November 3 - EMAILY (an email from EMILY)

 Hello Family!

This week has been great! I am learning a lot every day. 

Some interesting things that have happened:

Gxxxxxxa and her family were doing really well.  She was doing really good, and she was liking everything so far.  So we were really feeling good that she will be able to be baptized on the November 15. The only thing that could impede that is if she is not married, so we were pretty keyed up about teaching the law of chastity lesson. 

Listen to how this lesson went. 

We go to her house.  She opens the door.  The burglary alarm goes off.  It was SO LOUD! My head was ringing after! Somehow we had set the alarm off.  We could not figure out how to turn it off! So after a bit of time we decided that we would have the lesson outside on the porch but on the way out it randomly turned off again. 

Weird! 

So we sit down and talk to her about the law of chastity (yeesss) and the doorbell rings.... The police are here!!!  We had to translate that the alarm is going weird but everything was ok.  HAHA. 

So we talk to her about how she needs to be married to be baptized and found out that she is not married, and her husband not really husband at this point doesn't want to be.  I was so sad in that moment.  I was hurting in my heart. WHEN.... baby Jxx does a HEAD DIVE off the couch and bounces on his head.  HAAA HHAAA I have this image of my head like he is standing up, but he is inverted and bouncing off the ground...  

It was so bad but later in the car I was almost crying I was laughing so hard.  Just the situation and the image in my head of him.  Comedic Relief! I was dying.

Another fun experience is that Axxx, her older son PRAYED.  Everyone, I marked this day as a mini miracle!  So context, he usually yells through the whole prayer.  "No cierren sus ojos!!" He is paranoid about people closing their eyes.  He hates praying because of it.  So he was playing with a robot that was talking (enemy sighted...enemy terminated) stuff like that.  And he asked what it was saying because it was talking in English and Hermana Gomez said "that it’s time to pray". Totally threw him for a loop.  And then when he started to freak out about the prayer, I asked if it was ok if we only closed one eye! AND HE WAS LIKE OK!  So we were all sitting there praying with one eye closed....... hahahhahahahahahahah.  It was sooo funny!! BUT Axxx PRAYED!!! This is progress people!

Another fun thing is the Sxxxa familia invited us over to celebrate their son Dxxxx’s birthday! We thought it was going to be a party but it was just us and them.  It was like a family!  We had tres leche cake and everything!  I loved that they wanted to invite us.  Their family is amazing!

I have been working a lot on control this week (approaching the throne of God with confidence from general conference this year).  Probably my favorite talk.  I have been applying it to my life (I like checklists).  I have taken control of my missionary life.  I am going running in the morning, I am on a quest to eat healthier (see below) and I am doing my best.  I made it a goal so it is set in stone.  So it is awesome to have a goal! 

Fun things that happened this week:

I have officially been a vegan for 24 hours(ok only 3 meals but it is success ok!) .  One of my goals this week was to be a vegan for a whole week.  I am loving it.  I feel good about it and at one with mother nature!  And it is super easy.  Kind of. (I ate some pretty nasty oatmeal this morning, without sugar using water!) But  I baked a sweet potato in the oven for half an hour and ate it. So good. That is basically frozen food but HEALTHY.  I will report my success next week.  It is really fun.  

Obispo Galvez and his chimichangas. This was the first meal I ate on my mission (from a member) and still my favorite. I can't even describe how good they are. I told him they were in my drams, and it's an inside joke now ha ha.

Dinner with Obispo! By his pool!

 ALSO there is also a lady in our ward who collects recycling from us and the ward, and she smashes all of them and takes them to a recycling plant and puts the money in the ward missionary fund!! So cool!!! 

MOTHER EARTH ROCKS.  California is beautiful right now I will just say.  The leaves do change colors!

Life is a process (Matt 18:3, Mosiah 3:19, 1 Samuel 16:7, D&C 137:9, approaching throne of god with confidence, Alma 7, which way do you face (general conference, 2 Kings 5:1,9-14, D&C 101:44-54)) Something I learned from our zone conference!  More on that later!

Mom-funded Zone training Halloween decorations. And my companions.

THANK YOU so much mom for the packages!  They were delicious and both packages were received and the food was great!  I made the cupcakes for the Halloween party.  The caramel apples were DELICIOUS.  My comps think you are the coolest thing ever.  We ate them on Halloween and it was awesome.  Where did you get those? Was that really expensive?

NATHANS HAIR!!! Holy cow that is long.  Tell everyone hi!

I love you guys!

Hermana Sheffer