WEEK 14

Hola todos!!!! Another wild week in Mexico!!! well exciting news- we have three baptisms this saturday!!!!!!!!! Agh!!! It{s so great!!!

One is Mauricio, I think i{ve mentioned him once. His spouse just got baptized in June right before we got here. He was kind of being very methodical about things and wanted to read more and more even though hes read the book of mormon and doctrine and covenants and everything. they also have a 9 year old son, and they said we could continue teaching him, but it needed to be for a couple months before he could make the decision. well mauricio and his wife have a Papeleria (here its not like you go to Target and get everything, if you need paper, papeleria, if you need milk, lecheria, and so on)., We  went over to teach a lesson but forgot it was the first day of school and their little store was just PACKED with people getting supplies. we tried to wait out the rush for a good while then decided to leave....we went to the counter to say bye to Mauricio and reschedule and he said ' well...i want to talk to you about my baptism'....ok we were SO excited!!!! So yes him and his son will be baptized this saturday!!!! Also this saturdya is Maxs baptism, i think i have mentioned her as well. She was listening to hte sisters a few months ago but not making any progress. For whatever reason this is just her time. We hope that the fear will flee and she will know that this is something new but someting GOOD and exciting. I have also noticed a huge change in her boys. they are pre teen age and hang out with a not so good crew in te neighborhood. the other night, one of them sat down and read scriptures with us. Max couldn{t see because she didnt have her glasses and he was whispering all te words to her. I was trying not to cry. He joins us in lessons now, it is amazing the affect the gospel has on everyone. 

Sidenote about Max, she is really funny. She looks almost exactly like the actress Wanda Sykes and is always doing the phrases she knows in english like 'silence pleeeease' in her cute accent. Last week we were walking home close to 9 at night in hte dark. there were three guys behind us so i was trying to stay alert to everything going on. then we got a phone call. as i was on the phone, suddenly a hand gripped my side!!! and then i heard a voice say MY SEEEESTERRRRRS!!!! oh my gosh i gasped super loud and turned around - it was MAX!!!! HAHAHAH i guess she had been shouting hermanas! hermanas! and we didnt hear. so she went the english route. holy cow i thought it was a guy grabbing my side. she said later that my face scared HER. and after we taught her about charity she said ' i wont scare Best again then, just for charity' hahahahah

We had intercambios, or, exchanges again. This was even more difficult than any of the exhcanges weve had with the bishops daughters or other sister training leadres cuz this was the first girl that...drumroll please...didnt know ANY english. maybe 'how are you' is about it. so for 24 hours i had to speak spanish the best i could, it was SINK OR SWIM. and i swam! well because i had no choice. Its always good to see how th e sister training leaders do things , good to get a different view of missionary work, and see what I can improve in. 

We have a new game its called 'carpet or deer legs' hahahah because i saw these four shapes on the road, they were brown, with pink at the top spilling out. i said to my comp oh my gosh is that carpet or deer legs carpet or deer legs then as we passed it we both were pressed to te glass saying ' ummmm' then we both said at the same time ' CARPET' hahaha. Mexico is crazy. 

Here are some pictures. This person is looking for their computer generated image of a rat if you have seen it?

Us in a taxi on sunday. from left to right its my comp, the two little ones (one apparently is mid prayer?) are the daughters of the recent convert to my right, and then on the far right another recent convert shes only 14 and gets kind of nervous to go to church unless we pick her up and go with her, no one in her family supports her decision, super tough! you can see how i stand out just a little bit here hahahah...the blonde giant

me in some corn.

Love you all!!!! I have a testimony of this gospel and how it changes the lives oF EVERYONE, doesnt matter age, background, skin color, none of that matters. I pray for you often and love you a lot!!! 

WEEK 13

Big changes this week- we are now teaching doctrine from our church, as well as some Buddhist principles! 

Tons of beautiful plants

 No that´s not true. Still truckin on out here in the field. This week was a bit of a rollercoaster. My comp and I are a little stressed but we will keep pressing forward. One thing that helped me a lot was a zone meeting we had that was SUPER spiritual. Normally it´s kind of easy to yawn at these types of meetings to be quite honest. First we go through a bunch of announcements (tell your family they can´t send beef jerky anymore, make sure your cell phone doesn´t have a ringback tone), and then we go over a lot of goals, and then usually the zone leaders do a practice or role play of teaching, and then we split up and do the same. Since the mission just had transfers (not me, still in training) there are some new leaders and man... they just brought a spiritual strength to the group that day. Instead of practicing as we normally do they had new and interesting activities for us that really helped us. 

"Really pretty house. I pretend Oprah lives here."

One I really enjoyed was at the end, they put us in groups of three to talk about three reasons why we´re here on the mission. It was so cool having the whole cultural hall buzzing with missionaries sharing their stories. I could overhear on my left and right about some people that weren´t sure why they came but now they´re glad they did, some who had family support them and some who didn´t, etc.  I wish I could hear every single person´s story. another part of zone meeting was an elder who only has 6 weeks left was asked to speak about being converted to the gospel. whew the Spirit was so strong. He shared an awesome story about how when he went to the MTC he was a cry baby, he missed his family friends girlfriend, everything. and then kind of his journey of toughing it out and really enjoying his time here. everyone was so inspired. im so grateful for the examples of obedient missionaries here in puebla, south. they help remind me that i can make it through and how worth it it really is. 

Hermana Best using the planner her cousin Miranda made/gave to her before she left.

Also this sunday my companion and I were asked to speak. For some reason I kind of knew that was coming. He asked us to tell our story about getting here. I would say I was about the same level nervous to speak as I am in America. I was actually kind of excited to tell people something that I had written down because I knew finally all the grammar and words would be right, instead of when i´m in their houses using hand gestures and searchign for words. Everyone laughed at the right parts and people did kind of a gasp when I mentioned my bishop leaving my papers in his car and forgetting to send so I think they understood. Of course I cried when I was talking about how Im so glad i finally made it here and a little girl -the one i mentioned last time thats the ward pianist- ran up to the pulpit with some toilet paper hahah oh man i love it here. people told me afterward that they could understand it and appreciated my story. thank heavens. im sure i sounded so white . 

The cat lady

i´ve attached some pictures. its animal heaven for me here. theres a dog I named Dave that I trained to do that.

Dave the dog!

a little hut thing where this lady makes really good tortillas that we sat in waiting for our tortillas....looks like an old fashioned museum you would tour or something but no its her business! 

Tortilla heaven

me with some cows in a short cut we take sometimes. 

me looking like a maniac with our classy water system. in the morning a guy walks up and down the street and yells EL AGUAAAA. we buy it in a huge thing. pour it in another thing cuz its too heavy. then i pour that into my waterbottle. 

me and a family here we are super close with. The mom, we call her Hermana Sol (her name is Marisol so....its kind of like Marie Sol) is like our aunt. She actually comes up to my chin, thats me in FLAT shoes, and her in HIGH HEELS. she always makes sure we have food, always laughs and smiles, always accompanies us to lessons, and always hugs me and encourages me with the language. wow im so glad ive met some of these people! 

more next week! keep the emails coming!

WEEK 12

Ah this week was wonderful. excuse any weird grammar or spelling, i always get the bad keyboard at the internet cafe, kind of like how i always get the grocery cart with the bad wheel in the U.S.

i LOVE this area and next month i could get transferred and thats just crazy! i forwarded my mom a picture that said 'nuestra zona', which in spanish means my zone. my mom said nuestra zona sounds like 'a protein bar you can buy in a 48 count pack at costco' ahahah i miss my familys sense of humor a lot. 

we are having a lot of success! oh first of all we found a house the day before we needed to be out its super great and we are still in the same neighborhood. it was so sweet when we finished a lesson to some recent converts and them and the members present were all figuring out how to help us with our move. one loaned his truck, others helpedcarry things, etc. wow we are so lucky to have these members here watching over us. 

The people here are SO spiritually in tune. we have an investigator i think ive mentioned named max. Its really hard for her to gt to church but she has come 3 times now (the rule in this mission is 4 times going to church before baptism usually). I was telling her she had a lot of faith and she says 'yeah but without works its nothing..i feel like i need to do more. thats why im really trying to do better'. WOW. i was blown away. shes a single mom with a bunch of kids running around and just tries to provide for her family. she rides in a camion to the first hour of church cuz thats al she can make it to, then flies out at the end. but she is progressing so much. shes said yes to baptism but feels its a big responsibility and doesnt want to rush it. she doesnt realize how ready she is. working on it. another moment that blew me away this past week was lunch at a members house.the grandma, mom, and kids are all super in tune with the spirit. the 9 year old girl came in from a primary activity the stake had. we asked how it went. she talkd about the activity and then mentioned a video they watched at it and said ' when i watched it i felt something..i dont know how toexplain it but i really felt something' then just walked away casually....spiritual GIANTS here . oh did i mention this girl is also the ward pianist and plays all the hymns without making a mistake? 

my favorite miracle of th week is ENRIQUE . enrique approachd us on the street three weeks ago. he said excuse me do you have information? which as you can guess kind of threw us off. when he clarified ´'info about your church' we wer so excited! i guess he had been listening to the missionaries 5 years ago and lost contact with thm.  for whatever reason the info he gave us that day wsnt correct would you believe three weeks later he approached us i the SAME PART OF THE STREET?! ENRIQUE! we shouted. he couldnt believe we remembered his name haha of course!!! we have been teaching him at the chapel and oh my gosh he is just SO receptive to everything. he wants to know all about the book of mormon how it came to be, etc. we were reading together the brief explanation about the book of mormon and he woud ask a question and we woud clarify and he would kind of do this laugh and then say ´´ok ok´´ and keep reading with his finger going along the words. each sentence for him is literally like TREASURE. he keeps saying i have read the bible but i had never heard of all these prophets (in the BOM) before. he is just a happy soul, lessons with him are the best.

one last exciting thing thats happening is we are going to teach ENGLISH!!! Were hoping to teach two times a week. i know this will be a wonderful tool for bringing members together, as well as meeting new contacts. we need to find a place big enough to fit everyone!!!

well dont have much time today but i LOVE the mission. the days literally fly by because we are on the lords errand and amazing things happen. yeah sometimes annoying or disheartening things happen, but its easy to have a good outlook when you remember why youre here. i am definitely changing into a more patient person. i really like this quote from joseph smith

"I am a rough stone. The sound of the hammer and chisel was never heard on me until the Lord took me in hand. I desire the learning and wisdom of heaven alone."

Everyone is in progress. Don't get discouraged. Pray for the things you can't do on your own and the Lord will answer. Until next week!

Awesome flower

Tortillas in towels in the GAS STATION

Opening her FIRST PACKAGE

WEEK 11

"My District- there are transfers tomorrow so people will be different! They are all wonderful!!!"

Wow this week was crazy! I did so much I truly didnt think i could do. It started last Tuesday when we had a sudden meeting as a Zone. In this meeting they told us the next day we would be teaching at FSY (formerly EFY, not sure if they changed the name in the States too?). This is a program for teenagers thats a week long to boost them spiritually. We found out it would be for two hours....we figured that was a rotation...nope, same group of kids for 2 hours. Ohhhhkay! Also, as missionaries we plan in the morning, but we found out the activity would be the following morning. Allllright! 

FSY!

After that meeting it was just a tiring day. TONS of walking, we paid to get to the chapel for a meeting that didnt happen, and the sun here has been really strong , I miss the rain like crazy (were near the equator, so even when the temps arent high it feels really hot). I also had a lot of bug bites. I can tell im developing a missionary sense of humor (ive been avoiding this) because I joked that after they send the schedule around to feed us in Relief Society, they send a schedule around for which type of bug is going to feed off of me. The mosquitos took July for sure.  A member started freaking me out that they were from fleas because I had touched a dog (I have not done this since, believe me). That night I just could not sleep, I was tossing and turning thinking about the activity, the bugs, it was so hot you could roast an egg on my bed, etc. I woke up every hour. The next morning we did the best we could to plan some way to make our 2 hour lesson fun for the kids. I actually LOVE this kind of thing, dont mind speaking in church or at school..but call me crazy, its usually in my native language! Well we got there and I was just so amazed at all the effort everyone put in to make it a good experience for these kids. I realized how lucky I was to go to dif EFY locations, here they go to the chapel, and they had to divide some of the larger rooms with tarps to fit all of the kids. But it was the same spirit there. It made me even more nervous because I STILL remember some of the amazing experiences I had at EFY, and I didn{t want to let the kids down. We started off by singing the sisters in zion/army of helaman duet, with the counselors, and when all the elders walked in singing it was so awesome looking. Super easy to not cry. Well finally we got to our room and we were assigned....15  year old boys!!! Whew talking to 15 year old boys about religion for two hours in a new language with their counselors watching in the back is literally one of the most terrifying things ive ever done, i was shaking. i could even tell my trainer was nervous. As soon as we got going it went super well. I was really impressed that the boys participated, and they really liked our demonstrations, and even laughed at our lame attempt to be funny in Spanish. When I got out of that room I experienced the most amazing feeling. It was relief, strength, and the Spirit all at once. I knew that I could do ANYTHING , especially with the Lords help. I ran over to  Hermana Dalrymple and of course she took the words out of my mouth, she said 'everytime i do something on my mission i thought i couldnt, i end up being so glad i did it'

Probably after/before/during the EFY adventure with Hermana Dalrymple

Another challenge that I overcame this week was we did splits with the bishops two daughters. This was different than going on splits with the sister training leader because these girls arent actually missionaries so....I was in charge! Just me and an 18 yr old girl, my trainer was in another part of our area. Our first lesson was with a family we haven{t been able to contact since my third or so day here. I remember the first time there I literally didnt say a peep. This time I taught the full FIRST LESSON, I said the First Vision, and was really pleased with how it all went!!!! I know the Lord was guiding me because I didn{t fumble over any of the words or concepts. Actually we left the house and I was trying to talk to the bishops daughter about it and I kept fumbling over my words. I told her ' see!!! i cant actually speak Spanish like that!' I was being helped in a miraculous way in the lessons that day. 

Hermana Best?

Our latest challenge just happened yesterday. we were sitting down on the curb . We rarely do this but it is just tough fasting as a missionary in the heat and we got a call from our landlord. He is getting divorced and needs to move into our house, which means we need to leave. I cant tell you how much I love our house. It is such a sanctuary at the end of the day. Its clean, we have space, its not much according to american standards, but for puebla mission its super nice. So here we are now, house hunting for the SECOND time since I got here in June (this is not the usual). Its really tough moving in a foreign country...with no car....with furniture and a fridge and everything...and the last time we moved, the 1st counselor helped us and hurt his arm and its been in a sling for four weeks and we wince every time we see him haha so...yeah were working on what to do. the key is to have a positive attitude and know that this change is for the better and that we will find a new place. please pray that we can find a new house down here soon so we can get situated and get back to the work!!!

Just sitting on a couch on the curb...

 I know this is long but quick update on our super special family here, the Limon Balbuenas. There was a miscommunication last week and Brenda and her baby are fine! I guess she had a completely awful experience for 8 days at a bad hospital here and they kept her away from her family, and she couldnt eat or drink for days, and they fed the family false info. We went over there and we were SO relieved that her and baby are doing well. THey have a new doctor and she is getting lots of rest. We got to meet her husband,hes normally away for work. wow he is special too. HEs a little goofier than the family, but hes also spiritual. HE had a LOT of questions about missionary life and i think the church has really caught his attention. There were more experiences with him but Ill talk about those next time because this is getting long! Love you all and please continue to email me ! I love my Heavenly Father and my SAvior Jesus Christ. I am being guided to do this work and I don{t ever doubt that.  Mucho amor!!!!

Hermana Best 

"No caption needed"