Family!!
How is St. George? Is it getting hot yet? Because I´m starting to melt!! The heat if coming in full force and I´m sweating SO much it´s so gross!! But somehow it doesn´t bother me too bad. Being on the mission is seriously such a blessing, because I know it´s hot and the sun here is unreal here, it´s so powerful, but it doesn´t stop us from working!
I´m sad to say that Lulu didn´t get baptized this week and didn´t attend church yesterday, so we´re going to have to wait another week for her to get baptized. But we´re still hopeful with her. She is such a loving, caring person and knows that she needs to get baptized, she just needs to take the leap of faith!! We have a few investigators like this. they all say they know they need to be baptized, they´re just scared to take that little leap of faith! What a difference a small leap of faith can make in a persons life?? So this got me thinking as to what I need to do in this mission. What leap am I not taking that could have such an amazing eternal consequence for me? What are you struggling with, you know you should do it, but you just can´t find the courage to take the leap. I loved the way my dad describes this faith. My dad once compared this to a parachute. We can know that the parachute works, we can have a belief IN the parachute, but do we BELIEVE in the parachute enough that we´ll take the jump? This is such a perfect analogy. We need to take the jump and BELIEVE Christ, not just believe IN Christ. So please pray for our investigators, they're all so close, and if all works out right we could have a baptism every week in April. Ah pray hard!!!!
But this last Saturday they other sisters had a baptism and it was such an adventurer! Can I just say I am so grateful to have lived in Utah where most of the time the baptisms are always organized...this baptism was stressful yet so beautiful! So we show up to set up the chapel for the baptism, open the doors to font and the font had never been drained, and the WHOLE ENTIRE font was covered in bright green nasty mold. That water had been sitting there for about a month and it smelt horrible!!! Great, so we try to drain it and it drains so so slow. So the other hermanas rolled up their dresses and scrubbed that font with a whole gallon of bleach! But when you do any kind of physical labor here you get really hot really fast and Saturday was REALLY hot and humid. Luckily this church has air conditioning...psych! It was broken, oh my word it was so hot!! But that didn´t stop us, we cleaned and cleaned and finished close to on time. We starting filling the font and feeling confident that nothing else could go wrong...psych again! The church runs out of water!!! Who runs out of water?? Ha oh my heck I can´t stop laughing about this day!!! So the font was full enough to baptize, but not enough for this lady to get baptized, because of course she´s the only unusually tall person in Mexico. But it´s good, we´re calm, we have the spirit, it will all work out. People start coming and coming and coming, the room is packed and we have no air conditioning...it was getting a little toasty in there. Then we realized the Elder who was suppose to baptize her wasn´t there. Yeah he was stuck in traffic for a half an hour...oh my word that room got really hot waiting there for an hour. People were getting a little impatient. But luckily the Elder made it and she had such a beautiful baptism...yes they had to baptize her on her knees, but it was so beautiful and the spirit was there so strong!! Baptisms are such an amazing thing!! She has been investigating the church for over 5 months. Her daughter was baptized within a month, and her husband and son are not very happy with her decision in getting baptized, but she did it anyways!! She is such an amazing example for all of us!! And you could feel of her spirit as she bore her simple testimony after her baptism!! I was lucky enough to have taught a few lessons to her and have had a few FHEs with her family!! She is amazing and I am so happy for the other Sisters!! It was such a good day, even though there was so much smelly mold and nothing went as planned, you can never deny that spirit that was there during her baptism. AAAH I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!! And I really am thankful for that adventure, it has given us something to laugh about for the last couple of days!! ha I love my mission!!
Pictures:
1. The kids at the beach love me, they all make me really sad because they literally have nothing, but they´re all so happy and are such an example to me...I love the little kids here because they don´t really care that I can´t speak Spanish, they just want to play tag and that´s one thing I can do is play tag!!
2.This is the Reyes Family, they are the ones that sell tamales and made me eat a chicken chacha...I adore this family, I have found deep in my heart that I can forgive them of that awful experience! :)
3. A member had a German Book of Mormon...so of course I thought of Mom and Dad!!!
H
appy St. Patricks Day everyone!!! Even though they don't celebrate it here, don´t you even worry, I´m rockin´green today!! And happy 3 month birthday tomorrow to my mission!! Holy cow can you believe it´s been 3 months already?? So I survived my first transfer and...I¨M STAYING IN CARMEN!!! Woooo! No one from my district got transferred out so I´m super excited to work for the next 6 months with some of the best missionaries in the mission!!
So to explain my title...we have been studying SO much this week about the first lesson. We are teaching a few very Catholic families as well as a few "TJ"s (Jehovah´s Witnesses). So we have been trying to study the Bible and the Book of Mormon like crazy. This experience has been one of the best so far on the mission! Instead of raising doubts in my head when they argue with us, it just strengthens my testimony ten times stronger that I know without a shadow of a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth today. I know it is the Lord's church and I am on his errand! And as I have testified these truths to these investigators instead of argued or shown them proof in the Bible, a certain kind of spirit settled in and we could tell they could feel something! We got them to agree to another lesson, so apparently we said something right!
With that "scripture power" I´m staying safe from sin, you don´t need to be worrying about that one, and dogs and burrachos (drunks). As we were leaving one of the houses, we headed down the road towards another appointment when we came across a lot of really drunk men. Men in numbers is never a good sign especially when they're drunk and especially when I´m an American "goddess" as I´ve been called. As we approached them they started whistling and cat calling, slowly moving in on us and throwing questions this way and that and I had no idea what they were saying. We both at the same exact time had a feeling to turn around and leave. So we high tailed it out of there and I don´t want to know what would have happened...they give me the heebidy jeebidys!! As we were leaving I literally came within inches of getting my leg bit by a dog. Luckily it was on a leash and only got a hold of my skirt. Had I walked 2 inches closer to that dog, it would have gotten a hold of my leg. I have many experiences like this everyday where I know the lord is protecting me. As long as I live worthy and work hard, I´ll be protected from all of the dogs and burrachos in Mexico!
Good news! Lulu is still on track for her baptism this Saturday and we have a few who are so close!! So please please pray for them! I love you all so much and I hope this letter finds you all doing well!
con mucho amor,
Hermana Pasley
P.S. I´m sorry I can´t send any pictures! This internet is too slow, I have so many I want to send, but I literally can´t!!
Hola Hola!!
How are we all?? I hope you´re all doing well with whatever you may be doing!!
So this week...has been so good, but so awful all at the same the time. Let me explain, before you think I´m a miserable sorry missionary, because I´m not! This week I can finally feel myself being fully adjusted to the work and have found myself forgetting myself with has been such a great blessing. I have found the more time I focus on my investigators, the happier I am and the faster time passes. Time is flying here, it´s crazy!!
So I´ll start with the bad and end with the good! Bad...well not bad because that is negative...my totally "sick" adventures for the week :) So I woke up bright and early Monday morning to my middle left finger HUGE and FAT!!! Yep, turns out I had an infected finger. It was disgusting and a lot of nasty stuff was leaking out of my finger all week! Yuck!! But luckily one of the sisters in the ward is a doctor so she got me a prescription that night and my finger is pretty much back to its normal size. Then Friday night happened...probably the worst food poisoning ever!! All night I couldn´t stop throwing up and into the morning. But after I slept for a few hours, I felt much better and was out working that afternoon. A blessing of the mission, the only time you actually feel better when you work! My body ached and I was pretty weak, but as I worked that night and tried to focus on others I didn´t feel sick! Being a servant of the Lord is such a blessing!!
But enough with that, I don´t want to relive that night again!! Now for the best news...ONE OF OUR INVESTIGATORS HAS A DATE!!!! WOOOOOO for Hermana Lulu!! Lulu has been investigating for about 3 months and has had some fear about joining because of some members who aren´t really living the life they should be. But as we have worked with her and helped her to know how to truly pray, she is literally changing before our eyes!! We have a few more investigators that have some promise so we´re excited!! We have one 14 year old boy who refused to get ash on his head at his church last Wednesday because he´s determined to become a Mormon!! How cute is that!! The people here are so humble and so loving and trusting! I´m honestly starting to love these people!!
Like I said, I am starting to see the beauty in the people and Mexico in general! The other night we went to the neighborhoods by the beach. That beach is actually really pretty and not too dirty, but the people there are SO poor. So poor. It breaks my heart to see these people suffering when I have so much. In these streets we see some pretty interesting things, things that make me so sad that Satan has such a grasp on this world. But as we were leaving that area, we were blessed with the most BEAUTIFUL sunset I have ever seen!! I have moments like this, simple little miracles that bring happiness to my day! It made me realize that the beauty in this world is much greater than the evil. We that fight for the good will come off as conquerors because of the Restoration! Yes, I´ve seen a lot of evil in this world, especially in the poverty struck areas, but I´ve also seen much beauty!! This world is filled with so much light and happiness because we have the Gospel in our lives. That´s why we must share the Gospel with everyone we meet. We can bring even more light to this world as we share the Gospel and give more people the opportunity to see the true beauty in this world!! I´m glad that I live in this beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me!!
So I invite you all to share the Gospel! Every member a missionary! We need you big time in this work :)
I love you all and hope this letter finds you doing well!! xoxo
Con amor,
Hermana Pasley
Hola!!
Man oh man time is flying by!! It´s Monday again already!! This week has been SO awesome! We had a conference with Elder Valenzuela of the 70, and it was exactly what our whole zone needed!! He chastised us, but in such a loving way, it lifted our spirits and we´re more motivated then ever to get to work! The First Presidency has challenged us to have a baptism every week. EVERY WEEK!!! How amazing is it in Mexico, that that is a realistic goal!! So we´re going to work, we´re working harder than ever with our investigators and praying to have a baptism every week. We don´t have one this week, but in 2 weeks we´re hoping to have 2!! But Elder Valenzuela told us not to think we are failures if we don´t have a baptism every week. People have their agency and as long a we do everything we can, the Lord will be pleased! That man is truly inspired, he and his wife shared things that touched all our hearts!! It was so great!
So I have some sad news...Steven (our salamader) died 3 nights ago!!! We found him dead on the floor in the morning, and I have to say I´m to miss the little guy. Yes it will be nice to shower in private now, but his presence truly is missed. We held a service for him that morning, I tried to choke out a few words, but it was too hard. The only thing I could do was throw a few flowers on his little grave, and to add to the dramatics...I´m not even lying it started raining!!! Ha it was a good morning! Hermana Riedelbach and Hermana Gonzalez moved in with us and we are having a really good time together. Hermana Riedelbach is from Provo and Hermana Gonzalez is from Guatamela. We all get along really well and the nights are always a good laugh! We found a HUGE spider in out house and we chased it all over with a mop for about 15 minutes trying to kill that little demon. Ah it was SO gross!! Another adventure, I ate octopus tacos...and they were SO good!! I was a little worried at first, but they were so good!!
The spanish is still far from perfect, but I am seeing improvements and I´m starting to get compliments from the members that it´s improved. Whew things are looking up!! The ward is starting to warm up to the idea of american sisters too! At first they weren´t very friendly but honestly these people aren´t very hard to win over!! Ha they are the most loving people and are always willing to listen to my broken spanish!! My favorite is Hermana Del Toro, her family LOVES Disneyland, and that is definitely something I can relate with! Hermana Del Toro is friends with people in St. George and has actually been to St. George. She went on and on about Cafe Rio, how disgusting it is and how its not real Mexican food. She is right, the food is much better here, but I still love me a Cafe Rio salad! Now that I have a grip on things here, it is much easier to communicate and try to relate to the people here. It is becoming much easier and I am so much happier!!
Me and Hermana Riedelbach also have a lot of fun with the burrachos (drunks) in the streets. We get whistled at constantly and cat called...at first I found it offensive because I am not a dog...I am a daughter of God!! Ha but now we have a contest to see who gets the funniest line. I won the other night when one yelled "I love you sweetheart" in english in a super thick accent. Me and my companion couldn´t stop laughing!! The burrachos are pretty entertaining to talk to! Ha my life is an adventure everyday!
Miracle of the week: we have a golden investigator Hermana Lulu. She is progressing so much and we can literally see her faith growing! But she was living with a return missionary, who actually referred us to her, but she was living with him!! He was an idiot (can I say that as a missionary? I mean it in a Christ like way of course!!). Anyways, that was the one thing holding her back, so we have been fasting and praying for something to happen to help her kick him out of the house. Yesterday we stopped by her house, and she told us he left her for another girl. I didn´t show it on the outside, but I was doing a little dance inside my mind! We were literally going to teach her the Law of Chastity that night and our job got made 100x easier!! Wooooooo We´re hoping to have a baptism in the next week or two!!! God is great! I know this church is true and I love my Savior with all of my heart!! Adiou!! (people on the island mix adios and adeiou (french, i don´t know how to spell it) it´s so funny!!
Hermana Pasley
