5-26-14

Hola Fmailia.

It has been a whirlwind of a week and a never ending adventure.

We had zone conference this week and it talked all about our desires, faith, action, and many of the things that are attached to that like repentance and such. It was amazing as we talked with each other about our talents as well, we talked about that parable in the bible and how we are given our talents to use them. That is something i have been pondering, what talents do i have that could help me out in the mission field. I still haven't finished that thought process. But i know that we all have different ones and that God puts us in places where we can magnify that calling and help the people.

Other than that we studied a lot and taught a lot. It is kinda a crazy week in general here because it was memorial day weekend. So we spent most of Saturday doing service projects so we wouldn't be in crazy down-town Chelan. But it has been a very humbling and reflecting week. A really cool experience was getting to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. We were preparing to start a quit smoking program with someone we are working with. Let me just say as we were studying i felt like i was cramming for an exam. There were so many little parts to remember and so many little things we needed to do and so many of those little things! Yet as we walked in and began to teach we found a person with a changed heart right in front of us and the Spirit guiding us and nothing but peace in the room. It was super amazing. To see a heart so broken and ready to change. I gained a huge testimony that God knows our hearts and our desires and he will lead not just us, but those around us to do what is best for us. It is days like that where you absolutely love being a missionary. For those people. Cause it is all about fulfilling the eternal purposes.

The weekend was kind of Crazy. Being Memorial day and all (crazy right?) And so we did a lot of service outside of town to not get caught up in all the hustle and bustle and drunk people. Sunday there was a baptism of a little 8 year old in the Spanish group and it was amazing!! Her sibling came (which doesn't happen very often) and it was amazing. Natalie was so cute and is an example to many. She has such a happy little spirit and is so smart! Watching her be baptized reminded me of why we are all here. To come closer to God and follow Christ. If you are looking for purpose in life. Look to Christ and i can promise you you will find it!

Hermana Ray

5-19-14 they think I'm an ignorant savage

Familia!

Como estan? I hope so. Everything is going good up here in the mountains. No complaints. I am really really happy actually! That could be because we just got done hiking Silver falls and it was soo pretty! Pictures will be included. But more than that we have been having great missionary success, I have every reason to be happy.

To start off we had stake conference this weekend where we got to hear from Elder Aidukaitis from the Quorum of the Seventy who spoke in conference. He had some very funny comments but also many uplifting ones and suggestions on what we can do to be better. He was very outgoing and spoke with confidence. Plus we had 2 investigators show up at church who hadn't been there in quite a while. Actually a miracle in itself! We were so excited to see them there. One of them was struggling and we weren't sure if she was going to act, so one day we went over and were going to talk to her about that and when we got there we asked her what she had done that day and she said, "Oh just cleaning the house and getting ready to go to church tomorrow." We were floored! (In the best way possible of course) and both who came really seemed to like it.

We have a had a roller coaster week, like yesterday itself was a giant roller coaster. Every single one of our appointments cancelled or fell through, yet at the end of the day it was a good day. How that was possible, well the Lord works in mysterious ways. He knows the needs of us and other people and knows where he needs us when he needs us.

We also had a really cool experience with a recent convert and we were teaching him to get him ready to receive the Aaronic Priesthood soon and he told us of an experience he had with receiving a blessing and after that finally (after 39 yrs of on and off teaching) wanted to get baptized. It is truly amazing to know of God's power here on the Earth. It is truly a blessing to help us all learn and grow.

In studying Preach my Gospel i have been reading about using time wisely and why that is important. We always feel like we never have enough time to do this or that, but as we have been focusing on the importance of life, for me teaching people and helping them see that they have time for Christ, i know how important it is. This is a common phrase in that chapter, "Do all you can to..." And i often say have i done all i can? But i know that if i am diligent than the Lord will use me as an instrument in his hands and i will be as effective as possible if i allow myself to be at the will of him. And that was reinforced as i read through the Book of Mormon and right now i am reading about Captain Moroni. What a guy! In the time between war he wasn't telling his people to rejoice and do whatever they wanted, but he was strengthening their walls and protection. In the Book of Mormon, we can learn to be a leader from Moroni. It says, "Yea, verily, verily I say unt o you, if all men had been, an d were, and ever would be, lik e unto Moroni, behold, the ver y powers of hell would have be en shaken forever; yea, the de vil would never have power ove r the hearts of the children of men." (Alma 48:17) can you imagine that? That is why we study to learn from these great people so that the devil won't have any power over us! I know that God love us and wants what is best for us, i know that i am helping Him in His work and that His church has been restored to the Earth. I am happy and loving every part of being a missionary! Thanks for all the love and support! Enjoy the pictures.

Hermana Ray

P.S. to explain the title of this email. Hermana Jett and i were running down the trail and there were trees on both sides and after the waterfall i felt like i was Pocahontas and as we were running that was the lines that came out of my mouth and we had a great laugh out of it.

Extra

look at this picture. this horse was born the day before i took this... it should cheer you up! honestly i think it is the prettiest horse i have ever seen

And this one is just funny. old ;adies at the parade in those bikini shirts

5-12-14

Hola Familia

Well i kind of talked to you all yesterday so this will probably be really short. It was great to see all of your lovely faces. Life is going really good and I couldn't think of any better place to be than here!

Claudia and her family came to church this week which was like the higlight of my life. The little ones were all pretty good during sacrament meeting! It overall was a really good Mother's day... Mom i may have forgotten to say this yesterday! Happy Mother's Day! (But i think Emma said it enough to cover both of us.

I am loving everything i have been studying lately especially the middle chapters of Alma. It is such a good example of teaching methods and many other things like that. Oh and it is chalked full of promises to the righteous which just might be like my favorite thing ever! I could read these chapters over and over and over! (i think i do actually)

I also have been studying up in Preach my Gospel. I still am finding things that i had to have read before but haven't really understood. I love the Gospel and its teachings.

Life is great, sometimes crazy (but that is what makes it fun!) and i love the people that we are here teaching. we have been blessed to find new ones and the Lord is helping us to see what we can help them do. This is all about him and all about them! Love you all!

Hermana Ray

Included are some pictures 1.Parade!! THE Ladies on the lake float... 2. view from our backyard 3. Geronimo himself

5-5-14

Familia!!

It has been such a crazy week!! but that is life, i feel like everyday here has been a different form of crazy. Mom, hopefully you got my email about Skype time.

I can't believe that it is already May! What is happening to time? Feliz 5 de Mayo :) Yesterday they had a huge family friendly party here in Manson. We drove past and we couldn't believe how many people were there. It was crazy!

We had a super funny experience the other day we pulled up to a patch of houses and we were going to get out and go try a few people that we had talked to a few weeks in the past and as we pulled up we got mobbed!! Seriously like 8 of them ran up to where we were and it was crazy! Now before you get all worried they were ages like 5-10 probably and they all had nerf guns but they were on the verge of climbing on our car and it was the weirdest thing ever! We weren't even quite sure what to do in that situation! Luckily we both made it out with our lives and ditched the little banditos.

On a more spiritual note the Lord has been blessing us a lot here. we have been finding people to teach. and not just people but Families! Nothing better that teaching families. One family that we have started teaching is the Parra family. They have been so amazing. last week they came to the Relief Society Activity, mutual, and cub scouts! It was awesome. They planned on church but were out of town for some cinco de mayo family fun. But she was telling us that she felt a peace when she was around people from the church or at activities. She said normally she avoids large groups of people that speak english (even though her english is amazing) but that she felt really comfortable. It was awesome! Our members have been going by and inviting them to everything! Member missionaries are helping this family so much! We hope that they can see it! They are super prepared by the Lord and I am super excited to teach them!

Another really cool experience was with one of our members. we have memebrs going out with us pretty much everyday and yesterday we didn't have any good firm set plans and so we thought we would go talk to Dulce, one of our investigators, and see if we could set up a time to take her on a church tour. we haven't been able to get her to come to church yet. And Sis. Hinkley suggested that we see if she would just come with us right now. It hadn't crossed Hna. Jett or my mind. But you never know until you try. we went in and asked her and she said oh ya sure! give me five minutes to get ready and my family can pick me up form there to where we are going. She came and it was super amazing! There was lots of testimony born and she talked about how peaceful it was to be in the church building. Loved it!

We see blessings everyday from what we do as missionaries. Even though the hard days are always bound to come, luckily the Lords on our side. I have no doubt in my mind that he loves us.

This week, as i have been studying in Preach my Gospel, My mind keeps falling back to The Book of Mormon. Maybe because we have taught it a lot this week. But i was studying about how it Testifies of Christ and his mission. I have been learning from both the Book of Mormon and the bible that i can't imagine one with out the other. they help me understand one another so much that one without the other would be so hard. As we learn them they become part of us and i think that is a way we can truly come closer to Jesus Christ. His words are becoming part of us. We begin to live and become the Doctrine of Christ which is our purpose in life. It always amazes me how all that we learn can be applied to everything else.

I love you all and have a great week. Talk to you Sunday :)

Hermana Ray

The apple trees have blossoms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New companion

Hermana Jett: She is from a tourist town in NJ. Mom is from Ecuador and her dad New Jersey. So i have another dark complexioned companion (accept unlike Sis. T she actually knows Spanish) So again at a doors people assume i don't know Spanish and ignore my existence. She loves the beach she is number 3 of 5 kids (aka middle child). She goes to school at BYU and is studying psychology in hopes to working with Kids. But she is awesome, loves being outside and being on the beach. Nough said!

4-28-14

Familia!!

To start off i can't believe i forgot to tell everyone about the amazing dinner we had last week! Sis. Swapp in Quincy cooked every single one of the 4 missionaries who came to eat their favorite meal! And i have to say I was really impressed! her homemade chicken noodle soup over potatoes was like perfect. it tasted like being at home. Everyone had to try it because apparently it isn't normal to eat homemade noodle soup over potatoes, but not a single one of them was disappointed. It was fun and adventurous and a nice suprise. Thanks for the Easter basket! I love it :)

Life is great! The new area is showing to be a fun whirlwind of adventure! :) Just the way i like it. My last few days in Quincy were super busy! And then I was on the road again. I am now in Manson. So I told you i was getting transfered to Chelan, which is kind of true. We are in the Chelan ward and teach some people there, but we are actually living and serving mostly in Manson. We share the 2 areas with the Elders here. Any who i serve mostly in Manson, but they are right next to each other. It is a smaller town, but still bigger than the last 2 places i have been. The population during most of the year is like 6,000 people but in the summer the population is like 45,000!! We live very close to Lake Chelan, which is huge! Other than that, there are orchards. Like in other small towns there are some big families that everyone is related to. So back to learning names and faces! But as soon as i got here i found out we would be moving houses in a few short weeks. I feel like this transfer is going to fly by!

My new companion is Hermana Jett from North Wildwood, New Jersey. She is super amazing and such a good missionary. I am serving back in a Spanish area. We work in an English ward and then Spanish is a group. Hopefully we can find some people to teach and turn it into a branch. We are really shaking things up in the area. We are setting goals and trying to talk to as many people as we can to bring the Lord's promised blessings. So far we have met some really cool people.

We are working on member missionary a lot here and here is why: We got two referrals from members this week on who we should go visit. So we went to see them and ended up teaching both of them and they were both super prepared to hear the message! It was awesome! The Lord has really been helping us lately to work hard and hope that good things will happen. And well, he always comes through for us. The coolest experiences was after teaching Patty, she asked her member friend if we were all that special and then told her that we were radiating with light. It was so amazing! We are super excited for all the work that is to be done here and the potential, we are seeing miracles daily and are able to count our blessings. Plus the Weather is warm enough that you hardly need a jacket during the day! Life is Good!

We also had another email worthy dinner the other day. We got there and well, they live in a lake front house. SO what did we do? Naturally we roasted our hot dogs over a fire on the beach :) Heaven! And then we got to have smores!

I truly am having amazing experiences here in Chelan/Manson right now. We are being blessed in so many ways. There truly is no reason to not be happy. My reading of the Book of Mormon is going good. I am reading about the conversions of Lamoni and Lamoni's father right now and i love how you can see the desires of people change as the truly become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. i strive to teach in a way that i can aid people to have those experiences. Also this week i read an amazing promise from Presidetn Hinkely in Preach My Gospel. Lots of new things have been jumping out at me lately, which is weird for how often i read it. But it is in the Chapter on the Book of Mormon, it says:

“Those who have read [the Book of Mormon] prayerfully, be th ey rich or poor, learned or un learned, have grown under its power. … Without reservation I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of M ormon, regardless of how many times you previously have read it, there will come into your hearts … the Spirit of the Lo rd. There will come a strength ened resolution to walk in obe dience to his commandments, an d there will come a stronger t estimony of the living reality of the Son of God” (“The Powe r of the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, June 1988, 6).

What an awesome promise! I challenge you all to take that promise because when we have that knowledge we are happier people. Thank you for all you do to support me. I love being a missionary and am enjoying every moment on this incredible journey. I know Christ lives and loves us! Have a great week!

Hermana Ray

Not the best picture but i guess i will get a better one next time. The docks are still down the lake hasn't reached full level yet. this is the view at Lakeview, an awesome burger place