:)

 

This week hasn't been all that interesting - a lot of work, but not a lot of results. We've been really focusing on members, since the 1st ward needs a lot of help. We even fasted yesterday for the ward, and specifically that strong members can move here. I remember a few years ago there was a conference talk where a story was told about a Bishop who received a phone call from a family who asked where a strong family was needed (anyone else remember this? maybe I'm making this up..) and I didn't really understand why that was such a big deal. Like, okay, maybe this family was like super cool, but would one family really make a difference? Ever since being here, I understand. For some reason the Spanish wards are pretty strong, but the English ward is pretty stagnant. There are lots of really cool members, but they all are the only ones who get callings. Like, literally the entire primary presidency are the wives of the bishopbric, and the YM and YW both have semi-active members. It's crazy! But it's a really cool start, because lots of miracles can happen. So if anyone is looking for a place to move, Brownsville needs help ;)

 

We have been working with this girl, Gina, ever since I got on my mission. We met her at a baptism, and she's been a convert for a few years, and when we first met she told us she was thinking of going on a mission in about 18 months. She started coming out with us every week to teach and proselyte, and she's super cool. As she's been coming with us, she's been getting more and more excited about a mission, and she's been moving her date of availability. On Thursday we got a call from her, and she told us that she was going to the doctor and the dentist the next day so she could get her check-ups done, and then she wanted to come out with us. So Friday afternoon we called her and asked when she'd be available, and she said "right now! and I got my wisdom teeth out!" ?? She had literally walked to the dentist, waited outside for an hour and a half for them to open, and then had gotten a wisdom tooth removed, and then still wanted to come out with us! And then she told us that she moved her availability date to May 17th! So she'll probably get her mission call in the next couple of weeks, while Sister Pickett and I are both still here. It was a really big miracle to be able to see that, and to see how excited she is :) Missions are great.

 

Part of our area now is this little town called Los Fresnos. We only had a very small, not-very-helpful map of it, but we had some work we wanted to do there and people we wanted to see. So we ventured up there and stopped by a hotel and they had a much more helpful map. However, it still was a little deficient, so there was lots of venturing around and texting the Elders that work in that area for better directions. We went to a house of a less-active (that ended up not living there), and the door was answered by a teenage girl. We talked with her for a while, and the whole time something felt different about the situation. I was trying to figure out what, and then I realized what it was: She was Caucasian. Ha! We speak English super often (especially now that we're in the English ward), but still, everyone is Hispanic or part-Hispanic. Anyway, that was kind of funny.

 

 

I love you all!

Love, M

--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Re: Las Viejas Estan Aqui....

Thanks, Brooke - I knew you would know that! :)

Love you!

-Mom

On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 12:46 PM, Brooke Hirst <brookehirst@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Meg,

Yes, we do have some Nickle relatives, but it's spelled Nicholl on our heritage sheets. Maybe they same, maybe not?

LY!

B

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 20, 2015, at 12:01 PM, Megan Reynolds <megan.reynolds@myldsmail.net> wrote:

This week I learned some very unique and important things about missionaries and missionary work, like the following:

1. Many times there is a discrepancy of definitions of "clean" between Elders and Sisters.

2. Never say that things couldn't get crazier - They always can.

 

Monday afternoon we found out that on Tuesday we were going to have Interviews with President Maluenda (every other transfer they happen). Cool. Nothing too different about that. Then we start getting texts and calls from the Zone Leaders like "we need to know how many members you have in the English Ward in your area." "Oh, we also need to know how many English and Spanish investigators you have." So, a little interesting, but nothing too crazy yet. We really knew something was up when we got a call asking sepcific questions about how many members with leadership positions in both wards lived in specific parts of our areas. So by Monday night we knew something was up, but we figured changes wouldn't happen for a couple of weeks, or maybe until next transfer.

Interviews happened and were super good, and then the Stake President talked to all the missionaries saying that they were going to change it so that there aren't 26 missionaries in the English ward, and that things were going to be getting a lot more focused, with more changes to come. They were pretty vague, but we knew things would be happening in the next couple of days. All of the zone went to lunch after, and then we got a text from the Zone Leaders saying that we were meeting back at the church in an hour, and then some of us got texts saying we should pack our bags if we had time. We got to the church, and they announced all of the changes. About half of the zone stayed the same (with the exception of only teaching in Spanish,) and then they switched some areas, and they made it so that only 3 sets of missionaries are in Brownsville 1st Ward (the English ward).. And Sister Pickett and I are in that group! So we had to switch apartments with the Elders, and so in an hour and a hlaf we were packed and out of our old apartment.  However, we quickly learned that the Elders probably hadn't  cleaned their apartment in months. It was nasty. We moved in with another set of sisters, and it took us 2 days to get it clean. Within the first hour of being there we took 5 large bags of trash out, and swept up many piles of dust and dirt, and washed the kitchen floor for the first time in many months. There was what looked like a mummified cabbage in the fridge, and lots of exciting things discovered, but in the end our apartment is actually super nice and cute.

 

With all the changes, we now cover 1/3 of the English ward, which means our area is massive. If you look on a map of Bronsville, we cover the North West corner from Price Road and Paredes up clear to a little town called Los Fresnos and over to Sen Benito. We also got a new area name - La Vieja. So now everyone calls us Las Viejas (the old ladies). The Zone Leaders thought it would be super funny to call us that, so now we get to be the old ladies. Ha. These changes are going to bring miracles. We went and talked with the Bishop and the Relief Society President, and some other people in the ward, and there are so many things that need to happen here. It's a great ward, but there is a lot of strengthening that needs to happen. There isn't a whole lot of unity or strong members, and of the 800 members on the records, only about 100-150 are active. It's exciting, because with this change we can really focus on the members and work with them to strengthen and change things. It's a little strange now though, because we will meet people and start teaching in Spanish, and then have to give them to the Spanish missionaries. I've started calling those investigators our Orphan Investigators. Also, this means that I won't get as many changes to speak Spanish. Which is bad. Yikes. But I know that this is for a reason and miracles will come :)

 

The change through a lot of things off, so I made lots of mistakes this week. But we leaned a lot and this next week is gonna be incredible. Whitewashing is pretty intense - we have SO much we don't know about and a lot to figure out, but I have so much anticipation that we are going to see the hand of the Lord in really specific and beautiful ways. It's a privilege to be serving here and to get to be blessed with the opportunity of serving in this part of the vineyard where there are lots of miracles waiting to happen :)

Love you all! Stay strong, be courageous, and remember that way down in South Texas there's a little missionary who is praying for you all. :)

 

P.S. Do we have any Nickle family members on the Reynolds side in our genealogy?
--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

--

Roslyn Romney Reynolds Geertsen
Finding Hope, Healing, and Happiness after Loss
Author, Solo -Getting It All Together When You Find Yourself Alone now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and www.heartbreaktohealing.com
email heartbreaktohealing@gmail.com
www.roslynreynolds.com
(801)867-7031

Re: Las Viejas Estan Aqui....

Hi Meg,

Yes, we do have some Nickle relatives, but it's spelled Nicholl on our heritage sheets. Maybe they same, maybe not?

LY!

B

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 20, 2015, at 12:01 PM, Megan Reynolds <megan.reynolds@myldsmail.net> wrote:

This week I learned some very unique and important things about missionaries and missionary work, like the following:

1. Many times there is a discrepancy of definitions of "clean" between Elders and Sisters.

2. Never say that things couldn't get crazier - They always can.

 

Monday afternoon we found out that on Tuesday we were going to have Interviews with President Maluenda (every other transfer they happen). Cool. Nothing too different about that. Then we start getting texts and calls from the Zone Leaders like "we need to know how many members you have in the English Ward in your area." "Oh, we also need to know how many English and Spanish investigators you have." So, a little interesting, but nothing too crazy yet. We really knew something was up when we got a call asking sepcific questions about how many members with leadership positions in both wards lived in specific parts of our areas. So by Monday night we knew something was up, but we figured changes wouldn't happen for a couple of weeks, or maybe until next transfer.

Interviews happened and were super good, and then the Stake President talked to all the missionaries saying that they were going to change it so that there aren't 26 missionaries in the English ward, and that things were going to be getting a lot more focused, with more changes to come. They were pretty vague, but we knew things would be happening in the next couple of days. All of the zone went to lunch after, and then we got a text from the Zone Leaders saying that we were meeting back at the church in an hour, and then some of us got texts saying we should pack our bags if we had time. We got to the church, and they announced all of the changes. About half of the zone stayed the same (with the exception of only teaching in Spanish,) and then they switched some areas, and they made it so that only 3 sets of missionaries are in Brownsville 1st Ward (the English ward).. And Sister Pickett and I are in that group! So we had to switch apartments with the Elders, and so in an hour and a hlaf we were packed and out of our old apartment.  However, we quickly learned that the Elders probably hadn't  cleaned their apartment in months. It was nasty. We moved in with another set of sisters, and it took us 2 days to get it clean. Within the first hour of being there we took 5 large bags of trash out, and swept up many piles of dust and dirt, and washed the kitchen floor for the first time in many months. There was what looked like a mummified cabbage in the fridge, and lots of exciting things discovered, but in the end our apartment is actually super nice and cute.

 

With all the changes, we now cover 1/3 of the English ward, which means our area is massive. If you look on a map of Bronsville, we cover the North West corner from Price Road and Paredes up clear to a little town called Los Fresnos and over to Sen Benito. We also got a new area name - La Vieja. So now everyone calls us Las Viejas (the old ladies). The Zone Leaders thought it would be super funny to call us that, so now we get to be the old ladies. Ha. These changes are going to bring miracles. We went and talked with the Bishop and the Relief Society President, and some other people in the ward, and there are so many things that need to happen here. It's a great ward, but there is a lot of strengthening that needs to happen. There isn't a whole lot of unity or strong members, and of the 800 members on the records, only about 100-150 are active. It's exciting, because with this change we can really focus on the members and work with them to strengthen and change things. It's a little strange now though, because we will meet people and start teaching in Spanish, and then have to give them to the Spanish missionaries. I've started calling those investigators our Orphan Investigators. Also, this means that I won't get as many changes to speak Spanish. Which is bad. Yikes. But I know that this is for a reason and miracles will come :)

 

The change through a lot of things off, so I made lots of mistakes this week. But we leaned a lot and this next week is gonna be incredible. Whitewashing is pretty intense - we have SO much we don't know about and a lot to figure out, but I have so much anticipation that we are going to see the hand of the Lord in really specific and beautiful ways. It's a privilege to be serving here and to get to be blessed with the opportunity of serving in this part of the vineyard where there are lots of miracles waiting to happen :)

Love you all! Stay strong, be courageous, and remember that way down in South Texas there's a little missionary who is praying for you all. :)

 

P.S. Do we have any Nickle family members on the Reynolds side in our genealogy?
--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Las Viejas Estan Aqui....

This week I learned some very unique and important things about missionaries and missionary work, like the following:

1. Many times there is a discrepancy of definitions of "clean" between Elders and Sisters.

2. Never say that things couldn't get crazier - They always can.

 

Monday afternoon we found out that on Tuesday we were going to have Interviews with President Maluenda (every other transfer they happen). Cool. Nothing too different about that. Then we start getting texts and calls from the Zone Leaders like "we need to know how many members you have in the English Ward in your area." "Oh, we also need to know how many English and Spanish investigators you have." So, a little interesting, but nothing too crazy yet. We really knew something was up when we got a call asking sepcific questions about how many members with leadership positions in both wards lived in specific parts of our areas. So by Monday night we knew something was up, but we figured changes wouldn't happen for a couple of weeks, or maybe until next transfer.

Interviews happened and were super good, and then the Stake President talked to all the missionaries saying that they were going to change it so that there aren't 26 missionaries in the English ward, and that things were going to be getting a lot more focused, with more changes to come. They were pretty vague, but we knew things would be happening in the next couple of days. All of the zone went to lunch after, and then we got a text from the Zone Leaders saying that we were meeting back at the church in an hour, and then some of us got texts saying we should pack our bags if we had time. We got to the church, and they announced all of the changes. About half of the zone stayed the same (with the exception of only teaching in Spanish,) and then they switched some areas, and they made it so that only 3 sets of missionaries are in Brownsville 1st Ward (the English ward).. And Sister Pickett and I are in that group! So we had to switch apartments with the Elders, and so in an hour and a hlaf we were packed and out of our old apartment.  However, we quickly learned that the Elders probably hadn't  cleaned their apartment in months. It was nasty. We moved in with another set of sisters, and it took us 2 days to get it clean. Within the first hour of being there we took 5 large bags of trash out, and swept up many piles of dust and dirt, and washed the kitchen floor for the first time in many months. There was what looked like a mummified cabbage in the fridge, and lots of exciting things discovered, but in the end our apartment is actually super nice and cute.

 

With all the changes, we now cover 1/3 of the English ward, which means our area is massive. If you look on a map of Bronsville, we cover the North West corner from Price Road and Paredes up clear to a little town called Los Fresnos and over to Sen Benito. We also got a new area name - La Vieja. So now everyone calls us Las Viejas (the old ladies). The Zone Leaders thought it would be super funny to call us that, so now we get to be the old ladies. Ha. These changes are going to bring miracles. We went and talked with the Bishop and the Relief Society President, and some other people in the ward, and there are so many things that need to happen here. It's a great ward, but there is a lot of strengthening that needs to happen. There isn't a whole lot of unity or strong members, and of the 800 members on the records, only about 100-150 are active. It's exciting, because with this change we can really focus on the members and work with them to strengthen and change things. It's a little strange now though, because we will meet people and start teaching in Spanish, and then have to give them to the Spanish missionaries. I've started calling those investigators our Orphan Investigators. Also, this means that I won't get as many changes to speak Spanish. Which is bad. Yikes. But I know that this is for a reason and miracles will come :)

 

The change through a lot of things off, so I made lots of mistakes this week. But we leaned a lot and this next week is gonna be incredible. Whitewashing is pretty intense - we have SO much we don't know about and a lot to figure out, but I have so much anticipation that we are going to see the hand of the Lord in really specific and beautiful ways. It's a privilege to be serving here and to get to be blessed with the opportunity of serving in this part of the vineyard where there are lots of miracles waiting to happen :)

Love you all! Stay strong, be courageous, and remember that way down in South Texas there's a little missionary who is praying for you all. :)

 

P.S. Do we have any Nickle family members on the Reynolds side in our genealogy?
--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Have miracles ceased?

Nay!

This week was a week of MIRACLES! Man, I love this place. I have so many storeies, I hope I have time to write them all.

 

First of all, we went less-active hunting this week, and we met a family who had a horse in their front yard. Now, there are dogs for DAYS in Cam Park, but a horse was new. As we were talking to them about it we found out his name... Obama. Because it was black. Bahaha.

Also, we had transfers this week! It was pretty crazy - I won't go into all the details, but Tuesday came around and our District leader got told he was leaving and his companion was training, which meant nobody was replacing him... so we were super confused. What ended up happening is that they split the District Leader area and we got 2 more missionaries in our zone (which is already really big. We have a zone of 26 missionaries now, and ALL of them serve in the English ward [but are split into different spanish wards]. I'm pretty sure it's probably the most missionaries in one single ward anywhere in the world...). Anyway, our new District Leader is Elder Pyrah, who has been an AP for the last 4 transfers, and this is the last transfer of his mission. That NEVER happens! We were pretty shocked. He's super cool though, and we're super excited for the things that will happen this transfer. :) Also, there are now 5 companionships in our district and 4 of the misisonaries are greenies. Que loco!

 

On Wednesday the 4 Elders from Los Fresnos (the DL area and other companionship) came with us to visit the 96 year old lady we found at the beginning of my mission. She's pretty close to dying, and her son requested that we come give her a blessing. So we all went, and it was the sweetest experience. One of the greenies gave the annointing for the first time in Spanish, and then another elder gave a beautiful blessing. Afterward we all sang a hymn, and then the missionaries were talking with her caretaker and I went over and held her hand and talked with to her a little bit, and she lit up and was just beaming through the whole experience. I remember when we were little and how I always dreaded going to the rest homes and hospitals. I don't know why it was so horribly painful as a young child, but now I understand why we kept going - those experiences are so sweet and so close to the veil. It makes me so grateful for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation and the wonderful blessings of the gospel.

 

We have an investigator named Mario, and the other day we went by his house and he wasn't home. But his mother was, and she was in the middle of watching a youtube video of a mexican gospel song on her phone, and so she spend like 5 minutes singing along with it to us and bearing her testimony of her feelings. It was one of the most unique experiences I've ever had. I seriously just love the people here so much! Then later, when we DID have a lesson with Mario, he offered to give us one of his Parrots. That was probably the most tempted I've been to break a misison rule.. but I withheld.

 

Another funny story - on Wednesday night we got a call from the Zone Leaders saying that the STLs needed to move in with us for a few weeks, so when we got home we frantically moved all our furniture and moved all of our stuff so that there was space for them. The next morning we finished moving/cleaning, and then at 11 when they were supposed to come, we made lunch for them and us. We hadn't heard anything, so we texted... Evidently the ZL's forgot to tell us that they changed their minds. So we moved everything in vain. Oops. We had a good laugh about it, and then we got a text from them that said "did you really make lunch for them?" to which we replied "yeah, are you hungry?" so the Zone Leaders came and took the food that the sisters were going to eat. They also gave us apology presents - two suckers, a CD with tab choir music, and post-it notes.

 

Well, I hope all is well! You're all in my prayers and thoughts :) Love you greatly.
Mormon 9:15-19
--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Re: Rapping sessions in Cam Park

Ha - thanks for the explanation, Anna - and I think I even figured it out... :)  

Love you!

On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 2:28 PM, Anna McAllister <annakm@gmail.com> wrote:

The connection with Elder Sessions is pretty funny, here it is:

The elder Sessions serving where Megan is, his Grandpa Mike Sessions was in Ken's ward in New York City when Ken was a boy. And then his wife Geni was Marilyn's roommate at BYU (before she was his wife obviously, ha ha). Then after both couples were married they were friends at BYU and have kept in touch over the years. Right now Mike and Geni are living at the Elder in Megan's missions house while Geni recovers from having broken her back while on a mission in Italy. That was a really confusing sentence/paragraph.... It was like your puzzle for the day, to try and figure all that out. 

Love you all!

On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Megan Reynolds <megan.reynolds@myldsmail.net> wrote:

WOW! Was conference killer or what? I had ALL of my questions answered much more clearly than I had anticipated. We asked all of our investigators to come, and cool things happened, too. We have this investigator who is SO CLOSE to being baptized. He comes to church more faithfully than some of our active members, and the other day we asked him about if he had the scriptures on his phone and he was like "yeah, and I have some other apps.. like the ensign?" What? Turns out he's downloaded like all of the apps that exist from the church. Anyway, he's a seventh day adventist, so he struggles with the fact that we worship on Sunday and not on Saturday. We've tried to explain it, but he's pretty set in his belief. and then at conference Elder Nelson Laid. It. DOWN! My jaw literally dropped (and I mean literally) and I looked at my companion and we just sat there, gaping. Our investigator was watching from his house, so I'm excited to talk with him about it :)

 

Here's a crazy sad story from this week. One of the Elders that came with me to McAllen ran away this week. We got a call from the Zone Leaders on Wednesday night, saying that he had taken his bike, withdrawn all his money, and left., so they asked us to hold a mission-wide fast. His companion (Elder Sessions, who there is some connection to through Ken McAllister, right Anna?) woke up and he was just gone. TO my knowledge he hasn't been found, or at least not in the mission. So very sad.

 

Here's a happier story :) about a week ago we met this mother named Olga, and her 17 year-old son (who just had a baby....well, his girlfriend did). They were super interested, and said we could come back the next week and her other two sons would be there, too. So we had an appointment on Friday night, and we'd been trying to find a member to come with us. We had had a goal to have 3 Members Present at a lesson before Friday night. We had already had 2 earlier in the week, so just needed one more and we had our day scheduled with the possibility of 5 before the appointment with Olga and fam, and every. single. one. fell. through. We were super determined to make the goal, so we called and called and called, and we only had 1 hour before the appointment with Olga. Finally I had the thought to ask someone from the YSA ward, and sister pickett said "Well, I only know 1 person from the YSA ward. His name is Alonsio... Is that in our phone?" So I looked, and it was, and we called, and he came. Milagros pasen, cada dia! But, the best is yet to come. We had a classic Cam Park lesson - we sat on their front porch in an assortment of chairs, (ranching from nice porch chairs, to white plastic chairs, to little tike chairs) with mexican music blasting in the background and a very loud hum of lawnmowers, with the language fluctiating between English and Spanish. We talked about the restoration, and it was a super cool lesson. As the end, they all said they wanted to get baptized! Yay! And then they said a closing prayer (which, by the way, investigators who haven't prayed ever before give the BEST prayers. I'm always blown away.) and then Daniel (the 17-year-old) said "do you want to hear a rap I made?" So he rapped for us. ABOUT THE LAW OF CHASTITY!! Like,he legit said "I know you wanna live together, but we can't cause we're still teenagers" and another line about wanting to get closer to God and having Angels sent to him. It was SOOO great. I Love The Mission.

 

Another funny story. We write our emails in a huge computer lab in the library. It's dark and quiet. But right now, there's a lady very loudly teaching people computer skills, and right now she's teaching someone how to use google. "I'm going to show you how to use Google." "What?" "Google. G. O. O. G. L. E. No, G. Hit the backspace. Okay, .com. O as in Octupus. M as in Mary. then hit the Enter button." I think I'm going to be a lot like that when I get back from my mission....

Go turn all your conference notes into PLANS this week. That was one thing I learned - Notes from conferences don't do anything for us if we don't make them into plans :)

 

Love you all! Have a safe week :)
--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

--

Roslyn Romney Reynolds Geertsen
Finding Hope, Healing, and Happiness after Loss
Author, Solo -Getting It All Together When You Find Yourself Alone now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and www.heartbreaktohealing.com
email heartbreaktohealing@gmail.com
www.roslynreynolds.com
(801)867-7031

Re: Rapping sessions in Cam Park

The connection with Elder Sessions is pretty funny, here it is:

The elder Sessions serving where Megan is, his Grandpa Mike Sessions was in Ken's ward in New York City when Ken was a boy. And then his wife Geni was Marilyn's roommate at BYU (before she was his wife obviously, ha ha). Then after both couples were married they were friends at BYU and have kept in touch over the years. Right now Mike and Geni are living at the Elder in Megan's missions house while Geni recovers from having broken her back while on a mission in Italy. That was a really confusing sentence/paragraph.... It was like your puzzle for the day, to try and figure all that out. 

Love you all!

On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Megan Reynolds <megan.reynolds@myldsmail.net> wrote:

WOW! Was conference killer or what? I had ALL of my questions answered much more clearly than I had anticipated. We asked all of our investigators to come, and cool things happened, too. We have this investigator who is SO CLOSE to being baptized. He comes to church more faithfully than some of our active members, and the other day we asked him about if he had the scriptures on his phone and he was like "yeah, and I have some other apps.. like the ensign?" What? Turns out he's downloaded like all of the apps that exist from the church. Anyway, he's a seventh day adventist, so he struggles with the fact that we worship on Sunday and not on Saturday. We've tried to explain it, but he's pretty set in his belief. and then at conference Elder Nelson Laid. It. DOWN! My jaw literally dropped (and I mean literally) and I looked at my companion and we just sat there, gaping. Our investigator was watching from his house, so I'm excited to talk with him about it :)

 

Here's a crazy sad story from this week. One of the Elders that came with me to McAllen ran away this week. We got a call from the Zone Leaders on Wednesday night, saying that he had taken his bike, withdrawn all his money, and left., so they asked us to hold a mission-wide fast. His companion (Elder Sessions, who there is some connection to through Ken McAllister, right Anna?) woke up and he was just gone. TO my knowledge he hasn't been found, or at least not in the mission. So very sad.

 

Here's a happier story :) about a week ago we met this mother named Olga, and her 17 year-old son (who just had a baby....well, his girlfriend did). They were super interested, and said we could come back the next week and her other two sons would be there, too. So we had an appointment on Friday night, and we'd been trying to find a member to come with us. We had had a goal to have 3 Members Present at a lesson before Friday night. We had already had 2 earlier in the week, so just needed one more and we had our day scheduled with the possibility of 5 before the appointment with Olga and fam, and every. single. one. fell. through. We were super determined to make the goal, so we called and called and called, and we only had 1 hour before the appointment with Olga. Finally I had the thought to ask someone from the YSA ward, and sister pickett said "Well, I only know 1 person from the YSA ward. His name is Alonsio... Is that in our phone?" So I looked, and it was, and we called, and he came. Milagros pasen, cada dia! But, the best is yet to come. We had a classic Cam Park lesson - we sat on their front porch in an assortment of chairs, (ranching from nice porch chairs, to white plastic chairs, to little tike chairs) with mexican music blasting in the background and a very loud hum of lawnmowers, with the language fluctiating between English and Spanish. We talked about the restoration, and it was a super cool lesson. As the end, they all said they wanted to get baptized! Yay! And then they said a closing prayer (which, by the way, investigators who haven't prayed ever before give the BEST prayers. I'm always blown away.) and then Daniel (the 17-year-old) said "do you want to hear a rap I made?" So he rapped for us. ABOUT THE LAW OF CHASTITY!! Like,he legit said "I know you wanna live together, but we can't cause we're still teenagers" and another line about wanting to get closer to God and having Angels sent to him. It was SOOO great. I Love The Mission.

 

Another funny story. We write our emails in a huge computer lab in the library. It's dark and quiet. But right now, there's a lady very loudly teaching people computer skills, and right now she's teaching someone how to use google. "I'm going to show you how to use Google." "What?" "Google. G. O. O. G. L. E. No, G. Hit the backspace. Okay, .com. O as in Octupus. M as in Mary. then hit the Enter button." I think I'm going to be a lot like that when I get back from my mission....

Go turn all your conference notes into PLANS this week. That was one thing I learned - Notes from conferences don't do anything for us if we don't make them into plans :)

 

Love you all! Have a safe week :)
--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Rapping sessions in Cam Park

WOW! Was conference killer or what? I had ALL of my questions answered much more clearly than I had anticipated. We asked all of our investigators to come, and cool things happened, too. We have this investigator who is SO CLOSE to being baptized. He comes to church more faithfully than some of our active members, and the other day we asked him about if he had the scriptures on his phone and he was like "yeah, and I have some other apps.. like the ensign?" What? Turns out he's downloaded like all of the apps that exist from the church. Anyway, he's a seventh day adventist, so he struggles with the fact that we worship on Sunday and not on Saturday. We've tried to explain it, but he's pretty set in his belief. and then at conference Elder Nelson Laid. It. DOWN! My jaw literally dropped (and I mean literally) and I looked at my companion and we just sat there, gaping. Our investigator was watching from his house, so I'm excited to talk with him about it :)

 

Here's a crazy sad story from this week. One of the Elders that came with me to McAllen ran away this week. We got a call from the Zone Leaders on Wednesday night, saying that he had taken his bike, withdrawn all his money, and left., so they asked us to hold a mission-wide fast. His companion (Elder Sessions, who there is some connection to through Ken McAllister, right Anna?) woke up and he was just gone. TO my knowledge he hasn't been found, or at least not in the mission. So very sad.

 

Here's a happier story :) about a week ago we met this mother named Olga, and her 17 year-old son (who just had a baby....well, his girlfriend did). They were super interested, and said we could come back the next week and her other two sons would be there, too. So we had an appointment on Friday night, and we'd been trying to find a member to come with us. We had had a goal to have 3 Members Present at a lesson before Friday night. We had already had 2 earlier in the week, so just needed one more and we had our day scheduled with the possibility of 5 before the appointment with Olga and fam, and every. single. one. fell. through. We were super determined to make the goal, so we called and called and called, and we only had 1 hour before the appointment with Olga. Finally I had the thought to ask someone from the YSA ward, and sister pickett said "Well, I only know 1 person from the YSA ward. His name is Alonsio... Is that in our phone?" So I looked, and it was, and we called, and he came. Milagros pasen, cada dia! But, the best is yet to come. We had a classic Cam Park lesson - we sat on their front porch in an assortment of chairs, (ranching from nice porch chairs, to white plastic chairs, to little tike chairs) with mexican music blasting in the background and a very loud hum of lawnmowers, with the language fluctiating between English and Spanish. We talked about the restoration, and it was a super cool lesson. As the end, they all said they wanted to get baptized! Yay! And then they said a closing prayer (which, by the way, investigators who haven't prayed ever before give the BEST prayers. I'm always blown away.) and then Daniel (the 17-year-old) said "do you want to hear a rap I made?" So he rapped for us. ABOUT THE LAW OF CHASTITY!! Like,he legit said "I know you wanna live together, but we can't cause we're still teenagers" and another line about wanting to get closer to God and having Angels sent to him. It was SOOO great. I Love The Mission.

 

Another funny story. We write our emails in a huge computer lab in the library. It's dark and quiet. But right now, there's a lady very loudly teaching people computer skills, and right now she's teaching someone how to use google. "I'm going to show you how to use Google." "What?" "Google. G. O. O. G. L. E. No, G. Hit the backspace. Okay, .com. O as in Octupus. M as in Mary. then hit the Enter button." I think I'm going to be a lot like that when I get back from my mission....

Go turn all your conference notes into PLANS this week. That was one thing I learned - Notes from conferences don't do anything for us if we don't make them into plans :)

 

Love you all! Have a safe week :)
--

Hermana Reynolds

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.