Transfers

Whoow! This week has been an exciting one, first we had a seventy visit us this week! We gained sooooo much inspiration from the conference we had with him! It was amazing =)

Yesterday we received transfer calls...Me Voy! I am now back in Obregon! Last night I was trying to run to every bodies houses to say goodbye to them. It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone, I had five whole months in Los Mochis and had some awesome memories and experiences there that I will never forget.

About three hours ago I arrived on the bus in Obregon, and my new companion is Hermana Ake, I AM SUPEEEEEER EXCITED TO WORK HERE!!!! I love Obregon!! (even though it is about 130 degrees here haha) I Super excited to be back =D I know changes are hard, but without them there would be no way to improve and become better, I am really excited for the change =)

Have a good week everyone!! And Happy Fathers day to all those fathers out there =D

 

 

 Last day with Hermana Serrano and my our new pet XD

 

Love,

Hermana Orison

La Expiacion

HOLA!!!!! Well this week has been amazing!!!!  First off we had a Missionary Activity where we had a bunch of members go tracting in our streets and contact people in the street to give them a little taste of the missionary life. They came back to us with 35 appointments for next week! Whoow! This week is going to be fun! =D I love the members here!  I found an Investigator that sounds Like Yoda!!!! =D I found out that Avengers 2 came out!!! Family and friends, I trusted you!! Why did no one tell me about an Avengers 2? I had to find out by reading about it on a bag of Doritos in Spanish!! Que Passo!!! We also had a seventy come visit us this week! Before we listened to him I prayed to God to help me receive revelation for what I can improve in our area. He definitely gave it to me! Listening to Elder VillaLobos, I felt like the spirit was slapping me in the face with awesome ideas! Haha it was amazing, just listening to him you knew he was called from God through our Prophet.  During his Presentation, Elder VillaLobos pulled out his IPhone and pulled up Siri (haha you have no idea how weird it was to see him do that =P) and told her to search "La expiacion" (The atonement) and a bunch of searches came up and he read them off to us, then asked "with this information on the internet can we know what the atonement really is and how to apply it to our lives?" the answer was No. Unless it was an LDS site, there is no way people could know what the atonement is. This is why our message is so important, we bring a message of the atonement and how to apply it to our lives. With the atonement we become stronger, we can become clean of sin, and we are changed for the better. I know that when we apply the atonement everyday to our lives, we will feel more peace and our relationship with God with be strengthened. I cannot quite comprehend how amazing this Atonement is, and how lucky we are to have it in our lives!  I love this message we have, so share it with the world people!!! =D I went to a park!  The mission made me a little stronger.

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

The Bread Man

Hola Personas!

Its been a long week, but a good week. We got four Less actives to come to church this week! Quite the miracle! It was a happy day for me and my companion =)

Haha Saturday me and my companion were meeting with an Less Active member and we were talking about her job which is pedicures. And she looked down at my shoes and asked me to show her my feet. Yeah, I was a little reluctant to show her because lets face it, when you walk at least 10 miles a day on unpaved roads  with at least 15 pounds in your bag, your feet aren't going to look that pretty...

But she grabbed my foot and said "oh its beautiful!!! I love your feet! I want to work with them!" so we got pedicures from her today haha so I am happy =)

Ha, funny story of the week, my companion and I work in a area where a guy sales doughnut type bread in his little bike cart. (its like the ice cream man with a song and all, but its bread and on a bike). One day we were walking down the road and a guy was buying bread from the bread man and he saw us and told us we were beautiful and he wanted to buy bread for us. So he bought bread for us and walked away.

After this incident, the bread man now follows us around to our appointments because every time we visit one of our investigators and they see the bread man come by, they buy bread for us because everyone likes the sister missionaries haha. Its just great, now I am going to get fat off of Tortillas and bread =P Thank you Mr. Bread man. 

Well, little bit of my week, hope you are all doing well! Have a good one! =D

Love,

Hermana Orison

The Less Active =P

                Well yesterday was my last day of training, I am now a full on missionary today, whoot! Kinda scary because my Spanish is still not the best haha (And my English is getting worse and worse as days pass haha). These 4 months have definitely flown by fast!

                This week was a really hard week, getting adjusted to a new area is never really fun. Especially this one, I found out that my job here is quite different, Me and my companion were sent to this area to focus on the less actives (this area has at least 200 less active familys just in this ward, because some elders, years ago, were baptizing and not teaching -__- ) So we have to cover three different missionaries areas (really huge area for us!) and find all the less actives and reactivate them. I found out that the past two transfers (3 months) no one had really worked in this area, so we are starting from bottom. 

But I am enjoying working with the Less actives, they all need a lot of help and I am glad that I have the opportunity to be here and teach and learn from them. =)

                 But I got some really good news =) Yesterday was "normal" transfers and me and Hermana Fisher are staying in Mochis (of course, since I just got here Friday =P) but my Best friend Hermana Capps is transferring from Ciudad Obregon to be our sister Training leader here. Whoot!! I pretty much screamed and jumped up and down in the middle of road with excitement when our district leader told us. I know Hermana Capps will make this area awesome and I finally have a friend here! Whoow!! Miracles do happen!! =D

Anyways, funny moment of the week,

                 In Mexico when you greet each other, you hug/shake hands and kiss the air by their cheek (I think its called a face...) and as Sister missionaries we only greet girls this way and have to tell the guys no, because of mission standards. 

                 We had just finished with a lesson and I was really tired and not thinking straight. I gave quick kisses to the sisters and then shook one of the guys hands and went in to give a face, mid way through my brain started working again and I quickly pulled away, apologizing and everyone started laughing. 

yep, I bet I was pretty red then. Gotta love different cultures haha =) 

Anyways, Love you all! Have a good week! 

Love, Hermana Orison

 I found turtles!!!! =)

2 Gringas y 1 Grande Area

Hola Mi Amigos! ¿Como Esta?

So yeah, I didn't really write a group email last week, (sorry!) didn't have much time. I have to say these past two weeks have been a little challenging. But hey, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger =) Or I guess in the case of a mission, strengthens your testimony =)

On Friday I had a "special" transfer to Mochis (another State in Mexico, yes our mission covers two states). It was reallllly hard to leave Ciudad Obregon, saying goodbye to everyone was awful =( Especially since two of my investigators have Baptisms coming up on Feb 14 (I know great day to be baptized, right?) But I know this is for the best and this is where God wants me right now =)

Mochis is definitely different then my last area. It is really beautiful! It is a mix between California and Texas, and the area we cover is HUGE!!! TONS OF WALKING!! WHOOW!!!  My new companion is Amazing!!! Her name is Hermana Fisher, and she is from California =) I'll admit I was really nervous to have an American as a companion because I thought my Spanish would decrease because we would probably be speaking more English. 

But nope! When the President put us together he told specifically that we could not speak any English with each other, and so far we have followed though with that. Surprisingly,  I have learned so much more Spanish! More then I have even learned in the past two weeks! This transfer has definitely helped me a ton with the Spanish =)

  Yesterday we had Stake Conference, which is considerably different then the conferences in Utah. They used a lot of visual aids, and called up volunteers to help them with Missionary practices, it was so weird! But pretty cool, haha our mission president had to give four talks =P And A Seventy spoke too! His name was Elder Ortiz. He came and visited with us missionaries after he gave his talk, never thought I'd see the day that I would be talking to a seventy in Spanish. Miracles do happen haha ;)

Well hope all is going well in Utah =) I am doing much better and getting adjusted to my new area =) I love and miss you all! Have a good week everyone! =)

Love

Hermana Orison

 Me and Hermana Fisher! :)

The proposal

Hola!

          So its been a fun week full of a tooooon of work, we have found many new investigators this week, and we have been working on some reactivating. We got two families to come to church today, along with two investigators (whoot! Whoot!)  I'm loving this mission more and more every week =)

           I just got done with More visa papers today (Ah I love being a Gringa) and realized the last time I went on a Visa trip I did not understand anything that they had asked me, but this time I understood everything, whoot! Spanish is getting a lot better! I now understand almost all the conversations going on around me, its awesome!

          Haha, so this week I realized that I have been learning a lot of Spanish and improving a ton, but my companion was not getting any better at English. Our mission president wants all his missionaries to learn another language during the mission. So To help her learn English, we decided to make a day where I would speak Spanish all day (not to difficult) and she would speak English all day. We call it Idioma Jueves (Language Thursday, yeah sounds better in Spanish =P) and let me tell yah best thing we have done! We are getting along a lot more because we understand the others point of view (the missionaries that already know the language honestly have no idea how hard it is at times XP) and our work has definitely improved.

             Now to my awkward, creepy, funny, moment of the week (the reason the title is The Proposal):

Me and my companion were coming out of a lunch appointment and headed to our next lesson, when a guy on a Motorcycle stopped besides and asked me if I was from Utah.

            I told him yes, and then he asked what part of Utah, And I went to explain the geography of Utah thinking this was someone interested in the church (people always stop us and ask about the church and people who know Utah usually know about Mormons) and after I got done explaining he asked

"¿Will you Marry Me? "

Yeah, I bet my face was priceless at that moment.

he asked again "¿Will you marry me? I need to marry an American girl and Live in America so I can get a social Security Number."

                I explained that I was a missionary and I was here for a year and half and not allowed to get married (to put it nicely) and then I turned to look at my companion for help and realized he had been speaking English and she had not understood any of it and was getting ready to share a pamphlet with him. I quickly stopped her not wanting to turn this into a celestial marriage proposal! =P

                 Then he said "so I have to wait 18 months to marry you?" and yeah I finally just told him up straight no! I will not marry you! Ah! and quickly walked away with my companion, walking down the road screaming "ewwwwww" while she laughed at me. Always thought my first marriage proposal would be romantic, not in the middle of a street of Mexico by some stranger haha hopefully next time is better and after the mission ;P

Well that my week! Love you all! Have a Good one!

Love,

Hna. Orison

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.  :)

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 :)

MEXICO!!!

                           I am in Mexico, after traveling for over 20 hours (I don't even know what sleep is anymore) and I just got done with a crazy taxi ride (as in, broken windshield, hatch totally opened with suit cases in the back, and doesn't obey any of the street laws haha fun stuff!!) and my first companion speaks only Spanish, yay! so we have been carrying around our Spanish and English dictionaries and pointing at a lot of stuff to converse with each other, planning lessons will be really exciting haha.

I would have to say Mexico is very different from the US but It is pretty cool. There is a preschool in front of our house and they do a ton of Zumba there in the night so I guess you hear music from there all the time. I walked in on Gangdam style, have not heard that for a loooooong time haha. It will take a little while to get used to everything, but I am excited for it. 

                  Well I do not have to much time today I will try to write you all next week, I get to go meet all the members in my area now it will be interesting...I still don't understand that much Spanish...but it will get there! Love you all! Have a great week!!

Love,

Hermana Orison

Spanish Spanish Everywhere!!

             Only seven days left!! Whoow!! Time is counting down haha it really doesn't feel like I've been out for a month.

 So this past week I had to go pick up an international missionary for our new district, but when I went to pick her up there were two other international sisters that had no one to show them around (their sister training leaders didn't come for them) So I adopted them for the day. One was from Porta Rico, another from Spain and the other from an island I have no idea how to pronounce or spell (same with he language) so we had three languages going on at once it was pretty fun haha.

 Oh it was cool we got to teach through Skype this week, it is so weird! And a little hard to figure out what they were saying, but it went really well :)

            It is getting a lot colder here! Which sucks because I packed mainly for Mexico and not too much for Salt Lake haha but I only have one more week here. I'll probably be complaining about heat stroke next week, haha stay tuned!

               Funny Story: we were teaching are teacher (pretending she was an investigator) about baptism, and I showed her a picture of my baptism and she asked who I was baptized with.

"Mi Hombre!" I said and realized that I meant hermano and not hombre. My companions busted up laughing as well as my teacher.

Yes, apparently I was baptized with MY MAN instead of MY BROTHER haha sorry Luke ;)

              

                             Herma Day was about to depart to we had a S'more party in our PJs :)

              Verse: 2 Nephi 10:20- When life is just not going your way and it seems that you keep hitting more and more road blocks just remember that God is leading you to something better, it may not look like it at the time but when you have faith in Him it will all turn out for the best.

                I love you all!! I'll write you from Mexico new week! Whoot!!!!

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!

Temporarily Settled

Hello my fellow blog viewers! If you didn't get the group e-mail here it is :) 

Hola Everybody!!!! I made it to my first P-day!!!!! Whoot! Whoot!!  It has been a long week, but it has been so amazing!! I love the MTC!!!

                First day I was put into a trio companionship  but then was transferred into another Trio Companionship because the other two sisters were Advance Spanish. But I'm not sad about it, I really loooovve my new companions! :) Their names are Hermana Snyder (from Pennsylvania) and Hermana Aufalo (From Anchorage Alaska) they are both going to Mexico too just not the same mission as mine. Its us three and four Elders in my District. All the Elders are going to my same mission :)

              2nd day here I was called to be the Sister training Leader, it can be very stressful (I have about 5 meetings for it on Sunday ah!) but I love the Job! The girls in my Branch are amazing!!

          On Saturday I went up to Salt Lake to finish up my Visa.  I was paired up with another Hermana and we were riding a train and at one of the Stops this guy got on yelling "I'm in heaven!!" and he looked wasted and lucky us, he stumbled into the seat facing us. And he started asking random questions and I noticed his shirt said "Oktober fest" so I started talking to him about Germany and I guess he just got back from there. We had a neat conversation (the poor sister by me was pretty scared.) and when it came to our stop the Guy handed me ten bucks in a roll of quarters haha and he told us to go get lunch with it. It was really funny and cool :)

          Sunday at relief Society the 2nd Counselor of the Relief Society Presidency (For the whole church!) came and talked to us, it was quite the treat. While she was up there talking she asked all the 1 year converts to stand up. So me and one other girl stood up in the huge crowd (all the sisters of the MTC were there) and to my surprise she told to come up to the stand and tell everybody my conversion story! It was a little scary, but once I was up there I felt just fine :) It was so cool! Standing by here and talking to all the Sister Missionaries of the MTC, definitely an awesome moment I wasn't planning on haha

               Well, Spanish is going alright. I am pretty sure God blessed me with the wrong gift of tongues because Everything is coming into my brain as German and no Spanish haha, my brain is so confused! Herr Corry taught me better then I thought haha. 

I love the MTC!! It has been amazing!! I love you all! and I hope you are all doing well!! :D Thank you to everyone that wrote me! I love hearing from you!! :) If I don't write a personal Email I promise I am not ignoring you its just the time is short and I will get to you next time!! 

Love,

Hermana Orison

“Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day to day obstacles of life.” — John Amatt