email 10.13.14

This week has been filled of some good hard missionary work.  We have come to a little bit of a dry spell with the investigators, so it is time to find some new people!  Hurray!  Just some quality time knocking doors.  I actually really really really enjoy knocking the doors, everyone is just another surprise, and you never know who is waiting for you!  Also it really helped me gain appreciation for English missionaries, they knock way more than we do! 

We did find some new gems to start teaching this week, which is just fun.  One of them is actually a former that I taught last year, his name is Cesar.  Not sure if you all remember, but he was actually the first person I ever contacted in Spanish.  We met him in the Wendy's the first day of the mission, and he came to church the first week.  He is hilarious, and a little bit flaky, but wants to learn, so we are excited. 

We also started teaching a 15 year old boy names Juan, which is right up our alley, so that is fun fun fun.  He is a soccer fanatic and actually really good (we think). 

We had two exchanges this week, which i love love love!  Sister Taylor (who is a temple square sister and served with Anna Banana in the office) came to Harrisonburg with me, which is always an adventure, especially when said knocking is done literally ALL day, but it was fun.  She is hilarious, and loves being a missionary, and just made me happy.  She made me feel so confident and light and we had a wee of a time sharing the gospel together. 

I also ventured down to the Waynesboro, which is a funny little place.  It is filled of REDNECKS, and 2 Hispanics, which you know i found, and taught.  We also found this gem of a new investigator named David, who was cracking all kinds of redneck jokes.  Too much fun. 

Any way.  We are blessed and happy here in the Harrisonburg.  This week has been awesome, I have started working on my goals based on the conference talks.  I am just so happy to be here and  I never want to leave!  As you know, Hermana Stapley came back to visit and we got to see her!  It was joyous, but also sad, she cried a few times.  I think going home is hard, but hey!  I am not doing that!  so hurray!

Funny: Me and sister Taylor were sitting in the car discussing plans, when a 8 year-old GORDITO (little fatty, male), wearing only spidey whitey-thighties ran across the apartment complex right into his tiny dads arms, who then carried him back across the complex.  We died.  I love my hispanics. 

Les quiro mucho! 

beitos, Hermana riley jane

Spiritual Fiesta

Just some after conference noms with my most favorite hermanas. Flor is the one with the cutest cutest more perfect child Genesis who I saw be birthed. VIII she is my hija.

After MLC lunch at the chicken fiesta, with sister Rose! yay!

email 10.6.14

Well I am not even sure where to start, but we had a good, very long week! 

We started off the week by finishing out our Book of Mormon read-a-thon, which was too much fun.  I had never sat down and read the Book of Mormon like that all the way through, and it was awesome.  You just get so much of the story line when you sit down and read it straight through.  I decided to highlight everything about Christ and the Atonement and to really try and focus on that, it was amazing.  I just know with all my heart that Christ is my Savior, this is his book, and he wants to help me in every moment.  I also recognized how much the Book of Mormon pleads with us to plead with our Father in Heaven.  And so many do, and are blessed.  How silly of us to neglect praying, I will never to that again, well I am going to try.  We are so lucky to have the Book of Mormon, it is just true true true. 

Mid week we went down to Richmond to go to Mission Leadership Council.  It is an all day meeting with sister training leaders and zone leaders.  They train us and then a couple days later we have our own zone meetings and train all the missionaries in our zone.  It was neat to be in that meeting, and partake of the information in a little different way, and then adapt it specifically to the needs of our zone.  We did have a scary chat about how to stay active when we go home, which was specifically for the leaders because a ton of us are going home soon, but it was surprisingly, upbeat.  I am just excited to be better. 

This weekend was the best!  I just love conference so much more.  It was powerful to have just finished reading the Book of Mormon, re-asking if is was true, then re-asking if Joseph Smith was a prophet, and also if Thomas S. Monson is a prophet.  And getting an over-whelming answer of yes yes yes, these are all the best things, and don't ever forget it.  I loved how focused conference was on Sustaining our prophet and following their direction.  The gospel is just so simple, and if we live it we can be more like our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, which is what we want.  After all was said and done I had an overwhelming feeling that I just need to focus on being a little better, being a little kinder, loving a little more, dedicating myself a little more, and be constantly converting to the Gospel.  I love the prophet so much, his guidance, his clarity, and mostly his love.  I know that God loves me, I trust in the atonement of my Savior, and I know that everything is going to be just great.  I know that this is the true church, and I am so excited to share that with simply everyone. 

We met finally had a lesson last night with our Miracle find, Franklin, and he wants to be baptized!  His wifey is very Pentecostal, and not so hip on the idea, but we are going to work with them.  I know that Heavenly Father will provide a way for the gospel to reach their home.  I love them so much! 

I am so happy to be here in Virginia, I love learning and growing and changing.  I love love love you all so much!  Have the best week! 

love, Hermana Myer 

Best mission ever.

email 9.29.14

Mi familia!

Well life is great, and mission life is even better.  And that is real.  I am never coming home.  We had another amazing week, and I am just too happy. 

Maria, Keyla, and Ester got baptized on Friday! And after much preparation everything went relatively smoothly, and it ended up being beautiful.  They are just so prepared, and excited and happy, and it was just perfect.  They were only a little bit nervous, but mostly just so happy.  It is just so fun to be a missionary and watch people change, watch them become happy, watch them to become more like Christ.  I am so lucky.  We also had a ton of support from the ward, they fit right in.  Afterwards we had to have a fiesta, claro, and everyone had a great time.  Sunday we did have a little scare when they were 10 mins late and almost missed getting the Holy Ghost, but all is well, they have been confirmed! 

We had a couple of exchanges this week which was all kinds of fun.  I felt like I learned so much from working with all kinds of different sisters.  I just felt like I had no reservations, and just helped them do work, and we saw all kinds of miracles.  I stayed here with an English sister and all day we just had miracle after miracle, and I kept having to translate for the cute sister so she could see how awesome God is!  We knocked into this guy who was almost baptized a couple years ago in New Jersey, but they had to suddenly move and lost contact with the missionaries.  I asked him if he wanted to be baptized now and he said yes, so sweet. 

This weekend we started out Book of Mormon read-a-thon, and things are going great!  We decided to read out loud together to avoid falling asleep, which proved to be a great idea.  It is fun too because then we can discuss what is going on and figure everything out.  There is a lot of things that I did not know about the Book of Mormon!  I am learning so much.  It is neat to be able to read is really fluidly, just going straight through, I have been able to make a lot more connections.  I have been marking all of the scriptures that refer to Christ, his atonement, his qualities, ect., and it has been an amazing experience.  The Book of Mormon really is just another testament of Jesus Christ, of his divinity, and the Plan that God has for us.  The idea is that after the whole mission reads the whole Book of Mormon that missionary work will just explode, and I think it will.  I am just so grateful for this opportunity that I have to grow my testimony and to keep learning. 

ALSO huge miracle.  We have been visiting Darlin and Yuleli's family, my cute recent converts, and they are really coming around.  When the girls got baptized last year Jose, their dad started coming back to church, and now their mom is starting to come back too!  They told us last night that they are preparing to go to the temple.  They know that it is a huge commitment, but they are getting excited!  We had the best family home evening with them.

So all in all I am happy, and being a missionary is the best thing that I ever decided to do.  But seriously, whoa.  Me and the Mana Rosen are just having the best time, working hard, and laughing every day until we die.  So life is great.  ALSO the women's broadcast was my favorite, we have the best church/leaders ever.  I love you all, have the best week! 

xoxo Hermana Myer

Adventures in Richmond

My cute Cristian, growing up. I asked him if we could take a picture and he said, in a very suave voice "con gusto". Too funny.

This is my posterity, my hija, and her hija. They are too cute.

Elba and Karina.

email 9.22.14

This week has been insane.  In the best way, por supuesto.  But just out of control all at the same time.

I am not even sure where to start.  So first of all we are having a baptism this Friday or Maria, Keyla, and Ester, and they are just progressing like crazy.  They are so excited for their baptism, loving church, and eating up every lesson.  It is just fun.  They are such sweet girls and we are so so so happy for them.  

We have a cute pregnant investigator, Cinthia, and her nine year old daughter, Nicole, who are just awesome.  Cinthia is super cute, but opinionated, sassy, strong, you know, my kind of person, and just gets it.  They had missed a couple weeks of church, so we taught them about the Sabbath day, and bam there they were Sunday.  

We met a serious, black, Dominican man, named Nino this week when we were looking for a former that I taught last year.  He is super intelligent, and we teach him one principal, and hes like ohh yes that makes sense.  He came to church this week and afterwards he said "that was really positive, and I will be coming next week".  He is sweet.  

The cute branch here is doing so well, they are all just started to get excited, and starting to figure it out.  We even meet in the chapel now.  It is just so fun to see all of my gente and to see how they have progressed over time.   The Chavez family is doing wonderful, I just get emotional thinking about them.  My cute cute cute people.  

So the area is rocks.  

So now for the Richmond Adventures.  First on Wednesday we had sisters meeting, with all the sisters in the mission.  It is always the best meeting, because we get to talk about feelings and also eat salad together.  Me and Hermana Rosen trained on Faith and Esther.  It was a real tear jerker.  We taught about "self talk", and having faith in God and faith in our potential as divine daughters of him.  It is just so important to me that ever sister understands her worth, and how much our father in Heaven loves them.  So this self talk thing is cool.  What you do it you read your patriarchal blessings and create a list of "I am statements", por ejemplo, "I am patient".  So then you make a list of 5-8 I am statements.  Then everyday you make small goals of how you can be each of those things, and as you act, those I am statements literally become who you are.  It is sweet.  Anyways the meeting was awesome, and afterwards all the Sister Training Leaders went back to presidents house to have dinner before we went out on splits with sisters in the area.  Then we stayed over the night in the mission home because the next day we had a Sister Training Leader training meeting.  We had way way way too much fun.  We got up early to play sports with president, and just had a big sleepover, followed by another amazing meeting the next day.  We were spiritually and physically exhausted, but happy, so that was good.  Then we spent that evening in our own area, but then Friday we turned right back around to go to Richmond again, more specifically Chesterfield, because our cute cute precious Elba was getting baptized!  She is a dear investigator, that Hermana Rosen and I taught together, and I taught for the whole 6 months I was there.  She had a few challenges before she could get baptized, but she always knew it was true, and now she gets to have the blessings.  We were just thrilled, and there were a ton of missionaries there who had all taught her, it was a sweet experience.  Our member dropped us off at the baptism, so we spent the night again at the mission home...but on  our way to the mission home the member let us take a stop to see our cute favorite Cristian, and Ruben!  We were about in tears, and they were just as happy to see us.  We were very blessed.  The next morning President and Sister Wilson drove us back up to Harrisonburg, because they were conducting interviews.  

I just have to talk about President and Sister Wilson for a sec.  They are my heroes.  We have spent a ton of time with them recently, and I just try and soak up every bit of advice from them that I can.  Sister Wilson just does her own thing, and President Wilson loves her to death.  I really feel like President has helped me to grow my desires to be good, to follow the commandments, just because it is the right thing to do, and for no other reason.  He just makes me want to be better.  I love and respect them both so much.  On Saturday after the interviews they took us out to dinner, and we had a wee of a time.  I love them dearly.  

Sunday was awesome, like I said, everyone came to church, so we were happy.  This morning we also got the privilege to see the movie "Meet the Mormons".  It was awesome.  Apparently 70% of people that watch the movie want to talk to the missionaries.  So I don't know if it is playing at home, but get people there.  It is just very informational, really helps you see who we are, and how diverse we are, even with the same beliefs.  

I am happy here in the Harrisonburg, really really loving it.  I am just so happy to be a missionary, so have such a great purpose, and I know that through the Lord that I can accomplish all he wants me to.  My Heavenly Father in my best friend, and I know he will never let me down.  Isn't that just fun.  I love love love you!  

Besitos, Hermana Myer