The whole family including the dog!

This week was a good and interesting one as usual. My companion and I bonded which was a blessing. 

Mom, I got your package from the office this week and I opened it right there and everyone was like watching me open it.  I shared some of the mints with them. Thank you so much, it made my week. Seriously, it was just what I needed. 

This week one of the less active families who we have been working with came to church. The whole family came which was so great because maybe one or 2 of them usually come but never the whole family. They all came including their dog Kelly, a chihuahua. Yep, the dog came to sacrament meeting and participated in the sacrament. I looked over and saw the dog eating the bread. I was like what, where am I right now? Ha. After the meeting I was talking to the mom of the family and she was like well our dog is Mormon also. I was like well good for them they are working on their family unity, right? Ha. 

As for Conchita, we helped her and she told us that she wants to come to church with us next week. Let’s hope that her cancer doesn’t keep her from coming to church. She is really so sweet she came to the relief society activity this week so that was a blessing for sure. 

Also another less active boy in our ward asked us if he could teach a class in church so we let him teach our gospel principals class. It went great and he told us that he wants to be the prophet, ha. He is a good kid. He is like 12 years old and he very well could be a prophet when he grows up, he is a great kid. 

Today we went to Costco. Ha, I felt like I was in America. It was so weird but yeah it was a good time. We went with Hermana Dapper and Hna. Jensen

Oh yeah I almost forgot my companion has a cold so I have been taking care of her and one day I was like shower and then we can dry your hair. So after she got all dressed I told her she could use my hair dryer then she told me that she didn’t know how to use a hair dryer. Not to worry though I taught her how to use it and now she is an expert. 

Ha, well love you all.

xoxo Hna. Ramirez

Elderes y Hermanas,

Ya estamos en la quinta semana del cambio, por lo cual seguimos motivandolos a través de las experiencias que al contactar tenemos como misioneros  cada día. En esta oportunidad la hermana Ramirez nos comparte siguiente experiencia:

"Como cualquier día normal en la calle. Nuestra meta era poder contactar a todas las personas que encontráramos. Contactamos una persona en la calle que  nos dijo que era miembro. Ella se llama Judith. Pero ya tiene muchos años que no asiste. Pusimos una cita con ella, pero nunca la hemos encontrado en su casa. Hablamos con los miembros acerca de ella y nos dijeron que ella tiene una hija que no es miembro. Fuimos a su casa pero nunca encontramos a ninguna persona en ese lugar. Después de encontrarla la invitamos a una actividad y le dijimos que llevara a su hija. Pero nos comento que  su hija siempre esta ocupada y casi nunca estaba en su casa.
Estando contactando este lunes en las calles cerca de su casa vimos a una joven que se acercaba a nosotras y decidimos contactarla, sin saber quien era ella. Resulto ser la hija de la hermana Judith y ahorita por fin tenemos la oportunidad de poder trabajar con ellas porque tenemos una cita este sábado.

Esto nos ayuda ver la importancia que tiene el  poder Hablar con todas las personas con las que nos encontramos todos los días. Testificamos que si nosotros hacemos esto siempre tendremos la bendición de poder ayudar a otras personas y sobre todo  traer almas a Cristo. Tengamos el valor de Abrir nuestras bocas en todo momento". 

-Hermana Ramirez 

Agradecemos a la Hermana Ramirez por esta buena experiencia que nos compartió. Esperamos que cada uno de nosotros sigamos abriendo nuestras bocas para compartir lo que sabemos que es verdad y que podamos cumplir con las metas que tenemos en nuestro distritos. Nuestro Padre Celestial confía en nosotros, nunca lo olviden.

Atte.

Elder Rodriguez y Elder Warren

Día de los muertos

Well fam and friends this week was a good one like usual. 

Here in México it was día de los muertos. They have like these little tables (altars) filled with food and flowers and fruit and just a bunch of random things, and they believe that the person who died will come and eat it. They say that the dead come and eat the food and that is why it tastes different after. It really is kind of sweet. They just believe that the dead are still living and that’s something that we believe also only we know that our family and friends are in the spirit world.

This week all the missionaries had to go and get flu shots at the offices. It was a little bit interesting.  Hermana Dapper was the one who was giving all the shots and I was like Dapps you cant give me a shot. Ha she did though. She told me if I moved she was going to kill me. I didn’t move and all went well. I am healthy and don’t have any sickness, so yeah. Also we are still going to the gym here. It is nice and I love to run. I’m like running faster than when I played soccer which is kind of a bummer. But, what can you do? 

We also had our first ward activity. Yeah this ward doesn’t really do activities so we the missionaries organized one. It was really fun. We had 5 rooms. The first was pre-earth life, which the primary was in charge of. They sang I lived in heaven and I am a child of god. Then we had earth life and the young men had a little presentation. Then the young women were in charge of the 3 reigns of glory. They did a great job. After we played minute to win it games. They were really fun and we had a great turn out, like 150 people came which was awesome because the most I’ve ever seen in sacrament meeting is like 70, ha. It was fun though. Oh yeah, we have these Americans in our ward, ha random, right? But they made the dinner so we had pasta salad and bread. It was good, ha. A joven (teenager) from our ward on Sunday bore his testimony about how he loved the activity and he felt the spirit. So yeah, mission accomplished.  

We also had interviews with our president this week. I really felt like Pres. C knew me a lot better in this interview. He told me that my Spanish is really good and that I’m the kind of missionary that all mission presidents want. I’m sure he says that to everyone but it made me feel good. We had a really good talk about how if we want to live in the celestial kingdom we need to live that way now. He invited us to be better. Because as imperfect people we can always be better, right?' Also we had mini interviews with Hna. Christensen and she was really happy with how I have been helping my companion learn English. She also gave me a big old hug. Gosh I love Pres. C and Hna. C its going to be sad to see them leave. Well we don’t have to think about that now. 

Today we went to Fuertes, a really pretty park that over looks all of Puebla, and we had lunch there. It was a pretty chill Monday but I felt like I really needed it. 

I kept thinking about how you guys are all eating pumpkin bread and made me kind of sad. Eat that pumpkin bread and think of me. We do have día de los muertos bread and its better then pumpkin bread. Oh who am I kidding? No its not. I take it back. Ha, I love you all. 

xoxo Han 

All is good in Puebla

This week had its ups and downs but yeah all is good here in Puebla.

This week we had a family home evening with a family from our ward and they invited a less active member Nelly and her husband Eduardo. Things went well during the family home evening and we talked about faith. He accepted to listen to the lessons and read the Book of Mormon. He said the closing prayer. It was a little interesting during the prayer because he was like praying to us, me and my companion. Well needless to say we will be teaching prayer at our lesson with him this week

This week we got a special assignment from Hermana Christensen. She called me and well here is a little back story first...

There is a woman named Conchita and she is around 35 years old. Hermana Christensen and President Christensen taught her around 2 years ago. During that time she and her 3 kids were all ready to be baptized. Her husband on the other hand was not really so much of a fan of the church. Right before she had the opportunity to be baptized she got diagnosed with cancer, leukemia. Needless to say she had a hard two years of living in and out of the hospital. She went through rounds and rounds of chemo. Fast-forward 2 years to now. She is now stable and this week she has been taught the gospel and would love to be a member of the church but is scared if she joins her husband will leave her. President and Hermana C started teaching her again this week. Hermana Conchita and her family live in our ward but they live in the Elders area so we haven't ever gotten to know her. Well any who back to the phone call.

So I get a phone call from Hermana Christensen asking me if I would accept the assignment to help Conchita. She asked me if I could get our ward all organized and excited about helping her. I was so down for the assignment and I accepted it will glee. We got it going right in that moment. I got a calendar and went and visited Conchita for the first time and started asking her what days we could help her. She told us that we could come back on Friday and help clean her house and wash her dishes.

Fast forward to Friday. This is when we really got to know her and boy is Hermana Conchita just a gem. She is so sweet and so strong. We cleaned her house and washed all her dishes and then we talked for a while. I feel like I just connected with her from right off the bat. She started to tell us about her cancer. Then she asked me if I knew anyone who had cancer . I told her that my grandmother has breast cancer. When she heard that she wanted to know everything so we sat there talking about the trials and hardship of cancer. I then told her my grandmas goal is to dance at my wedding, ha. She then asked me when I was getting married, ha. I told her not for a long time. She then grabbed my hand and said your grandma is really strong. I told her that she was really strong. This Wednesday we are going to wash her clothes. im really excited to have to opportunity to get to know her more.

Also this week the random guy that contacted us a couple weeks back who was looking for his girlfriend/cousin found us again one day when we were studying in the park. He told us that he found his girlfriend but that things are not going to work out. He then went on to tell us that he has been doing good and has just been living the life of rock and roll and we are always invited when we want to come live with him. Then he pulled out this giant knife that was double sided and started telling us about how he has this scary looking knife to protect himself. He also showed us some asian throwing stars. Yeah, needless to say we peaced-out of that park quick. He is a nice guy just a little strange.

Ahh, mama drama. Our best investigator and her daughter have been fighting a lot lately and we have been working with them so much like maybe 4 times a week. Anywhoo we went to their house on Sunday to get them to come to church and the Mom Norma told us that she was leaving Puebla because she couldn't live with her daughter anymore with all these problems. I felt so sad she was going to be baptized in November and she was making so much progress. I always felt the spirit so strong in our lessons but let's just hope and pray that she can find the missionaries and be baptized in another time in her life.

Well Halloween is this week, no?? We have a ward mission activity on Halloween, ha. Its a dinner but the theme is the plan of salvation. It has nothing to do with Halloween but who knows maybe we can sneak a little Halloween spirit into our dinner. This week is día de los muertos so yeah its going to be kind of out of control but it should be a good week.

Love you all and miss you like no other.

xoxo hna han

Chocolate skulls for día de los muertos.

These took the place of real skulls when the Spanish colonists told the indigenous peoples of Mexico they could no longer dig up their dead to celebrate this holiday.

Mexicans now use chocolate or sugar skulls to decorate their altars.

Followers

This week was a good one just like all the other ones in the beautiful city of Puebla. We had intercambios (splits) this week and I left the area with Hna. Martinez, ha. She’s my sister training leader and we had a good day together. It was her birthday. The Elders in her ward surprised her and brought her a cake and so we had cake. Intercambios are so fun they are like mini sleepovers. We went to this member’s house and she gave us a bunch of clothes which was so funny a lot of them had shoulder pads and where just dreadful but there were also some hidden gems in the huge pile of clothes. 

This week we also had a meeting for the new missionaries and their trainers to see how we were all doing. I’m not a perfect missionary but at the meeting I was glad to see that we are being obedient and doing the things that we should be doing. I got to see my old companion Hermana Lopez there at the meeting and she was like, "everyone this is the most crazy missionary in the whole mission." Ha. I love her to death she is such a sweet heart. I also got to meet her new companion and all the people who are now serving in my old ward Loma Florida. I only told them about 4 million times to take care of my area, ha. It was weird to see the new American sisters and to have them ask me questions like how long did it take you to learn Spanish?? I was like hunny what are you talking about, I’m still learning Spanish ha. Its nice to be able to see (hear) that yes I don’t have perfect Spanish but I am making progress (SHOUT OUT TO Hermana Larsen you will be speaking fluently in no time). At the meeting I got put in charge of finding an area for the American sisters to watch the women’s conference on Saturday so I had to call all the American sisters and let them know that we would be having it in the stake center. 

The next day was the conference and so I had to get there early to set it all up but the mission secretaries weren’t there to open the offices for us. I quickly called the secretaries to ask them were they were. They told me they ran to office depot to buy a printer but that they should be there in no time and that I shouldn’t worry. Well long story short, 45 min later they came to the offices. One of the other American sisters was kind of upset and kind of started fighting with the secretaries. The secretaries then said, "would you like to be a secretary" she responded by saying " yeah and I would do it right and be one time". That’s about the biggest drama I’ve seen in weeks, sad but true. Ha, but it was shocking. 

We finally got in and were able to see the women’s conference. Honestly it made me miss the temple and want to go a.s.a.p. Well I can in one year, ha. I loved Elder Uchdorf’s talk especially the end that talked about how we are daughters of God and it doesn’t matter how many followers we have on instagram or any of that stuff. That was definitely one of the things that I used to worry about. Being on my mission has changed my mind completely on this subject. I honestly love the person I am. Yes I know I have many faults but the fact that I know who I am and how I can improve makes me feel happy and confident in myself. 

Sunday was the primary program and it was legit. They had like flowers, candy and cake and everything. Ha, it was cute and we had one of our investigators and her little daughters come to church and she loved it.

I’m so stoked for conference! 

Also a shout out to Tanya Buck.  Happy Birthday to the best aunt in the whole world. I CANT WAIT TO BE BESTIES AGAIN IN A YEAR. You are such a huge example to me. I love you more than you know. Keep it fresh as always.

Love you all be good, know you are in my thoughts and prayers

xoxo Hna Ruthie-Babes