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

Meet the Mormons

 So our mission President let us watch meet the Mormons this week! AHHHHHHHHHH it was amazing!!! (even more amazing was that we watched it in spanish and I understood it!!) It is full of awesomeness! Boxing, prosthetics, zip-lines, missionaries, Navy, Football, and all my favorite stuff =) It did make me really miss home (especially when the missionary is leaving for the MTC, I think all the missionaries watching it were crying, because we all knew how it felt) the spirit was really strong in the movie, it was amazing. Everybody, por favor if you have not seen it, go watch it! Its the best!! =D  

Work here is definitely getting better, we taught a less active family yesterday. Everyone in the family are members except for the dad. The dad is usually never home, but yesterday he was and we got him and his wife to listen to our message about the restoration and during it we were feeling the spirit so strong. We invited the Husband to baptism, and he said yes! The wife started crying and said "I have been waiting for so long to hear him say that" It was one of the best lessons I have ever been in! I know this family will be so happy when they are united together in the principles of the Gospel. The family is the primary ordinance of God, and a family the applys the principles of the Gospel in their lives will have a home full of the Spirit and happiness, I have seen it so many times here in the mission. I am in love with this gospel! It is the best! I have the best job ever! =D

I love you all! and miss you too! Have an amazing week! =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! :)

How Embarrassing

Whoow! It has been a hard working week! My companion and I got more  lessons done this week then ever  before (hehe we got more lessons done this week then the Elders! They usually only get in two, yes, they were a little irritated ;P Sister Missionary Power! bam! ) And we got so many new investigators that are just amazing! I am so excited to teach them! =)

I had the opportunity to teach a lesson with someone who knows English! Whoow! I am proud to say that I can teach perfectly in English, I got him committed to read the B.O.M., pamphlet and pray! I honestly this he will do it (unlike other investigators...) and it was funny because my companion had no idea what was going on (tables turned) and I was leading the lesson. It was a happy moment this week =)

Oh so funny story:

We had just finished teaching a lesson with an Investigator, and she seemed to know a lot about Joseph Smith, a lot more then most investigators. After the lesson I asked my companion about it and she said 

"well yeah she is a member"

me: "wait shes a member!?"

"Yeah, just really less active"

me: "But, I invited her to Baptism the first week here..."

"yeah, that's why we were all laughing"

Yes, I found out this week that I had invited an member to baptism my first week here...Yeah as Yoda would put it "How embarrassing" or as facebook or Instragram would put it #Languageproblems #don'tknowspanish #SoyGringa and on.

Well, Have a good one everyone! Love yah!!

Hermana Orison

Trial By Spanish

3 months! Ive been in the mission for 3 months! Ah! I cant believe it, time is flying by waaaay too fast! 

This week was a really trialing week for my Spanish. 2 weeks ago we had transfers and I new My mission President was going to do something with this transfer, that would really challenge me, but the transfer came and no one was transferred. The only change was that my Companion became Sister training leader (which is weird because the sister training leaders are supposed to be companions...). But I found out this week that her becoming a sister training leader was the challenge. As a leader she has to have one companion exchange a week, meaning so do I. And this week me and Hermana Jackson were put as companions for a day in my area.

Imagine, two girls from Utah with only 7 weeks in the mission (both of us still have trainers, haha I feel like a Pokemon! =P) and very little Spanish. Yeah, sounds a little scary. But we did it! In fact we did more work then we usually do with our normal companions! And it really surprised us how much Spanish we actually knew! We were able to teach all the lessons clearly, and contact 16 people in the street, And they all understood us, haha Gringa Power!!

And this Sunday I had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament meeting (yay...noooooooo) Definitely a nervous experience, I always thought Talks in English were scary haha wow was I wrong, giving talks in a different language is definitely scarier. But I used my humiliation to my advantage and told all our investigators and some less active members that they could come and laugh at me at church this Sunday. And it worked! we got 4 investigators and 4 less active to come to church, totally worth the humiliation! okay, so it was not too bad, people said they could understand it and they really felt the spirit, so all in all not too bad of a experience. I'm really happy to say, I only needed to use my dictionary twice to translate words while writing my talk =) whoot!

Best part of this week, we have a new District leader and he was asking what I like to do and I Mentioned that I liked running and that I really missed it and couldn't run here because my companion does not like to exercise (as in she got rid of her tennis shoes, because she hates exercising that much). So my district leader turned and told the whole District to make it a goal to run every morning. Whoot! My companion hates me, but I am happier then ever! Running again feels awesome! haha I run around a park now every morning while my companion sits on a swing starring at me (i'm trying to convince her to get some running shoes =P).

Entonces,

I hope everyone is doing amazing! Have a good week everyone!! =)

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3 month mark for all of us!