Good week

It's really weird being on the East side of town now. I really love my new area though. We went downtown and she found this really cool place where you can look at down town Houston with all of it lit up and beautiful! We also drove by the Astro Stadium and this really cool apartment building that looks like Phantom of the Opera. :) 

 Last Tuesday I gave a talk in District meeting... I think everyone just likes to listen to me make a fool of my self when I talk in Spanish.. just kidding. This week was a really good week. When I first got in this area we had no baptismal dates, and this week we were able to receive 4  new baptismal dates. YAY! We might have a baptism in two weeks if our investigator can't make it to church to get the Holy Ghost. 

In every area I go to all the members decide they want to start feeding us. Hermana Carlson and Groves said once I left their area the members stopped feeding them, and now in this area we didn't have any dinner plans with members, but now we have one almost everyday. Yesterday the Garcia's made us tamales from Guatemala. They were wrapped in the banana leaves. YUMMY!! 

We got to help out at mutual last week and we did family history. The two kids I was helping did have any names done, so it was really neat  to start from the beginning. 

Wednesday I had exchanges and went over to the area I started in and had some very powerful lessons. I loved being back and seeing the progression with everyone. It was also nice being back on the bike. I've already lost my tan and muscle... Here are some pictures of graffiti in my area.

Friday was our miracle day. We received four baptismal dates and had six amazing lessons. We taught the Jewish family and guess what... THEY ACCEPTED A BAPTISM DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHH!! I would really love to receive the emails from Ross :) pretty please. I think it would be cool to talk to him about this Jewish family and talk to them about all the things that he is seeing over in Jerusalem. 

I love you and I'm so grateful for the amazing family and friends that I have been blessed with. Sorry I don't have a whole lot to say.. my memory is horrible. 

Guess what I saw this week?? I saw Lotus! I have seen some pretty sweet cars here! Oh and since I'm writing down random things.. one of the recent converts in my last area just got back from Mexico and bought me presents and some yummy hot sauce. 

Love you, 

Hermana Watkins

SURPRISE!

Hola, hola, hola! This is email is really long, but totally worth it to read!!

So the subject title fits this week perfectly, but I will get to the surprise after I talk about a couple of other things. Last week was probably one of the craziest weeks of my mission... I know I say that every week, but I'm telling the truth! Last week some of the Elders had ripped some gnarly holes in their pants so I offered to sew them for them. And one of our members is a seamstress and has this sweet shop, and I got to go and play around on his equipmen, and he taught me some cool tricks on the sewing machine. I was excited to finally use one my talents :) The Elders were pretty happy too.

We had a beautiful miracle. I talked a little about how we had trainings with the AP's and we prayed about some of the people in our area to know who the Lord has planned to get baptized this year. Well one of them is named Marichuri and we haven't been able to see her the whole time I've been in this area, but last week we went to go see her and all the things kept happening and we were running way behind. We finally get to her apartment and she's not there, so we say a prayer about where we should go and I was backing the sisters out and then guess who showed up...... Marichuri!!! YAY! It was amazing! We then had a lesson with her the next day and it was beautiful and I fell in love with her, and her dog. I strangely love dogs now, and I really miss Brutus... odd!

Now it's time for the SURPRISE!!! Last Wednesday Hermana Carlson was going on Exchanges with some of the English sisters so we went and dropped her off, and then Hermana Groves and I came back to our apartment to finish studies and to eat lunch. We then we received a  phone call from President Ashton and he asked me how I lliked being a trainer and how everything was going... of course I was freaked out that President was calling me, and then he said,"YOUR GETTING TRANSFERRED"!!!!!!!!!! WHAT!?? Last week I told you that we were thinking that Hermana Carlson might go to Hermana Shill's area because her temple square sister is leaving.... well turns out I was the one getting transferred. I had to then pack up all my stuff in one hour and then pick up Hermana Carlson and head to the mission office to meet my new companion. I was in SHOCK! And I was really sad... and still am. I became very close with Hermana Groves and Carlson and then had to pack up and leave. Hermana Groves is my baby and I really feel like I abandoned her :(

Hermana Groves and Emily

My new area is the furthest North area in the whole mission. I have downtown Houston in my area and it is BEAUTIFUL!! I also have the great and abominable church, Lake Wood, in my mission. I am the Senior companion, Hermana Shill is one transfer younger than me. So we are really learning Spanish really fast now. I LOVE her to death. We've been close ever since she got here so were having a blast together!!

Emily's newest companion Hermana Shill

Other things that happened this week is I got to do the training with the AP's again, because Hermana Shill hasn't done it for her area yet, and one of the families were teaching is Jewish and it is God's will that they get baptized this year!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whahoooo. Also, we did Family History and I traced our family history all the way back to Adam and Eve!!! WOAH! I believe it was on Grandma Watkins side too. I went through a lot of Royals to get there. Saturday morning my zone and youth from a Baptist church all went and did service on the Highways and cleaned them all up. I got to ride in the back of a truck on a Freeway in Texas... that was AWESOME!! I love doing service! It brings such a good feeling, even when I had a driver chuck a Dr. Pepper can at me... I still felt good about what I was doing.

Doing laundry with no dryer

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Merrell for the letters and the Merrell Connection. I love receiving that and seeing how everyone is doing. :)

Yesterday I had a super spiritual moment at church. The temple President and his wife came and spoke in our ward. They talked about temples and the importance and family history work. The Montano's family that I told you about last week we're sealed to their beautiful little baby girl on Saturday :) :) I LOVE THIS WORK!! President Cane came up and talked to me afterwards and I told him how I was a ordinance worker in the Vernal Temple and how I loved it and miss it. He then got in to a deep discussion with me and then asked me if I have ever wanted to have an experience like the brother Jared. I told him of course!! I would tell you all the things he told me but I believe they are way to spiritual and sacred to tell over the internet. Just go and read Ether 2-3 and try to relate it to going to the temple and how we really do have the same experience everytime we go.

I know this email is long, but I love talking about my mission and sharing these amazing experiences with all of you. And I haven't been doing an amazing job at keeping a journal this last week...so now I have everything in an email... haha I want the world to know that I know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and has a very specific and personal plan for each of us. This plan will help us get back to Him. He wants us to communicate with Him so He can better help us understand His plan and the things that we need to do. He has also given us His Son Jesus Christ who died for us and suffered every single pain we have ever felt. I know They live and love us VERY much! I am also very grateful for Joseph Smith and have come to love him and his sacrifice. If it wasn't for him NONE of us could receive our salvation. This church is true and is the church that Jesus Christ himself established and restored through Joseph Smith.

Go to the temple. Pray and read daily. We don't have time to procrastinate. I say this becaue I know that it is true and I have seen the blessings of it in my life and I want these blessings for everyone of you!

I love you!

Hermana Watkins

Miracles

This email I'm going to speak a lot about the miracles I have seen this week. And then some really funny stories.. maybe if I have enough time.

Miralce number one. Last Monday we had a feeling we needed to go see one of strong member families in our area. They are a cute young couple that just had their first baby girl. The sister wanted to learn more about angels, because she was confused by one of the scriptures we had shared with her in a previous lesson where it talked about angels. That's what we first started talking about, but the spirit directed me to ask Hermano how everything was going with preparing to go to the temple. He totally shut down and started speaking in really fast Spanish, but the spirit helped me to understand him. Words cant even explain what the mood was like in the house. He told us that he doesn't feel worthy at all to enter the temple and that he will never be good enough. He was completely chained down by Satan and was falling fast! My heart hurt so badly to see one of my brothers in that much pain and sorrow. I shared with him my experience of how hard Satan worked on me before I entered the temple and left on  the mission. Satan doesn't want us to do good. I then told them that it will really help to receive a blessing so he can receive counsel from God and the love God has from him. I then asked him if he would get one and he looked up at me straight in the eyes and said NO!! I can't explain how sad this situation was. I then was prompted to ask again, and we sat in silence and then he said,"your right Hermana I need a blessing, call the Elders up now"!! We then called the Elders and they came over and gave one of the most powerful blessings I have ever heard in my life. God was commanding him to feel of his love and commanding Satan to leave him a lone so that he can feel peace again.

After the blessing was over there was just a lightness in the air. He became a totally different person and just began crying and looked at us and told us he totally forgot what peace felt like. The next morning during companion studies we recieved a text from them saying that they called the temple and they are getting sealed in the temple as a family for time and all eternity this Saturday October 19th. We all just started crying and jumping up and down. Oh man I love the priesthood power and this Gospel soooo much!

We had Elder Golden from the Quorom of the Seventy come and man oh man he is amazing!! He taught us things that I have never even thought of in my life. There is no way I would be able to explain them through email. After listening to him I decided to change a lot of the things that I've been used to doing. He really opened my eyes and help me see things that I need to change. I think I'm still spiritually drained from some of the things he said. The conference was 5 hours long and we had one 15 minute break... WOAH that's a miralce right there, that I was able to focus the whole time.

We had a very spiritual lesson with a part member family and he acepted a baptismal date!!! YAY!!

Another miracle is that I am now driving and we are still alive!!! I didn't think I would be able to remember how to, but I forgot how much I love driving. Here in Houston there are all these weird medians in the middle of the road that I HATE, but I'm learning to love them.

Thurdsday was my 6th month mark!!!! How crazy is that!! Time has really flown by. It was Hermana Carlsons year mark and Hermana Purnells six month too so we all went out to Five Guys for lunch and TCBY (The Countries Best Yogurt) for lunch and dessert. :) Yummy! Then I had a surprise exchange where I got to go back to my old area with Hermana Wilzbach and Lister for the night and it was Francisco's birhday!!!! So we celebrated with Pizza and cake and then he came out and taught two lessons with us. He is the BEST!! We also had an English fast that day... talk about hard!!

Sunday was really good. I had another lady in our ward by me new shoes... haha she made fun of my shoes that have holes in the bottom... haha I like them and I think I will bronze them. :) Hermana Shill and Flores recieved a miralce baptism yesterday and I gave a talk at it about the Holy Ghost. I was super nervous, but God blessed me with the gift of tonuges and it was a very spiritual moment for me.

Hermana Flores is a temple square sister and she is going back to temple square this week and the other temple square sister that is coming in is English speaking so Hermana Shill needs a Spanish speaking companion... so everyone thinks Hermana Carlson is going to her area.... I am super nervous, because I don't believe I'm ready to take over this area and be a trainer... especially with Spanish. I pray to know the vision God has for me so I can be in line with his will.

I love ya'll!!!!!

Hermana Watkins

Conference=Christmas

Hello, hello :)

How is everyone?? This week we had Christmas!!!! Conference was wonderful! A lot of the things, well most of the things that they talked about, we have been talking about in my mission for the past couple months. This week actually in my email from President he wanted me to pray to receive a vision for my new area, and to find out what Gods plan is. So I've been studying like crazy and really, really getting deep into the scriptures, and everything that I studied is exactly what they talked about in conference. I love receiving personal revelation, especially when it lines up with revelation that others have received.

This past week has been super good. I have yet had a week that something crazy hasn't happened. I got to go on exchanges to my last area on Tuesday and I had Hermana Groves and Lister with me who were MTC companions and brand new....so I was a little nervous, but SUPER excited! I got to see a lot of my old investigators and got to show Hermana Groves how to get around in the Ghettos ha ha. We had a blast!!

This past week we have had some really interesting OYM's which means Open Your Mouth... so basically talk to everyone! My favorite most memorable one was with Taisha, who was this nice black lady smoking on the stairs of one of the apartment complexes we go to. Turns out she's Jewish and has actually been called to be a prophet..... and they were having their disciple meeting that night. I actually learned a lot from her. She is very educated with church history, and she knew everything about our Gospel too, except the fact that it's the ONLY true church. She wanted to give me her correctly translated bible, and I wanted to switch it for a Book of Mormon, but she was just a little hard hearted. She was very sweet though. I was just very broken hearted to know that someones heart could be so hard :( Hopefully one day her heart may be softened.

We had an awesome Zone Meeting this week and President and the Assistants will now be part of them. A LOT of things are changing in the mission field. They talked a lot about them in Conference. We get iPads, smart phones, and facebook probably by the end of this month. We will now have two sets of missionaries in the church at all times to do church tours, tutoring, family history, English classes, piano lessons, culture classes from members, addiction recovery classes... you name it, were doing it!! I'm really excited to start doing it, and seeing the progression in the church. I was asked to give a presentation on how to receive a vision for your area and what needs to be done. I actually love giving presentations now and sharing the knowledge the God has blessed me with. I'm learning so much in the scriptures!!!! We also had our interviews with President and we were asked to teach a lesson in 3 minutes to him, we also had a 20 minute training with the zone leaders and assistants with our companionship and we would write down all the names of our baptism dates and then we went through a step process like the president does when he does transfers to see if it's Gods will. So we found that only two of our baptismal dates will be getting baptized this year. I can't even explain how spiritually powerful it was to have God reveal to all of us in the room that, that specific person was to get baptized that year. So we get to find 5 other people that God has planned to be baptized. I love learning how to have more specific prayers.

Conference was amazing. I watched all the sessions in English except for the first one on Sunday I watched in Spanish. 

I'm pretty sure I could write 20 more pages about this past week. One last thing. Junior got confirmed last week. He was baptized before I got in this area, but hasn't been able to make it to church, but this past week he received the Holy Ghost and became a member of the Church. YAYYYYY!!! I love you all so much!1

Hermana Watkins