Hurricanes, General Authorities, Corpus, oh my!

This week was very full of exciting events! Let's get started, shall we?

On Tuesday the Zone Leaders told sister McArthur and I that we were going to have to go to McAllen with them the next day because we were going to have a Mission Leadership Council with a member of the Seventy, and so we cancelled our previous plans and we all headed out to McAllen Wednesday morning. We've all known that we were going to have a "mission tour" this last week (where a general authority comes and trains the missionaries and makes sure that everything is going well), but the MLC meeting was a surprise. It was also kept quiet who it was that was going to come, but eventually we found out that it was going to be Elder Edward Dube. He was awesome! 

On Thursday we had a 3 hour meeting with him, and then on Friday all of the Laredo Zones, the Sinton Zone, and the Corpus Christie zone all met together in Corpus to have a conference with him for a few hours. He's super energetic and fun and taught us a lot. I was sitting there, and I had one of those moments of thinking "Wow! Who else gets to have opportunities like this?" It truly is such a PRIVILEGE to be a missionary. It's amazing what the Lord can do through and with us, and it's a miracle in all senses. Because we had to be in Corpus (a 2.5 hour drive) by 8:15, we left at 4:15. For some reason, when there's a meeting missionaries are either 1+ hours early, or 15 minutes late. It just happens. So we arose at 3 to have time to exercise, drive, and be there by 7:15, and then the meeting started at 9. I was expecting Corpus to be vastly different, but mostly it was just humid with lots of little bugs that bite your legs when you wait outside for churches to be unlocked :) Good moments.

On Saturday, we experienced the side-effects of the hurricane. We were getting all kinds of texts and calls saying that it was going to be insane and that we should be super careful, so we were pretty apprehensive. When it came time to leave, it was the beginning of the huge storm and there was torrents of rain, and a lot of the roads we were going to turn on were too flooded. There were signs on the sides of the roads that said "if water on rd, turn around, don't drown." ha ha. Ultimately, the torrential rain only lasted for an hour or two, and then went down, and then had pretty much stopped by mid-afternoon. We are so very happy to hear that nothing worse happened with the people of Mexico! It's pretty miraculous. It did mean that it got a lot colder here - it was 70 degrees yesterday and probably 65 this morning. Although, I've heard that Utah is even colder, but I can testify that acclimatization is a real thing - 70 degrees felt like 40. Yikes... 

The only other thing that might compete with the hurricane that happened outside, was the hurricane that happened inside of us that night. We went to a member's house, and they fed us Menudo. You can google it for more description probably. For some reason the Mexican culture LOVES it, but it's the worst thing ever. the taste is less than favorable, but stomachable, the texture is much less than favorable, and if you smell is.. well, you can't smell it if you want to finish the bowl. I'd heard horror stories about it, but never had had the ... hmm... opportunity ? to try it before. I thought I might get through my mission without trying it, but I guess now I can at least say that I am a survivor :)

Okay, well I love you all!

Enjoy a picture of the Laredo Skies - ain't nothing like it

--

Hermana Reynolds

A few life lessons

So, this week was full of the usual

My compy wrote a song about Laredo that sums up our life pretty well:

Laredo days, sun rays

The dogs are barking, gotta ride away

the people are humble, willing to listen

their hearts and doors are open

1,2,3,4 knock on one more door

just to find that soul that needs a little bit more of

where we come from, where we're going

and while we're here what we've got to know

I think there's a little more, but that's kind of our life :) It doesn't get much better than this. 

This week I thought I'd share a couple of things I've learned that have changed me a lot while on the mission. 

#1 is called the order of sheep. As missionaries (and this applies in other aspects, like "as mothers/fathers, etc") we have our "sheep" we have care over - be they missionaries, investigators, children, etc. Since the missionary work is so focused on helping the investigators progress, it's really easy to focus on their needs first, but the idea behind the concept of "The Order of Sheep" is that we have to prioritize them, and the one who comes first is our companion (or spouse) - and THEN the other missionaries/children (if in a leadership position), and then the ward/investigators (other responsibilities). At first I wasn't sure if I agreed, but it's cool to see that as I've really tried to follow that, miracles happen and things fall into place. 

The second thing is about making goals. On the mission there's always need to make goals and plans, and it can get a little overwhelming and then NOTHING changes. so, someone came up with a better way to go about making goals and plans, and it's pretty magical.

It looks like this:

VISION

   /   \   

goal goal

action action

measurable measurable 

action action

(I hope the formatting doesn't mes that up, but you should get the idea)

Basically, you start with a vision, and then you pick two different goals that would achieve that vision (IE, vision of being healthier, goal #1 is eat better, #2 is exercise more)

Then you pick an action you want to do to achieve those goals (like only eating sugar 2x a week and eating 5 servings of vegetables, and then working out every morning) and then you pick a measurable action that helps you measure if you're achieving your vision. (like, have I lost weight this week?, and do I crave sugar less often?)

It's made my life a million times easier, and now making goals and plans is fun and doesn't scare me.

I hope it changes your life, too.

we had a conversation on Sunday with one of our investigators who was supposed to come to church that was pretty intense - he thought he needed to stay and clean his house, and we thought he needed the blessings of coming to church. I ended up telling him "When you're in heaven, you're never ever going to look back and regret not cleaning your house, but you WILL look back and regret not setting the example of going to church for your children." And it hit me - it's true! I'm never going to look back and be like "man, if only I had watched that movie, or had stayed home from that service project, etc.," but I would look back and regret not doing the really important things. 

Okay, well enough preaching for today. Be good. Don't forgo decisions you'd regret not making :)

Love you all!

M

--

Hermana Reynolds

Another week :)

This week we were kept bustling. We had a bunch of exchanges and then we had interviews with President Maluenda, and we had lots of exchanges. On Wednesday we had an exchange with two sisters in North Laredo, and while I was there we taught one of their investigators and she was saying how she didn't feel ready for baptism. Upon further questioning, she said "well, I try to listen to only Christian music, but sometimes I listen to worldly music... and I dance, too" "Um, we can do those things..." "Really? I didn't think you could!" Basically she thought we lived the lives of nuns... but it turns out that we don't. Phew. 

On Friday we had interviews - usually that consists of trainings and then one by one we have interviews with the mission president. This particular time, Sister McArthur and I were asked to give a training, a musical number, and then they asked me to give a training on Body Language. We had had the exchange on Wednesday, and then on Thursday we had a weird trio exchange thing with the STLTs (the sisters over all of the STLs) and then another pair of sisters from the north, and by the time Friday morning came around I think sister McArthur and I were about ready to be done, and we hadn't even planned the trainings yet, ha ha. Sister McArthur and I have been trying to "be ducks" - because they glide across the water, even though their feet are paddling really fast. Nice, right? Somehow God really loves us, and he helps us, even when our attempts to be calm ducks turn out to be more like great success in being rabid ducks. I'm learning more and more that I think responsibility is an opportunity to show us how incapable we are, and then how capable God is. It works really well, let me tell you. :)

Saturday we had an inter-zone activity with both the zones in Laredo - a pretty intense Iron Rod activity. It was really cool; walking around, blind folded, with people telling me whet to do and deciding who to trust really showed me a lot. Sister McArthur and I talked about it after, (she had done it before so was a tempter instead of participating blindfoldedly) about how tactics Satan uses. It's kind of scary, but cool that we can think about things like this and then protect other people.

Okay, well I love you all!

Love,

M

--

Hermana Reynolds

This week was pretty crazy - we had MLC (mission leadership council? something like that.) in McAllen, so with driving time we weren't actually in Laredo for about 3 days. And then we had General Conference, so our schedule was a little nuts, but we received lots of inspiration from our Mission President and from the Prophets. 

Wasn't Conference great? While I was watching the sustaining of the new apostles, there was such a sense of reverence and respet. Not in a presumptuous manner, but being a missionary has helped me understand the weight that callings carry with them, and the inadequacy that one feels as new assignments and responsibilities are entrusted to servants of God. It's really amazing - these imperfect people are so trusted by God, and somehow he molds us to be the people he needs. It's pretty cool. I loved the closing prayer that said "where else do we find such order and inspiration, we are still awed by the calling to the apostleship we witnessed this morning..." and whatever else he said. It was a good prayer.

This week, we had stopped by an investigator's house, but they weren't home. Their next door neighbor was outside, so we stopped to talk to him, and as we were explaining what we do he said "Do you guys know about baptism?" .... "Yes, actually, why do you ask?" "Well, my wife and I have been wanting to have our daughter baptized, but we're not sure where to go and everything. Do you charge?" Ha! It was cool. They were about to leave, but hopefully they're prepared and are cool to wait a few years to have their baby girl baptized. 

Mario (our blind investigator) came to conference! I think he liked it - he only was able to come to one session, and we're going by tonight to follow up. He's quitting a lot of Word of Wisdom habits, so we've been calling him every day to follow up and see how it's going, and we called him on Wednesday while we were driving to MLC and he said "2 other girls came by to talk to me today (Jehovah's Witnesses) and I told them ' you don't know what you're talking about! I'm already talking to missionaries, and there's God and his son Jesus, and this whole Jehovah thing makes no sense. You don't know what you're talking about." :) He's a wonderful man. When we were trying to get him to conference, he said he couldn;t go because his wife hadn't left out clothes for him to wear, so we had him wait on the porch and we went into his house and found his clothes so that he could come. I love what we do :) 

Well, I love you all!
Love,

M

--

Hermana Reynolds