Hola familia!!
How is everyone??? AHHHH!! Guess what! I am in texas!! haha have been for a week now actually. it is great! SO i am in the little town of Donna and Weslaco. haha five miles from the border. I am in MEXICO folks. haha i am in mexico. seriously. It is the best thing ever! We are living with a member. Her name is Hermana Chamberlin. She is a big blond crazy woman! ahh i love her so much. She is a teacher at the little college down here. She has three dogs. yes three. ;) their names are tamryn, luck and sonreisa(which is smile in spanish) and they are crazy! but it is fun. we always know when someone is coming to the door. =D So i am in a sister TRIO!! there are three of us. Hermana Larrabee( one of the sisters in my district from the MTC) and my new trainer! her name is Hermama Sanders. She is from california and she is a work horse. It is great. we are constantly going going going. She has been our for 7 months and is fluent in spanish. so there is hope for me. hha... ya... the spanish i learned in the MTC is not the same as the spanish here. haha people talk to me and i just smile and nod my head and turn to my companion. haha. It is okay. I have been learning SOOOO much. I can understand WAY more today than i could last week. Man i have so much to type! sorry if this email is totes cray cray. I have a million thoughts in my brain.
So- after i call you all we got on a plane and flew to dallas- where i talked to mom and dad again. then we got on another plane to head to the HUGE... haha just kidding- its really small- airport in MCallen. I sat next to another sister that was flying out with us. I don't remember her name. but we had a nice chat and ended up reading our scriptures together. There was an older lady sitting next to her, but she was asleep when we got on the plane. Later she woke up and asked us "oh! what scriptures are you reading?" haha you can imagine our reaction i am sure. "AHH! let me just tell you about this book we have here!!" hahaha It was cool. We ended up talking about the book of mormon. and she said that she had one from a long time ago. so we started talking to her about it a little. then we talked about the bible and her family and why we were 20 years old, and heading to a little southern texas town to serve the Lord. She was very nice and we both got to share our testimonies with her. We left her with a pass along card and i put a scripture from the book of mormon for her to look up in her book of mormon. It was a neat experience. She told us she would say hello if she saw the missionaries in MCallen.
Sooo- after that we jumped off the plane and got our luggage and met our amazing mission president and his wife. we stepped outside and were swimming! Folks- the humidity here is CRAZY. I don't even need lotion really. it is great. It feels like i am breathing in water. And it was hot that first day! man it was hot. We went to the mission office- which is in the stake center in MCallen. and guess what i saw first!! my bike!! and guess what i did?- I started Crying. I don't know if it is because i have to ride it.. or if i was so happy to know it came from home.. haha or what- but i definatley cried. haha it was embarrassing. all these people didn't know what to do with me. It was the good kind of tears though- ha don't worry. I am sure i looked completey crazy. the bike is really great Daddy- you did a wonderful job. Thank you SOOOOOO much for having them put it together for me! man that was the best idea you have every had about bikes. All the other sisters were trying to put together their bikes.. and it was bad. Hermana Larrabee's bike got put together all backwards and it was a mess. I am glad i didn't have to worry about that. so thank you ;) haha i will tell you about our first biking experience soon..
So we met our trainers the next morning (i stayed the night in the mission home with a few other sisters) and we drove to our areas! and dropped our stuff off and started working. We are white washing our area. it is a new area. AND Hermana Sanders is training BOTH of us. SO it has definatley been an experience. oh man. our first contact in spanish was crazy. This lady names FELA, opened her door and started going off in spanish (crazy fast crazy fast) and i probably had the deer in the headlights look. haha it was super nuts. Thank goodness our trainer speaks spanish! that is definatley a blessing. But we talked to her for a while and placed a pamphlet and we are going back tonight to follow up with her. It is crazy how prepared people are! really- the feild is white and ready to harvest. we as missionaries you just have to be obedient, work and work your guts out. The lord does lead us to where we need to go.
So- we have a baptism this sunday!!! it is with a 18 year old girl named Kalena. AHHHH she is so wonderful. She has been coming to church with her Boyfriend, Edward(the bishops son) for the past year. and has her yw award and she is just so strong. She went up to sister Sanders on the sunday before we got there and asked for the lessons. So we met with her on thrusday and committed her for baptism! It is great. You can see the light of Christ in her eyes. I am so excited for the baptism. It is going to be great. And it is going to bless her family so much as well. Since she is 18 now she doesn't have to have her parents permission to get baptized. So she will have a huge influence on her family. It is wonderful. Edward is baptizing her too- so that is really cool.
We have a few other baptism dates as well- but i will tell you more about those next week when they are a little closer.
TEXAS MCALLEN MISSION IS A BAPTIZING MISSION!! We invite everyone to be baptized the first lesson. Ha it is kinda crazy- but people accept. =D
We were on a street to visit another Lady that had a baptismal date from the elders- but she wasn't home- so we decided to knock the doors around her house. We found this woman named Ludivina. She has NINE children. Yes NINE. She is amazing though- you can see the love that she has for her children. Her husband is not with her here in the states anymore... he got had to go back to mexico. So she is raising all her kids and trying to provide for them by herself. We talked about the plan with her and set another appointment to come back. So we went back on saturday and talked with her and her oldest son. Things got a little crazy with all the children running around- so ludivina was super distracted. But her son Amando accepted a baptismal date for the 19th of may! so we are working with him. I pray that they can feel the importance of the gospel in their lives. I know if would help them all SOOOO much.
SO- there are a million wild dogs here. and it is kinda crazy! because they chase the missionaries. and stuff. usually they are behind fences and tied up. but every once in a while we see a scary one that is out and about. don't worry- they haven't chased me yet. haha i just pray that they wont. haha i carry my scripture case out so i can smack them with the Good Word if they get to close. haha seriously. i am close to mexico as white sisters can get. it is awesome.
SO- the thrusday night one of our new neighbors died. The son of this lady named monica overdosed on drugs and passed on. It was really really sad. But she called and asked Jenny Chamberlin(the lady we live with) to come over and pray with her. So we went over with her and prayed with her and talked just a tiny tiny bit about the plan of salvation. It was really humbling. I am so glad that i know the plan, and that i have that hope when people here pass away. Later that night we had some plans fall through, so we ended up back in our neighborhood a little bit earlier than we planned. We saw the sister of the boy who died and some of her friends out front waiting for a ride to a little candle ceremony thing. So we went over and talked to them. We talked about the ressurection and how we can see those that we love again after this life. We prayed with them and gave them a picture of jesus when he was resurrected. They just hugged us and thanked us for coming over to talk to them. It is amazing how the lord leads and guides us to the places that we need to go. We also went to the viewing yesterday. Sister Chamberlin drove us there. When we got there they were playing this crazy music with a picture video playing in the back. The spirit was NOT there. We told Monica that we had prepared a song to sing for them if they wanted to hear one. and she said yes. So we sang abide with me. and said a few words of comfort. It was amazing because you could feel the diferent spirit that came into the room. the boy who died (andrew) had a bunch of friends that were there and they pretty much stopped sobbing. and just listened. It was really humbling. I am glad that i am able to be here, sharing the gospel and helping others. I don't know if we will end up teaching any one else from the viewing- but it was cool to have 3 sister missionaries with our name badges there supporting the family and offering words of comfort.
anyways-AHHH!! I love you alll SOOOOOO much! =D and i am learning so much here! The gospel is what life is all about. Without faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end we cannot make it back to live with our father in heaven again. It is so important that we follow God's plan and apply the atonement in our lives, read the scriptures everyday, pray always, and go to church to take the sacrament each week. I know that by doing those things that we can be closer to our Heavenly father and become more like our savior. I know that all things are possible through the atonement of Jesus Christ. The atonement is what helps us make it through. whether we are dealing with past mistakes or sins, sorrows, illness, trials- whatever it is- if we have faith in Jesus Christ and apply the atonement in our lives we can make it through anything. We can be made clean from our sins. We can find comfort in our trials. And we can do more and go farther than we ever thought we could. It is through our Savior and Redeemer that we overcome the hard things in this world. He has already atoned for everything in our lives. All we need to do is reach out and take his hand.
I love this Gospel! I love my savior! and I love being a missionary!
Have a wonderful week!
Love your favorite Sister Missionary ;)
-Sister Wiser
ps- keep sending everything to the mission home- they have problems with theft around here.
LOVE YOU all!!
PS- you can email me too! i can print off emails and reply to them later!
And feel free to write!! i love getting letters!!
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