:)

Howdy, ya'll!

We just finished week 4 - only 2 more weeks left in the transfer. Super nuts!

We had Zone Conference this week, and it was pretty intense. Our Mission President is a very inspired man, and he's also very intense, so coming out of zone conferences and interviews always feel like a little bit of spiritual purging. But it's good :)

President talked a lot about faith, and how if we really have faith we show it through our works. So he talked a lot about obedience, and how we need to show our love for the Savior through our actions, and how this mission is a time to learn how to be obedient so that after the mission we're obedient to the ultimately even more important things (things that will help our future families - family home evening, daily prayer, scripture study, etc). That's one of the things I really appreciate about our mission president - he focuses on the after-mission. I've heard stories of mission presidents who are super focused on the mission and tell their missionaries to leave all other thoughts behind, but President Maluenda is very aware and focused on how the mission is going to help us be the mothers/fathers we need to be after. So I'm learning a lot, and it's cool to see how I really can be different because of the mission. Anyway, I learned a lot and left feeling edified and more faithful.

 

We went to Bayview this week! It's this little teeny town out in the middle of nowhere, but it's BEAUTIFUL (hence all the pictures). I've liked different parts of Texas, and Brownsville is much more fun than I expected, but Bayview is the first place I've ever though "I could definitely live here." It's tropical with lots of citrus trees, and the lots of land are all really big so the neighbors are relatively close, but not suffocating. Also, all of the houses are built along a Resaca/lake, and it's like a little bit of Paradise.

 

So remember the story about Jorge? The guy the Elders found? So we tried by every singe day this week and we could never find him/he had to leave or couldn't talk. So we were pretty sad/frustrated, and just wanted to find him. Finally, on Saturday we were determined to find him, so we stopped by 3 times, and the last time it sounded like maybe people were home, but nobody was answering. Ugh. So we walked to another part of the neighborhood, and did some other things. The Zone leaders (who found him originally) called to see if we'd had any luck, and so they ended up coming. Elder Cruz knocked down the door (almost literally) and we finally got the (very-drunk) dad to open the door, and told us Jorge was sleeping. After a lot of persuasion, the Elders talked him into letting them go wake him up, and we talked with him for 10 minutes and made arrangements for him to come to church. We had two people who previously said they could give him a ride, and when Sunday morning rolled around BOTH of them fell through. Earlier that morning I had poured my cereal and was saying a prayer over it, when I felt the impression that I needed to fast. I was trying to justify it away "but I already poured my cereal!" but decided I should do it. So when all the craziness of finding a ride started happening I was so grateful I had that prompting - we called EVERYONE we could think of, even our less-active members and nothing was coming through. I was pretty frustrated, I felt like we had worked so hard to get him to come to church and he was ready, and we couldn't find anyone. Finally 1/2 before church, the Elders found an older member to take him. We all met up at Jorge's house, and seeing Elder Cruz come out of the house with Jorge was one of the happiest sights of my life. Church went really well! I gave a talk on member missionary work during sacrament, so I got to sit up on the stand and Jorge was paying a lot of attention, and after church he said he loved it (and he wasn't on drugs this time - hollah!). It was such a miracle and it was a really big lesson in "after ALL we can do."

Also, yesterday we found a cute little family that wants to learn more and the sister of Sarah (The mystery girl we found who had been taught by elders), but we still haven't found Sarah... ha.

 

Well, believe in miracles! They happen!

I love you all - keep up the good work :)

Love,

Hermanita Reynolds

So, somewhere in the past couple of weeks I finished 1/4 of my mission.. Yup. Time is going just a bit too fast.

 

We had some pretty interesting appointments this week, and the first ones involving drugs since I started my mission! The Elders told us they had an investigator for us  that they had taught a couple of times, and so we were going to have a lesson with them and trade off. We met him (Jorge) at church, and he seemed super nice, but maybe a little mentally slow. At the lesson it was the same, and he had a hard time remembering, but mostly understood the principles and seemed eager to learn more. So we set up another time to go by, and when we did we could only stay for a couple of minutes because he was leaving. We talked for a couple seconds and then he had to go get something in the other room, and Hna Quintero said "something's different.." and when he came back and we talked for a minute more, something WAS different - He was totally normal! He wasn't at all mentally slow, he'd just been using drugs.. Es por eso... So, yup. Gonna have to work on that.

We also met a guy named Josue who was interested (mostly because he doesn't want to go to Hell), and we stopped by again and started talking to him about church and things and asked how interested he REALLY was. He sat there for a minute and then said "well... you see.. I smoke weed. I was in the army and I can't sleep or be normal without it. I'm not a pothead though!" Ha ha. So, gonna have to work on that, too. But he's willing to try out church and to learn more, and his sister-in-law said she'd come too if his wife came, so we'll see what happens. They're the neighbors of the mystery-girl Sarah, and we still haven't ever been able to find her again. Maybe she was a ghost...

 

We also have an investigator named Michael, and he started out as an agnostic, but now he prays and reads the scriptures every day, and it's been cool to see his thoughts and feelings change. However, he's super intellectual and so he has tons of questions about the church's history.. He wants to know everything. he's been reading "Our Heritage," and he wants to read a biography of Joseph Smith and the Joseph Smith papers. He has a master's degree in History, so he loves learning and research, which is good, but we're trying to help him understand he needs a testimony, not just information.. It's been interesting teaching him because he is so very intellectual, and most of our other investigators aren't. So it keeps things interesting :)

 

I think I told you about the big family of girls we had a couple lessons with in Spanish? We taught them again with the Casa Linda sisters (who teach in Spanish where they live) so they could get to know them and start teaching them, and it was pretty crazy. There were 4 missionaries, Gina, and then 6 of them. So there was this huge group of girls all trying to teach and learn, and they kept asking questions and we'd have to explain to the little girls in English sometimes, and were trying to keep them involved, so it was pretty exciting. They said that the other sisters should come walking with them on Tuesday and they could talk more, so they said they would.. and then we're actually doing an exchange tomorrow, so I get to go walking/teaching with them. I'm not sure how intense of walkers they are, but they said they usually walk for 3 hours. so. yup. it'll be great!

 

The missionaries have been doing cross-fit in the mornings, and we've been going. It's pretty painful, but I'm getting a lot stronger! Plus, being in pain together as a zone has really unified us ;) Oh, we're also getting zone tshirts that I helped design, so next week I'll send pictures of how they turned out! The month of Spanish is coming along.. Mostly it's just hard when we're with the other missionaries because they all talk to us in English, and we have to respond in Spanish, but other than that it's been really good and I'm learning lots!

Well, keep on keeping on :)

Lots of love!
--

Hermana Reynolds

Hello! I have some wonderful stories this week - fasten your seatbelts ;)

 

On Thursday we decided to try and find a less-active family up in an area where we don't usually work, and when we arrived there we found this girl named Sarah. She seemed familiar with missionaries, and when we asked her if she had talked with missionaries before she said that two men with nametags like us had been teaching her and she was going to come to church with them (and it was our church). Se were trying to figure out who might have possibly taught her, and NONE of the elders knew who we were talking about .. she didn't end up making it to church, but we're trying by her again tonight and hopefully we can figure it out! Weird miracles...

 

We went and visited the family of the stake patriarch, and he used to work with president Kimball (I think) with the "Lamanites," and since sister Quintero is Mexican he just loved her. At the end of our visit he said "Sister Reynolds, you're very blessed because you get to have one of Lehi's kids as your companion" :)

 

We also had a lesson with one of our investigators last night at a park, and it was kind of flooded and there were lots of mosquitos, so we ended up having a lesson in a gazebo and drenched ourselves in repellent. The funny thing was that we didn't have chairs, so we were all just sitting on the ground. The lesson went really well though - we hadn't had a lesson with him in a long time, but he is progressing really well! His name is Michael and when we met him he had recently changed from being Atheist to being Agnostic, and he is progressing in really incredible ways - it's super amazing to be a part of it.

 

Okay, well I gotta run, but I love you all! The 4 sisters that live in our apt are doing an English fast for a month... so hopefully our Spanish is gonna improve a lot. Yikes! we started today and it's a little daunting, but it'll be good ;)

Love you all!

Love,
Hermana Reynolds

New Transfer!

Hello!

Happy Memorial Day yesterday! The libraries were closed, so I'm emailing today. :)

This new transfer is going to be amazing! My new companion is Sister Quintero, and she's from Spanish Fork. She and I get along really well, and the two other girls in our apartment are sister Whitten and sister Angus, and the 4 of us have a lot of fun. We are always laughing, but we work really hard, too. It's great.

Yesterday since we had more time for P-day we went to the mall. It was a pretty bizarre feeling going there - I haven't been anywhere remotely like a mall since I left for the MTC.

After we came home and went out and worked, and we went and visited a less-active member. He's just 18 and lives pretty much by himself. It's sad, but he's super cool and we had a great conversation. As we were about to leave, he said "hey do you guys want a papaya?" and he went and got a papaya for us from his tree. Papayas supposedly really aren't that great, but everyone here gives them out. So we thought it would be funny to give them to the other sisters when we got home. We walked in the door, and said "We have a present for you!" Sister Angus was like, "Is it a papaya?" and then sister Whitten said "We have a present for YOU!" and they brought out another papaya that one of THEIR members had given them. So now we have 2 huge papaya on our counter. Yay for Texas.

The past few weeks had been pretty rough with finding people, but we've been working really hard and are finally seeing some progress and results. It's been such a miracle to FINALLY start finding people again.

I love Texas! I'm just so very happy here :) Miracles are going to happen this transfer!
Hope all is well :)

--

Hermana Reynolds

Hollah!

Hey family!

 

Man, this week was a whirwind. We did pretty normal things for the first couple of days, and then my companion got called to be an STL so she had to go to training in McAllen, so I was in a trio with the two other girls in our apartment, sister Bentz and sister Whitten. We had some great adventures traversing around Brownsville together.

Also, after the training, our district leader gave us the challenge to use better referral questions (instead of things like "do you know anyone on this street" to  things like "do you know anyone who has lost a job"), and also talked about the importance of using the Book of Mormon. He gave us the challenge to come up with lots of new referral questions to have ready so that we can use them, so we spent a lot of time coming up with those. We got pretty dried out of ideas, and we settled that we just need to start asking "who do you know?" and go from there ;)

But, yesterday we contacted this house and the lady was super not interested, but sister Pickett asked "do you know anyone who is sick who maybe needs some help?" and she was like "Yeah, actually, I work with sick people all the time! Let me give you people you can visit!" So we went in while she was writing down names and stuff, and then I was thinking, if we were already in her home we should share a message from the Book of Mormon. So we pulled out the Book of Mormon, and asked if we could share something. At first she was super apprehensive and was like "why would you use more than the bible? I don't understand!" but we talked about it, shared a story, and left her with a Book of Mormon. It was super cool, because she went from being totally anti other religions to committing to read the Book of Mormon. Pretty cool :)

 

Ever since the change of areas, sister Pickett and I have been doing lots of work with less-active members of the ward, and have made some really great frienships and things, but not a lot of progress as far as returning to church. We had been fasting and praying a lot for investigators and less actives to come to church. Yesterday morning it seemed like everything had fallen through, and we didn't have anything.. but we went to church, and it was so cool. SO many of the people we've been working with came! And the husband of one of the families came, who wasn't a member, for the first time in years. It was such a miracle to have our last week together be a week when we got to see some fruits of our labors here :) The Tender Mercies of the Lord are real!

 

Love you all!!!
--

Hermana Reynolds

This week will be short, but here's a quick story :) The other day we had plans to contact a less-active member, and so we went there and he wasn't home, but his wife was and so we started talking with her. She was pretty cold at first and said that she was a "non-denominational Christian along with her daughter," but we kept talking and then started talking about baptism - we explained that we help people prepare to be baptized and asked if she'd be interested in learning more, and then from behind the door we heard a "yeah, I would!" Her daughter had been listening to the conversation from behind the door and wanted to be baptized! Yay for miracles!

 

Next week is transfers, so things are probably gonna change up again. It's pretty exciting!

--

Hermana Reynolds

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....

Probably the most exciting thing that happened this week was a zone exchange - everyone switched companions for 2 days - it was pretty crazy! I ended up with another greenie, so for two days we got to practice being not greenies, which was great because in 2 weeks I'm done with 12 week and can graduate greenie-hood! Yay! It was great - we even managed to teach in Spanish without our companions, and we saw lots of miracles.

Okay, I just remembered that there were a lot of other exciting things this week.. so enough about the exchange. On Friday, we exchanged back in time to do weekly planning. We went home, and sister Pickett and I started planning. All of a sudden we heard weird things happening with the other two sisters who live with us, and we heard sister Benz say to sister Whitten, "okay, go lay down!" and then she came in and said "Guys, sister whitten is high from her medication. I'm serious!" and... she was. She had been having kidney problems so got some antibiotics or something, and for some reason she had some crazy reaction and was crazy. She kept saying "I know I'm a missionary, and I know we need to do weekly planning, but I just feel a little weird," and then would start laughing hysterically and telling sister Benz not to call anyone, and was having her take pictures of her eyes because she thought they were dilated and stuff. She wouldn't stay on her bed, and whenever sister Benz tried to talk to us about it she would say "YOU GUYS ARE TALKING ABOUT ME!" and come in and get mad at us. She was super coherent, but just crazy. We eventually got things worked out and she finally went to sleep. And then we went to our next lesson... It was with a guy named Steven, who was baptized a couple years ago but never confirmed. The other Elders had been teaching him since he was in their area, so we were going to talk with him and kind of do a trade-off lesson. Evidently he had had a lot of weird ghost/devil experiences before and claimed to be able to talk in tongues. so we were talking about confirmation and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and all of a sudden he started talking in tongues (like... speaking some made up language.). and it was freaky. He said that it was a gift of the spirit and he knew that he already had the gift of the Holy Ghost because he could talk in tongues.. Yay for Texas! Things like that happen pretty often here, evidently.

Also... I'm gonna be 20 this week. That's all.

Love you! Can't wait to see your bright, smiley faces on Sunday! Yay!

Love,

--

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.