The One With Thanksgiving

I'm sorry that I'm GaRbAgE at sending weekly emails...but with keeping up with my "Friends" theme I figured that it was necessary to do a Thanksgiving email!! So hey guys!! Happy thanksgiving!! This week was pretty fun. The STL's came and we did exchanges for a day with them! My comp was Hermana Conseco and she is SO CUTE!! The day after the Hermanas from Tepexi came to town for our district council and thanksgiving and stayed the night in our house with us, them, and the STL's!! It was crazy to have everyone in our house but super fun! Thanksgiving is only a holiday in the United States because it started with the pilgrims and Native Americans. It's really funny to me because a bunch of the people from northern Mexico celebrate it! They just see it as an opportunity to eat and party with their family so they join in on the fun. I love it! But here in Puebla....no one knows what it is. But half of my district right now is from the US and so I convinced my district leader that we need to have a Thanksgiving! We had a district council then afterwards had dinner as a district. :) We ate tacos and cake! I was sad I couldn't bake a turkey or a Thanksgiving dinner, but what is better than a Mexican Thanksgiving than tacos! And the STL's came too so we had 10 people there and so it was fun to have a celebration with everyone! Besides that, nothing crazy happened this week. But I'm doing great I'm just SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMASSS!!! WOOOO I hope that everyone does a lot of classical Christmas shenanigans for me :)

The One With Hermana Castro

Hey guys!! So this week we had transfers and hermana holt left :(( I was SO SAD because I love her so much!! But it's okay we'll meet up one day! I got my new companion and her name is Hermana Castro!! She is from Tijuana and she is so cute!! She's really fun and we have had a good time so far! :)) We have just taught some lessons and gotten to know one another. The only hard part is the fact that she knows zero english... Which will be great for my Spanish!! But it has been harder to connect and understand everything that's going on haha but I'm grateful for this experience to learn Spanish faster! Also, this Sunday Aracely had her baptism! It was so fun! We had it right after church so people would come and so many members came! I felt so blessed to have the love and support of our ward :)) So, Aracely is the sister of Jorge who was my first baptism here! It was so beautiful to see how the gospel has touched the lives our their family! What a powerful thing!! We also moved houses because our house had zero service, except for one window, and so it was impossible to message people and do lessons in our home. For pday today we moved (ghetto I know)!! Our new house is so much bigger and I'm so happy that we made this transition! The only problem is that we have random objects all over the house and we need to clean it all.... but nothing that a little hard work can't fix!

The One With Dia de los Muertos

Hey guys I was reminded by the one and only Ryan Rarick that I haven't written a group email in over a month so I'm sorry about that... but I'm just having a party out here in Mexico!! We have had so much work to do this past month that I feel like I don't have time for anything! But it's good because we are just getting so much accomplished!! I'll just share a few things that happened over this past month! 1 – We were able to go out to our branch in Tepexi!! Our area covers a ward and a branch, and the thing is that our branch is 2 hours away from our house..... but we had the opportunity to go out there twice!! We went to a church service and visited members one day, and the other time we had a baptism! Our branch covers a HUGE area and planning baptisms out there are always fiascos! There isn't a font and, at the moment, the rivers are too dangerous to baptize in, so this family BUILT A FONT IN THEIR YARD!! The straight dedication they have is SO impressive!! The baptism was so beautiful and Zoram (the boy baptized) bore his testimony and started crying as he was talking about how much he loves Jesus. It was SO CUTE!! Everyone was bawling because the spirit was just so strong! 2 – We have been in Puebla a lot because my companion is also an STL (sister training leader) and so she has to do exchanges with all of the other sister missionaries. So while she did that with hermana Castillo, I was in Puebla with hermana Aguilar! (Sorry that's kind of confusing but I don't even know how to explain it haha) It was cool to mix up the normal routine. 3 – Dia de los Muertos!! It was like the movie, Coco. It lasts for 3 days and most of the celebrations take place on the 2nd & 3rd days. Like I said, we have been jam packed with lessons so we didn't have time to really do things; but on the 2nd day, one of our lessons fell through so we had one hour free, and so we called a taxi and went to the cemetery!! Our phone died after 1 blurry photo but it was such a cool event!! It's such an amazing experience to celebrate ancestry and it makes me want to do family search more in my life!! 4 – We had zone conference :)) one of our areas is in Oaxaca and that's where our conference was held! (So I got to visit a different state of Mexico!!) It wasn't just a normal zone conference either, we had our general authority 70 come! Elder Montoya and his wife spoke to us and it was super great. There were 2 sisters and 2 elders who were invited to have a personal interview with him and guess who one of those lucky gals happened to be?? That's right. ME!! It was TERRIFYING but it ended up being super good! I'm grateful to have had that experience! 5 – The queen herself, hermana Natalia Holt left me!! :,(( I am SO sad!! But all is well, life will move on! Hermana Holt was my trainer and at the end of this transfer she left! Technically transfers aren't until Wednesday but because she went back to Utah she left a few days early. So right now I'm back in Puebla with hermana Castillo & Aguilar until transfers officially happen. It's so weird to think that I'm just getting done with my training. I feel like I still know nothing! But with God's help I can do anything so I'm not too worried! I'm SO GRATEFUL for the time I had with Holt because she seriously is the best!! I can't explain how much I love her! She seriously is just so fun and diligent and I'm beyond grateful to have had her as my companion! Sorry that's not real detailed from the past month but I'm so grateful for all the experiences I've had! I promise I'll try to be better about writing! I love you all so much! 💗