I can't believe I'm writing this

April 11th 2016

Well this is it. My last email I will be sending out to everyone...wow I cannot believe how fast time has flown by. It feels like just yesterday I arrived here to mexico from the MTC. I remember meeting my first companion and not understanding a word she said hahaha I remember the thought coming to my mind "How am I going to preach the Gospel to God's children if I cant understand what they are saying? How am I going to teach them if I don't know what to say?" 

Haha and now my companion can't get me to be quiet haha XD Wow, I am truly blessed with the time I have had to serve here in Mexico. These 18 months really have been the best months of my life, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. They have been months full of joy, sadness, difficulties, pain, patience, and so many more emotions and feeling I cannot begin to describe. I am truly grateful for the time I have had here, because through the service of God I have found what I am truly capable of. I finally figured out what it means to be a child of God.

This past week I was reading in the book of Moses, the part where Satan is trying to tempt Moses to adore him and I love the response that Moses gives to Satan:

13 And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory,that I should worship thee?

Out of all the responses Moses could have made to Satan, he said "I am a son of God" "I am a child of God" we were made in the image of our Heavenly Father, the image of Jesus Christ. We have the potential to perform miracles, we have the potential to do things that we can't even imagine. God has given us talents and gifts that we need to use and strengthen so we can help others. We have the potential to bring lives back to God! We have testimonies that can heal the broken, we have words and talents to lift up the fallen. Don't ever waste them. 

To Satan we are Nothing, but to God we are everything and He has given us everything, Don't ever forget it. 

I love you all and miss you all a ton and thank you to everyone that has written me and has supported me in these 18 months. I am really excited to see you again, and to see how much your testimonies have grown. 

I will be talking Sunday, the 24 of April, in the Cedar Stake Center at 11:00am, I hope to see you all there =) NOS VEMOS!!!! 

 Our zone activity.

Love,

Hermana Orison

CONFERENCE!!

April 4th 2016

Hola!!!!This was a super amazing week!!!! I loved the conference!!!! I am sad to say that I do not have too much time to talk today because we have to catch a bus to go to a leadership meeting soon. 

For general conference all of us american missionaries got together in one room of the chapel and watched general conference in English it was so amazing to hear their voices (and to hear English again haha)! I loved every talk! I received so much personal revelation from this conference, I think it has been the best one I have seen by far. I really loved the talk by Elder Uchtdorf, how he talked about obedience and how it helps us to collect light. Light is a theme I have seen come up a lot in these months, I have found that our purpose in life is to collect light, and how do we collect light? Well, like elder Uchtdorf said, by being obedient! studying the scriptures every day, offering service, preaching the gospel, going to church and partaking of the sacrament and trying our very best to live gospel principals everyday. I know as we do these things, we will collect the sufficient amount of light that we need to enter into the celestial kingdom of God, and I invite you to do them. Read over the conference talks again and apply them in your lives =) Don't forget about the conference as time goes on, but be diligent and read something from the conference everyday so that you can remember it and retain the spirit you felt when you first heard it =)

I love you all!!!! Thank you for all your emails and letters!! I am sorry if I can't respond to you guys today, we just have a lot of work to be done today, LOVE YOU!!!!

Love, Hermana Orison =)

They are so boring....

March 28th 2016

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I don't have too much time to write all of you but I want to let you all know that I am doing amazing, and I am seeing a ton of miracles in these last weeks of my mission.

Last week we did a mission activity, that me, my companion and the Bishop had planned, and it was amazing!!! We found a ton of people to teach! And we motivated the ward to do more missionary work. I really love the ward I am in =)

The moment of the week: haha, so me and my companion were walking down the street yesterday and my companion said to me;

"wow, I feel like everyone here is so boring and we are the exciting ones."

I looked at her confused not sure what she meant "what?"

"I mean everyone just sits in front or inside of their houses, just thinking about their lives." She said as we passed a few people just sitting on their porches "They only know their own life, while we on the other hand get to see a glimpse of everyone's lives, we get to play a part in everyone's lives! We are in the lives of so many people that we forget about our own lives, isn't exciting?"

I thought about it for a moment, remembering my life before the mission, when I only thought about myself, she was right, it was so boring compared to the life that we have now. It made me think about the scripture in the Mosiah 2:17

And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

It's true, when we serve our brothers and sisters, we our the happiest people on the planet, because we our helping the lives of others, and we stop thinking about our own problems, it is the most exciting work in the world! It is only through preaching the gospel and serving others that we can reach complete happiness in this life, I invite you all to be missionaries to all of those that you know, help them and serve them, and I promise you that you will feel better then you guys have ever felt before. I love you all!!!!! Please have an amazing week and WATCH CONFERENCE!!!!!!! WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hehe its my superbowl ;) 

Love,

Hermana Orison =D

PIE

March 7, 2016

Well this week has been a pretty good week, we had our leader ship meeting this week and I was able to see all the missionaries from Obregon, ahhhhh I miss Obregon! =´) And well, when we were coming to a close with the meeting, The President called me and Hermana Strong up to bare our testimony to all of the leaders because we will both be ending our missions in this transfer (but we were surprised because we still have one more meeting to attend...) I was not expecting to bare my testimony, so I had not thought of anything to say haha but the revelation came and I was able to bare a good testimony, and I DIDN'T CRY!!!! WHOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!! haha ahhhhhhhhhh I can't believe how fast time has gone by :'( 

I can now officially say that I have forgotten how to speak English, this week we received a new missionary to our zone and she is from the US and doesn't know any Spanish yet, so I tried talking with her on the phone to see how she was doing and the conversation went like:

Me: "HEY!! COMO ESTA? QUE TAL?"

her: "what?"

me:" I mean, how are you doing...como le fue....I mean how was your di- I mean day! How was your day?!?" 

haha my English is so bad! I cant even teach my companion how to speak English, because I don't know how XP Family! You better find someone who can translate for me when I get back, or you're not going to understand anything I'm going to say haha

I learned how to make a pie with my companion this week!!! Haha I know its sad, that I am finally learning how to cook my last transfer in the mission XP We made a pie for our bishop Saturday in the night and we took it to him and his family Sunday evening to surprise them, because they are an amazing family!! =D

So that's a short summary of my week, I love you all!!!!! Have an awesome week!!!!! =D

Love, Hermana Orison =D

Transfers

February 29, 2016

SO we had transfers yesterday, and can you guess what happened?....Yep, me and Hermana Pacheco are together for another transfer!!! WHOOOOOOW!!!!!! Hermana Pacheco is going to kill me!!!! (meaning she is my last companion ha) I can't believe this is my last transfer, where did the time go? 

Today we went to the bus station to help all the Sisters and Elders in our zone get onto their buses. I will admit I was a little sad to see all of them go. It made me even sadder to think that this was the last transfer I would ever see...But I am excited for this last transfer, we have had many amazing missionaries coming to our zone, I know this will be the best transfer of my mission =) 

Haha this week was very stressful because it was the last week of the month and it is usually when everyone baptizes, and we were going crazy helping everyone in our area and in the other sisters areas. One night we were really freaking out trying to plan and help everyone and our zone leader called us, and we told him all that was going on and he said

"Hermanas, lets do a practice"

"A practice?" We said confused, did he want us to practice teaching him over the phone? 

"Yes, Okay, Follow my lead" he said "1..2..3, inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth" So we sat there breathing into the phone with him for a minute haha and then he said "Okay, now that we are all calmed down, I want you guys to know everything is okay, don't worry, lets plan this out step by step..." hahaha it was the best!

Now when we are walking in the street and cant find anyone and we are stress, we start taking deep breaths haha we call it our "zone leader moment" 

So if any of you are feeling stressed right now take a "Zone Leader moment" And breath haha, I love you all, and I hope you have an amazing week =D

Love Hermana Orison =)

Soldadura!!

February 22, 2016

Buenas tardes!!!!!! How is everyone been this week? Haha this week was a little interesting.

The sisters in our zone have been having a few issues so the zone leaders and Hermana Pacheco sent me out to do two divisions with two companionships this week, so I got to hang out in two different areas this week and I got to help them find some golden investigators. I helped them to have more motivation =) haha! It was so weird not being in my area or with my companion for 3 days, I almost came back to my area and companion crying because I missed them so much hahaha =P 

We arrived at the house of a member yesterday and she told us that she needed some one to weld her fence together because the person she hired never showed up, you have no idea how tempted I was to grab the welder and start welding haha, If I wasn't in a skirt or the mission I would have totally done it! XP 

The night before our district meeting a district leader from a different district called us and asked if we could give a presentation in his district to motivate the Elders (who don't have too much time in the mission) in his district in the morning. We told him yes and the next morning we had about 20 minutes to study for our presentation for the elders. We were not sure what we wanted to teach them, until I flipped to D&C 50:13-22, and I realized that I should teach them Elder Bednar Style) Entering into the room full of elders, we pulled out this scripture and read it with them, with every two verses I shared a story or experience to help them apply the principal and recognize how important their calling is, and when we finished the training they were all silent and the room was full of the spirit. During the week we had the chance to see them put into practice what we had taught them, and hear of some of the miracles that they saw. It was a really special experience for me =) 

Tengan una buena semana!!!!! LES AMO MUCHO!!!!!!!!!!

Hermana Orison =)

16 Months :O

February 15, 2016

Hola a todos!!!!!!!!!

Well, today I have officially completed 16 months in my mission and my companion completes 14 months. I'm in shock that time has gone by so fast haha! I don't even know what to say about it!

But this week was really good and really difficult haha (Another opportunity to progress, yes!) I know that right now it is only Feburary but I don't think Los Mochis knows that because summer has come back in full force! I think we were in about the 90's this week, ahhhhhh I thought I could come back home just a little bit white, but I think I am going to come back black XP

 Valentines was fun, entering the church with our investigator and her daughter, all the members handed us heart suckers and shook our hands and gave us hugs, wishing us a happy valentines day. A few members walked into our class of Gospel Principals and hung up a huge poster full of photos of missionaries, and it was a huge thank you note. Awwwwwwww I love this ward! They know how to make the missionaries feel loved here for Valentines day =)

All in all, this week has been good, I don't know why but I am just noticing a lot of changes in me and in the mission. I have been having many opportunities to teach and help other missionaries improve their teaching skills, and its just amazing to see how they change as well. I don't know why but I cant really describe how I feel right now, I'm just really happy, even when no one wants to open their doors for us and its about a 100 degrees outside, and everyone keeps throwing challenges at us, I am happy because I know this is where I am supposed to be =) And there is no where else I would rather be then in the work of my Padre Celestial =) I love this mission so much, I don't want it to end!!!!!!

A generation of Leaders.

Our Valentines Present.