No Letter (Week 29)

 Mom here: This was a hard week for Kallie. She is really struggling with feelings of depressions, negative thoughts, and lack of desire to do anything. Hopefully this will get better as she works the therapy and medication. All prayers welcome!

Easter! (Week 28)

 Happy Easter  I hope you a all had a wonderful day and were able to spend some time with family and friends and celebrate the resurrection of Christ. He is risen! 

This week, what a week! 

Last pday there was a earthquake! It wasn't very bad where we were, so it was kind of cool

Photo credit: Sister Smiths Google photos 

Monday night we ran into a lady who was taught by missionaries 3 years ago! We put her on date for baptism, but she's had a lot of things happen in her family and hasn't been able to meet with us, so please pray for Enedina 

Tuesday we met the family of one of our recent converts, and they're really cool! They're definitely going through a bit of a hard time right now, but they want to start going to church again which is really cool

Thursday we had exchanges again and this time I went to Indio with Hna. Nilsen! Indio is the other Spanish area in our zone and it was so fun! We ended up finding a family that was looking for a church to go to and then we went to their ward relief society activity to share a spiritual thought. The activity was an Easter egg hunt and it was a lot of fun! And if you didn't already know this, Latinas are SUPER competitive. We got put into teams and each team had a specifi. Color of egg to find, and we literally ran from place to place trying to find the eggs, it was so fun!

Friday we had interviews with the president and that was really good! I love talking with Sister Pinnock, she is just amazing and it was so fun to see her!

EASTER SUNDAY   It was so good. Our friends Norma and Javier came to church and they loved it! And then after church, Javier got baptized!! It was amazing. He was so happy and that was so cool to see 

And for dinner we ate wansoncles, and it was weird, I'd never had anything like before. Apparently it's a type of herb and it actually tasted pretty good! 

So that was my week! Let me know how your Easter went and all the fun things you got to do!

Love y'all 

Photos:

my only other photo from the week - a branch easter dinner! 

Holy Week (Week 27)

 Hey everyone! As always, I hope you're doing well! This week was crazy and a lot happened - but I don't really know how much I remember 😅 so, we'll see how this goes! 

Zone Conference:

We had zone conference on Wednesday! It was kinda cool because it was in my old area, so I got to go back there! Unfortunately we didn't see any of the members there, but the conference itself was really good! They had a big emphasis on personal revelation and how to recognize it! They had us read this talk:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/14renlund?lang=eng

It's really good and I would definitely recommend it!

Exchanges:

For exchanges this week I was supposed to be hna. Swainston in my area, but there ended up being a lot going on in her area so we did an exchange inside of the exchange and I was with Sister Bates for the rest of the day! It was so fun! Kinda stressful, but fun! 

Javier: 

Javier is one of our friends who's planning on getting baptized on Sunday!! It's so exciting and it's so cool to see how much he loves the gospel! He's kind of going through it because he has really bad allergies, so please keep him in your prayers 🙏 

The Gomez family:

The gomez family is amazing! Their a family in our branch and we been visiting them recently, but this week they decided to come tracting with us! And they loved it! It was really fun to get to talk to them more and to here their testimonies. It was so cool!

Spiritual thought:

It's Holy Week!! This means that we get to study the last week of our Saviors life and it's so cool! I'd love to invite you all to look into the meaning of Easter a little bit more and study the last week of Christ's life! If you've done this before, do it again! I can promise that you'll learn something new! And if you want an extra challenge...share what you learn with someone else!

Love you all 🫶 

Have a great week!

Pictures:

1. Hna Simko doing service

2. Plumerias

3. A funny sign

**Facebook Post** April 9

 Lower Desert Zone Conference today. Great to hear the testimonies of all these wonderful disciples of Jesus Christ. We had some amazing trainings and beautiful musical numbers. Great way to kick off the Easter season!

6 Months?? (Week 26)

 Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great week and got the opportunity to listen to at least a little bit of general conference! It was so good with so many awesome talks! I didn't get to listen to all of it (we were running around helping all our friends watch) so I'm excited for when the talks are released on gospel library, but they had some fire speakers 

Some fun (at least notable) things that happened this week:

️ Our water was unexpectedly turned off. We came home Monday night and all of our water was turned off...and then it was still off on Tuesday morning. It turns out our apartment was doing something and had to turn off the water in our building...but they didn't tell anyone  Thankfully it was back on by Tuesday night and we had bottled water 

️ A cat tried to eat my hair during general conference. It wasn't very successful which is good! It was definitely an experience I'd never though I'd have though 

 Exchanges! I was with Sister Clauser for the day in my area, which meant I was leading out. Everything kind of fell apart - but it all worked out in the end. We did end up having 2 dinners due to some miscommunication between us and the branch  It was fun though!

 Service activity! We helped build furniture and set up rooms in a shelter for single mothers. It was so much fun and really cool to see how everything came together. When we got there, all the rooms were completely empty and when we left they all had beds and dressers and lockers! It was so fun

General Conference

It was so good! Like I said, we didn't get to listen to all of it, but the parts we did listen to were amazing! I'm excited to be able to go back and read some of the talks!

In other news, I hit 6 months as a missionary tomorrow  It's kind of crazy. It doesn't feel like it's been that long, but it also feels like I've been a missionary for forever. I've definitely learned a lot. A lot about the gospel. About Spanish. About my own testimony. And about who I want to become and the kind of person I want to be. This truly has been a unique experience and it's definitely been very hard for me. But I'm glad I'm here learning all these things now and I'm thankful for the growth I've already started to see. I can testify that we each have a loving Heavenly Father who knows us. Who is aware of us. Sometimes, it doesn't feel that way at all. And it feels like we're far from God and nothing that we do brings Him closer to us. But that's where patience comes in, and it's hard to keep going when you feel like nothing is changing. But as you put one foot in front of the other, ans keep ACTING in faith. Slowly but surely, things start to change. Maybe not in the way you want them to change, but in the way God needs them to change. And He's the one with the perfect plan

Love you all 

Keep going  

And let me know how your week's been! 

Transfer News!! (Week 25)

 Hey everyone!! I hope you're all doing well!! And Happy April (almost) 

 Transfer news 

We had transfers this Thursday!! We got the news on Wednesday morning and nothing changed for me! I'm still in Palm Desert with Hna. Simko, and I'm so excited!! This is her last Transfer though, so I'll end up sending her home which will be sad - but it's gonna be a goo's 6 weeks 

Thanks Day 

This Friday, our mission did something called Thanks day. And what this means is we don't do any studies and we don't have any lessons and we spend the whole day talking to people and looking for more people to teach! Our mission does this every 6 months before General Conference, and it was pretty fun! We did some exchanges to break the day up and I spent the morning with Sister Bates (who is AMAZING) and we had some members come out tracting (knocking doors) with us! 

A funny thing that happened this week:

We had a lesson that we invited a member to. And before every lesson we say a prayer in the car. So we were praying and I was resting my head on the steering wheel and Hna. Simko reaches over and honks the horn with my head...and a member that we invited to come with us was parked right across the street and in their car (which we didn't know at the time)  It was hilarious and we couldn't stop laughing 

Something cool that happened: Dilana got baptized  We didn't teach her because she speaks English, but we were the missionaries that found her, so we got to go to her baptism and it was so cool!! She's just the sweetest person ever and has such a strong testimony and love for the gospel and all the people around her. I love her so much, she's amazing

So, that was my week! I'd love to hear how you all are doing when you get a chance! Love you