Week of the Awesome Worstness

Soo this week was good. It got pretty rough, but there were some
really good parts. Church was good, we got a new branch mission leader
and so he's cool, I like him.

Okay, I don't know if this is in order but this is what I remember. Hahaha

Pdays always good because we play soccer, so that's good. Soccer
always helps. So does Bob Dylan. We left the apartment and it had been
whatever, and I was kind of singing "How does it feel??!!" Pretty loud
and some awesome black guy in his car was like "sing it to me!" And my
comp got in the car and left me in that awkward situation by myself
hahaha but it was cool, we're  friends now, he was changing his tire,
he woke up with a flat tire. And he was in such a good mood
#inspiration, I'll have to baptize him. He was awesome, we had a good
chat.

Um, so wednesday? Arandi is getting baptized saturday, and I was like
freak man, I texted you last week and you said you would let me know,
so I texted Elder Silva again and he said no, they actually dropped
her. So wow. Dagger to the heart. That really sucked. She's just
another one of the people I super loved that I had on date who was all
ready to go, got transferred, and the next missionaries dropped them.
Yeah sure, they receive revelation for that area now, but it really
sucks leaving people that you've helped grow and change, and then the
next ones come in and are like ehhh, no, never mind. Marcos and
Ivet-dropped, all the Maldonados Family members-dropped, Jose
Villa-dropped, and now Arandi-dropped. Ugh. Just really hard to trust
sometimes.

So that day started that way, plus we were sick-ish, I actually hurt
my foot on pday hahah so I was like hobbling around, And it's end of
the month, watching miles and trying to walk more, so yeah. Basically
I was really mad/sad. How could someome who had come to church twice,
come to baptism, read the whole Book of Mormon be Dropped??!!!!

So we drove to our lesson, I had a nice cry in the car. Got out.
Walked to go meet our sort of investigator who works with the ehhh
overly nice member who gave us watermelon last week. And our
investigator -bless him-the first thing he does is ask if I'm okay,
why I had been crying, who had done it, (looks at my companion
hahaha), he called me "mi hija" which like almost made me cry again
hahaha, it just means my daughter, but he said it so nice, and I was
already a wreck hahaha, and so then I kind of explained the situation
and I think the whole thing went really well to strengthening our
relationship with him, and although we didn't really teach anything,
it was pretty awesome.

Then we found Jose!!!! Yay!!! We were walking down the street, decided
to walk to see someone, got to their door, changed our mind, walked
back down the street, went to try Jose ans he was there!! With two of
his friends from work!! So we totally taught all three of them! It was
way cool!! They were all drinking, but hey, haha, we'll take it. We
all talked, and then they were like alright, it's your turn to talk,
so I asked them if they knew what a prophet was, so we had a nice talk
about prophets, then they told my comp it was her turn, she asked them
if they knew what their life purpose was. It was so legit. This is all
outside at like 8:30 at night in the dark drinking mexican soda-or
beer in their case hahah-and it was just so cool. And we have a return
appointment so hopefully that works out. So that was Wednesday.

Thursday we had an awesome district meeting on being grateful and it was
really cool. I love district meetings. I also love my district.
Districts are the bomb. Zones are cool and stuff, but Districts are
where it's at.

Friday we had return appointments with Gilberto(lunch break
investigator who called me mi hija) and he stood us up. We waited for a
half hour. That sucked. Had a member present planned at 7 with Jose
who we'd talked to and called to double check. Stood up us and our
member.

But then we went to correlacion and our new leader is cool, the Elders
were coming late from an appointment, and they came in wicked happy
because they'd just gotten someone on date!!! It's another Jose haha
but all his friends are members-really well fellowshipped, amd he
accepted a date in 2 weeks!!!! This branch hasn't had a baptism in like
9 months? I don't know. It's awesome. They're so pumped. Elder
Ortega's first baptism in the mission, and Elder Jensen has been here
for these like 9 months or whatever, so that's awesome. Baptisms get
everyone excited in the ward. And we also had a branch bbq, but it
turned out to be like 2 families hahaha, the kid getting baptized, his
sister and her friend and we all played volleyball. It was cool. I
hate pros clothes. But whatever, We played hardcore, my comp dived for
the ball in a dress hahaha.

Sunday was good, everyone received the counsel to show more
affection to your spouse in public? And how we all need to get married
stat? Haha cool cool. That was sacrament meeting and combined third
hour. Us poor missionaries. Hahaha, we were all like uhhh can we
leave? And then Hermano Hernandez was like hey Hermanas, you look for
your princes among the browns too, not just the whites hahahahha.

And now it's pday again, and I tried to make arroz con leche but I
think I need to practice my skills. Life is good, we have two families
we have pass off lessons with from the elders this week so that's WAY
exciting. Families!! One is a part member, and the other is just
investigating. I won't drop them, that's for sure. Gotta go. LOVE YOU
ALL!!!!

This is Adan and he loves me. He doesn't love mycompanion. Hahahaha


Hermana McCloud

The Transfer Snuck By Again

Wow. The weeks are like days, for real. So our ward mission leader got released which was really sad because he's the best, but he's our new second councilor!! So yay! He's so awesome. His family is the best, their little son and I are best friends now. I think he's 4 or something. District Meeting was really good too. We read a talk by Elder Holland called the miracle of a mission. Everyone go read it!! It's awesome. It just helps you realize what you want for your mission, because so much of the mission is what you decide to do and get from it. That's what it did for me at least. And then we did a little exercise thing, where we had to write down what we felt about our missions if we had to go home tomorrow. Like could we say we'd done our best everyday, had we learned anything about using the Atonement, did we love our companions and the people? It was way cool. It was an awesome wake up call/motivational spiritual experience. Then after thinking about how much it would suck to have to go home early we wrote down what we would like to say about our missions. It was awesome. The atonement makes everything possible!! Also had exchanges and that was awesome. Things I learned: Repentance is the Plan!!! It is not the back up plan!!! Wow. So cool. Also there was something else....but um, I promise I wrote it down in my journal. Hahaha. Anyway. Exchanges are awesome. The mission is awesome. The elders were early for a dinner appointment in our area, knocked a door, got let in, got us a return appointment, and we went and taught her family and she is awesome!!!! miracles!!!! I love the mission. It's hard, you have to keep moving through, no matter if you don't have people, or don't feel inspired or anything, just keep going! :) it's all good.

Sunday Fun Stuff

So this week was good. We had zone conference and that was Great!! As
always. I love meetings like that-just missionary meetings, because
you know that it's super inspired and what you need to hear. President
and Sister Jardine did the first training in finding and that was so
good. We've been trying to do a lot of finding in our area recently
because we have no investigators. But sometimes after days full of
just finding for weeks in a row....eh, you lose the perspective of
what you're doing. But the training super helped. Sister Jardine
shared a story of a kid that got lost at scout camp back in utah and
the reaction and the effort put into finding this one person and how
long it took etc. The Urgency of the situation was so real. And we
need to have that same urgency now. These people who are waiting for
us, are literally just waiting on us. We are the ones who are lost who
don't know where they are. It was just good to be reminded, that there
is a proper way of finding and that it is an urgent matter. It was
good. Then the APs did a training on the Book of Mormon, and that was
awesome. Because they just kind of called us out for sliding into the
pattern of just handing out pamphlets and jesus cards. Sure those
things are good tools, but the Book of Mormon. HELLO. It got us all
excited. The question one if them asked was How would Joseph Smith
feel about how you are using the Book of Mormon in your proselyting
efforts? So yeah. He gave everything for that book, and you aren't
even using it. You leave it in the car, or in your bag. So they
challenged us to always carry one in our hands whenever we leave the
apartment. And we've had some cool miracles. Right when we got home a
few hours later we checked the mail, BoM in hand haha, and a lady
who's sister is a member recognized us and talked to us for a while.
It's such a nice break to be contacted by someone else instead of
having to initiate yourself haha.

Anyway the last part of the training Pres talked to us about Charity.
And it was so good. He's the bomb. I love him. I want to be as awesome
as him someday.

And the rest of our week was good. Haha, we had a creepy member give
us a watermelon, and he talked to us for a while, and then he tried to
tell us his story about moving to america and I was like SORRY (not
sorry) we have an appointment and we'll be late, maybe next time, and
we left and got outta there stat. Haha #newyorkdrivingskills.

And zone morning glory killed us. We had it twice this week and it
made us so tired haha.

There's half the watermelon which I ate all by myself and then dumped
all the juice onto our couch while taking that picture. 

That's all the hermanas.

And I got my bike!!! Yay!!!!

Love you all!!!!

Learning Stuff

So this week we finished our area book!!! As the first iPad generation
in the mish we had to enter in all the people from the area book into
the ipads and it takes muchisimo tiempo. Like hours. Everyday.
Basically we only went out for an hour or two every day last week. And
not getting out wears on ya! But we finished, so todo està bien. I
have hardcore typing on ipad skills now haha, but thank goodness for
church couches and wifi that enable dictation instead of typing. I did
like 20 pages of potentials. Fronts and back. I did a whole area book
by myself actually-I'm pretty proud, not gonna lie. I feel really
accomplished. So once we finished-with the help of some other Awesome
sisters in the zone-we started helping out the spanish elders. They're
my favorite, I may be a little biased, but spanish elders are just
cooler than english hahaha, but english sisters, I kind of miss living
with them. I think sometimes they're a little chiller. I guess I only
hear about the spanish drama though. It's whatevs. I am drama free,
just so y'all know ;) I am super chill. I am as chill as a Hawaiian. I
have been told so by my last Hawaiian companion hahaha. But Sister
Burke is awesome! Things are way better with her I think. I like
companions. They're cool. We have them for a reason, and it's a
bigger, better reason than just to keep us out of trouble and staying
obedient and sturf, it's more than that, so that's cool. Look, I'm
learning things!! Haha

So we got out for a while and picked a street to visit and check out
some potentials, and we talked to us sweet old mexican man named Jose.
He's been here 20 years, and all his family is still back in Mexico.
That happens a lot. I don't quite understand how or why, but it's sad.
Then we knocked on a mexican looking door, just the storm door, and a
Guy yelled and was all "yeah, whaddya need?" And so I was said uh hi
we're the missionaries in this area, do you know anyone who speaks
spanish? I couldn't even see him or anything inside, it was super
awkward amd funny. I hate those doors. And then he got up and was all
"spanish? I speak spanish! You speak spanish??" And we were like yeah
haha us gueras yeah we speak spanish, and then we totally had a lesson
with him, it was sweet. He was funny. We didn't get a return
appointment, but he said we could come back. Then we knocked on a
super mexi door-virgin marias por todos lados, and a teenage girl
answered and we had an awesome talk about life after death and faith
in christ and repentance, and it was way cool. She gave us her number,
and again no return appt, but we could call or text and set something
up. But then she asked us to pray for her uncle who has cancer, so
that was cool. We've been doing that. Then we went back and we walked
by Jose's house and he gave us water and soda haha. That was probably
the best part of the week. And there was even an awesome sunset.

Sunday was good. The branch rocks. But after Satan was the worst-as
usual haha. We went to a dinner appt and something was off. It was
with members, but we just did not feel good after we left. Like we had
a nice lesson, and their daughter taught our resto lesson for us-she's
like 8/9 and knew the story better than anyone else I've heard so that
was awesome, but we still felt just Bad afterwards. So we went to go
contact someone we met earlier in the week. And I was trying to be all
focused on our purpose, talk to everyone. Sometimes it's hard because
some people are obviously not spanish speaking and I'm like ehhh your
salvation isn't quite in my hands hahaha but so there was this guy-not
spanish-and I was like Let's Get Him!! Went over, he wasn't interested
so we just chatted a little, asked him about his work. He's basically
Satan's #1 tool. He shoots pornos and is a software designer, he'd
actually just came from a shoot, fancy that, and was excited that some
kind of new head set thing had just come out for video games. I was
getting furious, but we gave him a card. He said he would look up the
video. Said thanks for talking, and he said have a nice day, you
ladies are really beautiful. I felt like stabbing satan in the eyes.
How dare he. I was mad. And the spirit, se fue. It was like running
into giant bombs of anti spirit anti holiness. So we were wrecks
basically after that. Went to the chapel, sang some songs, the STLs
were actually there for a lesson so we had a little talk, didn't
really explain everything, but they got it. It was good.

So yeah, that was my week, the worst parts of the mission aren't when
it's like hard work/area/companion. But it's when the spirit gets
taken from you, or is at least attacked like that. When you lose it
yourself, you can only blame yourself, and it's cool. But that was
horrible, anyway, life goes on! Hopefully we'll find some solid people
this week. Love you!! And here's some pics to prove I'm alive haha :p

May You Build a Ladder to the Stars

So I'm in a new area with a new comp, we're shotgunning/whitewashing whatever you want to call it. We have 2? new investigators-so not very solid-and no gps, and it's tough, but not impossible.

My new branch who have been asking for hermanas ;) my mission leader is awesome and he is the man next to us, but the one wearing a tie. Totally cool. And President Hirst is on the other end, the one in a gold tie. It was their one year anniversary of being made a branch-they used to be a ward with my first branch in Rancho Cordova :) 

Our area out by our mission leader's house