1ST BAPTISM!

Cinthia is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It finally happened, Cinthia was baptized on Saturday and it was a beautiful baptism.

Saturday started out super good. We went and tried some of our referrals at Cancun and we have a new investigator named Juana. She's a mother of three kids and is originally from Mexico. Juana was really excited to have us teach her and we shared the Restoration and the spirit was beautiful. She was smiling from ear to ear the whole lesson. She didn't except a baptismal date, but really wants to learn more and she said she cool feel the spirit really strong and would like to get baptized once she receives a answer. I can't wait to go back and teach her this week. After trying the referrals we went over to Alex and Carla's to teach them and we received news from her mom that their baby is really sick in the hospital and they don't know if he will live. Which is really really sad, their first baby was a still born and this second one Mateo was a premi :( I pray all goes well. We then went to the Jimenez to see how Cinthia is doing and doing last minute things before the baptism. After getting ready we walked over to our rides house and she had totally forgot she was taking us.... so we ended up being late for the baptism.... I was soooooooo stressed. All in all the baptism went really well. Hermana Wilzbach and I sang a duet and the talks were really good too. Cinthia said she felt so clean and could feel the spirit really strong! She then received the Holy Ghost yesterday in sacrament.

We had a couple really good lessons with Francisco. He lives in the same apartment complex as us, so we go and see him a lot. He's a really awesome guy and guess what????? He's getting baptized this week... well hopefully.... he has to get an interview from President. Were really praying that all goes well. He's honestly the perfect investigator. We have seen the preparation that God has done for him and for us to teach him. 6 months ago he was a big time drunk. He told us there is no way he would of talked to us then. Like I said last week he went to church and this week we were praying with him that his boss would allow him to take off Sundays so he could to go to church and Wednesday we asked him how it went, and he received a miracle. He asked his boss and his boss was like of course, no problem. YAY!!! Miracle! He is so excited to get baptized and is basically already a member.We asked him if he knows this church is true, and he said," Without a doubt, I can't deny the things the Holy Ghost hast told me."He loves answering the questions in Sunday School and talking with all the members. He's also really excited to get a calling. I would say after two hard months of working and being sick, meeting someone like Francisco makes it all worth it.

My Spanish is coming a long really well. I'm thinking about doing a English fast next week.... that means I can't speak English for a whole week!!! Wish me luck!

We were one away from reaching Standards of Excellence. Friday we had a horrible rain storm come and the AP's told us that we had to go into our apartments. So we were unable to get in some of our lessons, but if and when Francisco gets baptized this week we'll beable to reach them this week!!!

What else happened this week???? Well transfers came and gone. I love my mission, and  I love the plan God has for me and I know without a doubt that this church is true. I love you all!! I want to say Happy Birthday to my beautiful sister Alesha and Grandma Merrell!!! Both of your birthdays were last week.

Les Quiero

Hermana Watkins

So this morning we received the call about who's all getting transferred and who's training, and I am not getting transferred. Hermana Wilzbach and I will be together for at least one more transfer!!! :) YAY! Were both really happy about it because we first started in this dead area with zero baptismal dates, and now... drum roll please...... we have 14!!!!!!! Whawhooo.... Hopefully we can get them all baptized within this next transfer.

Sad news we didn't have a baptism this week....... here's the thing, our investigator Cynthia was excited and received her interview on Tuesday and passed, and then Friday night we get a text from the Bishopric saying that they need to cancel because none of them can make it........... WHAT!!!! Who cancels a baptism??? Our whole district was furious! Nevertheless, she's supposed to get baptized this Saturday :) We would have hit Standards of Excellence but we didn't have a baptism, so we are going to this week :)

I received all the letters from the family reunion last week after email and I was the happiest person on Earth!! I LOVED it soooo much! Thank you :) I also received the Merrell Connection from Grandma and Grandpa. I love receiving that and hearing how the family is doing, and seeing pictures of everyone. Thank you, thank you!

Hermanas Shill, Baer,Watkins and Wiltzbach

This week was a very busy, but fun week! We received a couple news and three baptismal dates. It's always wonderful to see the spirit work within the first lesson and have them already except a date. I love it! That's one thing that keeps me going for sure! The worst is when you've been teaching someone for months and they still won't except a date but know that this is the true church.... one day :)

I'm not dreaming in Spanish!  The problem is that eveyone else in my dream is speaking Spanish and I can understand, but I can't talk back to them..... One of the dreams was I came home and I was at my homecoming and all the aunts and uncles decided they were going to learn Spanish so they could talk to me, and Aunt Veronica had like a big time Southern accent and was speaking spanish. It was AWESOME!! Haha Ya'll should really do that :)

Wednesday was a really busy day we had tons of lessons and that night we did a service project with three member families for another member family in our ward. Their backyard is/ was covered with a lot of garbage and wood and we had to clean it all up and throw it in this HUGE dumpster. It was a lot of fun being in normal clothes again and getting dirty :) I like it a lot! Except all the nasty cockroaches EVERYWHERE!! They were huge! GROSS!

Ummmm... what else happened this week......... oh yeah we had a slap down with the Molina Lopez family on Thursday about how they're not keeping the comittments we give them, and we will drop them if they don't. Only Edi and his nephew Bryan were home so we sat outside and had the lesson, and then this drunk guy comes up and is talking to Edi is Spanish about how he really wants an American girl and he was talking really nasty about us... information that doesn't needed to be said again, but we then looked over at him and said,"We speak Spanish,"! hahaha I'm so done with being disrespected here!!! I am a daughter of God!!! Not a piece of meat!!! During our lesson Edi asked us if we had boyfriends and I said no and Hermana Wilzbach started talking about her boyfriend. And then Edi proposed to me........ that lesson then ended very quickly. But Sunday came and EDI, ERIKA, BRYAN, alll came to church!YAY! And they really liked it! Also, Fransico, Cynthia, and Antonio came to church too! So many miracles! LOVE IT! Fransico is getting baptized in two weeks. He's 45 and is truly converted!! I love him so much!!! God has truly prepared him for us. He believes everything we say and has a testimony of them. :) 

Last night we had an investigator/ less active devotional at the Bissonnett church and I got to see my best friend Hermana Johnson :) I love her!! We got pictures to prove it too! 

Hermana Johnson from Vernal with Emily

Jesse and Jon both came to the devotional and Jon said a lot of his questions were answered :) We then had a sad night saying goodbye to Elder Watts.

Shooting Elder Watts

Our district is going to be weird without him, but I'm excited for change. Hermana Ricks, and Christenson are being transferred and Elders Whicker and Stansward.

Well I believe that is all I have to say this week. I love you all!!!! Have a wonderful week!!! 

Les Quiero

Hermana Watkins

I LOVE THE SCRIPTURES!

 I am learning more and more and more and more from the scriptures EVERYDAY!! I love them! Like Nephi, I know that God will provide a way for the things that he has commanded us to do. Some days it's really hard to see this when I am so exhausted, dying of heat with sweat dripping down my body, no one answering the doors, and yet we do the things were supposed to, and then BAM!!!!! We have six new investigators :) All we have to do is endure through those tough times, and we will see His hand in EVERYTHING!

This week was yet another AMAZING week. Heavenly Father is truly blessing us for all the times we had to stay in and be sick. We had 30 lessons again this week and reached all standards of excellence except having a baptism. This week we have Cynthia getting baptized on Saturday!!!!!! So we want to work super duper hard to reach all standards. 

The week started out kind of rough for Hermana Wilzbach. She received not one, but two flat tires all within 24 hours. We luckily had a leftover patch in our apartment from the Elders and patched it up and went out to work, but the second time we had nothing. All day Wednesday we walked. :) I actually really liked it. It was blazing hot, but I got to get a better look at our area and how ghetto it really is. We also met a lot of interesting people.... haha Our zone leaders doubted us and told us that we probably wouldn't get a lot of lessons in, because we were walking but we had 5 lessons :) Thursday Hermana Baer and Shill had Pday so they could go to the temple so they bought Hermana Wilzbach a new tire. We weren't having and success with lessons in the beginning of the day, so we decided to OYM everyone. We had a goal this week to get 4 new investigators, and the only way we were getting them was by OYMING. First couple doors weren't a success, but we then met Anjelica and her 3 kids. She's catholic and is excited for us to come back again. She gave us 2 referrals too. :) We then went to Cancun and met with one of our former investigators brothers. His name is Saul and he's 19 and he leaves in three weeks for school. He is also really good at soccer. We taught him the Restoration and excepted a baptismal date in 3 weeks right before he leaves!!!! He's really excited and is already SOLID! We then OYM around Cancun and taught Isabel and her family, and they are super excited for us to come back too. We then walked over to the Spanish Walmart.... or our bathroom when were down town and this guy started yelling at us saying, "Why don't you ever teach me about your church and God"!! We were really scared for our lives, but then we talked to him and turns out he's seen us around a lot and prayed that morning that he could run in to us so he could hear our message. He's been looking for a church to go to and always had a feeling that he needed to talk to us. :) :) His name is Alfredo and is having a lot of hard things happening in his life right now, but we shared a message with him and he's really excited to read the Book of Mormon and find out if it's true. :) :) I love God's plan for us. If we weren't doing what we needed to be doing we wouldn't of been blessed with 6 new investigators, and solid ones!!! 

This week we went to a papusa buffet that was only five dollars. We also had  two meals a day from members. :) Hermana Sproule made us choclate Flan and I got the recipe!!!! It is seriously Heaven on Earth!!! 

My talk in District meeting went really well. Everyone said my grammar was perfect and my Spanish is improving. YAY!! Herman Moreno is a member of our ward and comes with us to lessons all the time and is now preparing to go to the temple!!! Cynthia is getting baptized this Saturday and I am STOKED!!!!!!! I'm really excited for her and she is one of the investigators that Hermana and I found on our own. :) We found out that she is for sure baptized and she didn't think someone that was pregnant could be baptized, and that is why she kept pushing it off. Ahhhhhhh I'm so excited!! I love her!! 

A lot happened this week, but I'm pretty sure I covered all the things I wanted to. Oh we went to one of the referrals we got from Hermana Sproule and the guy opened the door completely naked!!! What, who does that??? Luckily I didn't see him, but poor Hermana Wilzbach saw it all...... We hope he was drunk and that he won't remember us. He's around our age and lives in the same complex as us. 

Oh man I love my mission!!! Elder Watts goes home next week and he's not trunky at all. That's how I am going to be. I'm excited to see ya'll again, but I can't imagine leaving my mission. :( It breaks my heart to think about. Transfers are next week, and Hermana and I really hope we stay one more transfer together, because we are having so much progression right now. Miracles after miracles. Milagros despues milagros... haha 

Les Quiero

Hermana  Watkins

P.s Ross I don't have enough time to email you this week, but do you know the Hymn Si la Via Espenosa??? We call it the Nacho Libre song, because it honestly sounds like one. The Hispanics don't care what they sound like, but they sing with all their heart! ha I love it. But you should listen to this hand just imagine Nacho singing it :)

Hello family and friends,

This past week has been AMAZING! It started off kind of sad not receiving answers to my health, but the Lord has a plan for me and I have seen his hand in everything in my life. Earlier this week during companionship study Hermana Wilzbach and I were talking about how much our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us sooooooo much! The scriptures have every answer we need. At times we may not understand them completely, but we may not be ready to understand them. Jesus taught with parables. Some just enjoyed listening to them, because they were interesting stories. While others really understood the meaning behind them. Parables are understood very differently for each person. There's ALWAYS something to learn. Some of us are not prepared to learn the whole meaning to the parable so were take parts of it that we can APPLY to our lives. If we want to learn more we need to APPLY. For example, those who have their patriarchal blessings can better understand this. For me when I first received my blessing like none of it made sense to me. Parts did but it was still real confusing to me. There are certain times we need some of the things in our blessing. Each time I read it I learn more and understand it better. Especially after I go through a trial. God knows we are not ready to understand everything, but he's givin us ways to. We are loved so much and what a blessing it is to have the scriptures so we can learn more and grow in the Gospel, and truly prepare ourselves to be with God again. I don't know if any of this makes sense through email, but if you pray to understand I'm positive God will help you, because it's such an important lesson we all need to learn about. Don't get frustrated because you don't understand something. You may not be prepared. I'm not prepared to learn Spanish fluently right now. It's a trial I'm willing to work through though. Because I know I will be blessed and others will be to. I need to learn more lessons and other things before I can speak clearly. I love Gods plan!!!!!! He loves us so much!

Any who....... this week we had 30 lessons :) HE has truly blessed us with lessons,especially memeber present lessons. Which are the best :) One really big miracle received this week is Fransico the less active that doesn't beleive in the Bible or Christ dying for us and thinks black people aren't children of God and beleive they were sent here to be our slaves.... Now beleives in the Bible and that Christ died for us!!!!!!!! We shared the Articles of Faith with him and showed him that when he was baptized he said that he beleived in these things and would follow them. We then shared a scripture from the Bible, but didn't tell him it was the Bible and asked if he beleived... he was like well yeah, who wouldn't beleive that. :) Then we told them that it was from the Bible... ha we tricked him, but he liked it. We keeps telling us that we were angels sent for him. I love him soooo much and I love seeing his progression. My companion and I decided that I'm a reactivationist. I love working with those who are less active and those who know the truthfullness of this Gospel, but don't get baptized.. I LOVE them sooo much! Oh and Fransico is a Theologist... so he knows everything about religion, which makes is more fun!!

I have recieved a lot of humbling experiences with speaking Spanish this week. I'm not as advanced as a lot of the missionaries, but it's coming along and I embarrass myself a lot, but it's makes things fun and very humbling... haha Tomorrow I'm giving my first talk in Spanish at District Metting... this should be interesting. :) I'm excited though. It's experiences like this that help me grow and become stronger.

The temple was amazing and beautiful like always. I really miss working at the temple though. I wish missionaries got to work in the temple for one day a week.. it's missionary work still :)

Houston Temple

Hermana and I are having a lot of fun together now that were both pretty healthy. All of investigators think were pretty hilarious :) were kind of crazy/weird! We had a water fight in our bedroom the other night where we both ended up soaked and our beds were drenched... good thing we have a dryer in our apartment. Oh and I found out a way to break into the bathroom while she's in the shower... so I turned of the lights while she was in the shower, and then locked the door again. She thought the power went out and just showered the rest of the time in the dark.... hahahhaha our apartment it now covered with cochroaches (I don't know how to spell or talk anymore) so we have killing parties all the time.. GROSS!! I scream a lot when I kill them. :)

Silly Hermana

Last Friday was packed full of Zone meeting/ service all day long/ Talent show for the WHOLE stake. We had over 700 people come to the talent show.  All the Spanish missionaries were there with investigators. I saw Hermana Johnson. We were planning on getting a picture together, but forgot :( The Talent show was really cool. They performed dances from all different countries and had people playing some funky instruments and my very own Margy Sproule even got up and danced with some other ladies from my ward :) I love her!
Saturday we stopped by our dear friends the Molina Lopez family apartment to help set up for Juana's birthday party. She turned six! We gave her a little blue necklace and earrings that we got from someone in our ward. She loved them. I have a picture with me and her too. :) and we got food. The Lord always provides!!

Juana and Emily

I love you all. I know this church is true! Thank you for everything you do! I'm so blessed to be part of an AMAZING family.

Les Quiero

Hermana Watkins

Heavenly Father Has A Plan For All of Us

Aloha!

How's my beautiful family doing? I miss each and everyone of you sooooo very much, but I don't want to come home yet... Sorry. :) 

So I went to the Doctor this morning and guess what???? All my test came back NEGATIVE. I have four more test that they are waiting for. Bishop/Doctor said he would just call me later this week when they get them. I was really praying to receive answers to my pains, but that's not God's plan for me at this time. Right now the hardest part about my mission is forgetting about myself: my health problems, language, and only thinking about my investigators. But I am trying super, duper hard, because I know God will bless me if I do. I'm still on the Lactose diet. I accidently had something with milk in it on Thursday and I got really sick. So the doctors are almost positive that is one of the problems if not the only, well besides IBS. 

 We had some awesome lessons with members present. Those are the BEST lessons. Lindsey if their are sister missionaries in Vernal you should go on splits with them. You will love it. It's not scary all you have to do is bare testimony, and you will probably make a new friend too. EVEN BETTER!! I challenge all the family to look for opportunities to go out and work with the missionaries. Invite them over for dinner and give them people to teach or to do service for. They will LOVE you FOREVER!! 

On Thursday  we had our interviews with President, and guess what? You know how I was saying how blessed I've been to have a Branch President that's a Doctor and now the Bishop of my ward is? Well President Ashton has all the same problems of me. He is lactose intolerant and has IBS, he also has all the same stomach problems as me. My interview was basically all about our health problems and how we basically have everything in common. I love him! He is an amazing example for me. He had all of these problems and his mission too and he still went out and worked everyday even though he felt miserable. So from now on I'm going out and putting all faith in the Lord. He said it's really frustrating to know that the Doctors may never know what is wrong with him, and that this is something he has to deal with the rest of his life. He said because of this trial he has come to see Heavenly Father's hand in everything and has come closer to Him. I am so grateful for my trials and I know that they are the things that make us stronger and truly bless our lives. I know that I needed to be here not only because of the people I'm going to teach, but because of the members, other missionaries, and a President that can understand me completely. :) God loves me!

Emily and companion emailing from the library.

So a little about our investigators. Cynthia is to be baptized this next Sunday. She is SOOO ready, but is starting to doubt that she is. She feels like she needs to know everything before she's baptized. So we asked her to truly pray about if she is ready, and hopefully she receives an answer. If not then we will move it for two weeks. I love her so much, and I'm really excited for her. She says the cutest prayers and has a really strong testimony already. She's basically my little sister. She's 17 and is a super cute girl with a rough life. Another investigator is the Molina Lopez family. We had an amazing lesson with them on Saturday. I was very bold but loving with them. They all have testimony's in this church and they want to know it's true, but they don't do the commitments we give them. They told us that they would come to church and they actually seemed really excited. Well next day at church they didn't show up. I was devastated :( I love them so much, and it's so hard to see someone have the truth, but push it aside. But I will not give up!

 We went to the Houston Museum last Pday and it was WAY cool! The dinosaur part of the Museum was way better then the one in Vernal. ha And they had an Egypt exhibit, and  a really cool exhibit of just diamonds and different jewels. I forgot to send pictures from last week I will try and send some today. One of the pictures is of my legs with blue circles all over them. I had 62 mosquito bites on my right leg and 82 on the other from one lesson standing outside. WOAH!! My legs were so itchy! 

 Shoe tan line and bug bites.

 President loves me and my companion. He is letting us go to the temple again :) He was REALLY impressed with our numbers from last week and from Wednesday this week. Our first day out this week was Wednesday and we received 7 lessons and 4 of them being member present. He also said we need it for being stuck in our apartment all the time. :) YAY!! I think were going Thursday. 

Well I love you all! I hope you have a wonderful time at the Merrell camp. 

Remember God has a plan for all of us. Pray to him to bettter understand your plan. He will answer!!!

Les Quiero

Hermana Watkins

A Busy Week

So time has been cut short today, because we are all going to a Science Museum today!! YAY!!  So I'm going to make a basic list of all the main things that happened this week and then talk about some a little more in detail. 

- A drunk guy tried kissing me... I pushed him away (nicely) and told him I don't do that and to have a nice day. And throughout the week we have ran into him 3 times now... ahhhhh!! 

- One of the Less Actives that were teaching doesn't believe in the bible or that Christ died for us. I really like him though. Him and my companion don't get a long and argue a lot so I basically teach those lessons. But he came to church yesterday!! YAY!!

- Last Tuesday my tire was flat so we went to Walmart to buy a new tube and came back and it wasn't flat anymore, but since we had to go to Walmart were able to run into one of our investigators that had moved away and had a baptismal date and we were really sad, but we found out that she moved back. The Lord works very mysteriously, and sometimes flattens your tire just so you can run into someone. That same day I got into my wreck on my bike, and I almost got his by a car... haha it was really funny. :)

-We had Zone meeting on Tuesday and everyone said my Spanish is really good... but I have no confidence speaking.... after the meeting Elder Palmer handed out mail and I got a cool post card from Lindsey V. and a letter from Kristen Ewell!! I was soooooo excited! I love mail! 

- One of the things that I just LOVE on my mission is when our investigators say their first prayer... AHHHH... it's like angels are singing all around us. WAY COOL!

- I can't remember what day it was, but it rained  A LOT and at one of the apartment complexes we go to had this HUGE puddle that covered like half the parking lot... so since we were already wet we decided to go through it, and I wish I would of taken a picture. It went all the way to my bottom. I was swimming. 

-The Doctor called and they want me to do more of the tests... that I told you about, but this one is a three day test and I have to do it three different ways. Yesterday at church I was having extreme pain and the Bishop said to go to the ER but then we had to call President and he called the Doctor in Utah that's over our mission and I was on the phone with him for  3 hours and he was calling different specialist all over and they decided not to send me to the ER because they would only do the test that I have already received. So after this morning the Doctor called again and I'm now on a lactose free diet for ten days, and then on the tenth day I have to eat a lot of milk products and see if it makes me sick. And tomorrow I'm getting more blood taken to check and see if I'm allergic to Celiac/Gluton. Hopefully we will receive answers. I feel like a burden for the missionaries that have to give their car to us or drive me everywhere. And all the doctors that are helping.  

- This week we found out a lot about some of our investigators/ Less active members. One of my favorite people to visit told us that he was in a gang when he was younger and killed like 3 people...... he's less active and hasn't come to church in 15 years, but we had probably one of the most spiritual lessons with him this past week. He really wants to be free from this guilt, but Satan is working on him hard! Another one of our investigators is pregnant and single. The one I talked about before doesn't believe in the bible or the atonement. Our newest investigators husband just got sent to jail and she has three little girls at home that one of our members watches for her everyday while she goes to work. And we had the family with abuse, one of our dads doesn't want to get married, because he likes to have fun with other women.. .ughh. We also have A LOT of emotional women. But man oh man. I have never loved people with problems so much!! It just really makes me sad to see them in these situations, but I love to see the changes in their lives when they apply the Gospel! 

-My companion and I almost made Standards of Excellence this week. We had 30 lessons and 10 member present lessons. :) We have seen  a huge improvement in our work and many miracles. I love this work!

-I received my first compliment from an investigator on my Spanish!! Whawhoo.. it was all the spirit though and not me. 

- Friday our whole district went and cleaned the church library... it was disgusting... But we found a lot of cool things. It took 15 missionaries 3 hours to clean it. That's how dirty it was... or how slow we are.. haha I love my district so much. After this transfer Elder Watts, and Hermana Moreno will die :( Hermana Moreno is from Spain so I will probably never see her again. Elder Watts is going to BYU so I'll probably see him.)

- On Saturday we had a Noche de Hogar or FHE and we had two investigators there with two of our ward member families. The Favelas and the Jimenez family. After we taught the lesson they wanted to play a game. I think everyone knows this game, It's called Telephone. Where you sit in a circle and whisper a sentence in someones ear and then pass it around. Well they thought it would be funny to put me in the middle so I would mess it all up... and guess what I did... haha it was a really long sentence in Spanish that I had know Idea so I just made something up . But the last round was my turn and I did it in English... haha suckers!! All I said was," I like food" and it came back around as a monster growl! haha it was really funny. I really like making a fool of myself and joking around. I love these two families. Actually I love everyone, and everything about my mission!!! I LOVE IT!! 

I think that is all... well probably not, but that's all I have time for. If I have time I will send pictures. I love you all with all my heart!! 

Les Quiero

Hermana Watkins

Happy 4th of July!

Hola,
Sadly we don't get to really celebrate the 4th.  We had to be in by 7pm due to all the parties and drunk people.  No fireworks for me.  We can hear them but not see them. However, we do have time to make some really great food.  I ate all the food on the plate, my companion did not think I could do it.

I love FOOD, when I feel well enough to eat it.  YesterdayI went to the doctor and they are going to test me for a parasite, and he looked at the blood results from last week and he said that it looks like something might be wrong with my liver so they took more blood for testing.  I'm not worried.  I love my mission so much. Some days are really hard, but I have grown so much because of those days.  I love the people with all my heart, and I can't imagine leaving them one day.  Yesterday we had our last lesson planned with two investigators, they were committed to being baptized, but now their mom won't let them.  She is dealing with depression and dragging her daughters down with her.  We are trying to figure out how to help her.
This past week was transfers and we now have 15 missionaries in 1 ward!!!! What?! That's unheard of. Elder Lewis and his companion opened a new area in our ward, but the rumor is the ward boundaries are changing soon so are district will be a lot smaller. I love my district. Every week after we are all done emailing and shopping we meet up at the church and play volleyball! So much fun! I'm still not allowed to go out in the middle of the day with the medication, but I got really sick of our apartments some days and we went out anyway. I didn't notice a huge difference besides the really bad sunburns I get and I'm exhausted... Whoops! 

The ward has asked us to go through our ward directory and find every member and less active in our area. So we've been running around A LOT! We met with this less active names Jesse and he was baptized last October. He told us he just got baptized because the missionaries wouldn't leave him a lone so he gave in knowing that they would stop bugging him about it. Sad... I don't ever want to do that to an investigator. I really like him though. He's 27 and lives at home and is wondering what he should do with his life. He was really shocked that they have girl missionaries, and like everyone else, asked how do you ride a bike wearing a skirt? ha I love that question, because I honestly have no idea. Jesse said he wants to meet with us and really wants to come to church. Yay! Another cool story while we were out trying to find people on the directory we ran into this guy named Chris. He lives right next door to one of our members and he was really impressed with our Spanish and how we can ride a bike with a skirt too. 

Thank you all who have sent emails, they are great, but missionaries love hand written letters, they are the BEST.  I keep wanting to type in Spanish (that is a good sign).  Today I spoke Spanish for 3 hours straight.  Hermana Wilzbach says I am doing well.  Next is a picture of Juana.  She is an adorable little girl that I love so much.

There are some yucky bugs down here.  One day we came home and saw this bug by our front door.  Both of us screamed for 5 minutes then realized we had to kill it .  Yuck! Hermana and I every night after planning we turn off all the lights and wait  5 minutes and then we take our bike flashlights into the kitchen and we kill all the nasty little cockroaches. I hate them!! We are pretty funny trying to kill them... haha I wish I could send videos home so you could see how funny we are. 

Our investigator "C" is progressing really fast and she can't wait to be baptized. We actually might move her date to be sooner. :) I know I am supposed to be here for her. I love when we got teach her. We have been told a lot the last couple weeks by our investigators and members that they wouldn't know what to do if Elders were here, because we mainly work with women and some are VERY emotional and just need a shoulder to cry on. Having transfers this week really made me sad for the day that I will be transferred. I will most likely be here for one more transfer after this one, but then I will probably be gone... :( I don't want to say goodbye. I really hope I get put back in this area before I go home. I love this ward!! Man I love everything about my mission! Except this week we had to drop some of our investigators............ hardest thing of my life! I did not like it one bit!! 

My dear family and friends! I know this Gospel is true with all my heart, and I know that our Savior lives and he died for us. I have truly come to know how important it is to repent daily and keep pushing forward. I am so grateful for the Atonement and what a huge blessing it is to have in our lives. I love, love, love sharing this Gospel and helping bring my brothers and sisters unto the remembrance of the truthfulness. Remember to read and pray daily. Always have a prayer in your heart. Love you all!!

Oh and if you have been wondering how on earth does she have time to write this long of an email??  It's because our mission President allows us to email for 90 minutes. :) Yeah Buddy!!

Have a great week.  I love you all, the church is TRUE!

Lover, Hermana Watkins