Ice Bucket Shower Challenge

This last week was good... Well all the weeks are good really.

I completed 5 months in the mission this past week! Hna. Vallencia made me a cake and we had like a little party ha. Hna. Vallencia went to the temple this last week so now she is officially an active member and no longer a less active member. Wow its crazy because 4 months ago she was a non-active member of 14 years and now she has a calling in the church, Michelle (her daughter) goes to seminary, Victor (her son) is preparing to receive the priesthood. I really am so happy for her and her family. They are one of my favorite people here. Gosh the church is sooo cool. 

This week for the mission activity we taught the members how to contact their friends and talk to them about the church in a non-threatening way. After we got a ton of referrals so that was sick. Then we played a game where you and your partner are both blindfolded and you have to feed your partner frosting. It was a total mess but tons of fun. I had frosting head to toe after the activity and tons in my hair.

This week we taught one of our investigators Sandra who has a baptism date. We needed to change her date because she didn’t come to church the last week. She got really sad when we told her this and started to cry. After she told us that the day she committed to being baptized her husband told her that he has been cheating on her for 3 months now. In the lesson we had a member named Gris with us. She ended up sharing her testimony and telling Sandra that a similar situation happened with her mother. She told us that when her mother committed to being baptized her father left her and her whole family and how her mom has been an amazing example to her throughout her whole life and how the gospel has blessed her immensely. It was really a bittersweet lesson. This week Sandra came to church and really liked it. The messages really helped her. I really want to help her the most that I can. I don’t know if I will get to see her baptism or not because cambios-transfers are next week and so I wont know if I’m leaving or staying until Saturday. Wow the time just keeps going faster and faster. 

We also had a fireside with President Christensen this week. We brought Omar and Patricia. They both really liked it. There was a great turn out between all the missionaries and their investigators. President asked me to lead the hymns. Ha like out of all the people there who know how to lead hymns he picks the only sister missionary in the world who doesn’t have a darn clue how to lead hymns. Well what can I do? I just fake it, ha. Well by the time I get home let’s hope that I will know how to lead. 

Crisis of my life... well crisis of the week we haven’t had water in the shower for around a week now... you know what that means. BUCKET SHOWERS. Yep that’s right cold bucket showers. Ha, I’ve heard about the "Ice Bucket Challenge" that the celebrities have been doing to raise money… well my shower every day is an "Ice Bucket Challenge Shower". We are hoping for water this next week but honestly what can you do? Its part of the experience, right??? 

Well love you all more then all the dirty dogs here in Mexico.

Xoxo 

HERMANA HAN 

Interesting Lessons

Well this week was full of interesting lessons. Right now we have the most interesting investigators that I have had in all of my mission. One of them is a reference we got from the elders of a man named Omar. 

Anyway we went and taught this man and he is all way gung ho on the church and all. Ha, he is an interesting person. For example in the lesson we where asking him if he thinks the Book of Mormon is true and he was all like "yeah I believe its true because i know God exists because one time I was in a graveyard with a bunch of teenagers and we had a wigi board and I was telling the teenagers nothing is going to happen and then guess what, the wigi board moved". I was like oh brother, then he went on to tell us that he used to be possessed when he was younger. So we are working with him slowly but surely. At the end of the lesson he asked us how much he needed to pay to be a member of the church. He has many questions. Let's just say there is never a dull moment with Omar. 

This week for the mission activity we brought Julianne and Rosie. They are the 2 daughters of the family xoxotla (the mom that has an 18 year old husband) and we brought them to the activity and during the activity one of the daughters Julianne asked me if elder Aguilar could be her boyfriend. The daughters both have 4 boyfriends (2 for romance and 2 for money). This family has many many problems. We found out that they are like a gang family that is in our colonia. They rob, drink, smoke, do drugs and lets just say that the law of chastity is not one of their strong points. But guess what, they are children of god so we are going to keep working with them. In the lesson we straight up asked them if they wanted to change. They have desires to change so we are praying for them lots. We have good lessons with them, usually the kids laugh during the prayers but this week they where reverent so that was a high. 

We also had a lesson with one of our investigators named Jose. We explained to him the apostasy and then asked him, "in your own words what is the apostasy?" He replied by saying the marvelous and beautiful things in the Book of Mormon  I was like 'nope'. Ha, then we taught it again and this time he understood it. Needless to say the second time we taught it very simply using lots of parts of the pamphlets and photos.

We are part of the choir and our choir got invited to sing and a charla where a 70 came to speak. We got special permission from our President to come so it was legit. it was so good and the spirit was so strong and the music was even more on key so that was even better. We also had interviews with our president this week they went well. He asked me where the state of my heart is. It made me think for a while. I've been thinking about it all week. Its a good thing to ponder . 

Well lots of love,

xoxo han

Hard Work

Well honestly this week we worked really really hard but the hard work always pays off right. working hard instead of hardly working...

Well we had a family home evening with the Aragon family. Right now they still don't want to come back to church because they are mad at the members but they love me so that is good. They make clothing for a living so they gave me a pink dress this week so I was stoked about that. We ended up playing big booty with them for the family night game but changed it to Peter, Santiago y Juan. It was a good game, lots of fun.

Well I am getting along great with my new companion. She is super social so we just chat all night long. Sometimes I feel like I am in my dorm room. There is only one thing, ha, during our last companion inventory she was all like " I feel like the district likes you better" and ".. I was like, well, crap, what do I say... I was like nooo Hermana they like us all the same.. then she said... "maybe its because sometimes you wear shorter skirts... haha i almost bursted out laughing, like hunny you should have seen me before in the mission. Ha but yeah all is good. But she did say to be careful with your skirts. But then yesterday she wore a dress that didn't cover her knees because she has gained 10 kilos while being here. So now she doesn't give me crap about my "shorter skirts". She never exercises. Today I dragged her to zumba and i worked out while she sat in a corner. She doesn't mind, she just doesn't want to work out. I have to work out or I will go crazy here with all this pan and tortillas. An elder is going home in my ward so he is trying to get rid of all his stuff and he gave me this super sick jump rope with weights in it, I was super stoked. 

We were out in the street looking for new investigators and I contacted a lady and she told me that we could come back and teach her another day. When we went back to teach her we met her and her 5 kids. Well what I thought was 5 kids was actually something different. Apparently she is married to an 18 year old so yeah she has 4 kids and a confusing marriage I would say. Ha, but they all liked the first lesson and they came to church this week so its all good with me. I'm excited to see how the gospel will change their life. Yeah, but 45 year olds should not be married to 18 year olds, end of story. Its like she's in Relief Society and he's in young mens. They are going to come to the mission activity tomorrow so it should be fun to see how this all works out.

This week I got the package of hot coco mix. I got it during the district meeting and everyone was going crazy. Needless to say I shared but only a little bit. Ha, then they found out it was sugar free but they didn't mind because everything here has way to much sugar. They call agua like flavored water with sugar and if you want regular water you need to say "simple". 

Well I love you all and I'm happy to say that right now that I'm feeling pretty content in my mission.

Happy birthday mom! You are in my thoughts a lot and in all my prayers. Thank you for always being a grand example to me of someone who stands up for what she believes. You never let your beliefs change. You are one of the strongest women I know. Have a great day tomorrow on your birthday and remember your daughter in Mexico loves you more than all the dogs in the street in Mexico. I love you! 

xoxo hna hannah ruthie babes 

Patience is a Virtue

Well this week was literally nuts. I feel like I learned a lot about being patient with myself and also with my companion though.

Well this week it was our turn to plan the missionary activity. The topic was the Book of Mormon so what we did was split the group into 5 sections and assigned each of them a story then we had them act it out without speaking. The stories where: Nephi and his bow, Lehi’s dream, when the Brother of Jared sees the Lord’s finger, when Nephi kills Laban, and the tower of babel. Ha, it was really fun to see everyone act their story out. After we had them explain what we learn from this story. Then we played some crazy Mexican red rover that was slightly dangerous. Guys, seriously it was dangerous because my companion ended up spraining her ankle in this game. 

Yep, so I spoke too soon about having July be a hospital free month. At the hospital they told us that my companion needed to rest for 8 days. I was thinking, “umm, yeah right we are missionaries, we can’t just rest for 8 days.” Yep, patience is a virtue that I feel like l learned this week. Ha, obviously we didn’t sit around for 8 days but we ended up doing divisions (splits) a lot with the members. One day I did splits for the whole day with Stephanie. It was so cool to teach with someone that I had taught the gospel and to see how her testimony grows and grows everyday.

Also this week we changed our casa. We now have a place that has a kitchen and a bathroom that is bigger than a shoebox. On the other hand we still don’t have a toilet seat. The people here just don’t find it as a necessity. We also have tile in our apartment instead of cement which is like a dream come true because now when we pray our knees are much more comfortable.

This week a 15 year old member got invited to a sweet 15 party. She asked me to do her hair and makeup for this party and while I was helping her I totally felt like I was helping Julianne get ready for a dance or something. Ha, after we got her all ready she was showing us all the different types of dances they do at these parties. All I can say is that American’s needs to pick up their dancing game. All we have is this strange fling your arms around and jump. They have real talent. My goal is by the time I get home to know how to dance bachata. My companion told me she would teach me.

Gosh you guys my new comp is the best! We sometimes just stay up talking and the time just flies. She doesn’t know much English at all so I’m going to help her because her not knowing any English has done wonders for my Spanish. She does know and use the phrase "yeah woman" when she’s happy and "freak" when something goes wrong. Ha, all the Latin missionaries use “freak” ha-ha. 

Today we got up and did a zumba class with 2 other hermanas in our stake. My comp is still recovering from crazy Mexican red rover so she just watches us, but yeah the class was literally legit. I felt so white in the class but I just owned it so it was no big deal. We are going to do it next week also. 

During the class I got a call from my zone leaders asking me if I knew how to make crepes. I explained to them how to do it. However they ignored my instructions and just bought pancake mix and watered it down with lots of water. Needless to say, their crepes where not the crème de la crème. Poor Elders... 

Later we went to this fruit juice and sandwich place that we go to every week called jugos locos. A little girl whose parents own the place gave me a drawing of myself last week and this week when we went she had a drawing of me taped to the wall. She told me that it was my new friend and me because I got a new companion. Ha we took a picture with her, she’s so darn cute..

Also just wanted to give a big shout out to the one and only KUSH MORRIS this week. Happy 17th birthday Lukieee! I hope all your dreams come true and that you score 100 touchdowns this year. remember I love you, you are in my prayers, and also your Heavenly Father loves you. Ahh just think next year your could be in México also preaching the gospel to the people. Well, love you. 

Love you all take care. 

hna han