Bitter Sweet Concern

I have debated whether to share Hermana Myers entire letter because of the personal nature, but she has been careful in the past with a few things to mention when something is too personal to post. I also feel sometimes we only share the happy times of our missions which doesn't shed light on the numerous times you feel inadequate, frustrated and alone. I know many of you that read this already pray for the missionaries and for Chloe specifically but we would appreciate that even more at this time. Really it sounds like she is dealing with things in an appropriate and effective way and we shouldn't get worried or concerned, but as parents our hearts are draw out to her.

Here is her email:

So to start off, I have a bit of a confession to make.

I've been dealing a lot my whole mission with stress and it got to the point where this last week I had a full blown panic attack. I'm fine now, the zone leaders came over and gave me a blessing but I will be recieving counseling from LDS Family Services. Hopefully that'll help get me back into shape so I can finish these next 6 months.

Other than the panic attack, this week was pretty good! I did get the package of puppy chow. Uncle Rhod and Aunt Shannon sent me a Valentine's Day package too. I got a letter from Sister Meyer saying she went to a ward down in Phoenix, AZ and that a newsletter was passed around and on the bottom it said they had an Hermana Santiago out in the California Redlands mission. She asked me if I knew her. I lived with her for a few weeks. So much fun! Love her! Also, Mom, wasn't Marcy Zabriskie one of your mission companions?(yes she was) I know I've heard that name before but I don't remember why, I just know she's one of your friends. Anywho, I'm sure you know that she had an article published in the February Ensign, funny story about that... Hermana Stevenson was trying to find a good article in the Ensign for our English class to read and she found one that she really like (it was Marcy's). I started to read it and liked it, then I looked at who wrote it and yelled, "OH MY GOSH!!! MY MOM KNOWS HER!!!!" It was funny. P.S. This happened the same day that Sister Meyer wrote about Hermana Santiago. It was an interesting day.

Our new investigator Cassandra (formerly known as Angelica) came to church!! And funny story about that and the power of fellowshipping: So Cassandra came with Hermana Martinez (the member she lives with) and they stayed for sacrament and Gospel Principles. Then Hermana Martinez got up after Gospel Principles and started telling us that they had to leave for some reason or another... I don't really even remember what, but then one of the sisters, Hermana Rodriguez, came and interupted and said, "Hi Hermana! The Relief Society President specifically asked me to come and give you the Welcome to Relief Society and ask you to come sit with me, so would you mind coming and sitting with me over here?" Hermana Martinez didn't really know what else to do so she sat down next to her and Cassandra got to stay for Relief Society. Awesome! She really liked it! Yay!  We're going to try to get her on date this week!

Funny story from yesterday. We had both of the Fontana zones over to Brother Wilden's house (he's the high counselor over missionary work in our stake). There were probably 40 missionaries crammed into their living room, right by the front door. We were listening to President Seares (stake president) talk about how music brings the Spirit when there was a knock at the door. Guess who it was. If you guessed a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses, you'd be correct. Their worst nightmare, a room full of LDS full-time missionaries. Hilarious. President Seares jumped up and ran out the door and started asking them if they could come in so we could sing to them. They made excuses and got away, but we all had a good laugh about it after.

One last thing, the missionaries get to participate in "From The Hill Cumorah". I don't know if you've ever heard of that but it's kind of a reader's theatre about the Book of Mormon . Yup. We get to sing in the finale. Holla! I'm so happy! I think Heavenly Father knows I need some theatre release. I got to go help with Redlands, My Redlands and now this. I'm so grateful!

I think that's everything! Don't worry about the stress thing though, I am feeling better and I think the counseling will go a long way.

Much love!

Hermana Myers

A Miracle Grows

I love the picture! I want to frame it... but I can't.(I saw a picture with the saying "Sometimes you just have to put on your big girl panties and deal with it" and thought of Hermana Myers so I sent it, not because she needs to put them on but because she had mentioned it a few months back.)

I am anxiously awaiting the puppy chow and the translator. Thank you so much, by the way. I really do appreciate it. I was even thinking about asking Elder Christensen (who goes home at the end of this transfer) if I could buy his off of him, but I think he wants to keep it.

Did you know that apparently there are 3 new temple movies that rotate around? I have now seen two of them. I guess they did it that way so that if one of the actors does something stupid they can use the other one. All the actors have to be temple worthy or they can't show the video. Random facts I learned at the temple this week. Also, everyone loves my temple dress. I had 3 people tell me I need to get married in it (one being Sister Van Cott which was a little weird). All three occasions were followed by a,"Yeah, that was the idea when we were planning it out :).) Really what I learned in the temple this time was just that I really can do this whole mission thing. I thought of ways to kind of refocus myself. I've never been super distracted, but I have had little distractions here and there. Getting whitewashed into Fontana made it so I had no time at all to think about anything else, but now that I'm getting oriented I found the little ditractions coming back, so when I was in the temple I really focused on what I could do to get rid of those. I have a few scriptures I've been trying to memorize that will hopefully help. I also was thinking about the convants made in the temple and it made me think a lot about my role as a future mother and wife. It was an interesting temple trip for me. I really enjoyed it.

Miracle of the week! (An extension of a previously mentioned story. Wow, the Lord is really giving this family many opportunities to return to Him.  Happy that Hermana Myers and her companion can be instruments in His hands.)

One of the first few days that Hermana Stevenson and I were in this area, we were walking around, trying to get to know the area and just talk to some people. We saw a few people outside cleaning their cars. Before that we had seen about 3 other people cleaning their car and every time we would walk up to them and offer our service, they had just finished, so we were pretty excited when we saw that they had just started. We walked (jogged) over to help them and they didn't think we were being serious until Hermana Stevenson just picked up a rag and started washing. While she was washing, I talked to the guy (Christian) and the little boy (Jarbus) who were done with their car and Hermana Stevenson talked to the girl (Casandra) while they cleaned. It was a lot of fun. We tried to get a return appointment with them and they accepted. While we were washing, a woman from across the street came over to get her mail. We waved and were friendly and she just walked right back into her house.

Later we came back to the same cul de sac to find out that the lady that came out to get her mail is actually a less active member. Perfect! We tried a few more times for Casandra but with little to no luck. Finally we tried again and this super nice lady (Ymelda) came and welcomed us into the house. We started talking to her and Casandra. We had a really good small talk session. I say really good because guess what, Ymelda is a member! Oh yeah, and her son is Christian... He's a member too. He just forgot to tell us. He's also extremely less active and thinks he's 7th Day because his wife is. Anywho, they're all living at this house together. We had an awesome how to begin teaching lesson with Casandra with Hna. Martinez (Ymelda) helping us out. Also, apparently Elder Halloway and Torgerson had ran into Christian earlier. He also forgot to tell them that he was a member. Anywho... Casandra is one of our new investigators for this week. She's super nice and very interested. She's already reading in the Book of Mormon and understanding a lot! We're super excited!

Let's see, what else. OH YEAH! Do you rememer who Arture Moreno is from Queretaro? I think I remember who he is but I'm not 100%. He sent me an email this week discribing who he was but none of the examples used rang a bell. Can you believe that was 10 years ago? Dang.

This week we have multi-zone conference so I'm pretty pumped for that!

Happy Lock-Your-Heart Day!

Much love,

Hermana Myers

Just kidding, the last name of the person who emailed me was Acereto. I think I know a little bit more who it is, but I'm still not 100%. 

Temple Day Quick Email

I was not worried that we hadn't heard from Hermana Myers but I missed the fact that we hadn't heard from her yet this week.  Knew there had to be an explanation. Today is Missionary Temple Day for her which means preparation day and a visit to the temple and little time to focus on emailing.

I know from other missionaries that I keep up with that after around the 10 month mark it gets harder to email.  Why? Because what used to be new to them has become second nature and so they don't think it is interesting or don't even think to share it with us.  I am ok with that. 

Here is her email:

So I'm just going to start this email off with a warning, it may be a little scatter brained because we don't have a whole lot of time and we're going to the temple today.

(In regards to her request for an electronic translator last week, we wrote:Oh, Dad said we shouldn’t buy you a translator.  He thinks when you don’t understand a word you should ask questions to find out what it means.  Well, so if you still really want/need one, you will have to state your case or just go buy one on your own with money from your personal account.  For me this one isn’t worth fighting for you with the limited information that I have on the need.)

First off: Sure, I could ask people for the information, and I do, but when it's just me and my companion and we're trying to figure something out, or teaching an English class (which we do), it's a little more difficult to translate from Spanish to English when the member is asking how to say it in English and you have no clue what it is in Spanish. Then they try to explain and you guess, then they accuse you later because you were wrong. But it's still up to you. It's just nicer, smaller, and faster than a dictionary.

 

So this week was an interesting one.

 

We picked up the daughter of a recent convert. Her name is Adriana. The whole family is super ready. They've experienced two deaths in the family within the two weeks we've been here and they're all looking for a little bit of comfort. We're teaching 5 members of the family and counting. Adriana is the only one on date though. We went over almost every day last week. It was awesome! We have to help Adriana read the Book of Mormon though because she doesn't read very well so that was some of the lessons. It's been awesome though!

 

We also had an awesome lesson with the Morales family. Apparently they're legendary in the mission because the kids are crazy (that is not an exageration... they turn off the lights when we pray and one of the daughters says she'll only get baptized if her cat can get baptized too. It's interesting, but we love them :)) and the mom rarely shows emotion. She's starting to smile a little more when we're there so that's good. We pretty much asked them why they aren't baptized yet because they've been coming to church for the last 6 months. The dad, second daughter, and youngest son are all baptized, just the mom, the oldest daughter and the youngest daughter aren't. Anywho, we found out a lot. Turns out Hermana Morales doesn't think that God answers her prayers and that she doesn't need to change, but she wants all her kids to get baptized in our church. Doesn't really make sense to me, but alright. S (the crazy cat daughter) doesn't think that God exists. So this is going to be awesome! We're interesting to see if maybe we can help them, or if (in Elder Holloway's words) "we end up in their boiling pot of missionaries that had failed to convert them." He's a strange kid... but he's great :).

 

We've also been doing a lot of Elder "damage control". We keep finding people in the area book that when we meet them, they don't really want to talk to us but when we explain that we're there to help them strengthen their faith in Jesus Christ and their relationship with their Heavenly Father, they soften up and say, "That's such a relief because all the Elders wanted to do was baptize me!" We then say, "Well, yeah, we want you to get baptized too, but only when you feel ready." And then we think, "And you'll get baptized when you do what we tell you too, like pray and read and go to church.(Because they will feel the Spirit and want to get baptized) You'll get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... So we kind of are here to baptize you..."

 

So yeah! I think that's about it for this week. I hope I can add some more stuff next week about this week, maybe some new insights about the temple! (Hermana Myers loves the temple, I am sure this will be a huge uplift for her.)

 

Much love!

Hermana Myers

Fontana Fun

So this week was a bit of a roller coaster. Hermana Stevenson and I have been running around trying to get to know this area. We've met so many different people and families from all over the place. Before I forget, where did Dad live in Nicaragua? There's so many people from there, here it's ridiculous. Also, there's two girls from Queretaro. They knew all about JFK and Jurica and everything! Where was the church at, do you remember? Also, and you don't have to, but there are a few missionaries that have a handy-dandy pocket translator that they bought on Amazon. I would really appreciate one, but it's not necessary. I think they're $30-$50 if I'm remembering correctly from what Elder Christensen said.

 

Your weekend at the Greenhalgh's sounded like fun! I wish I could've been there to see Matthew give his talk, but I guess I'll be there for his homecoming. Plus I'll be closer to him while I'm on my mission than any of you will be. Muahaha.

 

So here's what went down this week:

 

We walked into our apartment on Wednesday, it's pretty nice considering elders lived in it before... then we opened the fridge. I don't even know what was caked onto the floor, but it resempled carmel. It took us a good 45 minutes to clean the fridge. (Okay, backstory quick. Elder Torgesen and Holloway have been here for a few transfers. I think this is their third? Anywho, they were in our area before and they lived in our apartment. They're now in a different part of Fontana but still in the ward) Elders Torgesen, Holloway and Richins (yup, they're in a trio) came over to pick up some of the stuff we brought home from the mission office for the elders on bikes. We asked them about the fridge and they said it had been like that when they got there. Gross.

 

Turns out, from asking around, we're about the first sisters that have been in this ward in 8 years. No pressure.

 

Apparently we teach English classes on Wednesdays and Fridays too.

 

We did a boatload of walking this week to try to get to know our area. Whilest walking we came across these people that were washing their car. We went over and were helping them out. Her name was Angelika and his is Christian. We were talking and having a good time, then this lady came out to get her mail from across the street. We waved and were nice. The next day we were trying to find a less active. Low and behold, it was the same lady that came out to get her mail. It was awesome!

 

We also talked to a less active who's name is Danny. Turns out he's only a year older than me, which is wierd because he looks like he's 30. I just can't gage ages, apparently. Anywho, he's super nice and we're really excited to work with him to get him back to church.

 

On Sunday, Hermana Stevenson and I got to talk. And I don't mean go up, introduce ourselves, bare our testimonies and sit down, no. This was a thought out, written down, had time to plan talk. I pretty much did an info-mercial on Preach My Gospel. It went really well! Then after church we had a huge meeting with all the leadership and their counselors to talk about this plan to reactivate people. We split up by three groups (there's three groups of missionaries) and each one of us got one of the leaders from each auxilary. We went through the ward list and picked out the people in our area, then talked about their level of activity, then set up times to go with members on Tuesday for the next three weeks to go visit them. We're pretty excited!

 

Everyone's super excited to have sisters. And you can tell that they're not really used to it because everyone only shakes our hands. It's funny!

 

Well. I think that's all.

 

Mucho Amor!

 

Hermana Myers

Another Week, Another Growing Experience

So this week was pretty awesome full of major ups and downs.

I want to explain to those of you who may think the LDS church is too strict that I hope you can see the mercy and love that was shown to this missionary.  Discipline comes from the word disciple and is done out of love and concern to help and individual become a disciple/follower of Christ, not just in word but in deed.

First off, we found out on last Saturday that one of our zone leaders(a district of missionaries is about 6-8 with a district leader, and a zone is made up of 2-4 districts and has two zone leaders who report to the assistants to the president who report to the mission president) was going home early. It was a huge shock to a lot of us. We ended up having a meeting about it on Tuesday. We talked a lot about obedience. It was interesting to hear President's and Elder B's (our other zone leader) take on the whole matter. Apparently the elder had been breaking small, little rules that didn't seem very significant but then it got so bad to the point where he couldn't even sustain President as a leader. However, after many interviews and President trying his hardest to get him to stay and the elder himself making huge changes and going through a major repentance process to where he saw the wrong in his thinking, the elder decided he couldn't trust himself and went home. It just emphasized to me how important exact obedience is and how awesome it is to have the Atonement.

There was an earthquake too. Just a little one Tuesday night. That was exciting.(Glad I didn't know that!)

We had interviews with President on Wednesday. They usually last about 15 minutes... mine was 45. Oops. I had a lot of questions and received a mission father's blessing. It was really nice. Basically what I got out of it is that I do have enough faith and the fact that I started my papers (mission papers to be called on a mission), finished the process of filling out my papers, came on a mission, and am still here are evidence that I have faith. He explained to me a little bit more about Alma 32 and how if we so much as feel that something is true, we have a knowledge of it because we know that it's a good seed. He also told me that he wanted to send me to Borrego Springs (which is a little town in the middle of nowhere-ville) and be a Sister Training Leader. I have no clue what he was thinking. (See PS. below, this didn't happen this transfer) The blessing was really nice too. He talked a lot about the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. And the blessings my family will receive from me serving. It was awesome.

We had stake conference too! It was piped in from Salt Lake. And our area 70 has asked all of the state of California to do a special fast in February for the drought. Conference was awesome though, a lot about missionary work. A story came up twice about two friends that have been working all day in one of their yards and they go in for a break, the owner of the house pulls out a nice cold glass of orange juice and starts drinking but doesn't offer any to his friend. The friend gets a little annoyed and asks for some and the other replies, "Oh, sorry! I didn't think you'd like it." or "I didn't want to offend you." Our stake president likes object lessons...

I think that was really all that happened this week. It was pretty intense!

Well, I love you all!

Hermana Myers

P.S. I'm getting whitewashed  into the Randal ward in Fontana with Hermana Stevenson. No STL for me!(this is missionary lingo for both missionaries in the companionship to leave the area and Hermana Myers and her companion Hermana Stevenson, one of her companions from the MTC, will both be new to the area.  Usually only one missionary from a companionship moves so that one missionary knows the area and the other can learn it but when you "whitewash" an area two new missionaries start a fresh and clean slate.)

Recharged the Batteries

Dear Family,

 

It's funny that you saw Dianne the other day because the other day I got a letter from Mallory and have been thinking about the Operahouse a lot. I even told Hermana Harris some stories. I miss everything about the Operahouse, especially the people.

 

Before I forget, yes, transfers are next week. I don't know what's going to happen though, because next week is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day so all the libraries will be closed and that's how our zone leaders find out where we're going... So we will see. I guess my zone leader is the office elder so I may find out on Saturday or Sunday. Who knows.

 

This week was an interesting one. Hermana Harris and I have been struggling a little bit with getting motivated and whatnot so this week was us trying really hard to get back on the horse. Some pretty interesting things came from it. We've been trying really hard to apply the things we learned at the mission conference we had this transfer, teaching simply and whatnot and finding out what people really want in life and helping them to realize that no matter what they want to aspire to, the Gospel can help them. We had a lesson with our investigator, Claudia, and we worked really hard to get ready for this lesson. First off, Claudia is awesome. She doesn't have a whole lot of religious background, doesn't know a whole lot about God, but prays and reads the Book of Mormon with her daughter. She wants to come to church but we have to work around her husband that won't let her. Anyway, we had left the Book of Mormon with her, honestly as a comfort tool because she's been going through a really rough time. Hermana Harris bore her testimony about how when she's going through a hard time, reading the Book of Mormon really helps. It was great! But Claudia seemed to take it the wrong way and that it was going to solve all her problems and if she read it then she wouldn't be distracted ever again. Oops. So this lesson we wanted to clear that up with her. We did, and then we started talking to her about what we as missionaries do. We flat out said that we're not here to sell our church or convince her that this is the only true Church, but we did tell her that we're here to help her make changes in her life so her life will be more in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and when we do that, she'll want to follow those teachings and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority (How to Begin Teaching point. Yup). She took it like a champ! She told us that she will only get baptized if she feels it in her heart. We told her that we're here to help in any way we can and she got all excited. Yay!!

 

Another thing that I've learned in the last few weeks is to just be people's friend and don't always jump right into being a missionary.

 

This last Saturday we were heading over to see a less-active family (This family is huge and has three households that we know of. Hermana Bates, Harris and I refer to them as the Mora Clan. In one of the households there's a member that's semi-active, but everyone else is either less-active or not a member. Lots of potential that Hermana Bates and I have been trying to work with since I got here. We had this awesome plan to do an FHE(Family Home Evening - a night set aside to spend with your family teaching or living a gospel principle, usually Mondays) with the whole family that never when through because when we mentioned it to Hermana Mora (the semi-active member) she started avoiding us. Anywho, we drove up to one of the houses on Saturday and saw that everyone was outside, having a family get-together. We sat in the car down the street for a few minutes debating on whether or not we should go and be awkward and crash the party, or just try another day. We decided prayer would be the best way to find out. After a short prayer, we sat and thought for a little bit, trying to see how we were feeling. After a few minutes we realized that we really should go and at least try to talk to them, if they let us in we can make new friends! If it's awkward, well, we'll have an funny story to tell later. We also made sure that both of us knew that we had to be confident, even if they tried to make it awkward. So we walked up to them, our heads held high and with big smiles on our faces. We were there for about an hour and a half, just talking and laughing with them all. It was really fun and a really good experience! We tapped into the Mora Clan!

The best part about this is (first off, Hermana Harris and I usually divide up during Relief Society and try to sit by different people every week.) Hermana Harris sat by Hermana Mora in Relief Society yesterday, Hermana Mora flat out told Hermana Harris that she wanted us to come to their FHE today: we were to give the lesson, she was to provide the treats. Alrighty, Hermana Mora. We're on it! We're super excited!

This week has been a good one and we're hoping to have an awesome last week of the transfer! Pray for us!

 

I think that's really all I wanted to say...

 

Much love!

 

Hermana Myers

 

P.S. Don't worry, we're getting fed plenty. It's actually really nice eating with two sets of elders, each having a HUGE elder in the companionship. People are a lot more satisfied with how much they eat, then the pressure's off us to eat everything. I don't explode every day. Yay!

Making Friends

Dear Family,

 

Based on the temperatures I just read(let her know how cold it is in Iowa -16 with wind chill of -45), I've decided to stay in California for forever. But not really.

 

Hurray for no more debt! Hurrah for Chloe having a car in Rexburg! Would you like me to start making payments on it like Polly and Dan did for the Corolla? Eh, cross that bridge when I get there.

 

Last I heard from Kara was she emailed me the day she went through the temple. I wasn't able to write her because I didn't have anything to write with or on... but I'll write her this week.

That's awesome that the new missionary knows Chandler! I haven't gotten those letters with encouraging words yet, but that's okay. I also was looking through an old Liahona the other day and President Condi was in it. I laughed and took a picture. (the new missionary serving in our branch came from serving in the same ward as a guy-friend of Chloe's from BYUI.  We always chuckle because Chandler went to the temple with Chloe, for friendly support not to marry and the temple president, Spencer Condie, thought they were an item and told Chandler "no mushy letters, just ones filled with encouraging words")

 

Really my personal goal for missionary work for this year is to make as many friends as I can. I had talked to President a little about the area after the mission conference and he told me that I'm here to make friends. Alrighty, President, I shall make friends. So that's really my only goal right now. Or the general goal, I guess. We have our own individual and companionship goals that we come up with during comp inventory. 

 

Before I forget, I'm planning on sending some boxes home of stuff I don't really need right now (extra clothes, Christmas stuff, souvenirs) all that jazz that I don't want to carry around from transfer to transfer.

 

Hermana Ortiz came to church!! and Hermano Curiel tried to come... but he accidentally went to the Pioneer ward instead because of the time change. Oops. Didn't understand a word. Our bad for not telling him.

 

Other than that this was a pretty ordinary week.

 

Love you all!

 

Hermana Myers