepy! She told us about them and they're basically the gadianton robbers in this day. They're still around! She asked me how I'd already heard of them and I just told them I'm a walking google. They've named me googlewalker now.

New Years was crazy. explosions went off all night and at midnight guns went off like crazy and fireworks! I pretty much just dozed all night and listened to the guns. Oh and the Sisters tried to order pizza that night. The place called back five mintues later. "Hi, what was your address again?" "Oh it's....ect" "That's what i thought. Sorry, we don't deliver there after dark." Good to know.

We went to our wards choir practice the other night. Yeah about that...... Mexicans can't sing. It was kind of a blind leading the blind moment. It's a very good thing we'll be helping them and singing with them.

Love you all! Hope you're having a great week!

Oh yeah, we went hiking and there was a pack of coyete's howling like crazy! I got it on camera, it was awesome! I'll try and send it next week.

Hermana Watson

December 27, 2011

This year we are celebrating Haunnaka. We have a menorah on the window and have been playing dreidel.
It's really fun!

 

Some pictures of our ward Christmas party, with our Bishop sitting on Santa's lap.

Christmas eve at Bishops house. His wife and their grandson.

Why yes, we did fix the fridge with bike tires and duct tape. But we feel it's okay since the ducttape is fashionable.

Jesus lives at our house, which is true since we've got all his family pictures up on the walls.

December 19, 2011

Hi mom!

We had an awesome week!

 

The conference was wonderful! We spent the day from 8 to 12 listening to music and talks from our mission presidency, then had lunch and pictures, then heard a few more talks and headed to the gym to see Santa! We took pictures and got Phoenix mission t-shirts from the Taylors. Then we all packed up and headed to the temple! I haven’t been in what feels like a long time. It was sooooooooo nice to be back in the temple enjoying that spirit. At the end we were all in the room and I just looked around at 115 missionaries in white and was awestruck and thought, what an army of God we have here, and it’s only a small part of it. Then we walked around outside and looked at the lights and listened to the choirs they have there. It was beautiful! Then we had a great surprise! We went back to the church we’d been at and they handed out packages. It got handed three big packages! My roommates are very happy with all the fudge, cookies, and treats, since two of them are about to go home in three weeks and asked their parents to just save the money and give presents then.

The other night I saw something really cool. We were walking in to the apartment at night and I saw a light in the sky. I thought it was a low plane but then realized it was a shooting star! It was huge and close enough that I could see blue sparks coming off of it as it went across the sky. Beautiful!

 Saturday we had the ward Christmas party and it was great! Obispo Lopez had a lot of fun directing the activities. Everyone dressed up in robes and such and the kids did a short nativity scene. We all sat on the floor eating pan and hot chocolate. Bishops must love having missionaries around. They can ask us to do anything and we’ll say yes. We were just sitting there innocently enjoying the show when he pointed to us and said, “And next we’ll have the missionaries sing!” We looked at each other and just said, “Wait what?” He had us sing two hymns, and it was funny about one of the Elders was on splits and he doesn’t speak any Spanish, and even he had to. He did pretty good.

That same day we had a cool miracle! We’ve been looking up in the register all the less actives and trying to visit them. We knocked on a door and the man, Francisco, didn’t answer. So we left a note saying, “Hey Francisco, sorry we missed you, hope you can come to the ward party tonight!” We wrote our number and left. Five minutes later we get a phone call from him! My comp talked to him.

“Hello?” “Hi, this is the missionaries!” “Hi..I just got a note on my door a few minutes ago.” “Oh! Francisco!” “….yes. How do you know my name?” “We’ll we’re the missionaries in the ward and we’re just trying to get to know the members better.” “But I’m not a member.” “….Well! We share a message about Jesus Christ. Would you like it if we came over to talk to you?” “Well, sure. I actually have some friends who are Mormons.” “Great, when can we come over?” “Well I work every day.” “When’s you day off?” “Today.” “Can we come over today?” “Sure.” “Maybe at four?” (It was two.) “Okay.” “Great we’ll see you then!” So we went over, after scrambling to find a Sister to come with us, and he’s really awesome! His exgirlfriend was LDS and he had a Gospel Principals book. He’s really interested and seems golden. We gave him a book of Mormon and reinvited him to the party in two hours, and he actually showed up! He had a great time, and the members were wonderful. He even told a Brother to call him and let him know where the family home evening was going to be today because he wants to go. Sweet! We had a great week!

 Love you all! I'll talk to you sunday!

Hermana Watson

December 12, 2011

Hi mom!

 

First off thanks you so much for the letter! It made my day! And yes things ahve improved a lot. She got her own companion and I'm finally feeling like my new comp and I are clicking a little more and getting our own work done. I didn't like teaching in english, it just felt really weird and I forgot some words. My new comp is pretty cool actually. She also talks in her sleep in spanish.

 

No the girl isn't mine. I asked a round for who the other sister thought could use a little love and they said her. I think a little chirstmas treat would be nice for her :)

 

Sweet! Thanks mom! Yeah this friday we're having a big conference. We get to sing (if my voice is back by then) a musical number for the zone, have some activities, and go to the temple! It feels like a really long time since i've been, I'm really excited! They're probably going to be giving us the packages then. Fun, i'm excited to see what all they put in there!

 

Yeah he told me. They've really been working him hard lately. He's just so close with the shop too. Just a bit more and I think things could really start for him. Well I guess one person will be happy about it. Stitch will get you and the bed all to himself, greedy boy.

 

Wow! What age? It's such a good calling for you :) You get to draw them all the four legged turkeys you want! And that's nice that you get to go to RS too sometimes.

 

Well, now you're in charge! It's not very fun but you can make a big difference, and I know these people are really going to love you and have a wonderful boss. Tell me how it goes :)

 

So this week was interesting. I thought I got lice first off. We went to a persons house and they said, "Yeah so the little girl got lice and we all have it." Then my head started itching a day later and I was like, "Dang it!" My comp looked me over and didn't find anything thought so we'll keep our fingers crossed!

 

I begin to see why Nephi spoke so strongly against the "whore of all the earth". Catholics are very confused. Everyone has been slamming their dorrs in our face this week because of the virgin. They say that it's her birthday today. But a member did research for us and found out the real story of the virgin de guadalupe. They all go crazy about her! There was a huge festival in the park across from our apartments the other day with dances and really cool looking costumes. But the bad thing is anyone who's family is at all catholic (which is to say all Mexicans) will not talk to us this week.

 

Now that I've the driver we're getting lost alot. Mostly this is laid out like utah, but sometimes the neighborhoods twist and curve and things aren't where they should be. But we're starting to get better at it and we're hopeing to get a good map of our area soon.

 

The worst thing as a missionary is when you meet someone, set and appointment, call and make sure the day before, then they forget about it and go, "Oh, sorry....can you guys come back another day?" We sigh and go, "Sure! What day would be better?" But secretly we hate it and are thinking, "No actually. We don't want to. Why don't you just write things down!" But we always come back again later.

 

So the sister that is living with us now is from the New Mexico mission. She has allergies to the cold so they sent her here. She's really nice and pretty happy to be here too. So now we're in our own areas again, which is good. We can get more work done that way and now Sister Belnap is stuck in lesson twidling her thumbs and going, "I have no idea what's going on."

But over all it's been a good week :)

 

Love you all!

Hermana Watson

December 5, 2011

Hi!

 

This has been a very crazy week so far, the worst of my mission I think. On tuesday we had transfers and my trainer Hna Kigueta got put in a different area. But over all it's a good thing, where she's at a ton of our investigators families live. We've been getting all the info we can so she can go see them all over there. My new companion is named Hna Wells (W2 power) and we're just working on getting our teaching together down. She's funny and likes to paint her nails with crazy patterns. Then on Weds. we had another suprise. Sister Belnap's companion Sister Demille got her visa and they shipped them out the next day. It was really fast and then we got a call from president. He asked us if we'd be okay with going into a trio with Sister Belnap till they could get her a new companion, we said sure since we have pretty much the same area. But it's been crazy teaching in english, completly different. And she speaks no spanish so she just kid of stares at the wall in our lessons. Hopefully sometime this next week they'll get her companion so she can get working more in her ward and we can work more in ours again. Our whole district got switch around too. I'm the only one who stayed in the ward AND my area. One elder got moved to a different area, same ward, but everyone else left.

 

Interesting thing happened while we were all out. The english ward has been trying to contact less actives and so we've been helping Sister Belnap. Well we went to go check this place and apparently the mission leader told them to go in the day time. We get there and found out it was some sort of halfway house. The minute we walked into the gates of that place it felt bad. There was a group of guys in the corner of the yard doing drugs and some crazy homeless people wandering around. So we quickly knocked on the door and confirmed that the woman had moved then started marching out of there. As we were leaving one of the druggies started towards us and I got my bag ready to hit him and run. He was really high and started going, "Hey girls...you got it goin on!" So I said, "That's nice." and started trying to hurry my companions along. He kept coming and saying stuff like that so I just held up and hand and said, "I'm a missionary." then did like Joseph and got us out. We marked that place on our maps so no one will go there after, it was a very dark place. My companions seem to think that my replies to him were hilarious, but honestly I was scared, it was a bad situation, we'll not be going on the street again.

 

Well now i'm the designated driver for this area because I'm the one who kind of knows where things are. It's pretty fun, and I'm glad not to have to be the one to back up the car anymore, it's cold! We were talking and we just went through a 70 degree change in weather, we're freezing! I'm making myself a blanket and a hat. This big change has gotten everyone sick including me again. My comp was sick when she joined us and gave it to everyone. Hit me pretty hard and i'm pretty sure it's trying to turn into a sinus infection but I'm fighting that as best I can. Went and bought a ear syringe and made myself some saline. I do not ant to get as sick as I did before again!

 

Well over all the week has been really busy but good. We're teaching some good people and the guy I yelled at has been making huge progress, he's comitted to baptismal date! Honestly, he's a different peron from the man I met.

 

Love you all! Have a great week!

 

Hna Watson