Birthday nails
Friday, August 29, 2014
August 25, 2014
Hola Familia y amigos!
This week was a really great week and I had a wonderful
birthday! To celebrate my birthday on P-day we took the metro to go to St.
Josephs a huge Catholic church in Montreal with Sister Alvarez and Sister
Orozco and my birthday surprise Sister May who is now Sherice because she is
home from her mission! St. Joseph’s was really neat and crazy to see. They have
frère Andrès heart in side the church for everyone to look at they also have
huge wood statures of all the original 12 apostles.
A cute member for my birthday painted my nails with birthday balloons
and cakes that smelled like lemon mirange pie. I got to eat steak and potatoes
for my birthday and the best part of my birthday was being able to teach lots
of people! I love teaching so much even if it’s in two other languages that
sometimes seem to make no sense!
This week was really great with receiving referrals. A Spanish
family invited another Spanish family over to listen to our message and they
really loved it and joined in on the lesson. It turned out that they have Mormon
cousins and have heard a lot about us. It was really great to see this Spanish
family share the gospel with there friends! We have also been getting like a referral
a day from the Spanish elders in Montréal. They have officially decided that we
are suppose to learn Spanish with now having 13 Spanish referrals we are just
blessed the lord would allows to teach all these people in a language we don’t
know. I have learned a lot lately at how simple the gospel is and that just a
simple testimony of the church and the book of Mormon can bring a spirit that
you can feel so strong.
I know everyone one is starting school soon so I wish you all
lots of luck for this coming year and invite you to share the gospel with as
many people as you can I promise you that heavenly father can give you the
courage to open your mouth and help your friends find this wonderful gospel. I
love you all tons.
-Hermana
Dick
August 18, 2014
Hola!!
Well here it is my last moments of being a teenager! My teenage
years have done me well and I cannot be more thankful for the opportunity to
spend my birthday here serving the lord!!
This week it just poured every day and felt like fall. I’m
not ready for the cold weather already so hopefully Mother Nature changes her
mind! This week we had some really great lessons. Our Spanish lessons are
getting better and better and the members are so helpful coming with us to
teach! One of my favorite lessons this week and probably my mission was when we
were teaching this family from Peru whose son just recently got baptized in the
YSA here. There family is so spiritual and the spirit is always strong, but as
my amazing companion testified of the plan of salvation and that families can
be together again forever I felt like my heart was going to give out the spirit
was so strong. The wife told us as she looked down of our diagram of the plan
of salvation that she knows what we just taught her is true because a few years
back she had a bad accident and she says she had an out of body experience
where she could see her body and she says she knows that we have a spirit and
that after we die we go to the spirit world. Her testimony was so powerful and
helped me strengthen my testimony of the wonderful plan heavenly father has
given us!
Me and my companion have been trying to ask everyone for
baptism dates to help them better work towards that covenant with heavenly
father and this week we have had many miracles and were able to have seven
people with baptism dates. Its so wonderful to see people earnestly seeking to
follow Jesus Christ and be baptized!
This week I was reading a talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf
called waiting on the road to Damascus and I read something that I loved and I
want to share it.
"Often, the answer to our prayer does not come while we’re
on our knees but while we’re on our feet serving the Lord and serving those
around us. Selfless acts of service and consecration refine our spirits, remove
the scales from our spiritual eyes, and open the windows of heaven. By becoming
the answer to someone’s prayer, we often find the answer to our own."
Go out and serve!!
I love you all so much
-Hermana Dick
Monday, August 11, 2014
Bonjour Familia
Wow this week was crazy! On Monday and Tuesday we went around to
all the members so Sister Alvarez could say her goodbyes to everyone. This ward
has fallen in love with this amazing sister with the 9 months she has served
her. They were all sad to see her go, but they know she will continue to do
amazing things in her mission and life. On Wednesday we headed to Montreal for
transfers. There were so many missionaries there because 32 missionaries left
the missions and 20 new missionaries came in. The missionaries who were
training a new missionary got training from President Patrick. He explained to
us with all these missionaries leaving the mission the missionaries that are
now coming in are the new generation of the mission so don’t screw it up... ha-ha
no pressure ;) All the nervous missionaries came in and they assigned them with
their trainer and area. I received SISTER DAVIS from Colorado Springs! The
first thing I asked her was is there by any chance you speak any Spanish.. She
laughed and said uh.. Hola ha-ha well there you go two gringas teaching Spanish
here! My companion is amazing I swear she has served a mission already and
president sent her here to train me! Her French is so amazing and we have to
convince people that she only just started learning French. These past few
transfers I have been praying to be a consecrated missionary and god has
answered my prayers by giving me a consecrated companion. She has taken the
challenge of learning Spanish and has been memorizing Spanish verbs every
second she has. I love the GREENIE fire it’s the best!
The biggest thing I have learned this week is the gift of
tongues! As soon as I was there with my new companion it was like I could
understand everything in Spanish and in French. Our first Spanish lesson we
just sat there as the spirit taught the lady and she just sobbed and answered
back questions we weren't even asking her!
We called president to ask him if we could have any Spanish
material to at least help us learn Spanish with something. He laughed and said
yes I was kind of wondering why the spirit was leading me to put two gringas in
a Spanish area, but the lord kept directing me to put you both there so it must
be for a good reason! It gave us a great push to know that the lord knows we
can do our best her!
On Saturday the ward put on their big activity of the year
called the ephuchette de blé d'Inde in other wards a big corn party! They had
lots of activities and corn eating. It was a blast and so many members came
with there friends! After a full day of it both of our heads and tongues were twisted
from speaking so much Spanish and French with everyone.
I love this mission! Sometimes I really wonder how God knows I
can managed to TRAIN in Spanish and French, but I know I’m going through a time
where I will be able to learn so much! I love you all so much lots of love from
CANADA
Hermana
Dick
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
BONJOUR!
Wow what a week packed full of way to much adventure for a
normal missionary’s life. For our preparation last Monday we went to old
Montreal to see all the beautiful sights down there. It was beautiful for sure
for what we could see through the blasting rain. There is so much history down
there and I felt like I was in a different country.
A really cool miracle that has been happening for a bit
really unfolded this week! This past winter when my companion was on splits
with the young single adult sister training leaders in Montréal she contacted a
young guy who ended up getting baptized well it happened that after he got
baptized he invited his friend to come to church and he ended up getting
baptized!! His friends name is Carlos and he is one amazing person he has only
been baptized for 2 months, but you would of thought he was already a return
missionary. His spirit is so strong and his conversion story of being high on
drugs everyday to a Mormon is amazing. His parents have seen this change in him
and so his dad a couple weeks ago decided to come to our chapel to check out
this place that his son has been so transformed. We were able to set up a
meeting with him this past week and we met with him and his wife with their son
Carlos. The spirit was so strong and Carlos was able to bear such a great
testimony to his parents you could see it touching their hearts. This gave me a
lot of hope for all the people that I have taught whose parents were really
against it that one day their hearts will be soften and they can one day
receive the blessings that their children are receiving.
For the craziest part of the week the story goes as
following! A member had us painting her house and there was a lot of random
objects around the house that the spirit kept telling me that it was just
really hazard to be around it all. I guess we all have to learn to listen more.
Well as my companion was climbing of the ladder she lost her balance a bit and
as she stepped back to help her balance a big sheet of glass was there and it
broke all over the back of her leg. I could tell by her facial expression that
it was No es bueno, as I looked back at her leg it was cut open pretty bad. We
tried to clean it up as best as possible, but the environment was not very
comfortable, so we left. Unfortunately lots of people made some bad judgment
calls so we decided not to go to the hospital and since I’m teaching her to be
a tough cowgirl she just toughen up and we went on to teach the rest of our
lessons that day. The next day we decided it still wasn't getting better so at
10 pm we ended up going to the hospital in Montréal. Well Canada hospitals are
a little different so we had to wait hours to be seen and all the doctor did
was ask how long it had been and with it being 24 hours he couldn't put
stitches in it so after all that we went home at 2 in the morning for me to
play doctor and super glue my companions leg together! It was quite the
adventure that I will not forget.
The next morning was zone conference and with having little
sleep we looked a little like zombies luckily it did not hurt how well I could
feel the spirit. This zone conference was so amazing and I know Heavenly Father
was doing it to pump the mission up for these amazing missionaries coming in
the field. We got transfer calls on Saturday and..... I am TRAINING!!! I am so
excited to train a missionary and be able to help kick start this amazing
missionary. I am scared as well with training in a Spanish/French area in which
I have only been here for 5 1/2 weeks, but I know Heavenly Father knows me lots
better then I know my self. I also have been eating lots of Spanish food so
that I can hopefully reproduce a Spanish baby that can help me with my Spanish
=) we will see on Wednesday who she is. Sister Alvarez is going to the island
of Montreal English speaking, back with the missionary who trained her when she
got on the mission. She will also be a sister training leader. I am going to
miss her so much it’s only been a few weeks together, but it’s amazing how
close you come to your companions here. I know we will continue to bless each other’s
life in the future! I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week.
Love,
Mama
Dick
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