Crazy RM!

     Ah don't have too much time! but my companion was a little sick this week. And our sister training leaders ordered her to stay home and rest for two days, meaning as her companion I had to stay home too.

     Let me tell you, I almost went crazy that first day staying in our house! It was the first time in five months that I had spare time. Time with no plans or scheduled things. I was freaking out because I didn't know what to do, so while my companion was sleeping, I cleaned the whole house, translated two chapters of the Book of Mormon from Spanish to English, read a bunch of conference talks that could help our investigators, studied Spanish, cooked dinner and on and on. 

Yeah, lets just say the second day I called our sister training leaders and asked them to do exchanges with me because I couldn't handle staying in the house "relaxing" for another day. There are souls that need saving dang it! haha

     Just warning all of you, I am probably going to be a really crazy RM. to my family, Please plan out a lot of things out for me to keep me busy when I get back or I might go insane lol =) Besides that I am loving my mission!! And we are getting a lot of work done here =) I love you all! Have a fantabulous week!!

Love

Hermana Orison

Mexico Is Never Boring

Whoow! It has been a long roller coaster ride this week. We had a lot of ups and downs, but its all good =) Some things that happened this week:

• I learned how to make tortillas last P-day! And they tasted amazing! (didn't look the best, but tasted awesome!) I can now make tortillas for a living if School doesn't work out! (haha jk Mom)

• Our District Leader is sick! And called us at 2 o'clock in the morning. (which freaked us out because we thought something happened to him and his companion) and when we answered the phone he said 

"Hermanas! do you know what happened!?"
"No Elder what!?"

"I just woke up with a Cockcroach in my Mouth!!" 

"That's just gross..." Why he called us at 2 in the morning to tell us this, I will never know. Elders are Elders.

• I cant pray in English! One of our Less actives asked me if I would say a prayer for him in English. So I started it out "Dear, pad-I mean heavenly father...Estamos...Thank thee..." yeah my brain was having the hardest time translating my Spanish prayers back to English haha, whoow! Success! I am probably going to have to join the Spanish Ward when I get home haha =P

• We had an Investigator come to church this week! WHOOT!!! This area was opened about 6 months ago, and has not had one investigator go to church. When I came into this area I had the goal having at least 1 go to church, we finally accomplished it! and I am pretty sure there will be a lot more investigators to come =) Whoow!!

• Really good news, we moved houses today! I am sooooooooo excited! Our other house was...well not the best...yeah. I am actually excited to live in this house =) Its pretty =) I got to wear jeans for the first time in my mission to move all our stuff out of the house. I have to say after wearing only skirts for about 6 months, it feels really weird but good to wear jeans! Yep, I miss them =) 

Well that is the summary of my week, I hope you are all doing well! And loving the snow (haha its like 70 degrees here right now =P). Have a good one everyone! 

Love,

Hermana Orison

And A Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

              So this past week has been awesome!! For one I had the chance to talk to my wonderful family (Nice to hear from you all!) and then a Christmas Miracle for me, we had three investigators come to Church!! WHoot! it has been quite a struggle to get just one to church so when three came, it was a miracle! 

              And since the New Years is coming I set some goals, one of them is to hand out at least one Book of Mormon a day and God definitely helped me with that goal this week because everyday He blessed me with someone new to give it too. Haha my District leader is definitely going to have to get more Book of Mormons ;P

              Our zone leaders gave us a goal on Saturday to contact a certain amount of people in the street. It was the end of the day and we were talking to one of our investigators at her store. I was four people off from completing my goal and I felt there was no way I could complete it because we were heading home right after we got done talking to our investigator. But once again God heard me because at that moment four girls came and sat down at a table in front of the store. Haha! And my companion was busy talking to the investigator so I went and contacted them by myself! (okay, it sounds really easy but contacting people in another language that you hardly know, is harder then you think haha) and then I came back to my companion who was like

 "Did you just..."

and I was like "Si" and then "Whoooooooooow!"

Yep. Just like that. It was an amazing moment.

            On another note, I am sad to say I actually got cold this week =( We were out tracking some streets the other night and I am pretty sure it was around 40 degrees with a really cold breeze. I was trying to ignore it, but then one of the Members of the ward we work with saw me and said "your turning blue" (I was not!) and made me take one of her jackets because I am "so smart" and didn't pack any because I'm in Mexico haha needless to say, I bought two today. Yay!! =)

          Entonces, everybody I hope you had an amazing Christmas! Have an Awesome New Year! Perfect time to set some new goals (maybe some goals for missionary work hint. hint.) Have a good one!!

Love,

Hermana Orison

 

 

 

 

 ​I told you I would Find them!! Yep, my life in Mexico is complete now =)

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

           FElIZ NAVIDAD everyone!!! I hope everything is going good for you all.  We had the opportunity to play "Santa" this morning to a few of the kids here. These kids pretty much have nothing. They don't go to school, no toys, few pairs of clothes and both of their parents walked out on them. It is really sad and heartbreaking. The other set of sisters collected some toys and clothes from the members and we delivered them today, saying "Santa" sent them to the wrong address and we were delivering them to the right place. Their faces lit up so much when they saw the packages. They had never received one before. I almost started crying, it was a really emotional moment.

           This has been the second family I have been able to help out this Christmas. Another family has about five kids and they live in a shack of wood and metal. The kids only had a few pairs of clothes, no parents (they live with their grandma) and that's it. We were able to take all the kids to a Christmas party (first party they had ever been to), get some clothes, and treats for them. When we went to drop them off the little four year old ran up to me and gave me a huge hug and ran into the shack with his candy bar happier then ever. Yeah, I may have teared up a little bit on that one...

           I am very grateful to be on this mission, because It shows me of all the things I have in my life to be grateful for. I have so much, where as these people have nothing and are happiest with the simplest things. For many people the church is all they have. I am so happy that I have the opportunity to spread it to more of the people here and put a few more smiles on their faces. I love giving them the hope and faith they need, to show them that they have a Heavenly Father that loves them. Best job ever!!

I love you all, and I hope you are all having an amazing Christmas!

Love,

Hermana. Orison

 

My Christmas Morning breakfast.  :)

Whow! It has been a long day and I don't have too much time to write today. I had to go into the city to get some Visa stuff done with all the other Gringos in our area. It was great!! I got to see all the Elders from my MTC district!! I didn't know I missed them so much haha we all ate at a Burger King (haha okay I lied about the no more burgers thing, I love them too much! And Burger King is definitely better, one day I will find a the Carl's Jr here though)

But Life has been great here. We had the opportunity to sing Christmas carols outside of the Hospital this week, which was really fun it helped light up the mood of a lot of the people there. And our ward also had a Christmas party this week! So much fun! I never knew how funny The Christmas Story could be until I saw in reenacted by our ward haha it is so funny to hear it in Spanish! Oh and they fed us Pig Head in our tacos, which actually tasted really good. I wont complain haha.

We have at least sung every Christmas song in the hymn book about 50 times! I pray that they will get more espanol Christmas hymns, because singing the same five can get a little annoying but watcha yah going to do =)

Well I feel like I am getting fatter everyday, one habit I have not broken from the MTC yet is being a fast eater, and I am so paying for it. Every time a member sees that my plate is empty, they put a ton more on it because they think I'm starving, haha! I'm totally not.

Well love yah all! Have a good week! Enjoy the Holidays!!

                  We are God's elves :)                        

Familiar things!! I still love my Video Games and my MTC District!

Love,

Hermana Orison

NO MORE BURGERS!

Whoow time is going by fast, I cant believe another week has gone by so fast. Well, for starters we did get our water back on!! Yay!! (Happy Dance) so I don't stink anymore (at least I don't think so...) we have been doing a lot of activating for our ward (there are a ton of less actives) so Ive been meeting lots of the members around here, they are all really nice and happy people =) 

'Im still learning the dos and don'ts in Mexico. for one, don't ever eat a burger from any of the little shops here, they are not very good (I would honestly pick McDonald over them, yep that bad) and you will be up at 3 in the morning throwing it back up haha (all part of the Mexican Experience) 

One thing I have noticed here is that Coca-cola pretty much sponsors this place haha at least it looks like it. they sell coke everywhere, every person offers it to us to drink and the label is pretty much on every street haha its so weird.

We watched the Christmas devo last night at the stake center, and it was so nice because all of us American missionary went into one of the back rooms of the church and watched it in English, it WAS SO NICE!! AH! I MISS MY ENGLISH SO BAD!!! haha as Elder. Yoo said while we were watching it "it feels like I'm in America again!" it was so true haha I definitely needed it and the words that were spoken in the devo felt like they were just for me. If you missed it go watch it! Like right now! It was great =) oh and if you haven't watched the Christmas video "he is the gift" put out by the lds church, go watch that too. it is so amazing! I love it! (christmas.mormon.org)

I hope all is going well for everyone! I miss yah! I love yah! Keep being awesome!!

Love,

Hermana Orison

 

 Oh My companion cooked my Spaghetti for breakfast haha (and I just hit the guy beside me with my memory card just barely oops haha what can I say, I was excited to upload my pictures!) Our lovely wash and rinse cycle, yeah this is the life!!

  Our lovely wash and rinse cycle, yeah this is the life!!

This is the Life

Hola!!!!

                     Wow has it been a week! I don't even know where to begin haha Mexico is so different!! My companion Hna. Alfaro, she is from Mexico and seriously I think without her I would literally die haha! She is very smart and we have been teaching each other English and Spanish to communicate. 

                     My area is in Ciudad Obregon, all the houses here have gates around them, there are no paved roads, and there is no carpet in any of the houses I have been to so far (haha I know weird thing to notice). We walk everywhere and if we don't we take one of the buses which is very exciting haha. Imagine a school bus with half of the seats pressed against the windows, a broken windshield, and a bus driver who stops for about one second to pick you up (as in the bus is moving as he is finding change for your money and while you are still trying to get to your seat haha and its not moving slow!!) I have a ton of fun with it though haha 

                 The people here are really awesome!! I love them, although I can barely understand them, they are really patient with me and they are always happy its awesome! 

                      Haha I totally forgot about thanks giving until I read everyone's emails. They do not celebrate it here, Thinking back to what I ate that day I think it was a really spicy bowl of what looked like spaghetti Os. The food here is amazing though, I just ate manray soup for lunch (sorry for spelling errors I'm on a Spanish keyboard and the keys are not quite the same haha).  They serve tortillas at every meal and they are AMAZING!! 

              Ah yesterday someone stole one of the pipes to our water line! Haha so we have had no water for two days. ahhh yeah its the Mexican experience, why someone needed a pipe is beyond me. but, I hope they needed it more then us 

           Here's some Awesome stuff, we had a lesson Last night with my favorite Investigator Cesar,And I was able to testify to him and tell him my baptism story IN SPANISH!! it was great!! He is now thinking about baptism and I committed him to read a chapter out of the Book Of Mormon (the one that helped me know the church was true). It was an awesome experience!! Made me love this place even more  it's the best!! 

I hope all is going well for all of you!! I love you all! have an awesome week!! 

Love,

Hermana Orison

My welcoming to my new home haha

 

Us getting water.

                                                    My new home. And so the adventure Begins :)

Time Flys By With Spanish

Hola!

Whoot! Week 4! It feels like time is flying by fast! My favorite district (okay besides mine ;) ) just left to Mexico this morning, I', a little sad because I'm going to miss them a ton! But I'm also excited for them because they will do amazing work! :) So now we are the oldest district in our branch, it is so weird, I don't feel like I've been here that long.

But awesome news! We have been teaching our investigator Hely, for a little while now and she accepted our Baptism invitation this week!! Such an exciting moment! It was honestly the best lesson I have had the opportunity to teach, even though our Spanish was not that great, the spirit was so strong!! I've never felt it that strong before, it was truly amazing :)

Yesterday, our leadership roles changed, I am still the sister training leader but now two of the elders in my district have become Zone leaders and another is a district leader. So on Sunday's pretty much my whole district is attending meetings (SO MANY MEETINGS!! GAH!!) but I am really proud of my district, they are the best!! :)

Haha funny story, we made a goal to not  say the word hate in our district, instead we should replace it with love, I guess we took it a little seriously because everyone is now screaming I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!! throughout the halls and classes haha all the other districts look at us like we are crazy (okay so we are a little crazy...) haha the best is when I yell it at the Elders when they are being realllly annoying!! (many times in the day haha) Fun stuff :)

Quote of the week:

We started singing in choir when-

Sister missionary: "Shouldn't we say a prayer before starting?"

Choir Instructor: "I like to warm us all up before praying, because then I know how much I need to pray." haha 

Scripture of Week: 2 Nephi 8:12- (read it!) when the lord is on our side, we have no reason to be afraid. He is there to guide and comfort you through all of your trials, have faith in Him and you can accomplish all things!

Love you all! I'm praying for all of you!

Another One Bites the Dust !!

Hola Todas!!

It has been a really weird week, I really think all of our elders are dying off haha. One elder got a really bad sprain in soccer and his ankle swelled to the size of a big golf ball. another one has back problems and another one has a reallllllly bad cough and they are all sick. I feel really bad for them 

:( I still don't know how us sisters are doing well. 

We watched the restoration in the Korean language yesterday, to be honest it was like watching a very badly dubbed anime, don't do it because you will probably be laughing through the whole thing and be getting glares from the missionaries learning Korean (that may have happened...)

First fast Sunday was not bad at all, I thought I'd be starving but I felt perfectly fine :) I guess when you fast really hard for things, you don't feel that hungry, that's some advice to you all! :P We also got to listen to Elder Nelsons wife, it was awesome!! :)

Funny Story:

One of our Branch presidents councilors asked me to pray in Spanish, and I guess to him I messed up on some of the words (I swear I didn't!) and he told me how to fix it in front of my district.

So in our next meeting they called on me to pray again (I'm the only girl in our meetings so I guess they just like me a lot or something...) and I emphasized on all my "corrections" in my prayer really loudly to prove him that I was saying it right. They were all laughing at the end of it and congratulated me on giving a good prayer , I know I'm a brat ;)

Well, Love you all! And I hope you are all doing well!!

MTC Update !

Hola Today! Como le va?

Well it has been a very long week of Spanish, I seriously think my head is going to explode from learning too much haha But I did learn that PhotoBomb is PhotoBomba in Spanish (I know sounds simple but it is so much fun to scream when running in front of a camera!) so I think I can go to Mexico now haha jk. 

I don't know if I told you last week or not but the third day here we had to teach an investigator inSspanish and well as you can imagine it did not go so well haha but I have taught three more lessons since then and I actually feel like I am improving a lot with Spanish, so its really exciting :)

So the whole Spanish building is sick. All the elders in my district and colds, I don't even know how me and my companions have not caught anything yet (knock on wood). It feels like the zombie apocalypse walking through these halls sometimes because everyone looks awful haha.

I've been participating in the choir with my companions this week (I know, most of you probably didn't see that coming haha) We had the chance to sing at one of the devotionals last Tuesday and it was awesome!! We our singing in another tomorrow and its be broadcasted around the world so you may see me and my compadres in it if you watch it ;)

 ​Here is most of the People in my Branch :)

  My awesome P-day Shirt!! (all the Elders are Jealous of it XD) and me and my companions at the temple again :)

My classroom this morning.

Well, I hope you are all doing well and having fun in whatever you are doing. I love you all!! 

Love,

Hermana Orison

Tips for Studying Preach My Gospel

I know Preach My Gospel looks like a really tiny book and should be easy to finish...haha WRONG!! you think you could read through it all in one day (And maybe you could if you took nothing from it...) but you have to study the verses and references along with the lessons to make it more meaningful (and yes longer). I'll admit I struggled a lot reading Chapter 3, I kept getting bored with it because I was just reading it and not using it. I would zone out while reading it and end up reading the same paragraph 5 times before I realized I was going no where with it. So, asking a few missionary buddies of mine for some study tips, I finally came up with a new way to study it that keeps my mind focused.

I thought I would share with other Pre-missionaries some things I do to study it:

1. Pray!- Always pray for a focused mind and inspiration before starting to study (and this is the first step to studying anything...even Textbooks! It sounds weird but it does help, I promise!)

2. Highlight- I read through the lesson and highlight (Using a color code) and underline all the key points of the lesson and the things I feel will be useful to me when in the field (promises, actions, commandments, warnings, Blessings, etc.)So I can always turn back to that lesson real quick and pick out the topic I need by looking for that color. And well coloring always helps me keep focused on something too :D

3. Notes- While highlighting and reading I like to write down notes of the things that come to my mind that I feel are important or inspirational. I also like writing quotes or the title of talks that go hand in hand with the topic I am reading. I love how PMG has the lined columns on the sides of the pages to write down all my notes, its definitely a hint that you should be writing things down ;)

4. Mark them Scriptures UP!- PMG lists many scriptures references for each lesson and chapter, Read Them!! And then highlight them! I also use a color code for this and I use those nifty "Holy Tabbs" which you have probably heard of. Using Holy Tabbs may seem like a lot of work but It is really helpful when I need to quickly find a scripture under a certain topic :)

You stick this on the front of your scriptures.

Then you draw lines down the side of your scriptures so that they coincide with the cover page (first picture)

And then you put stickers matching with that color of topic and you line it up with its column. Now as you can see with my scriptures above that I have many of the same colors of stickers and markings on the same page, to keep me from getting to confused I write the verse numbers by the Sticker so I know which verse belongs to which topic (I know it sounds a little complicated to some people, but once you buy them its easy to figure out.)

I really love Holy Tabbs mainly because it goes right along with PMG. The colors Holy Tabbs uses are the same colors as the lessons in PMG, so you can use them side by side. I definitely recommend buying them! You can find them here. (Oh and if you are one of those people who love using electronic scriptures, they have Holy Tabbs you can download for that too :D )

5. Object lessons- One thing that has helped me become more confident in learning the lessons and knowing how to teach them is finding object lessons that go with them. As a primary teacher (ahhh, yes I got that oh so fun calling right now) the only way I can teach kids about the scriptures is through object lessons and funny scenarios (especially the Old Testament!) so it has become something I like to use to teach people.

I found this amazing Book called "The Missionary's Little Book Of Teaching Tools" which also goes along with the topics of PMG. It lists a ton of simple object lessons you can use on your mission (or primary lessons) to teach the Gospel. I like to write them down on sticky notes (along with the page number) and stick them into my PMG so it will remind me of the things I can do to teach the lesson.

6. Pretend-I think the best piece of advice I've been given for studying PMG is to pretend I am going to teach an investigator about a certain topic. It helps me focus on the points I would want them to know and what they would find interesting. And it helps me prepare for when I'm really going to study it for real investigators.

That's all I have right now for studying PMG, good luck studying! If you have any other ways or tips for studying PMG, comment below, I'd love to hear them! :)

Pre-MTC Training

So I got my call...now what? I've been trying to keep busy and prepare as much as I can before I enter into the MTC. Thank goodness the Brethren know that me as well as other missionaries would like to be doing something to pass the time away (particularly useful and related to the mission) and they provided a Missionary Portal for each missionary. Yay!

So what exactly is a mission Portal? Its an awesome site that shows a picture of you with your Mission's Country flag by you and gives you a count down for when you will enter the MTC. And it also has Pre-MTC training to do and check off before you enter the MTC (hence, Pre-MTC).

The things it has you do for Pre-MTC prep are:

• Attain a Temple Recommend and visit the temple as much as possible.
• Reread The Book of Mormon (I'm already in Alma ;P ) or if you haven't read through it before, read it dang it! You're missing out!
• Watch  "The District" (Follow the link to YouTube videos). These are very good videos to watch, I loved watching the Planning series. It teaches you how to organize and how to plan as a missionary. Very useful knowledge! 
• Make a Mormon.org Profile (Anyone can make one at any time)
• Study over Preach My Gospel Chpt. 3 (This is the section that has the main five lessons you will be teaching as a Missionary) Knowing these chapters will definitely help you! Every missionary I have talked to wished they would have studied Preach My Gospel more before they left on their missions, so do it now! In fact, read the whole thing!
• Read the Missionary Handbook (you can read it online at lds.org or you can buy one for cheap at Deseret Book). It only takes about an hour at most to read :)
• Read the "Adjusting to Missionary Life" guide. (You can also buy it at Deseret Book or read online)
• Start doing Family History! Seriously, it can be really interesting and cool to see all the people you are related to and their stories (You can find instructions for it Here )

All the things I listed above have helped me a ton! And I'm very grateful they are having missionaries go through this prep because I would have never thought of some of these things on my own. If you are preparing for a mission, I would definitely do all the above! Even if you're not preparing for a mission, its good stuff to go over and learn from, I would definitely check it out :)

Until next time, bye!

--Hermana Orison