Jami

Arriving Home December 21st

2010-12-13T05:33:00.000-08:00

Jami will be arriving back home on December 21st. She will be speqaking in sacrament meeting on the 26th at 1:00 pm. We are all excited to have her back home. She won't have a lot of time to get settled down because we will be leaving for California on the 26th after church and a family get together. We will return home on January 2nd and Jami starts back at school on the 4th.

3/8/10

2010-03-09T17:45:00.001-08:00

Hey this is way short but I wanted to say hello! Things are going good. Mario now has a baptismal date of April 10, we're so excited for him! Cute Mario is still a grumpy old man but he's gone through a compete transformation it's crazy. He always give us gifts now it's so funny. After we start nearing the lesson he gets up mumbling (in spanish) still kind of sounding grumpy I'm going to go get a gift for you muchachas. He's given us little samples of perfume, scarfs/hankies, chocolate, lotion, and the newest gift was some foundation (all these things he had around the house from his wife). Haha the foundation was sooo dark. We're going to put it on and take pics. He gave Hermana Guzman "bronze" which is as dark as chocolate and me "beige" which is a light shade of brown ha. So last night Hermanita put hers on and she looked African American and I'm going to put mine on today so we can take pics and I can look like a true Mexicana, woo hoo! Mario is so cute. Also, we had to move Graciela's date to late April because her husband health is horrible and he has been in and out of the hospital with an infected kidney, soooo sad! So we're praying for them and hope all will be well. We're teaching a lot of amazing people and it's way exciting. So this week we have a mission goal of contacting 20,000 people in our whole mission which means 34 people every day per componionship which isn't the easiest but I'm excited. Today we've contacted 1 person ha, we better get busy hehe. I love the gospel so much and love seeing the change it makes in the live of others. Amazing! Thank you for all your love and prayers!

Love,

Hermana Alvey =-)

3/1/10

2010-03-09T17:44:00.001-08:00

Happy new month! Hope everything is well for you! The weather here has been nice. We're still getting a lot of rain which I love. Everything is so green right now and the blossums are blooming, I really like it here. Spanish is going... ha. I still can't understand about 40% of what people say but I am learning a little more every day. we switch from spanish and english a lot because there's a lot of people from mexico here. so naturally we speak spanish a lot and of course there's still a lot of people who speak english because we are in America and all ha; so sometimes that's a challenge for me because I have to consentrate a lot with speaking and understanding spanish, so switching back and forth throws me off but it's helped me to be able to translate better so that good. The other day we knocked on a door and a white man answered. He spoke to me in spanish so I responded back in spanish but then the lady there spoke in english and so I switched to english thinking obviously the man knows english too so I'll just speak english. Then when he spoke he had no accent what so ever and I was thinking to myself why did he start speaking in spanish but I didn't care so I didn't think too much about it. After Hermana Guzman was like why did you respond to him in spanish, and I was like he spoke in spanish didn't he? Apparently I was hearing things because he spoke in english and I somehow thought he spoke spanish ha. We laughed about it. So I don't know if that's good or bad but I've done that a few times where I automatically respond to an english person in spanish ha. Anyway so that's how the spanish is going, I can't speak english or spanish now! ;-) Hermanita Guzman helps me a lot and she's getting me to eat spicy food, I heard if you eat mexican you speak mexican, I sure hope so!

So Mario, who I talked about last weeks, is doing awesome. You so can see the Lord's hand in his life. He's so happy now, at least when he's with us ;-), but really he's so much more happy now and tells us that he's being blessed for what he's doing. Aaaw! He came to a baptism this last Saturday and loved it. Us missionaries and some members were talking to him. (We hadn't comitted him to a specific date to be baptized but were going to as soon as we had our next appointment with him) So Maria, who was baptized with her daughter that night, asked Mario when he was going to be baptized. He grinned and said I don't know and looked at us, and so I comitted him right there for the 3 of Abril. He grinned and was like "ok" in his broken english and smiled. Befor the night was over I asked him if he was going to go to church the next day and he kind of got frustrated with me which he hasn't done in a while. He told me that he just doen't know if he can because he doen't want to stay with his daughter to support her. He said if God wants me to go then I will, in other words God would have to intervene. I prayed and prayed that he would come. Yesterday Mario ended up coming! He said that God wanted him to come, his daughter was ok with him being there. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see him happy and to see this complete transformation that he has gone through, it's amazing. He told me he's excited for his baptism and I can't wait either. Heavenly Father works miracles with those who are willing, is amazing =-) We're teaching quite a few others and hope that they will come around as they are a little at a time. Missions are awesome, very challenging but amazing. So things are going good. I love you all and have a happy St Pati's month, I don't know which day it is, I'm going to get pinched ha. Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Alvey =)

2/22/10

2010-03-09T17:43:00.002-08:00

Bueno! How is everyone doing? We had an awesome weekend. So Elder Richard G. Scott of the 12 apostles, came to speak at a spanish fireside. We invited everyone we could possibly think of and so 4 of those we are teaching came, Mario Landeros, Veronica Oregel, and the Villasenors. They all really liked it. We haven't been able to talk to Veronica a whole lot to see what she thought of it but Mario was changed from it. I can't remember if i had talked a whole lot about Mario but we've been teaching him since the beginning of January. From the very beginning Mario was pretty bitter and grumpy. He has been through a lot of hard times and just has a hard time having faith. He was confrontational with the doctrines of the gospel which we taught but at the same time a small part of him seemed to be pleading for help but was often covered up by bitterness and sometimes anger. We asked the Elders if they would give him a blessing and his house. After this happened he seemed to change. He was just a little more open and less confrontational, although he was still very critical and a lot of what we said did not sink in and he still switched the subject to other things other than what we were teaching. Mario still decided not to go to church because he didn't want to leave his daughter who is struggling. He rarely read the Book of Mormon because he did not understand the importance although we tried to explain and bare our testimonies. So, he ended up going to the fireside and after Elder Scott spoke there was something different about Mario. It hit him. He, I think for the first time, really felt the power of the Holy Ghost. He told us that Elder Scott is a saint from the heavens. Elder Scott stayed until every single person who wanted to shake his hand and say hello had the opportunity. When we asked Mario if he wanted to shake the hand of Elder Scott he smiled with this childish shy half grin. So Mario shook his hand. After he told us that he could see a literal light above Elder Scott. I asked Mario what he told him. Elder Scott told him that he needed to read the Book of Mormon to know the truth and after Mario told us this he asked me, Porque no me lo ensenaron? Why didn't you teach me that? I looked at him like what?? haha I think I understood for a moment how mothers feel when they tell their children what they need to do over and over but it doesn't sink in until someone else does (huh mom? ha). So I asked him if he was going to read it and pray and he gave me that grin again and said well yeah. I told him that the power of authority that he can from from Elder Scott is from God in His church. I told him that this is the true church and you need to be baptized in His church. I said so when are you going to be baptized? He liked down and them grinned and said when you want. That night was amazing for all of us. I told Mario that he could get a picture with Elder Scott, so we got back in line and Elder Scott saw Mario again and said oh mi amigo. I took the picture of him and saved it on his phone, he beamed when he looked at the picture. It was so cute. So yesterday Mario, who would never go to church with us, showed up out of the blue yesterday and told us that he had read from the introduction of the Book of Mormon up to Alma 7. All during church he held his Book of Mormon and stroked it. It was a miracle. His countenance changed. When Elder Scott spoke to us there was such a love about him and power. In the beginning he had a discussion with everyone that was there, almost 1,000 people. He joked around with them but at the end, the last 15 minutes he told us that he was not going to talk to us as Richard G. Scott but as an apostle of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. When he said that the whole mood of everyone changed. I count tell you how strong the spirit was. He truly is an apostle of Jesus Christ and you can feel the closeness that he has with Him. Mario, who can sometimes be a grumpy and bitter old man, recognized that power that Elder Scott has and it changed him and many others I'm sure. I know that we have a living Prophet today and apostles who speak to God. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's church and has been restored on the earth today to build up the kingdom of God. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Love,

Hermana Alvey

2/17/10

2010-03-09T17:43:00.001-08:00

Hey!!! Hope everyone had a great Valentines!!! Ours was good, we went to church and taught a lesson with Melanie. She has had a crazy life and has come to the point that she wants to change! So things are going well, there are always up and downs but it's good. We're teaching Veronica Oregel and hopefully soon her two older children who are 9 and 13. They went to church last Sunday and I think it went well. She asked a lot of questions and participated in class. Yesterday we were hoping to teach her but we couldn't get a hold of her, so hopefully we will teach her soon. As far as those we are teaching, (Maria and Jose Luis Villasenor, Mayra y Serafin, Olga and Albert, Mario Landeros, and a few others that seem to come and go =-) they're awesome and we love them. We pray that they will continue to progress =-)

The weather has been so nice. Usually it's about 50 to 60ish degrees but the last few days it's almost gotten up to 70 degrees. I'm excited for summer! There's been a lot of fog lately, and from what I hear more to come, but it burns off by the afternoon. Since a got here in Watsonville, about 2 1/2 months ago, it has rained at least once a week and we've had some pretty big storms which I've loved but lately it hasn't rained and we probably won't get much of any rain until next winter, bummer I love the rain but it's been really pretty the last few days so it's all good. Oh, we moved into a new apartment! The last one started falling apart the last 2 weeks haha and then they told us they found a new place for us. Perfect timing right?! ha and now the poor Elders are moving into our old apartment which is falling apart, poor Elders ha. So it was kind of funny, we woke up and the carpet in the hall was sopping wet, we looked in the bathroom and the bathroom was leaking from the ceiling! The paint on the wall was feeling up with pockets of water ha it looked really weird. So they ended up coming to fix it. I guess a pipe broke and so they cut a huge hole in the ceiling and are still working on fixing it. Hopefully they finish before the Elders move in ha. So that happened and some other stuff, those poor Elders. We, on the other hand, moved into a really really nice condo! Who new that on my mission we'd live in such a nice place ha. It's only a few years old and we get our own washer and dryer, well at least some time if they can get some donated, I sure hope! Also right now we don't have a full sized fridge, just a little miniture one ha. It looks funny having it in the place of where there's supposed to be a big fridge. Anyway things are going good. We're contacting muchisimo and hopefully soon we will be lead to more of those who are ready to accept the gospel! I love you guys and hope all is well!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Alvey =-)

2/8/10

2010-03-09T17:42:00.002-08:00

Happy early Valentine's Day everyone!!! So I wrote about half my email but there was a man here at the library that was having trouble with his email and so I went to help him since the lady who works here was busy and after I helped him and came back to my computer the computer logged me off because I had been gone too long ha =-/ Anyway I'll paraphrase what I said =-) So things are going good, I feel like a parent with wayward (don't know how to spell that heheh) children. I want soooo badly for everyone to listen to this message and know how happy they can be but most people won't accept it or have the desire to do what it takes. I've been able to cope with that better though, thanks mom and dad and everyone =-) but it's still hard to see people reject what you so know is true. It's so hard when those we teach reject the message because you really really grow to love them and you know what is best. It's hard enough when those we teach, our brothers and sisters reject it, I can't imagine having children and them rejecting this plan God has for us. All I know is Heavenly Father is so aware of each and every one of us and wants so badly to comfort all of His children. For those of you going through hard times, know that Heavenly Father loves you sooooo much and His son Jesus Christ knows and is there for you. All though not easy now, all will be made up. I know it.

I'm pretty positive that Heavenly Father wanted me in this area to learn... a lot. I'm learning so much here, it's unbelievable to me. I continue everyday to learn how to develop love for God's children and how to develop more faith in my Savior Jesus Christ even if it requires miracles that seem so far out of reach. I truly am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve a mission and learn what it means to feel just a little portion of Christ's perfect love. I'm happy to be struggling and learning so much, 'who woulda thunk??' Someone just the other day said to me, it amazes me that God puts His church in the hands of 19 and 20 year olds. At first I absolutely took that as an insult but then I started thinking, man it's a miracle haha. I have no idea what I am doing! but Heavenly Father is so amazing to use me as His tool dispite what I don't know or what I do wrong. I think we can all feel the same but Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ do need us and we need Them, how awesome is that!? Anyway, I'm just in awe sometimes at what we can do despite our weaknesses, it's pretty amazing. So things are going good though, just moving along slowly but moving along. Oh guess what?! Elder Scott is coming here to speak in 2 weeks for a only spanish fireside! I am sooooooo excited! It's not all that often that we and those we are teaching get to hear from an apostol of God. Very exciting =-) Anywho I love you all, thank you so much for your support and everything. Have a happy Valentines! We're going to play glow in the dark scatter ball today, woo hoo! And for Valentines we will knocking on doors, happy Valentines to them!!! Talk to you next week.

Love,

Hermana Alvey =-)

2/1/10

2010-03-09T17:42:00.001-08:00

Hello! It's already February, I can't beleive it! I've been out for almost 8 months, time flies by. I kind of lose track of what I've already written about.... lets see. We're still teaching la familia Villasenor but Jose still hasn't called a lawyer to start the divorce. We are trying to work help them receive testimonies. I love them but sometimes I'm totally at loss of what to do but I honestly think they're progressing, just bien despasio, slowly. We taught them yesterday and Maria said kind of under her breath that if he doesn't call she'll call and tell them everything they need to know in order to start the divorce. She said I want to be baptized before I die because I want to be baptized for my parents. How sad! So yeah they'll get baptized it just may be later than sooner.

Ya know Jeanette Fernandez who we gave a baptismal date too and she was so excited to learn and to prepare to be baptized? I talked a little about her last week. Well we can't get a hold of her. She hasn't answered our calls and we haven't been able to find her at home this last week. I hope she's just been busy and she's not hiding from us. If she doesn't want to learn now, she will later and at least we planted a seed for her in the future.

We're teaching another couple who live in Santa Cruz, Graciela y Manuel. Manuel is a member of the church, who for a while was not active but now is, and Graciela is his fiance who is investigating the gospel. They go to an english ward there in Santa Cruz which is great but they don't understand about 70% of what is being said because they speak spanish. We tried to get them to go to the spanish branch in Watsonville but Manuel explained to us that even though he can't understand a lot they want to learn english and he likes the people in that ward, they're very nice and welcoming. I figure if he likes it better there then it's fine but I wonder if it's going to keep them from progessing as much as they could because of the understanding, I don't know they'll probably be fine there but need to learn more english =-) So we comitted Graciela to be baptized the 13 of March which is almost exactly a month after they will be getting married so they were pretty excited about that.

We found two new people to teach, Eva and Veronica. It was a coincedance that we met both of them. Heavenly Father absolutely lead us to them. Eva talked to lds missionaries 50 years ago. She shared with us her story of how she came to know Christ and after was wishing us luck and saying bye to us but I was not about to leave without leaving un Libro de Mormon and so I bore my testimony and gave it to her and that's when she realized we were LDS missionaries and she was all of the sudden so happy to have us in her house. She told us how she had read the whole Book of Mormon and loved it but couldn't find the one those missionaries gave her. We gave her the one we had and set up a day to come back and she was so happy about it, how cool! With Veronica she has been sooooo confused with all the churches and wanted to know which one was true but didn't know how to know, so she just gave up all together with searching. Even though she had heard nother about the gospel she was so thirsty to know more. We have an appointment with her tonight. I don't know of the outcome for them but I'm gratefull we were lead to them and able to plant a seed if anything. It seems we're doing a lot of that here which is hard sometimes not to become discouraged because you see no results which can seem to you like youre not doing much good but I know we meet these people for a reason and we may not ever know why but Heavenly Father knows =-)

I love the mission and I could go on and on about all those we are teaching but I won't ha. Thanks mom for your repremanding... I always need it =-) And I totally think your right, actually I know your right that the Lord is trying to teach me so I take it and I hope I grow from it, thanks again mommykins! Well I love you all hasta luego!

Love,

Hermana Alvey

1/25/10

2010-03-09T17:41:00.002-08:00

Hellooooo =-) Hopefully my email doesn't get errased this time lol. So things are going good, not easy but good. I'm not even sure who I've told about and who I haven't... We're teaching Maria Martinez and Jose Luis Villasenor, the parents of Jeremy Villasenor who was baptized a few weeks ago. They have a looooot of drama going on with their relationship (that I won't talk about) and the past month Jose Luis hasn't even been going to church because he's been working. There's a member of the church who is a lawyer and so I called him to see if he could help Jose Luis get divorced from his wife who lives in Mexico so Maria and him can get married and then they can be baptized, which is a veeeeery common situation. Hermano Pogue, the lawyer, said he could help. So I told this to Jose and gave him the number and he told us he would call but he didn't. He gives us excuses, not lies but excuses of why he can't or didn't call. The real issue is like an iceberg. He's just giving us excuses or the tip of the iceberg but there's the whole iceberg under the water or the real problem/situation underneath the surface that he's not telling us. So we honestly don't know what to do only to pray that we know how to help Maria and especially him really receive a testimony of the gospel so they will change and have the desire to be baptized for the right reasons. It's just sad because they have two young kids who have already been baptized and I know that if their parents aren't baptized and active then they will also fall away. I've never seen young kids be baptized when their parents haven't been and I just hope that Maria and Jose can really really receive a testimony of the gospel for their kids also.

We are teaching a few others. I said before that each of them were being prepared in their individual ways and I thought they would progress in the gospel but in the last couple weeks a lot has happened and I don't know if they will anymore. One of them who we were teaching, la familia Gomez, totally dropped us because Salvador, the husband, is a strong catholic and doesn't want to change. That was suuuuch a bummer because they're going through a tough time with the health of their little girl and if only they knew that no matter what may happen they can have the comfort of knowing that through the gospel of Jesus Christ they could return with Heavenly Father again with their family forever but they told us they don't want to learn anymore so we have to respect that. I just wish everyone understood what the gospel can do for them and their families.

I have more that I wanted to say, as usual I have a lot to say =-), but I keep running out of time. Next week I'll try to make sure I get the email typed before the time runs out (the computers here are timed). Anyway I'll just say that last night we had a lesson with Jeanette Fernandez who is now starting to investigate the church but we committed her to be baptized the 3 of April and she accepted it and is so excited to learn and everything. It all went so well I'm nervous to get excited. I'll definitely talk more about her next week, I just hope it's still happy news!

Anywho, I love you guys and hope all is well. I'm doing so so so good. I feel incredibly blessed to be here serving a mission for the Lord, incredibly blessed. It definitely isn't easy but it seems that in difficult times we draw closer to God and our Savior Jesus Christ and learn the most. I know that this is the true gospel and I hope all will take the opportunity to know for yourselves if you don't know. It's not easy to follow the gospel but so worth it. Who says salvation is easy. I love you guys again. Hast luego!

Love,

Hermana Alvey =-)

1/11/10

2010-03-09T17:41:00.001-08:00

Bueno mi familia y mis amigos!

Well the last two weeks have been going pretty good. I kind of have a brain block and I'm trying to think of everything that has been going on.... let's see, not this last week but the week before that things seemed so hopefully. We had a lot potential people to teach and it just was awesome, and I felt really good about everything. On the mission I feel pretty bi-polar ha but just after that week all those that seemed like they would progress in the gospel pretty much decided they didn't want to learn. Man I was so excited about everything and within days I faced dived into the ground. Ok, so I'm exaggerating a little but quite a few of those who we thought for sure would progress in the gospel no longer wanted to. In fact one of the men told me he felt like he was being pressured and to stop pressuring him. I absolutely took that personal and felt horrible. Some others just no longer want to learn and aren't around for their appointments and then their was a couple women we were teaching because the Elders told us to in the beginning even though they live in their area, because it was hard to get another priesthood holder to come with them to the appointments (a mission rule is that there has has to be 3 people, including you, of the same sex if you are teaching someone that is of the opposite sex) Then last week they told us that they were going to go ahead and teach them. That was a pretty big bummer to me, I mean as long as they're being taught it's ok but at first I wasn't kind of upset with them for doing that. Anyway so that's what happened, we lost a bit of the people we would be teaching. I was way bummed but bounced back and things are still looking up. I wasn't thinking man what am I doing wrong? I don't know how to be a good missionary and was thinking it was me fault that we weren't having a whole lot of success. So I prayed and prayed and I know that we're doing our best and so Heavenly Father will see us through, it's just not meant to be easy, woo hoo! ;-) Although still a little discouraging there's a lot of awesome things going on right now. So now that I've babbled on forever, I know I'm good at it ha, I'll tell you what eventful things have happened.

On January 2 Jeremy Villasenor was baptized. He has 8 years and we are teaching his parents. His brother Jr. who has 12 years, was baptized less than a year ago. Maria and Jose Luis, the parents of them, want to be baptized but Jose needs to get divorced first with his wife who lives in Mexico. There's a loooot of drama in their situation and so we're trying to help them and get Jose to talk to a lawyer in order to get the divorce. We commited them to be baptized March 13. Maria is so excited to be baptized but Jose wasn't so confident that all he be able to be divorced by then. I guess we shall see, we're trying to work with him a lot. He loves the church and says he believes it to be true but it needs to be a deeper testimony and he needs to really seek forgiveness for some things that he has or might have done in the past. Time will tell with them but we trying, thank goodness the Lord is on our side. So the baptizm of Jeremy went well and Jose Jr. gave a talk which was sooo awesome. He was way nervous and almost didn't give it but he did an awesome job. We also went to San Jose because 2 of my investigators Hermana Lowry and I were teaching were baptized Dec. 26. That was so awesome to attend and see them baptized, amazing.

I'm running out of time but we're teaching a few others that are really amazing but we're having a hard time getting them to church =-/ We're now teaching an adorable family, the family Gomez; Silvia; Beder; and Felecia. There's a few others that we might be teaching and they seem interested so hopefully they will progress =-) Next week I'll talk more about them because they each have their own story and we're starting to see lots of miracles and how the Lord is preparing each of them in different ways to accept the gospel. Hermana Guzman and I are helping a few members in the ward do what they need to in order to prepare to enter the temple. We're trying to find out who else has not gone through. We've been surprised how many have not and we're soooo excited to help them prepare, I hope their prepared for lots of blessings!Oh and also about how I got pulled over by a cop, yikes! Anyhoo, I love you guys! Please pray for us and those who the Lord is preparing. Hasta next week!

Love,

Hermana Alvey =-)

1/4/10

2010-03-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!!!! I don't have really time to write today, but things are moving along. The last week has really been looking up and we're starting to teach a lot of amaaaaazing people. I'm so excited! I had been feeling a bit discouraged before. So yeah things are going great. We're way blessed and I'll tell you all about our investigators, baptism, getting pulled over by the police and ya know what ever else happens this coming week! Take care until next week and I hope you all make some good new year's resolutions. Woo 2010, make it happen!

Love,

Hermana Alvey =-)

12/28/09

2010-03-09T17:39:00.002-08:00

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! Ours was good. For Christmas Eve and Christmas day we didn't have anyone to eat with but last second people invited us. We are loved after all ha. We were calling people to plan the bauptism we have coming up and one of those people was Sister Welch who is going to be playing the piano for us. She asked if we had anywhere to eat for Christmas Eve and Christmas day we told her one of the members would be ordering us pizza and so we'd be eating it in our apartment for that day, wlhich was Christmas Eve and Christmas day we had someone to eat with. She felt bad and asked us to please come to her house that afternoon and eat with them. We gladly said yes. So we ate with the Welchs. It was a lot of fun. She made turkey, home roles, pie and other things. Soooo good! We were getting ready to leave when we saw someone pulling up to their driveway which they thought was weird becasue they weren't expecting anyone. It ended up being Santa! Also known as our Bishop who dressed up like santa. We were soo excited! We took pics and everything and they even had stockings for us which were full of goodies, it was awesome. For Christmas we ate pancakes for breakfast after studying and we got to call our families which was sooooo fun and nice, I love you guys! We ate with the Padilla family. They had been eating for the last two days straight so they didn't eat with us but talked to us as we ate ha. She just kept putting food on the table to it was an amazingly delicious combo. She made us pancakes, salad, rice, tomales, mexican hot chocolate, champurado, eggnog, soda, atole, pies, salsas, and I can't remember what else. It was so fun though and the food was good. Hermana y Hermano Padilla do foster care so they have three foster girls who are living with them, Brenda (15 yrs), Sammy (12), and Deisha (11) (not sure how to spell her name). They've all had hard lives and it's awesome that they have such a wonderful foster home. We've been able to get to know them a bit more which has been cool. Brenda is a member but Sammy and Deisha aren't. They all go to church though and we're hoping that we'll be able to start teaching them. Deisha's mom has been going to church the last couple Sundays which is awesome. She wants to change her life around. I think we'll be able to start teaching her and her daughter soon, which will be so awesome. So right now we teaching la familia VillaSenor but Jose Luis VillaSenor is still married and needs to get a divorce in Mexico so they can get married, which costs a lot. but even though it costs a lot we think it's possible but he's not trying as hard as he could. We going to have a sit down with them and make a plan to help them. Jeremy VillaSenor, their son who has 8 years, is getting baptized this Saturday which will be good. The others that we were, kind of teaching, are canceling their appointments a lot or they just never around and so we might be dropping them which never is fun... We have other's who are potentail investigators but with Christmas it's been hard to get a hold of people so I'm hoping it'll change within the next few weeks. Yeah not a whoooole lot is going on but things are going good here. Enjoy the snow for those in Utah!!! The weather has been pretty rough here it's been between 55 to 70 degrees the past few weeks I've been here... I know rough huh?? ha =-) Anyway I'll talk to you all later, take care!!!

Love,

Hermana Alvey

12/21/09

2010-03-09T17:39:00.001-08:00

We've now been here in Watsonville for 2 weeks and things are going good. My companions name is Hermana Guzman. She is from San Antonio, Texas and is awesome. She helps me a lot with spanish and has just been awesome with everything. When we arrived to our apartment, which was were the Elders used to live, they not only cleaned it but decorated it with paper snow ALL OVER, a big Merry Christmas sign, a little Christmas tree, and HUGE stockings. The stockings are so big, you can pretty much fit in then ha. I'll have to take some pics, with my new camera (thanks mom and dad!) =-) So on our drive to Watsonville the first day we were together we discovered we have the same Birthday! How awesome is that! So yes we both turned 22 on the same day. Our birthday was good. We didn't know very many people, and still don't, but one of the members that we met bought us cake that said Feliz Cumpleanos Hermana Guzman y Hermana Alvey! It was so cute. That was actually a the 15th, so two days before our birthday. On our birthday we went to zone conference which was way awesome. They fed us a huge lunch and decorated the gym waaaay Christmasy. It was fun. After we ate there was some really good musical numbers from some of the missionaries. Also the assistants presented President and Sister Jackson a framed picture of Jesus Christ and on the sides of the picture there was the name of every single convert in the mission since President Jackson has been president. It was so cool and president cried like a baby lol. I love our misson president so much. And it was so fun to see the other missionarie who were in the area I was last in, like Hermana Lowry and Hermana Kelson. It was so nice. After lunch we had talks and what not and it just all was perfect. So the last couple weeks have been pretty crazy. Watsonville is about 85% spanish speaking so President Jackson took the eglish Elders out and put in spanish Elders and Sisters (us). They split the area and so half is ours and the other half is the Elders. Our area is huge. It goes from Watconville up to north Santa Cruz. We pretty much had to start new with investigators because the Elders gave us some investigators but they're not exactly progressing so we might or might not drop a lot of them and start new. It's been pretty hard to start all over like that but things are good. We're doing A LOT of contacting and having really found anyone but with time/patience, faith and diligence; I know things with look up. The ward we go to is english and spanish which is really different to get used to but it'll be good. I've been a little bummed about stuff but all is good and will only get better. Hermana Guzman is so awesome also. Her idea was that I only speak english one hour a day and so kind of reluctantly I said ok and with just two days of doing it my head hurts lol but It'll definitley help with learning spanish. So that's pretty much what is going on. I'll write more details next week but I have to go. I love you all and have a very very very Merry CHRISTmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Alvey

12/7/2009

2010-03-09T17:33:00.000-08:00

It's already December! This is my favorite part of the year!!! You wouldn't believe it but it was raining all last night and there was even snow on the hills or mountains. Crazy huh?? So it's been pretty cold here. Probably in the 40s or so, burrrr!

Well, this was an awesome week. As of now our investigators are doing really well! Our Mission President, Presidente Jackson, challenged us to invite our investigators to give a gift to the Savior and be baptized in the month of December so as of now Josie and her mother Josefina still have a baptismal date for Dec. 26 and Hermana Lowry and I think that we should commit both Jose and Silvia to be baptized this month instead of January. We still have a lot to teach them but I think it will be good and we can get the lessons taught. They're all doing really really well. I love them all so much. Although Silvia has been so much more quiet and a little dissoriented ever since we talked about the law of chastity. I think she really wants to change and is feeling bad. I'm not sure how we can help her but I've been thinking to myself that if we commit her to baptism, this is what will help her because if she will commit to change and pray for more help she will receive a remission of her sins. I want her to feel that burden lifted off her shoulders and the wonderful feeling of being a member of Christ's church and following him. She is going to receive sooo many blessings and especially feel more happy. We've been planning on commiting her to baptism for a while and should have commited her already but everytime we planned to something happened where it just didn't seem right anymore. I need to have more courage and just do it. That's something I'm trying to work on, instead of just relying on Hermana Lowry.

So yeah they are all doing pretty well. So exciting, Mayra Bravo was baptized on this last Saturday, Dec. 5, and was confirmed a member of the church yesterday! Everything went sooo smoothly I thought it was fake or something bad was going to happen. She is doing great though and is so strong. A lot of it has to do with her suegra being a member and helping out so much. She almost was going to be baptized in cold water too poor thing. The Elders told us that there was no hot water and so Hermana Lowry and I were going to boil hot water to make it warmer but we ended up not having enough time to do that but luckily Hermana Lowry figured out that there was hot water after all, the switch for hot water hadn't been turned ha. Never listen to the Elders ;-) Anyway all we could find for Mayra to wear was a wrinkly suit. I felt so bad because she looked soo pretty and then had to put that on! You could tell she didn't feel to pretty and was a little embarrassed but she was baptized. Other than the wrinkely suit, oooops, it was wonderful. The spirit was strong and a lot of people went to the baptism, it was awesome awesome!

On Saturday, the same Saturday Mayra was baptized, we went to the temple. Mayra couldn't go, which we really wanted her to go, but Eva Lugo and her girls, Jessica, Lupita, and Venessa; Josie and Josefina went. Moises Campos, one of our less active members came also which was great. Laura Ramirez and her son Chris, who is Josie's boyfriend, came also. It was such a good thing for all of them. Chris is very inactive and doesn't want really anything to do with the church but he went to the temple and attended church because Josie wants him to. I think he'll start coming around with her example. At the temple we watched the "Families together forever" exhibit, watched a short film about the birth of Christ, the Joseph Smith movie, and walked around the temple grounds. They all absolutely loved it and even Lupita, who has 13 years, was talking about what temple she wants to be married in. I can't wait until they start going to church in January. There's just so much to say about each of our investigators and all those we are teaching but I'll just say that things are going well and I'm very grateful.

So on Wed. we got a call from President Jackson. We expected him to call because we pretty much were positive that Hermana Lowry would be training one of the new hermanas that would be coming in. So sure enough he called but none of us were expecting him to say what he did. He was talking to Hermana Lowry and told her that he would like to invite her and me to the training meeting. I could hear him on the phone and so my mouth just dropped open in shock when I heard that. Then he said now let me talk to Hermana Alvey before she drops dead to the ground, which I pretty much had ha. She gave me the phone and he told me that there would be another Hermana coming in that he wanted we to train and Hermana Vawdrey and Cowley would receive their chance to train in January, which is when I was planning on training. Oh my goodness I was so nervous, I'm going to me a mommy! So he called back later that day and asked to speak to both of us because he needed our oppinion. He told us that one of us would be staying in Las Colinas and the other would be going down to Watsonville to pretty much open up the area. We both didn't know what to say just wanted him to make the decision himself but he wanted our oppinions. Hermana Lowry gave me the phone and said here you tell him what you think and then left. I didn't know what to say but I told President that I felt like our members investigators were more comfortable or attached to Hermana Lowry, which is what I think. After I was done Hermana Lowry got on the phone and President told her what I said and wanted to know if it was true. She was like uuuh, well, I don't know. Maybe because I speak more spanish and then President said thank you that's all I need to know. So after that we pretty much figured that I would be leaving and she would be staying but didn't know for sure so it was driving us crazy! On Friday when we went to the training meeting we asked him and he said yes that I would be going to Watsonville and she would be staying. So guess what! I'm leaving and going to Watsonville, yikes! But don't worry President isn't sticking me in a place that I don't know and make me train an Hermana who doesn't speak spanich, she already speaks spanish thank goodness! Hermana Kelson told President that she wanted to train her because she speaks spanish already and he told us that he thought about it but he wasn't going to make me open an area and train an Hermana who doesn't speak spanish, thank goodness!!! So yeah that's what's going on. She'll be coming tomorrow and it should be fun. She'll probably be expecting a trainer who already speaks spanish very well and knows the people and area but nope she get me who doen't know either haha. I was a little nervous about all of this but I prayed about it and I feel like this is the best and it won't be all that easy but all will be well. I guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow! Oh one thing I'm kind of bummed about though is that in this area President had 2 sets of Elders there, spanish and english. What he is doing now is pulling out the English and just putting spanish missionaries there and we will be teaching both english and spanish. He told us that 85% of the people there were spanish speaking so it was pointless to have english missionaries there. I didn't exactly like the idea of teaching english and spanish but it will be ok, I know I'm going to learn spanish and this is where Heavenly Father wants me to be. So we shall see how it all goes. I'm glad that mi nueva can help me out with spanish though =-) So yesterday at church Bishop announced that me and Elder Garcia would be leaving and so we bore our testimonies in Sacrament meeting. It was so sad! I had to keep fighting back tears. I love the people here in Las Colinas so much! I'm really hoping that President will send me back here in Las Colinas the last part of my mission, I guess we shall see. And we're allowed to come back for baptisms, so I get to come back to Las Colinas to see our baptisms. That makes me so happy because I would be soooo sad to miss those. So that is what's going on right now. I'm sure I'll have lots to say next week! Wish me luck lol. And I have no more to say... I'm the queen at writing novels ha. I hope my emails aren't way boring for you guys hehe!

I love you guys mucho muchisimo!!!

Love,

Hermana Alvey

11/30/2009

2009-11-30T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hey! How was your Thanksgiving? We were a little worried about ours but it ended up being so fun. We didn't recognize the name of the family we were giong to be eating with, la familia Toscano, so we starting worrying that maybe they didn't even realize that they signed up to feed us on Thanksgiving and forgot. So we found their number and called to see if they were planning on having us eat with them lol. They were like yes! and very excited about it, so we didn't end up eating at Wendy's or home ha. So we went to their house, which was soo nice because Hermana Toscano is an interior decorator, and we sat down and started talking to them and what not while Hermana fishined preparing the food. So, we ate with hermana; her son David who is 19 and getting ready to turn in his mission papers!; and Miguel and his daughter Iris who rents a room in their house. We had turkey of course, stuffing, rolls, mashed potatoes, and salad for dinner and for dessert we had pumpkin pie (yum!) and flan. I never liked flan before and just thought it was nasty but I've had it quite a bit here because they all love it and I've really come to love it too; weird huh? lol. So it was fun and after we asked if we could share a message. We had a talk por President Monson from one of the General Conferences but I can't remember which one and I can't even remember the name of it at the minute.... yeah I can't remember ha. Anyway I picked out some parts of it that talked about having gratitude and it was just wonderful. Miguel read a lot of it and after I shared a thought about what was said. Miguel had a question and so Hermana Toscano answered it and so I threw in my 2 cents too and them I bore my testimony and told Miguel that I knew he wasn't a member but that through the Gospel he can find more joy in his life, that he could know for himself that it's true and if he'd just give it a chance to find out more and if it's true he'll truly be blessed and some other stuff that I can't remember. After I was done Hermana Toscana said pero Miguel es un miembro, or in english Miguel is a member. I looked at her and said mande? or what? Oh my goodness I was so embarrassed haha, but then she said but Miguel is not active so it's ok. I look at Miguel all embarrassed and said sorry and said so do think you'll come to church again then? or something like that. He kind of laughed and said it's ok what you said is true and then it was a little silent and awkward after that and the subject was switched which I was so happy about haha. So apparently I don't understand english either ha because before we ate dinner we were talking to David, the son of Hermana Toscano, who told us that he is a member but inactive; which was all in english and somewhere along the way I had missed all of that ha. Anyway that was a little embarrassing but it was a really great Thanksgiving. Hermana Toscano even already signed up to have us over for Christmas Eve dinner which I might not be here for that which I'm sad about, but we shall see next Monday if our mission president will transfer me somewhere else or have me stay, I can't wait to find out! So that was my thanksgiving dinner. That day before dinner we cleaned the house and went grocery shopping, ya know typical P day stuff and then we went to a park to find that the Elders left and went to the institute so we left the park and went there too and ended up playing ping-pong, some pool (I don't know how to spell it but you know where you hit the balls in the pockets with sticks ha), and played some horse and knock-out which I'm amazing at ;-) I could barely make any baskets ha. Then we came home and relaxed which was soooo nice. There was a very long description of our Thanksgiving, I know you all enjoyed that!

So this last Sunday only one of our investigators came to church when 5 said they were going to. Family members ended up coming over so they didn't go =-/ But wonderful and independent Maira came to church with her sweet little girls, Leslie and Elisabeth. Maira Bravo is getting baptized this coming Saturday, yay! We still have a bit to teach her but it'll happen. We commited Josefina and Josefina to baptism and they very excitedly excepted to be baptized Dec. 26! We'll see if it actually happens that date but they'll get baptized for sure. Josefina, who is pregant, needs to get married to her boyfriend Chris so we'll be discussing the law of chastity quite soon. Speaking of the law of chastity, oh my goodness. We were gong to teach Silivia the plan of Salvacion but it turned into the law of chastity. That is not the funnest topic to suddenly need to talk about without preparing for it, yikes, especially in spanish lol. So let me tell you how this came about. We assigned her to read 3 Nefi 11 which she read and continued to read into chapter 12 and 13. In chapter 12 around verse 30 or something, Jesus Christ tells the people that a man that putteth away his wife (pretty much because he wants to marry another woman) is sinning (claro que si) and whosoever marries the divorced women is commiting adoltary and so is she. That's roughly what it says because I don't have my scriptures. She had very big concern with this because she is divorced and didn't like the fact that if she remarried she'd be commiting adoltary. In so many words we explained that she wouldn't be if she was remarried but we really did not know how to explain this scripture. If you'l like go and look for it and let me know what you think. So then she asked if men in our church can have more than one wife, because her boyfriend said he heard we did, but we explained that we don't and then we asked if she had anymore questions and so she had one more. She asked us if it was bad that she had a boyfriend. We were a little puzzled and said no and then Crystal Torres, a member from the ward, asked if she was asking if it's ok to have sexual relationships with him. So that started the big conversation of the law of chastity. We shared some scriptures, explained why it wasn't ok, and bore a lot of testimony. At first Silvia told us that she thinks it's different now days and that it's not bad but by the end they admitted that she did feel bad about it and knew it was a commandment. She told us that she wanted to stop and would but didn't know when because it's hard and she doen't know if she wants to give it up yet. She also doen't want to marry her boyfriend. So this is definitely a problem but I know she can stop and Heavenly Father will help her, she just needs to be commited and pray and seek for help. We're thinking we need to be a little more blunt with her that it's going to be so much harder if she procastinates repentance and she can't return to Hervenly Father or join His church. This will be tough but she can do it. She also needs to receive a firm testimony that the gospel is true because once someone knows this they will do all in their power to withstand Satan. We're teaching her tonight and so I'll keep you posted on everything with her and our other investigators.

Oh something funny and cute. Hermana Lowry and I have been passing around a sheet for the members to sign so that we know who and when members can come with us to our appointments. When the papers came around in Priesthood Jose Gonzalez, one of our investigators, signed it haha. At the last lesson we had with him, last Sunday, he brought it up and wanted to know when he could come with us. We weren't sure what to say ha. I don't know if it works to bring investigators to lessons to teach other investigators ha. We'll see if he still remembers and maybe we have him come with us to something, I don't know what though. Oh also on Sunday Militza was telling me something cool about her mom. We taught Militza sometime last week and her mom is never very happy when we come over. She gets mad and mumbles not very nice things about us under her breath, most the time I can't understand what she is saying but Militza does so it bugs her a lot. Any way we came over and I started talking to Militzas mom. She was making salsa so I asked how she made it and what she put in it. She was surprisingly nice and even smiled. I think she was just shocked that I was talking to her. After we taught Militza I went over and said bye to everyone in the house including her mom who I gave a hug. I didn't think she it would do anything but I figured why not be nice and try to express that I care since we all are children of God. So on Sunday Militza told me that after I hugged her and we left she was smiling and said did she just hug me? Militza told her that that's how we always are, Militza is so sweet she thinks we're way more amazing than we really are lol. But I guess as of now Militza's mom has been nicer and hasn't said anything rude about us or complained about us coming over Militza going to church. That really helped me realized how much I think I misunderstand people and I need to be more like Jesus Christ and always express my love to others no matter how mean someone may come accross or be. I don't know how like it will last that she has good feelings towards us but I will continue to be as nice and serve her as much as possible.

I love you all and I just want to say thank you to my family and friends. Thank you sooo much for you support and prayers. I really really mean it. I'm praying for you all and hope all is well!

Love,
Hermana Alvey =-)

11/23/2009

2009-11-30T18:23:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's already almost Thankgiving! There is so much to be grateful for right now. We're teaching a lot of amazing people and there will be more to come. As of now those we're teaching who are progressing are Maira Bravo; Silvia Rodriguez and her daughter Silvita; and Jose Gonzalez.

We're are still teaching Roberto Reza but he is very skeptical and doesn't seem like he wants to change or really know that this is the only true church. He has been attending church the last several Sundays, which is great, but we don't know if we will continue to teach him; we shall see.
This last Sunday Eva Lugo actually comitted to go to church. I asked if she knew the church was true and she said yes. I asked if she still wanted to be baptized and she quickly said yes. I asked her if she would do anything posible in order to be baptized and she said yes to this also. I then told her that she had to go to church or else she could not be baptized. I expressed to her that I know it is hard for her to commit to go but sometimes we have to make sacrifices and show forth our faith by our actions and then he can bless us. After saying this she said she would go. Crystal Torres, a member of the ward who was there during the lesson, told her she would give her a ride and everything. It was all set and I really thought she was going to go or maybe I was just hopeful of but she ended up not going yesterday because her family suddenly showed up to visit. Something always happens. So we're going to give her one more chance to go to church this coming Sunday and if she doesn't attend, we're going to have to sit down with her and tell her we can't teach then anymore unless she goes. That is going to be so hard but we have to do it. It's tough love as our mission President puts it. So hopefully she ends up going because that will be so sad if we have to stop teaching her.

But Maira, Jose, and Silvia are doing great! Maira comes to church on her own and still has the date to be baptized the 5 of Dic. Her kids loooove us too it's adorable =-) Jose came to church again yesterday and last night we gave him a baptism date for January 3 which he accepted, yay! Silvia is great. She is so involved in the classes and even asks the members for rides because she doesn't have a car, amazing! So tonight we have an appointment with her and we're going to commit her to baptism, which we probably should have done sooner but it's ok.

We're also now teaching Josefina and her mom Josefina. Laura Ramirez is one of the members in our ward. (Just a side note, Laura is amazing and loves accompanying us at our appointments. She is married to Marco who has only been a member for 1 year. He for a while didn't go to church and said he never had a testimony of the church and therir marriage just wasn't going very well; it was so sad but the last some weeks he's been going to church and totally coming around! They seem so much more happy now and flirt with each other again and it's just precious. We started teaching Marco, because he's was turning into a less active but now he's doing great. We had them go the appointment for Josefina and after the appointment of Jose last night and he, Marco, was helping out so much. I think Hermana Ramirez was pleasantly surprised at the things he was saying. It makes me sooo happy to see him coming around and their marriage doing better. Last night Laura told us that Marco is going to cry when we have to leave lol he laughed and agreed. Oooh I love them!) Anyway back to what I was talking about... So, we taught Josefina and her mother. Josefina is the girlfriend of Laura's son. She has been a little depressed because she has had complications with her pregnancy (yeah we'll have to get them married) and is now on bed rest and still has 3 months left. The lesson went soo well though. The spirit was so strong and I was fighting back tears when bearing my testimony at the end of the lesson. They loved it and all though they had never heard of Jose Smith and it was just all so different they said they liked it and wanted to learn more. They liked the feeling they had when we were teaching them. It was a good lesson, I was really gratefully for that. It was cool also because Josefina (the younger one who is pregnant) was telling us that she's gone to church, the Catholic church, but she didn't feel anything when she went. It was like they were just feeding information but she felt something different with what we were teaching and liked that we taught the only way you can know that it's true is by praying and reading. She said in the Catholic church they were told not to pray or read the bible. I'm guessing they believe in a blind faith kind of thing. I couldn't befeive that but I am so grateful that we do know that the only way we can know the truth of things is by reading and pondering the scriptures and especially when we ask our Father in Heaven in prayer. This church is the only true church and what a blessing that we can ask He who knows all whether this is His church or not. That's what they learned and they were excited to read from the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It just all makes sense and that's because it is true.

So yeah things are going good, lots to be grateful for. Maria Concepcion and Militza Paulin, who were recently baptized, are doing good. Maria is adorable and sooooo much sweeter and happy now that she has been baptized and received the Holy Ghost. It's AMAZING what the Gospel does to people =-) Militza is doing well for the most part but doesn't have that great of a life. We had no idea things were not going well at all with her husband or mother. She hadn't said anything to us but last week when we taught her she vented to us about everything that is going on. Before she was baptized she told us that she had tried to kill herself because she had severe depression feeling trapped and no one loved her or would help her. Things really aren't going better as far as her health or relationships with her husband and mother but she said there's something different that keeps me going, which is the Gospel. With the doctors permission, Militza even stopped taking her depression pills after she was baptized. I think those of us who have had the Gospel our whole lives take it for granted. There are others out there who know what it's like to not have it in their lives. Militza was on the verge of killing herself before she had it but now, even though things are not going a lot better, she has found hope and peace. This is what the Gospel can do for others. I hope that those of us who have the Gospel in our lives will not take it for granted and will share this infinite gift with as many people as possible. With Christmas coming up I hope your hearts will be turned to others and you will think of who you may share the greatest gift you can EVER give to someone, which is the Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all soooo much and wish you the best Thanksgiving!!!!!! We all have sooooo much to be grateful for =-)

Love,
Hermana Alvey

P.S. I know this letter is already so long but I have a challenge for you all. In our mission they have challenged us to read the whole Book of Mormon by the end of January. I can't begin to express to you what the Book of Mormon has done for me in my life! No matter how many times you have or haven't read the Book of Mormon, I challenge you to start reading The Book of Mormon today and finish it by Feb. 1. We all were given a red pencil and we highlight where ever Christ is mentioned. I've been challenged to do this and I hope you will take up this challenge also, no matter how busy your schedule may be many blessings will come and we can do it together! =-) Let me know how it goes and any thoughts or experiences you have when fulfilling this challenge!

11/16/2009

2009-11-16T18:20:00.002-08:00

This past week has been really good. We went to the temple trip and it was great. We ended up only having one investigator go, Silvia Rodriguez. It just ended up being better that we plan another day to go to the temple with Eva and her girls and everyone else who was going to go originally ended up not being able to go. We were bummed but it ended up being the best and a really great experience. We're planning another temple trip for Eva, Militza, and other investigators of ours. So, Silvia is a referral from some Elders. We have only taught once, about a week and a half ago or so. She was interested already but going to the temple really made her want to learn more. Silvia is extremely out-going which was great because she just went up to everyone and introduced herself and kept conversations going. When we arrived to the temple first we listened to the Christus and then we went to watch the Joseph Smith movie. It was awesome because this is my second time watching the Joseph Smith movie in spanish and opposed to the first time watching it, this time I understood just about everything, not because I'm familiar with the movie in english but because I actually understood the spanish. That made me soo happy =-) So back to Silvia, during the movie she cried and afterward asked if there was anyway she could buy it which we had to tell her no but when it does come out I bet she'll be very happy and by then I'm sure she'll be a member. So, after watching the movie we walked around the visitors center and looked at the pictures, listened to the testimony of President Monson, looked at all the Book of Mormons in different languages, and whatnot. We then went out side and walked around the outside of the Oakland Temple. It was such a beautiful day and so peaceful feeling. She kept saying over and over how beautiful it was and how peaceful it felt. After walking around a little we sat down. Hermana Lowry was talking to some members and so I was left alone with Silvia. She started asking questions about how you can enter the temple and how you can be worthy. At first I was nervous because Hermana Lowry wasn't there just in case I didn't understand but I was able to understand her and answer her questions alone. I was soo grateful for that and Heavenly Father definitely helped me out. I lack a lot in my spanish but I am learning it and I'm so grateful for that miracle. So it was absolutely wonderful at the temple. On our ride home Silvia was asking a lot of questions and saying how she really wanted to learn more and wanted to start reading The Book of Mormon. I was so excited! So yesterday, Sunday, one of the wonderful recent converts that we teach picked up some our investigators and took them to church. We drove to their houses and he just followed us. We stopped by the house of Jose Gonzalez (who we met at the laundry mat and he read a lot of The Book of Mormon), then we went to the house of Maria Concepcion Molina where we picked up her and her daughter Maria Elena, then we went to the house of Silvia. That car was full of people and her we are in our car with plenty of room and our precious little bags enjoying the whole back seat haha. We felt bad but it's missionary rules, we can't pick anyone up. So we all got to church to find Roberto Reza there, another one of our investigators, and also Maira Bravo. Church was great and our investigators all enjoyed it. It's funny how things can go so bad and then turn so good and visa versa, so were not letting our guard down because you never know what might happen. They're really doing good though. Maira always keeps the commitments we give her and now Silvia and Jose are doing the same. We still need to work on Roberto with his Book of Mormon studies but he's on his way. So those are our investigators who are progressing. Yesterday we taught Jose Gonzalez and his friend, Jose Abila (you have no idea how many Joses we have met lol). Jose Abila wants to learn more, go to church and already has a Book of Mormon from previous missionaries. So, that was way cool and I hope that we are able to help him. We're still teaching karina and Eva and a few others but we have a lot of work with them. So things are moving forward and ward members are giving a lot of referrals which is absolutely wonderful. I'm loving the mission despite hard times I'm so grateful to be here, it's wonderful. My mom told me that she can't keep track of our investigators; I don't blame her or any of you because it seems like it's always changing who we teach lol. Anyway that's what is going on here. I hope you all are doing well, I love you lots!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Alvey

11/9/2009

2009-11-16T18:20:00.001-08:00

Hola! Como estan? Epero que todo este bien. Todo esta bien aqui conmigo. Hemos ensenado muchas lecciones lo cual es exelente pero hay muchas personas de que tenemos mucho trabajo. Entonces voy a escribir en ingles. So things are good here. The baptism that Eva Lugo and her daughter Jessica were so excited to go to was on Saturday. They didn't have a ride there so we oranged for la Familia Ambrosio to pick them up. It ended up that the husband of Eva took them to the baptism a half hour early and we weren't there yet because we were waiting for Karina and her children to get out and on their way to the baptism. By the time we got there they left because they had been waiting for a half hour. Hermano Ambrosio was looking for them and everything but couldn't find them. I was so bummed I wanted to cry because I wanted them to go to the baptism sooo bad and her husband and older daughter, Lupita, might have stayed also which would have been so awesome. I felt so bad and when I called Eva she wasn't the happiest. She wasn't mad but sounded pretty frustrated. There was a lot of confusion involved. So that was a bummer but Karina went and that was good. We also have the temple trip coming up and Eva and her daughters (Jessica, Lupita, y Venessa) are going. I just hope that nothing happens that keeps them from going to the temple. Militza is going too. This will be her second time giong and I just hope she doesn't faint or nothing happens with anyone. So, that trip should be good. I'm excited for it. I'm hoping that it will help Eva to go to church. So we have that coming up and very exciting news. Maira Bravo, who we are also teaching, has a baptismal date of Dec. 5 which she accepted. At church yesterday, she told me that she wants to go to the Sociedad de Sucorro en los Martes, so she's going to start going to relief society activities or what is it called... oh, enrichment and she's the one that asked if she could go! And also she wants to help clean the church Saturday mornings. How cute is that? I didn't even know they announced that but she asked me about it and wants to go. She's so awesome. I just hope sooooo much that her husband will come around. I want to try harder to talk to him and see if we can teach him also. We've only met him like twice. We're work on that. We're as of yesterday, teaching Jose who we met at the lavenduria. He is really interested, has a lot of questions, and doesn't work Sundays which is fabulous. It's actually really cool because he met with some Elders about a year ago in Salinas. From last Sunday night when we met him until yesterday when we taught him he pulled out his Book of Mormon that those Elders had given him and started reading. He read up to Jacob. We thought that was awsome. He didn't really comprehend what he had read though and so we will help him there. So he told us about some dreams he had, always, and pretty much from those dreams he knew he needed to change his ways (drinking and what not) and then pulled out the Book of Mormon and started reading. I thought that was way cool and exciting. We have a few other's that we're teaching that I think will progress but we'll see. We're still looking for more to teach, always. The work is moving along though, slowly but surely. I love it out here though. I might be leaving in a month though which is sad and scary to think that I will be training in 2 months. My spanish needs a lot of work but I know that the Lord will bless me with another miracle. Anyway that's pretty much what's going on here. I hope you guys are doing good! I love you all looooooots!!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Alvey =-)

11/2/2009

2009-11-16T18:18:00.000-08:00

Ok so I didn't write much last time so I'll catch you up. First off, I hope that everyone had an fun Halloween! I had a lot of fun. We tracted and taught lessons until 5 pm and then all of us missionaries in this area met up at the church office building, ate, and watched movies. We weren't aloud to be outside during Halloween night so President Jackson gave us permission to watch movies. The Senior Missionaries prepared food and goodies for us which was soo sweet and then we watched "Meet the Johnsons" which was actually really funny and cute and we watched "Monsters Inc." which I love. So that was way fun. As of everything else. Well we're really not reaching la familia Alvarez anymore... yeah we're pretty sad about the whole situation. So last week we gave la palabra de sabaduria and we thought it went ok but we'd come to find out that it didn't... We called Consalo y Maria para remind them about the appointment and Consalo nos digo que that would be the last time we would teach them. Hermana Lowry was the one on the phone. She asked why and he just said because he doesn't want to change religions and stuff like that. She told him we'd talk about it at the lesson. Oh my goodness, we were absolutely dreading that lesson. After she hung up the phone we just sat there in awe, not knowing what to do and what just had happened. I wanted to cry. We absolutely love this family and that just felt horrible hearing that. Hermana Lowry described it as being broken up and just sitting there helpness not knowing what to do or say. It really did feel like my heart was broken. So we went to the lesson and it was so awkward and just uncomfortable. Finally Hermana Lowry said ok lets talk about that call. What's wrong. So we started talking. He said he didn't want to change from being catholic because it'd be like betraying but that wasn't really the problem. So we kept talking and finally it came down to everything we were asking Consalo to do was just too hard. He can't pray and we always ask if he's prayed and then we want him to stop smoking and drinking and it all just scared and overwhelmed him I think. So now he's almost totally shut off from us. He said that he liked us coming over and he liked learning from us but that he didn't want to be baptized and that he would never be baptized. We all didn't know exactly what to say. We asked Maria if she still wanted to be baptized. She said she still wanted to but that she wouldn't get baptized if he didn't because she didn't want a division or any conflict in their relationship. So we asked if we could still come back and teach Maria and the kids who want to be baptized and we figured Consalo could just listen. Maria said yes we could and Consalo looked down and wouldn't say anything. Maria told him to say something and he kind of reluctantly said it was fine. So we made an appointment to come back which was supposed to be today but when we called to remind them of it this morning Consalo said he had a problem and that his papa, who is in Mexico, is very sick and that it'd be best for us to come back later. We asked if there was another day and he told us that he'd call us when things were going better with that situation. That, obviously, was an excuse for us to not come back. Man it's so sad. We want to continue teaching them, I think just hoping that we can do something to change their minds and help them but it might just be best to stop teaching them, especially since Consalo has pretty much dropped us and Maria isn't doing anything to stop it. So that's the situation and it's just all very sad. It's so frustrating because I keep thinking, what should we have done differently? Maybe we were too pushy... things like that but we have done the best we can and we can't force people to accept it. It's hard because you know with all your heart that it's true and you want other people to know it too so they can be just as blessed and happy as you are because of the church but they reject it and there's not much you can do. It's especially hard when you're so attached to them and yeah... but all we can do is move on and try to find others who are ready. I really do think though that they will be baptized and accept the gospel it just may be later. So we're still teaching the Lugo family which I've talked about. She still hasn't gone to church though. We told her that she can't be baptized unless she attends church and she asked if she could learn from us and follow these things but attend her church because it's at a time that she can go. We told her no and she still doesn't quite understand why. There's a baptism for a little girl in our ward coming up and we invited her to come and she's really excited. I really hope this will motivate her more. So the last time we taught her she told us about this dream that she had. (You have no idea how many dreams we've heard. I'm not sure what it is but it seems like the latin people dream soo much. And sometimes I really think it is how they receive answers to their prayers and what not but a lot of the time, in my oppinion, they're just dreams that they take too serious. I forgot to even say anything but the first few weeks I was here one of the members in our ward came up to me and said how he was trying to figure out why I looked so familiar and finally it clicked to him that I was in a dream that he had had. He said that there was a lot of people in a big room which was really pretty and everyone was wearing white. He said I was in it and had 2 ninos (kids). That's all I got out of it because I could barely understand him at all, but he was describing it to me and was like yeah I had it 6 months ago. Yeah, crazy huh? So he now goes to another ward but told me that he won't ever forget my face. I want to ask him now to tell me more about the dream because I understand more spanish ha. So yeah we hear about a lot of dreams)So back to Eva's dream, she dreamed that she was in this beautiful garden and there was a castle looking thing and stairs that went up to it. She was wearing all white and so as she was going up the stairs she stopped and didn't want to go any further because she was wearing black boots. She had this dream years ago but we thought it was interesting. I don't know if it means anything but I thinking that'd be so crazy if that was the temple and something was keeping her from going to it. So in 2 weeks there's going to be a temple trip and I can't remember if we invited her to go and then she told the dream or if we invited her after because it just sounded like she was describing a temple but either way we invited her and she's soo excited to go. It should be good, I'm way excited too. We have a lot of investigators and members that we teach that we want to go so we're really really hoping a lot of them go. So yeah that is what's going on, well most of it. I'll keep you posted with the situation with Consalo y Maria. continue to pray for them please! Oh yeah last bit of news, Karina Galvan who we thought we were going to have to drop, randomly showed up to church and she said she is trying to get Sundays off!! That made us sooo happy! Ok well untill next week, I love you all and hope you all are doing awesome!!!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Alvey (Alven y las Sardias) That's what everyone calls me or how they remember my name ha

10/15/2009

2009-11-16T18:17:00.000-08:00

Hey! Another week has passed and I cannot believe how fast it goes buy! Another transfer is almost over and I can't believe it! So I found out in January I will training with is a little frightning but exciting at the same time. There will be two new sisters coming in Dec. and so Hermana Kelson and Hermana Lowry will more than likely be training them since they've been out the longest; which means that Hermana Vawdrey, Hermana Cowley and I might be in a trio for a transfer which will be so cool because it'll be like old times in the MTC except without Hermana Porter. So, then in January 3 more Hermanas will be coming in which means all three of us new girls will be training. I better work on my spanish more!!

A lot has happened in the last week and a half. We're still teaching La Alvarez Familia who I talked a little about last week with Consalo and Maria. I'm going to backtrack a little about them. So, almost 2 months ago, when Hermana Lowry had barely joined Hermana Kelson and I, we were trying to figure out who to go visit. We have an Area book which is full of past records of people that were either visited by the missionaries but not really taught ("potentials") and those that were being taught at one point but for whatever reason were dropped ("formers"). We prayed to know who we should go and contact and then starting looking through the book seeing if any caught our eye as someone the Heavenly Father would like us to go see. There was one in particular that I kept going back to and just felt like we needed to go see. On the sheet it said her name was Hazel and she wanted a Book of Mormon and that was it besides her address of course. I just felt like we should go see her so we did. We went there and found out she no longer lived there but we talked to the family who did live there and made an appointment to go back. Her name was Eperanza and she didn't seem very interested but we figured we could teach her and maybe she would become interested. Each time we went to teach her she would cancel and we'd reschedule. One time we went to teach her and of course she wasn't there so we decided that we would just knock at that same apartamento instead. We talked to some people and made some appointments with people and one of them was Consalo. We didn't know if much would come out of it but you never know so we schedualed a day to come back a teach him. And, from then on we have been teaching not only him but his wife and there children also. I remember after we prayed and I said a silent prayer to know who we should go see that one night, and I didn't know why but I felt strongly that we should go to see Hazel. I was thinking hm maybe she's ready and that's why but when we went there to find she had moved I thought ok maybe I felt we needed to go there for Esperanza and her family. After she had canceled a few times and continued to seem uninterested, I was kind of bummed and confused why I felt like we needed to go there. I figured well maybe I wasn't exactly prompted that we should go there but it was ok because we found a new apartment complex that we had never gone to before, but as we know, Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways and I know that He lead us to them. I really think He lead us there at the perfect timing. They needed Hermana Lowry to be there to teach them, I think, and yeah it's just really cool because I'm already seeing that the Lord is leading us to those who are seeking the gospel. I'm learning a lot of patience, faith, and how to follow the Holy Ghost which is so so so hard but I'm learning =-)

So it was so exciting because this last Sunday not only Consalo and the 3 youngest kids; Uriel who is 5 years old, Karen who is 8 years old, and Yenifer who is 10 years old; but Maria surprised us by telling us that she go work off to go too! So the whole family went including their older daughter Karen who is 12 years old. We were soooo excited! They all liked it a lot! Oh and also very exciting news, we asked if they had prayed to know if the church was true and Consalo still hasn't =-/ but Maria has and told us that she feels good about it and knows it's true. We were soooo excited but have yet to get Consalo to pray about it. He has this phobia of praying but it was so cute because in one of the lessons we got him to pray by himself, without repeating after anyone (his first time praying he repeated everything Hermana Blancarte said, like a child learning how to pray. It was adorable). So before saying the pray that he said by himself, not only us but Maria and his kids were helping know what to say. Everyone was so anxious for him to pray, it was cute and I think it was so exciting for the kids to see their father pray aloud thanking Heavenly Father for his family and asking Him to bless them. It was priceless and though he was soooo nervous and struggled a bit, he prayed all by himself and it was precious. So we have talked a lot about the baptismal date and they're all so excited but we have some road blocks to get over first. Like I said before, Consalo drinks and smokes and a new bit of information that we finally know now is that they are not married which was a fear for us because it seems like that is the norm and no one is married but just live together. So today we get to talk about the word of wisdom, which should be oh so much fun, and then the next time we talk we'll talk about the law of chastity and how they need to get married. Hermana Blancarte is our life savor and did the honors of asking Consalo if they were married or not. She said that he said he didn't want to get married yet which we will find out why when we talk to them soon. All of this is pretty nerve racking to talk to them about but I know it will be ok and they will change because the Lord will help them and strengthen them. They've already been seeing blessings from simply learning about the gospel and I know the Lord will bless them even more as they commit to follow His commandments. I will indeed let you know how the word of wisdom and law of chastidad lesons go next week =-)

Other news, I told you I had a lot to say ha, we finally got a hold of Karina! If you have forgotten who she is; she is 20 years old, was supposed to be baptized a while ago but wasn't ready, she left to go see her parents which we were so nervous she wouldn't come back, and so on. Well, she has been ignoring our calls and we could never find her at her home for the longest time but just recently called us back and we finally met with her! I was sooooo happy because I have been so worried and sad about that whole situation. So the talk went well and we hope she is going to get back on track. We had a really open conversation about everything, which started out pretty rough and awkward at first, but ended soo well. She was so happy that we came by and we found out that she has never really prayed to specifically know that the church is true. That explained exactly why she wasn't ready and we challenged her to pray and ask and tomorrow we will see how that went =-)

Also, we are teaching a new family. They live next to Joaquina y Moises Campos who are recent convert/inactive and so we teach them each week. One day when they weren't there for their appointment we started talking to Eva Lugo who we are now teaching. She is from Mexico lives with her husband (or probably boyfreind which we will find out for sure soon) and they have 3 beautiful daughters; Jessica who is 8, Lupe who is 12, and Vanessa who is 1. Lupe doesn't really stick around for the lessons but she's slowly warming up to us. Jessica on the other hand loooooves us. When I say loves us I really mean it. She loves to learn and wants us to come over every single day so we can sing and learn. Her mom hadn't read much from the Book of Mormon or the pamphlets but guess who pulled them out and started reading them to her mama, yes Jessica. Oh my goodness she is so cute and enthusiastic about learning about the gospel. Everything about it she loves, it's precious and she is exactly what Heavenly Father means when He tells us we need to be as little children. Anyway, at first Eva was pretty skeptical of everything but after a few lessons she really started listening and loving it, I think it has a lot to do with her daughter who is so enthusiastic about it all. Eva especially showed interest when we told her about el plan of salvasion. She had no idea where we came from, what our purpose is, and where we will be going and wanted to know all of this. I think we take for granted that we know this. So it took 2 lessons to finish talking about the plan of salvation and by the end we asked if she had any questions. She said no because she knew it was true. I was sooo excited to hear this. So, Hermana Kelson commited her to baptism for the 22 of Nov and with a smile on her face she said yes and told us that she knows these things are true because it makes her feel happy and warm in her chest. We explained that this was the Holy Ghost and that it is true. The Spirit was very strong and we are so excited! But along with all of these great experiences, Satan is always there waiting to try and mess is up so please pray for her. She is going to talk to her husband and try to go to church. Please please pray for all those we are teaching and for us. We need it sooo much.

Well that is pretty much what is going on. We are teaching a lot but many we are teaching are not progressing so please pray for us that we may find those who are ready. I can't tell you how grateful I am to be here even though some days are long and hard. I know with everything in me that this is the only true church on earth. Share your testimonies as much as possible and if you don't have one yet get one because you have no idea yet how much the Lord is waiting to bless you. I love you all soooo much!!!!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Alvey

p.s. sorry this is so long haha I just get so excited about everything... I'm pretty sure I could make it even longer lol. Love you guys, until next week take care!!!!!

2009-11-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

10/5/2009

Hey everyone!!!! How are you all doing?? Well I hope =-) I'll start out witha very tramatic experience that happened last Wed... well not exactly thatbad but oh it was so scary and funny. Ok so my companion and I found a BigFat Scary and Hairy Spider in our apartment on the ceiling. It was so nasty!Anyway, we had to plan with this scary spider about us. We were so nervousto take our eyes off of it! Finally when we were done planning we decidedthat we would get rid of it. I didn't want to kill it, because although Idon't like them I just think it's sad to kill them. I just wanted to catchit and put it outside. So with that in mind; I grabbed a cup, pulled up achair, and Hermana Lowry pulled up a chair too meerly for support becauseshe did nothing but watch me try to catch the scary spider. So with my heartpounded, I put the cup over the big fat spider and then used a Liahona toslide it beneath the cup. The next thing I knew was that the nasty spiderslid under the crack between the cup and the ceiling and I sat it and jumpeddown so fast screaming (Hermana Lowry was also screaming) and ran down thehall when I looked down and just happended to see the spider squishedbeneath me toot! I screamed EEEEEEWWWWW I squished it and as fast as I saidthat I pulled off my knee highs and jumped in the bathtup to wash my footoff. You may be asking, "how did the spider get all the way from thelivingroom ceiling, down the hall, and under your foot?" Well let me tellyou, because as Hermana Lowry was watching she observed everything that happened which I had no idea. So as soon as I started jumping off the chair,my scream must have startled the spider so little did I know it startedcoming down from the ceiling on its web and then I wacked the web with the cup that was in my hand and so the poor little spider went flying. Hermana Lowry starting screaming and taking off peaces of clothing because she thought I had wacked it onto her but no. What happened is the web was stuck to me and so the spider was flying after me when it just happened to land under my foot. Despite all of our efforts to save the spider... I squished it.

After the whole ordeal happened we looked down the hall to see my knee highs thrown in the hall, down a little ways there's a cup, not far from the cup is the Liahona, and next to the Liahona is two chairs facing each other and in the middle of all of that you can see the squished spider. Although we felt bad, we laughed and laughed and laughed and took some pictures because it just looks funny. Anyway just thought you'd like to hear how Sister Missionaries deal with finding a big yucky spider in their apartment all alone ha.

Well other than that this week has been good but not too much has happened. We're looking for new investigators because most of those we are teaching right now aren't really progressing. Maria Concepcion, Militza, and Rene are doing great. It's crazy because now that Maria has been baptized and confirmed she is the happiest little old lady; oh she is so adorable. Militza's testimony continues to grow and she is always looking for ways to be better. How was Conference for those of you who watched/listened to it? I was so excited to watch and got the opportunity to watch just about all of it in ingles that way I could actually understand it. OOOOH how I love Conferencia!!!!

Militza and Maria came to the first session on Sunday but that was it but they both really enjoyed it although little Maria didn'tunderstand all of it. One of our investigators came with 3 of his small children. Oh my goodness I can't even tell you how nervous I was the whole time. Wondering what he was thinking, if he liked it, if he understood any of it, and so on. He didn't talk about it much to us but said he thought it was good. Luckly la familia Blancarte, who are members in our ward, totally took care of him answering questions and just talking about life and getting to know each other; it was great. We have our next appointment with him and his wife this Wed. Last week we commited them both to baptism for Oct. 25. They both agreed and they read from the Book of Mormon and really understand it. They're such a great family. The only problem is he smokes and drinks and his wife works Sundays, so we have a lot to work with but I know that if they are ready they'll make sacrafices. We'll see what happens, but I really think they'll be baptized I just don't know when.

Other than that not too much is going on. We have such much work to do with finding others but I know that the Lord will lead us to those who are ready. I don't have any other news to right about but maybe next week! I love you all and hope all is well!!!!!!! I'd love do hear from you! =-)

Love,
Hermana Alvey

2009-11-16T18:07:00.000-08:00

9/28/2009

Hey everyone! Can you believe it's already almost October??? It feels like the month just begin! How is everyone? I hear Liz and John have a baby on the way, CONGRATS!!! That's soo exciting? Well this week has been alright. A little bit slow but alright. We have needed to do more contacting because our investigators aren't exactly progressing... so that's pretty frustrating and if you've served a mission you know how hard it is to find people through knocking and contacting. We found 5 new investigators from knocking and contacting and hopefully they will become progressing investigators. Right now it's hard to tell. So today is P day. We cleaned, ran some errands, and then went to the park to play some games with our zone. That was fun although I always get picked last for teams... yes, I'm that great at ultimate frisby and what not that everyone wants me on their team haha. Anyway, that was fun and hey don't worry I totally got plowd into by one of the Elders because neither of us saw eachother and so skid pretty far into the dirt but surprisingly it didn't even hurt ha. So now I'm hear emailing and then we have appointments until the end of the night. So my week wasn't all that interesting but I still haven't told you about the baptisms, so I'll do that.
So Militza Paulin and Maria Concepcion both ended up being baptized on Septiembre 20, 2009. It was such a stressful day! We had been trying to figure out how we were going to get Militza baptized because she can't walk and is not tiny either. I was so stressed about this, thinking maybe she shouldn't be baptized yet because she passed out a before that and I just didn't feel that great about the baptism (probably because I was so nervous). So that Sunday we made all of our calls to make sure everyone (those we teach) was going to go to church and of course Militza and Maria were having problems and said they might not go. Late Saturday night, the day before her baptism, Militza called to tell us that her husband couldn't take her but would take her to the baptism. Hermana Lowry told her that she had to go to church or else she couldn't be baptized so if he couldn't take her then we could try to find a ride. That Sunday morning we called to make sure she was going. She told us that she needed a ride because her husband wouldn't take her. We were so stressed but had to do everything posible to get her to church. I called everyone I could think of but couldn't find anyone. (Just a side note, you should be proud because I call people which those conversations are in spanish; which is so scary because I don't speak great spanish and I have a hard time understanding spanish let alone on the phone which is even harder. I'm pretty proud of myself and you all should be too ;-) ) Anyway so we couldn't find anyone but Militza said she could take the bus and we told her we could reemburse her for it. So she was going to take the bus but last second her husband ended up taking her which was great. So we also had problems with getting Maria to church. Maria didn't want her daughter Elena to take her because they were in a fight and so she didn't have a ride. It was last second so we couldn't find anyone to give her a ride. We ended up going to her house to find a crying Elena and everyone just was not happy. We told them that she needed to go to church or else she couldn't be baptized. Maria's other daughter, Angela who is an inactive member, said she could take Maria. They started getting ready and we went to church. Through all that running around and stress both of them ended up going to church! Our other investigators didn't but they did so we were happy enough about that. So church was good. Militza bore her testimony for the special Sacrament meeting which was organized by our wonderful ward mission leader, fHermano Galvez. Hermana Lowry also gave a wonderful talk. So that night was the big night. Their baptism was at 6:30 and we got there very early to make sure everything was going to go well. We decided how we were going to get Militza baptized and all we could do was hope and pray that everything turned out. We were hoping sooo bad that Militza's husband would come but he didn't but her two daughters came which was fabulous. So we got Militza and Maria dressed, took some pictures and the baptism started. When the time came for them to be baptized I was sooooo nervous. We had Hermano Galvez, who said the prayer to baptize her; Hermano Ambrosio, another amazing member of our ward who has the cutest family; Elder Schlechter; and Elder Garcia help get into and hold her in the faunt. It was so nerve racking! She was absolutely embarrassed and in a little bit of pain. They got her in the faunt and dunked her but her foot popped up so they had to dunk her again. When they brought her up the second time you'll never guess what happened!..... She passed out again! They hurried and closed the curtains and Hermana Kelson (who was able to come back here to Las Colinas for their baptisms. If I didn't say already she was transferred to Seaside or Monterey), Hermana Lowry and I ran in the bathroom to see if she was ok. Hermana Kelson and I were holding onto eachother praying like crazy. Oh my goodness we were so scared. Hermana Lowry shoved through the four men to get to Militza who was unconscience in her wheel chair. She said her name really loud and started blowing in her face because that's what woke her up last time. She woke up very quickly and started looking around. Hermana Lowry asked how she was doing and she said, "Oh, I think I need to pray." Oh my goodness i was so grateful that she was ok! we brought her into the bathroom and she was totally fine. We started helping her get dry and whatnot and almost missed Maria's baptism because had pretty much forgotten about it with Militza passing out. The same four men, Hermano Galvez, Hermano Ambrosio, Elder Schlechter, and Elder Garcia helped baptize Maria Concepcion who is also in a wheel chair because of her age she can't walk real well but she is a bit smaller than Militza so it was easier on them. They carried her into the water and I don't think she understood that she was going to be immersed in the water because when they dunked her after the prayer face had utter shock on it, just like a cat who hates water has been dunked under water. They had to dunk her twice also and both times she flung her arms up with her eyes and mouth wide open after coming out of the water. She is so cute. They wheeled her into the bathroom and we all asked how she felt and she looked at us like a little kid and said in her small squeaky voice, "Estoy frio!" Which means I'm cold. Like dorks, we totaly forgot to bring towels so we could only find a couple small little town which we dried poor little cold Maria with. She was dressed pretty quick but it took a while for Militza to get dressed and we forgot the DVD that we were going to put on for the people while they waited for Maria and Militza to get dressed (give us some slack we were pretty stressed about this whole thing ha) so they ended up singing himns for over a half hour haha. They were so tired of singing but the spirit was really strong. So once Militza was dressed we went into the chapel and everyone was thrilled to stop singing. We ended and everyone afterward came and congratulated them and it was just great. That ward is so amazing. About half the ward showed up to their baptisms, they're always so supportive. Anyway so that is how the baptism went. Both of them are doing great. Militza didn't have the greatest experience being baptized but she told us that she feels different now, more peaceful and has more energy. Yesterday at church she bore her testimony and it was so beautiful. She is an example for all of us. Oh I love those two women so much!
Anyway that's how the baptisms went and things are going good now. Keep praying for us! I hope all is well there and I would love to hear from you all... hint hint hint =-) Hasta la proxima semana!
Love,
Hermana Alvey =-)

2009-11-16T18:03:00.000-08:00

From 9/22/09

Hey everyone!!! I hope everyone is doing well! Things have been pretty crazy here. I'll start with telling you what happened with Militza Paulin. Well we set her date to be baptized on Sun. Sep. 13, 2009. She didn't feel she was ready to be baptized but when we secretly asked her the baptismal questions and told her that she answered all of them perfectly and that those were the baptismal questions she was shocked and after that was excited to be baptized. On Saturday Sep. 12th we brought her to the Oakland Temple. She was soooo excited to go. We went inside the visitors center where we first sat in front of teh Christus and listened the presentation. She cried and the spirit was strong. We then took her through a show/exhibit about Eternal families. She loved that also. We then went to look at all the Book of Mormons in different languages and listened to President's testimony on a little TV. She thought it was so amazing to see our living Prophet who guides and directs Christ's church today. After that we were going to go watch the Joseph Smith movie which was what we were most excited for. She told us that she first need to go to the restroom, so we planned to help her and then go watch the movie after. Because Militza has muscular dystrophy, someone has to help her go to the restroom which we were more than happy to do. She was soooo embarrassed so we sat in the bathroom for a while. I asked her if she would like just one of us to help her so it wouldn't be as embarrassing. She said yes and so Hermana Lowry stayed to help her. I could hear Militza saying thank you over and over and she was still so embarrassed. She started crying some and kept appoligizing. Hermana Lowry said it was fine and asked what she needed to do in order to help her. I couldn't really hear anything more but then Hermana Lowry started saying "Militza! Militza!" over and over and then said, "Girls you need to come here, Militza isn't responding." My heart skipped a beat and we quickly said "What?!" Hermana Lowry couldn't unlock the door because she was holding unconscience Militza up. Hermana Kelson crawled under the door to get inside the stall and unlocked the door. I came in and Hermana Lowry and I were trying to wake her up. Her whole body was limp and she was not responding but she was still breathing. Hermana Kelson ran to get help while I got wet paper towels to put on her to cool her down. I started blowing on her face and finally she started waking up. By this time she had been out for a few minutes and there was several people in the bathroom trying to help. The paramedics came pretty fast and checked to see if she was ok. By this time she was responding and they said she checked to be fine but they still wanted to take her to the hospital to make sure she was ok. She didn't want to go because she doesn't have medical inssurance but after talking with her for about 10 minutes they convinced her to go. We had no way to go with her because we went in a car with some of the members of our ward who were inside the temple doing baptisms for the dead. We went inside the temple and found them and told them what had happened with Militza. After they were done they drove us over to the hospital to see her. They gave her a blessing and we got to see her for a little while. She was perfectly fine and they said she could go home. We had to leave because it was already 8:00 at night but Hermano and Hermana Galvez, 2 amazing members of our ward, stayed there until her husband arrived to pick her up. I prayed sooooo much that night because I was so scared that her husband would not like us even more and I was just so nervous. On Sunday Militza still wanted to be baptized but because of everything that happened and because it just didn't feel right we postponed her baptism. On Monday we talked to her and to my surprise her husband wasn't mad and everything was ok. I was so greatful for that. She also ended up telling her husband that she was planning on being baptized which I was so happy about because I had the worst feeling about her being baptized and her husband not knowing. So we planned on her being baptized that coming Sunday (or this last Sunday). She was soo excited but very nervous. Although her husband supported her decision he said he would not go because he wants nothing to do with the church. Although he still won't talk to us and wants nothing to do with the gospel, it's a miracle how much he has softened his heart. We've seen so many miracles and I know it's because the Lord is blessing Militza for her decision to join His church. Her husband, Alex, has been so much nicer to her, their conversations have been a lot more open, he doesn't hang out with his friends near as much but is spending more time with his family, and instead of doing the laundry on Sunday as he usually does he told Militza that he would do all those things on Saturday so he didn't have to do it on the Sabbath. We were so shocked. He coming around very slowly but surely and I'm so grateful for the tender mercies of Heavenly Father. We have had the opportunity to see this family become more unified and strengthened. I just pray that it continues =) So anyway, guess what!? Militza Paulin and Maria Concepcion Molina were both baptized on Sunday September 20, 2009!!! I don't have anymore time to write so I'll write all about it next week. It was a miracle that Maria was also baptized because she was so far from being baptized but let me tell you Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers and I am so fortunate to be here and witness some of His children come unto Him and our Savior Jesus Christ. Things aren't going so well with Karina. She has been ignoring our calls and we're not sure what's happened with her. Please pray for her! I have to go but I want you to know that Heavenly Father is so aware of each and everyone of us. I know that this is Christ's church and it is through following His gospel that we will feel the most joy although at times it is not the easiest it is worth it. I cannot express to you how grateful I am for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is the only true church and through is we can return to live with our Father in Heaven for eternity and receive all that He has. I love you all so much! I love this work and am so grateful for the opportunity to be here! Until next week, chao!
Love,
Hermana Alvey
p.s. to all those that I haven't written back yet, sorry! I'm trying =-)

Hola

2009-09-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I don't have much time at all but I'll try and summarize what's been going on. We were supposed to have 3 baptizms the Sunday before this last one but only had one. Rene, an adorable 9 year old boy, got baptized. The room was packed with people because there was also 4 other kids who were baptized. Rene was sooo excited and during a song the primary kids sang after the kids were baptized he bursted out in tears. He kept saying I feel the spirit so strong. The spirit was so strong it's amazing. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a bautismo, go.
As of the other two who were supposed to be baptized that day, Maria Concepcion Molina and Karina, they both weren't ready yet. We pushed back their dates to this coming Sunday but it doesn't look like they'll be ready for that either.

Maria is a cute 80 year lady and for the past few weeks the Jehovas witnesses have been coming by and teaching her and slowly she has been denying things she testified to be true before. We just met with her today and she is so confused because of all the different things she is hearing. We pretty discouraged and don't know what else to do, all we can do is pray like crazy. Thank goodness this is God's church and He is on our side.

As of Karina, who is the 20 year girl who went to visit with her parents who don't want her baptized, she came back here to our relief and things seemed to be going good but this last Sunday she didn't go to church and wouldn't return any of our calls. We went by her casa to see why she didn't go to church. She didn't have much time to talk but told us she needed to talk to us. We asked if she was still planning on being baptized and she said she didn't know anymore we need to talk. We going to go see her tonight to see what's wrong. So that's pretty discouraging but all we can do is keep trying and praying a lot.

Militza is having a hard time with her family still but is strong as can be and this last Sunday her husband took her and her daughters to church. That make us so happy. Her daughter, Mariana, who is 11 years old hated it though because she understands ingles better than spanish so she couln''t understand very much. We're going to talk to the teachers and see if they can at least teach in english some because most of the kids speak english better anyway. Militza's other daughter, Adre, who is 3 years old loved it though, so that was good. So exciting!

Militza asked if she could bare her testimonio in relief society and she testified that the church is true, the Book of Mormon is true, y que Jose Smith was a true profet. It was amazing! So anyway, things are going good. We way busy everyday and meet some awesome people.

I wish I had more time and I could tell you about them too. But yeah things are good. I love my companions. We have funny and Hermana Kelson y Lowry are so funny. It's sad because Hermana Kelson, mi primera mami, es being transferred to Sea Side (Montery) so it'll just be Hermana Lowry y yo.

Anyway, I'm out of time so I will write next week! I hope you are all doing well and had an awesome Holiday!!!!

Love you all!!!!!
Love,
Hermana Alvey =)

Hello Everyone

2009-09-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

I've been here for 4 weeks now!!! I cannot believe how fast this mission is already going, yikes! So much has happened this week. I'm picking up the spanish well although I wish I could say so much more but I'm learning little by little and trying to have more patience with myself =) I'm still struggling a lot with understanding spanish but I know with time it'll come.

Thank you so much for those of you who prayed for Militza Paulin and her family. We went to teach her again and she just broke down and cried to us. She told all kinds of things that she has gone through in who life and it has not been easy. When she was young she was abused, in ways a little girl or anyone should be, by her step father which really scarred her. In her life she has never asked for anything from others but has always been very independent and faithful to her mother and husband. In the last email I told you that she is paralyzed but actually she has muscular dystrophy which is progressively getting worse. She can't do a lot of things alone and her mother and husband often do not help her when she needs them. She has gone a month at times because they would not help her bath. She cried and told us that she was scared and didn't know what would happen because she's getting worse and needs them but they don't help when they don't feel like it or if they're in bad moods. She said a lot more. She has gone through so much, yet stays faithful and never asks why me. We all cried together and testified of the Atonement. She called us her angels and told us that she knew we came here for us. I said a prayer to end our lesson and the spirit was so strong. I prayed that her husband and mother would soften their hearts and help her more. Among many other things, I prayed that she would have the strength through the Atonement to endure her hard times. We left and told her that if she needed help with ANYTHING at all to call us. She thanked us over and over and we were on our way. We prayed so much for her. My heart was broken but I knew that through the Atonement she would be ok and I felt very strongly that Heavenly Father is providing a way for her to be baptized in His church.

We thought we were going to have to get members to help her with everything because her no one in her family would help her besides her sweet 13 year old daughter who cannot do everything, but a miracle happened. We met with her again and she was so happy and excited to tell us what happened. She said after you three left my husband and my mother were so sweet to me. Her mother even told her that she would try to be more kind and patient. When she was telling us this I immediately thanked Heavenly Father because I know this was a miracle that He brought about. She told us that she knew she was being blessed because she was reading the Book of Mormon. She told us that she didn't know how to explain how she felt except that she felt thirsty and wants to learn more and read more. We were all in aw. This came from her mouth.

Oh, I can't tell you how much the Lord's hand is in this work. She is so faithful and the Lord is blessing her for it. We commited her to be baptized the 13th of Septiembre. She said yes yes yes that is what I want to do. So now we're working towards this date! Her husband told Militza that he would take her to church but she had done this before and it ended up not happening so we planned on him flaking out. Some amazing member from the ward, Hermana y Hermano Galvez, came to pick her up. To get into the car is very difficult for her but unbelievable. She puts gloves on her hands and then we help her bend her body down to the ground. She is literally folded in half with her legs straight and not bent and her arms supporting most of her weight on the ground. She slowly pivets and shuffels her feet over to the car as her hands are on the ground supporting her body. It's hard to explain but it was azazing. Once she gets close enough to the car she then sits down and we push her shoulders up so she is sitting up. It takes her a while to do this so we were really late to church but we got there and she loved it. She told us that is was very different and kind of nervous we asked how so.

She told us that other churches taught good things but at our church it was much more strong and she felt like family. We were sooo happy. Oh my goodness I could go on and on about her. I feel so blessed to be here at this time and be able to help her enter the waters of baptism. So far her husband and her mother are so much sweeter to her but they are still very heard hearted towards us and I think over time that will change.

Everyday there are miracles that we witness and I am the luckiest person to be serving the Lord so I can be in the middle of them. I'm out of time now though but I have so much more to say about our other investigators. Next week I'll expound more. I love you all so much and hope everything is going great. Please continue to pray for Militza, those who are being taught or ready to be taught, and all those missionaries out serving the Lord all over the world. I love you sooo much again!

Love,
Hermana Alvey =)

P.S. Congrats Sean and Megan on your new baby!!!!

Hey!!!

2009-08-24T18:50:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone!

Things are going well. I'm picking up more and more spanish each day, but I still have a long way to go. It's been pretty warm here in Las Colinas but the nights y mornings are nice and cool which is so nice. There's a lot of polution, it reminds me a lot a lot of Bakersfield lol. I never talked about where we live. We live in a cute little one bedroom apartment. It's actually really nice which I didn't expect at all. We got a new companion on Monday and things are going good. We weren't sure how we were going to fit another missionary but it's actually not bad at all. We fit 3 little beds in our room and so each bed is like a foot and a half apart haha. Good thing we love each other =) Yeah so we fit well, it's quite the miracle that we fit all of our stuff becasue Hermana Lowry and Hermana Kelson both have a lot of stuff.

Our investigators are doing well. Maria Concepcion Molina is getting baptized this Sunday which is so exciting. We got to take her and her sister to the Oakland temple on Saturday which was awesome. They weren't going to go because somehow they got in a big fight about something and no one was happy. We went over to they're house to see what we could do. We talked to Maria and her daughter, Maria Elena, and called both of them down. Maria Elena wanted to go to the temple so bad but Maria Concpcion Molina was still upset and didn't want to go. We seperated the two so we could try to convince Maria Concepcion Molina to go. I was praying like crazy because I knew that they needed this experience together. A member from the ward ended up calling and I don't know what she said but Maria wanted to go after. I was so grateful and said a big thank you to Heavenly Father. Hermana Lowry and I dressed Maria Concepcion Molina, among other things, which was a whole lot of fun ;-); and we were on our way. The Oakland Temple is soooo beautiful. I loved it. We walked around the temple grounds and visiters center. We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie which was a whole different experience watching it in spanish, it was awesome. That was one little miracle that we witnessed and let me tell you I'm so grateful for the tender mercies that I witness each day, it's unbelievable.

Rene, the little 9 year old we are teaching is going to be baptized this Sunday also and is sooo excited. Oh, he is soo adorable! Karina just got back in town but is planning on moving back with her parents in Fresno. We are so sad about that but know that she'll make the right decision that best. We going to see her tonight and only time will tell if she will be ready to be baptized on Sunday. I sure hope so though, she has such a strong testimony but her parents are so against is and we still need to talk to her about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. I'll let you know how that goes next week. We had to drop a lot of investigators which is always such a hard choice to make but if they are not progessing there is nothing we can do right now. We have a few new investigators as of this last week and I don't know where all of them will go but one of them is very promising and is the best experince I've had yet.

It was Monday night and we were planning on going to Family night for the ward but the investigator who was supposed to go couldn't anymore. We went around visiting and inviting others we have been teaching but no one was home. We called so many of them but no one answered their phones which is really really unusual. We decided that we would go to see Ana Diaz, who had a baptismal date for this Sunday but has been ignoring us or is always gone lately. We got told that she was not home and so when la mujer shut the door there was another lady at the apartment right next door. We starting talking to her and she was so sweet. Hermana Lowry told her that we had a message about prophets and told her that we have a prophet today and that Christ's church has been restored to the earth. Usually when we tell the people this they knod their heads as if they knew this already but you can tell they're really not interested. Instead, she opened her eyes wide and said Que? She wanted to know more. We asked if she would like us to share more of the message and she very excitedly said yes. Hermana Kelson then asked if she had time right now. She said yes yes and invited us in. We taught the first lesson to her and she was absolutely captivated. I wish you could all see her facial expressions. She was in disbelief and sooo excited to learn more. She said she had been searching for the truth and then we came to the door. She is so humble and oh my goodness it was amazing. The spirit was sooooo stong. We all had tears in our eyes. We commited her to read in the Book of Mormon and to pray to know that it is true. She stroked the Book of Mormon and said she would. She said thank to us probably 50 times before we left. When we walked out we checked the phone and we had several missed calls from those we had called before we taught her. I know for fact that everything happened for a reason and we were met to be there at that exact time so we could teach her. Her name is Militza. She has a husband and two beautiful girls. She is the most humble and faithful woman I have met. She is paralized and so has to stay in a wheelchair yet she never asks why or says woe is me but continualy gives thanks to Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. It was funny because just an hour or so before we met Militza I was thinking how I really needed to pray harder and fast more to find those who are ready to recieve the gospel. There have been several instances in which I have expressed my desires and my prayers were answered long before I received the opportunity to cry unto Heavenly Father in prayer. He is so aware of us all and I know this with everything in me. Never give up, even when times are confusing and hard. I promise you that He knows and has provided a way for us to find comfort and that is through His son and our Savior Jesus Christ. Well, after we left the apartment of Militza I felt very strongly that something was going to happen. She is ready to receive the gospel and Satan does not want her to. I expressed this to Hermana Kelson and Hermana Lowry and so we said a prayer. Sure enough her family STRONGLY dislikes us and does not want us to teach her. We have already seen her 4 times since Monday and I am confident that the Lord will provide a way for her to be baptized no matter how long it takes. Oh, I love her so much. Please pray for her and those we are teaching. You have no idea how many things happen so they cannot/do not attend church and are not baptized.

Well, I'm about out of time but I want you all to know how much I LOVE you all. My prayers are with each of you. Toodles until next week!!!

Love,
Hermana Jami =)

It's Already been 2 weeks!

2009-08-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hey! I hope everyone is doing well!!! This week absolutely flew by! We've been very busy but need to find more investigators. Many of the ones we are teaching are not progressing. I working on having more courage to talk to everyone on the streets regardless and invite them to learn more. It's definitely not the easiest to appraoch people on the streets or especially when we're grocery shopping. I've passed up opportunities to share this true gospel and so I want to try harder and just talk more =)
Anyhoo, I can't even think of what's been going on... Let's see, we have 4 baptismal dates set for this month (8-30-09) but it looks like only two of them will happen for sure on the first date that was set. One is with a young 9 year old boy whose name is Rene. He is adorable and so excited to be baptized. His grandparents are strong members of the church and so they take him to church and activities. His mom is inactive and his dad is not a member. From what I understand Rene's dad is not very happy with him being baptized but is alowing it. We are so excited for Rene.
Karina who is 20 years old has such a strong testimony. Her parents do not want her to be baptized and they came into town this week. She told us that she knew they would try to change her mind but when we asked what she is going to do when they try to do that she told us that she won't let them. We're praying that she'll be strong enough. She's out of town with them write now and will be back in a week. She told us that she brought her Book of Mormon and is going to read it. Karina told her mom that she has decided to be baptized and she said nothing, so now we pray that Karina's dad will also soften his heart.
We are also teaching an 80 year women who is Jehovas Witness. Her name is Maria Concepcion Melina. We have to call her by her full name or else she corrects us haha. She's such a cute lady. We taught her yesterday and she gave the sweetest prayer. It was the first time she prayed outloud and without help from us. I felt like a proud mom =)
We also have a baptism date for another woman, Ana Diaz. She was so excited to be baptized but then when her date had to be moved back because of problems with the word of chastity, she has ignored and avoided us ever since. We don't know if she has been affended or what but we may have to drop her which makes us sad. So those are our baptismal dates.
If all goes well Rene, Maria Concepcion Melina, y Karina will be baptized on August 30th. We're teaching a lot of recent converts. I love hearing them bare their testimony. They have the strongest testimonies and it helps me so much.
I love this work and I'm learing so much each day. I know spanish will come little by little, I'm trying to have patience haha. Hermana Kelson y yo often both don't understand the investigators and so we just bare our testimonies a lot haha. It'll be nice to be able to teach more so according to their concerns, I can't wait until I can understand these amazing people!
Oh, today we got a new companion. We'll be in a trio for a month until transfers come. More than likely Hermana Kelson will be transfering to "Paradise" or Seaside because she's been here longest. Although it's not all that pretty I love it here so I'm happy to stay.
So, more about our new companera, her name is Hermana Lowry. She's been out in the field for 4 months (so 6 months including the MTC). She says she doesn't speak much Spanish but I'm pretty sure she knows more than she says. We'll find out tomorrow at our appoitments =) She's so sweet and funny, we're going to love serving with her and it'll be fun to figure out how to teach with 3 of us now haha.
Things are going well though. I'm so grateful for this gospel and the opportunity to serve. Please do all you can to share the gospel with friends and family. Everyone needs it and wants it whether they know it or not. Help the missionaries out and give them referals. Referals are the best every! I looooooove you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Until next week, Hasta luego!
Love,
Hermana Jami =)

Mission Letter 10 August 2009

2009-08-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hey!! I'm now officially in the field and I love it! I arrived here in San Jose Tuesday August 4. I called to serve in Las Colinas as my first area. It's sooo different here than in the MTC which I expected. We contact a lot and it is so much fun. I love the people here. Even though I don't know much spanish and don't understand then a lot of the time, they're still so sweet and very patient. Everyone hugs here and kisses eachother on the cheek.

At first I didn't know what to think about that but after just a few days I've gotten used to it. My trainer's name is Hermana Kelson. She is from Sandy, Ut and was called to serve in San Jose English speaking but the first day she got here President Jackson told her she was going to switch to the spanish program. I would be so scared if that happened to me but she loves it and is so happy she's serving spanish speaking. So she's only been out a few months more than I have so she doesn't know much more spanish than I do! I was so shocked when I found this out because I thought for sure my first senor companion would speak fluent spanish. She understands more than I do and speaks a little better but we're both pretty much at the same level so it's quite a struggle to teach and contact like that, but I have faith that we'll get it quick. The Lord works in mysterious ways and I know this is a challenge He expects me to overcome with His help.

So we looove contacting even though half the time we don't know what the people are saying or what how to respond. Just about everyone we have met is straight from Mexico and do not speak any english. I can't even tell you how many Juan, Jose, Pablo, and Pedros we've met. They're quite the popular names lol.

The food here is AMAZING. We get fed every day and sometime twice a day and the members loove to pile on the food. They keep asking if we want more and I feel so bad saying no but I'm so full I feel like I'm going to throw-up so I sadly have to say no lol.

Yesterday at church was pretty overwhelming. I had no idea what anyone was saying. I would hear words like "el espiritu santo" "la fe" "Jesucristo" or words like that but that was about it. The members would ask me questions and I would just look at them with a blank face and say "No hablo mucho espanol hora pero estoy aprendiendo. Lo siento" and then they just give me a hug ha. They're all so sweet. Luckly nuestro obisbo had me stand up during sacrament and announced that I am new and don't speak very much spanish at all so just give me lots of hugs/embrace and welcome me (at least I understood that haha)

Oh the men who wheel around in their carts selling food on the streets love giving us stuff. The very first day a man by the name of Juan gave us corn smuthered in mayo and parmesian cheese. At first I didn't know what to think about it but after a while I liked it, weird huh?

We have awesome investigators but we're having a hard time keeping then strong. La ley de castidad (the law of chastity) is a big problem here. They all say that they live with their esposas o esposos but they're really not married they just call their girlfriend or boyfriend their wife or husband. It seems that just about everyone has this problem. I'm so grateful that I can be here to bare testimony of Christ's church so they may know of better lives. The Gospel is true and this world needs it sooooo bad.

My first or second day Hermana Kelson and I sang to a lady by the name of Maria Magdolina. She invited us in and we started talking to her and teaching her about the gospel. She wasn't very interested because just like about everyone else we contact, she is catholic (but rarely attends church or lives her religion) and believes that all religions are good as long as you believe in Christ. While we were talking to her, her friend Maria came into the casa in tears. She has severe depression. Hermana Kelson suggested that the Elders come and give her a blessing. Not really knowing what we were talking about she agreed. We wanted to bring the spirit into the house so we ended up singing mas himnos. Another one of Maria Magdolina's friends also by the name of Maria came in and Maria Magdolina's sister Rosa. Maria, Maria, Maria, Rosa, Hermana Kelson, y yo sang quite a few songs. The spirit was so strong. When the Elders got there they gave her a blessing and after Maria smiled and started crying saying "Gracias a Dios" over and over. It was amazing. We're going to go back and teach them.

Although it's hard and frustrating and sometimes I feel so lost I would never want to do anything else. I know this is the only true church. Please keep praying for me. I love you all soooooo much!!!!

Love,
Hermana Jami =)

Timpanogos Cave

2009-05-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Tuesday May 26, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-28T11:27:00.001-07:00

Sunday May 24, 2009

After the farewell and the little get-together at Sandi and Brent's we went to my Grandpa Twede's gravesite. He was a piolot when he was alive and also my Grandpa Alvey was in the Navy, I'm so grateful to both of them! I haven't been to my Grandpa's grave since I was a little girl, it was nice to go to again. I've never been to my Grandpa Alvey's grave, I'll have to do that sometime =)

Don't worry we weren't disrespecting the grave site. Caiden was running away when we were trying to leave so Lyndsey ran and grabbed him. I thought it was a cool picture

The whole gravesite was fuuuuul of flowers and flags, it was awesome looking

Monday May 25, 2009

We went out to eat ended up going out to eat as a family which was fun and then after we drove around the Bountiful Temple because we were already in Bountiful. I had a great weekend, it was awesome =) There were so many houses with flags it was awesome. Yay for Patriotism!

Happy Memorial Day to everyone! I'm sooo grateful for those who have fought for our country, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for those who died for our country. Thank you!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAIDEN!!!!

2009-05-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday May 24, 2008

Caiden is already 4 years old!!!

Caiden had to share his birthday with my farewell, he was a good sport about it =) We sang to him at the get-together and he got really bashfull and nervous because all of the people that sang to him so he wouldn't blow out the candles himself. Instead, he said, "Dad you blow!" and so my dad blew out the candles and from afar Caiden blew too. It was cute. Caiden isn't the best with big crowds, so we were very proud of him he did great =)

You can see Caiden blowing too lol. He's such a cutie =)
Yaaaaay!
Grammy got him a little lawn mower. He likes it a lot and plays with it quite a bit outside in the backyard. Thanks Grammy! Grandma and Grandpa Matthews also gave him a birthday card with a dollar. He was very excited to get some money, thank you Grandma and Grandpa!

Sometimes he wouldn't open the presents himself so Courtney pretty much just dumped it out in front of him lol

Lyndsey and I got him a T-ball and bat. He loves it and has really good aim when we throw the ball to him. He's going to be a good baseball and basketball player when he gets older. He's a little athlete =)

More presents

Trucks!

And best of all, he got a basketball hoop! He looooved it and has amazing aim. He made about every basket in!

It was so funny, he was torn between playing with his trucks or the basketball... he kept going back and forth and doing both, he just couldn't choose lol

Caiden had a very good birthday and we can't believe he's 4 now! He's the biggest topic in our home and we don't know what we would do about him. We love you bud!!!!

Mission Farewell

2009-05-28T11:09:00.001-07:00

Sunday May 24, 2009

I'm leaving on my Mission soooooon!

Here are some pictures of the 'open-house'/get-togeter after I gave my talk. It was supposed to be outside but the weather decided to rain of course and change those plans. Thank you Aunt Sandi and Uncle Brent for letting us have it at your house!

Maddy, Ash, Grammy, and Lynds

Whitney and her lil brother Tyler
There's Grandpa and Grandma Matthews and Andria
Brian, Kathy, Caiden, and dad

Kathy, Rachel, Maddy, George, and John

Caiden was stuffing his face. I couldn't get a real good shot of it but it was funny. For some reason he has to stuff everything in his mouth all at once... must of gotten it from dad ha ;-)

Whitney and I! I'm going to miss her soo much! We talk to each other or actually text almost everyday... it's going to be so weird not talking to her everyday. Luckily we'll be able to write each other. She's planning on going on a mission too and will probably be out in the field about 6 months after me, so we'll get to write as fellow sister missionaries!

Tennille and I =) She's so cute, I love her!

A lot of my relatives went to my farewell talk and a handful of my friends. It was so fun to see everyone. I was pretty nervous about my talk but it didn't turn out too bad and I wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be once I got up there and spoke. I guess I was a little bit nervous though and it showed because I kept moving my hair... one side behind my shoulder, and then both sides, and then both sides forward, and then the other side back haha. I guess I kept doing this and I had no idea! Anyway I feel so grateful to everyone.

THANK YOU soooooooo much for coming everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I'm sorry to those I didn't even say hi to. I was running all over the place and didn't even say hi to a lot of you sorry but really thank you so much and I love you all!!!

Look at our art!

2009-05-28T10:53:00.001-07:00

Friday May 22, 2009

Scott and I painted this picture (I know Scott from BYU and we've hung out quite a few times, we've become pretty good friends. He's a cutie, I have fun with him). Painting the picture was actually really fun. We met up in SLC and Scott took me to Provo where he bought a 4' tall cancas and we went back to his old appartment and painted. We looked on some website and finally decided on a painting to draw. He wanted to paint a warrior, I was ok with it just not ecstatic, so I'm glad we painted this one instead haha. It's abstract which is not my style that I've painted in the past but I like it a lot. He had to take me back to SLC before we were finished so I would make it back for curfew so he finished it himself and the finished product looks awesome. This is not a picture of the finished product but hey it still looks cool. It's actually still wet, you can tell when you look at her hair. I've never painted on a canvas before but I liked it a lot better than paper. I'm definitely going to have to start painting again. I haven't actually painted something since 2002 so this was fun to paint again!

Park City

2009-05-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

Thursday May 21, 2009

I planned on going to Tennilles appartment to help her clean and just to hang out when a lady in Tennilles staff, Linda, asked if Tennille wanted to go to Park City just to get out of the house. So Tennille invited me and I came along. It was way fun and I'm glad I got to meet Linda, she's an amazing lady.

We went through some art exhibits and this was one of them. They had a lot of Native American art, which one of my favorite types of art. This guy was carved out of soft clay which I thought was amazing so I had to get a picture

Look at this bear! He's just so cute =)
And here I am next to him... what a hunk ;-)

In one of the little exhibits the lady had a dog and Tennille loooved him so I had to get a picture of the two together lol

I think Park City is the cutest town. It's so pretty and I loove the old buildings and shops

This iron statue is a called something like, the hunter being hunted. The Indian hunted a deer which you see at his feet and then there's a mountain lion or something attacking him from on top. I thought it was pretty cool. The art is very intricate and interesting to me and it tells a story

This is the cute little pizza place we ate at. A young couple own's it and they were sooo sweet and the husband was funny. It was nice eating there. Linda treated us there which I thought was very sweet. She told me it was her missionary present to me, very sweet of her. So it ended up being not only fun but a totally free trip =)

In this souvenir shop they had wooden frog drums that were similar to what former Indian tribes used to make music. The frogs had a spine on the back where you were supposed to rub the wooden drum along it. Each one made it's unique sound. I thought they were pretty cool

This is a replica of a contraption that was used while mining in the late 1800s/mid 1900s. It was pretty interesting lookingI really had to stretch my legs to get in there ha. And it was kind of hard to climb in there with heels but I was not about to take off my shoes because it was dirty. Anything for a picture right? ;-)

I'm a dork, I know haha

That was actually really uncomfortable though. I was sitting on a whole bunch of broken cement and was straining to keep myself up straight. If you could see my face close up you'd be able to tell lol

I think the guy is looking at gold or something... can't remember but I love Tennille in this picture =)Tennille and I went inside of the Church History place that they had down the boulevard. It was pretty cool and this tree had faces in it. You can see one of them. I thought it was cool and they said that's a replica of a real tree. I forgot where he said it was but I'd like to go see it sometime

Moose!

This is one place where the winter olympics in '02 were held. I love snowboarding/snowboarders =) (I love a lot of things as you can tell haha)

On our way home we got a few snap shots of the pretty views. I really love it in Park City, it's so pretty and cute. We had a lot of fun!

After we got back home from Park City Tennille and I got a free body message at some school. Her mom works there so we got it for free which was way cool. That was my first time getting a full body message anywhere so that was way cool and very relaxing. I'm definitely going to have to get another one sometime

Last day of Pre-School

2009-05-28T09:41:00.001-07:00

Wednesday May 21, 2009

My mom and dad went with Caiden to his last day of Pre-School, so they got to see what a typical day was like for him

They got to go on a field trip to a grocery store where they got to see cakes decorated and stuff. Caiden was a little overwhelmed because he's not the best with change but he still had fun

He seems to always run for the apples when we go grocery shopping lol

Snack time =)

They must be having their lesson here, I'm guessing

Time to say good bye =-(

Pre-School really has been great for Caiden. He has progressed so much it's wonderful, and he will continue to =)

HaPpY BiRtHdAy LyNdSeY!!!!!!!!

2009-05-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday May 17, 2009

Lyndsey is 16 now!!!!!!!!

We went to Aunt Vickie and Uncle Mikes house on Lyndsey's actual birthday. We had a bbq and then sang to her and she opened her presents. It was fun

Lot of candles!
The candles did not want to be blown out, they kept coming back it was funny. I don't think they were really trick candles or anything either, just stubborn lol

Here's everyone =)

My parents got her some games for her gameboy

Vickie and the girls got her cute and funny little presents. I can't remember all that there was but I remember cookies lol

It was nice having everyone together for Lyndsey's birthday, we had a good time =)

Happy Birthday Lyndsey Jean!!! I love you sooooo much and cannot believe you're already 16! Now you have your license and you can date woo hoo! (I'm not gonna lie though, I'm kind of nervous for her to drive Stevie, my lil car, while I'm on my mission! haha)

Adam's Canyon!

2009-05-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 16, 2009

Courtney and I went hiking to Adam's Canyon. It was way fun and so pretty!

Ready set... go!

Woo for hiking!!!
Tree hugger!

I climbed up there and wanted to walk across the tree but it was sooo slick I didn't go much further than I did in this picture because I didn't want to fall ten feet down a hill on sharp rocks ha

This is what our sandwiches looked like by the time we got to the waterfall... they were soo smooshed because I put my water bottles in the same pocket with them... smart me!

Sick!

Mmmmm yummy! They actually didn't taste any worse just looked horrible..

Mountain girl!

E.T. ... phone... home...

We wanted to go under the waterfall but it was freezing!

We got close enough that it got the back of us drenched! We were pretty cold after ha

I climbed up the mountain and wanted to keep going above the waterfall but the rocks weren't very sturdy so I didn't want to take the chance of falling to my death. I wish I had harness so I could keep climbing and know that I wouldn't die lol

Close up

It was so pretty, you could see the whole valley from up there. After getting to the waterfall, Courtney and I climbed up higher so we could see this. I climbed up a small cliff and Courtney stayed down and later decided to try and come up too and ended up totally biffing it and scrapping up her legs pretty bad, poor thing. She was really clutsy though, especially by the end she kept falling and almost wacked her head on a stump and some sharp rocks... oh man I'm just glad she didn't kill herself. She came back from the hike with a whole bunch of scrapes and I only had one measley little scrape that barely bled and I climbed up cliffs and stuff more than her lol

You can't tell in the picture but that was really steep and let me tell you what happened... well Courtney fell right before that and sprang her ankle pretty bad and so I ended up needing to give her a piggy back ride. I was struggling with keeping my balance and finally fell too. We both tumbled down the steep hill until we landed at the bottom where the water was... Sooo obviously we got home a little late. Turns out the fall pretty much knocked us out so we were taken to the hospital and to our parents surprise we came home not only late but me in a body cast somehow finding the strength to maneuver enough to push Courtney in her wheelchair who is in a full body cast... little did my parents know all that we had gone through!

Obviously that didn't happen but for some reason Courtney and I stopped at that very steep hill and made up the story ha

It looks like a snake!

I wish I could show you truly how many dandelions there were. It was unbelievable how many there were! Talk about a weed fest. My first thought was how my old pet Iguana, Iggie, would be in heaven if she was there. She looooved dandelions

We hiked way up there in that middle mountain!

All most done!

Our shoes used to be black... who would have known??

We made it!

Crazy huh? That's dirt! Looks like a brown and white stripped sock haha. We were just a little dirty by the end... but it was so fun. I love hiking!

Lyndsey's Birthday Party

2009-05-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

Friday May 15, 2009

Lyndsey invited some friends and they just hung out in the basement and had fun talking, playing games, eating, and just hanging out

Sweet 16!!

Silly Caiden

2009-05-26T19:28:00.001-07:00

Friday May 15, 2009

Caiden has been getting into stuff aaaaall the time now and it's kind of driving my mom crazy. So on May 15 Caiden took gravy and smeared it all over the sliding glass door haha. I had to make sure I got a picture of it, because other than it being a pain to clean I thought it was so funny

Whenever Caiden is hungry he turns into a monster. He becomes furocious. So he was really grumpy because he was hungry so we warmed up a big bowl of chili. He ate it all and then sat on the chair with a blank face and then he started getting all glossy eyed and before we knew it he was nodding off and fell asleep. It was cute. He's not so furocious when he's sleeping =)

Mother's Day!

2009-05-26T19:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday May 10, 2009

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

All of us went shopping and got her some cute pots, flowers, a brass sun, and Caiden insisted we get an apple =)

We had mom close her eyes while we set it up
And then she tried to guess what we got her by feeling everything
She only got the flowers right and the lotion but gave up while trying to figure out what the sun was and didn't get to the pots and apple

She loved everything and we had fun picking them out for her. Mom we love you soooooo much!!! We couldn't ask for a better mommy, you're always there for us. You're the BEST!

Mission Pictures

2009-05-25T17:56:00.001-07:00

Missionary Pictures!

My mom just took some pictures of me out in our backyard really quick so I could mail a picture to the mission office. The first picture on here is the one I sent in. I also put others that she took. I had a lot of fun editing the pictures as you can tell ha. So there's a lot of duplicates and a lot of pictures of me, sorry! I just didn't want to take the time to go through all of them and pick out only a few lol =)

This is Courtney's favorite picture because she thinks I look like a vampire haha

Can you see my moms feet?? haha this pic makes me laugh

I was talking I guess... Hahahaha....

SISTER MISSIONARY POWER!!!!!

Temple Square!

2009-05-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday May 7, 2009

It was such a nice day and I really wanted to get out of the house so Courtney and I went to temple square. We really had a lot of fun. The pictures are pretty blurry but hey better than none. We first went to the Joseph Smith Building to check out the times for the Joseph Smith Movie, took some pics there, then we walked around temple square, then went to the conference center where I ended up seeing one of my really good friends from LDSBC that I havent seen in forever, we took a tour around the conference center and ened up missing the movie at the time we planned so we walked to the gateway mall for seriouly only like a half hour and then ran back to the JSB to see the last showing of the JS Movie which was awesome as usual and I cried this time. We had a loot of fun

Peek-a-boo!

The flowers were soooo pretty

This is on top of the conference center. The last time I went with my friend Scott a couple months ago they were just barely starting to get flowers but this time there were a lot. It was so pretty

It was seriouly such a gorgeous day. Pictures don't do justice

In the Conference building where conference is held. It holds 20,000 people... huge

The pipes are covered and they moved the organ because they were working on a festival that would be going on soon in behalf of the two temples just deticated, Draper Temple and I can't remember the other. In the pic you can see the control panel... pretty much everything is controled there. There are a lot of buttons I'd hate to be the one sitting there taking care of everything lol

I absolutely love Native Americans so I had to take a picture of this. The artist carved it out of stone and that's it, he did not use any paint or anything at all it's just carved stone. I thought it was beautiful. The art inside the Conference center is AMAZING I want to go back

Courtney and I were going to run through the water but they had it closed for maintenance... I was sad

We rushed over to Gateway and only spent like 10 minutes there so we would make it for the JS movie, so this is pretty much all we did was take pictures with the manikins. It was actually really fun though because the manikins were making ridiculous poses trying to be sexy or suductive so we made fun of them

What is the manikin doing?? She must simply be straining to pick up something... that's it. Courtney is trying to figure out what she's doing ha

I love the manikin on the right... haha

That manikin is simply trying to give someone a high five... She takes them very seriously as you can tell from her reaching back so far, Courtney thought she'd help her out.

I'm reaching for something too, just like the that one manikin!!

Our ride on the trax! So it was really funny. While we were waiting for the trax we starting talking to this guy and when we got on the trax we started also talking to him and another guy. When Courtney sat down there was an advertisment that kept sticking to her foot so she kept kept kicking it off. The guy we talked to while waiting for the trax asked the other guy what he did for his company, Qwest, and he looked down and said I advertise for them like that apparently very badly done advertisment on the ground. We look down and realize he was talking about the one Courtney was kicking off her foot hahaha. I picked it up and was like hmm lets see, and told him "not bad" and then not knowing what to do I just nicely and awkwardly set it back on the ground and then Courtney and I got off our stop. We laughed and laughed, it was hilarious

And our last stop for the night was Wendy's... mmmm what a great night

Paaaark!

2009-05-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

End of April 2009

Caiden and I have been going to the park quite a bit the last few weeks and it's so fun. It was just a little bit windy so we took his kite with us and he loved it. I didn't got a good picture of him running around with the kite flying but it was cute!

The sun was in his eyes haha

Here Caiders is flying his kite!
And here's his kite... good ole Elmo
Caiders and I

And at the end of the day the kite broke... guess he'll have to get another one but we had fun with that one =)

Fun at the mall

2009-05-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

First or second week of April 2009

Lyndsey, Courtney, and I went to the mall to find Courtney a white skirt for Easter Sunday but ended up having fun trying on other clothes. Seriously it was fun (I truly looove shopping and trying on clothes) we should have taken more pictures but here are some pictures of Lyndsey and Courtney in just one of the many prom dresses they tried on. They're so pretty!

Cute Caiders

2009-05-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 9, 2009

A few Saturdays ago we were outside doing yard work when the sprinklers came on. We all went inside but Caiden stayed outside and had a blast running through them. It was cute =)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!

2009-05-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Sunday April 26, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!

Here's pitures of everyone getting ready for mom to open gifts =)

Presents!

Mom got a lot of great gifts from everyone, a very cute clock for the kitchen that will be remodeled soon, a fountain, clothes (that she gets to go shopping for), journal, jewlery, a very nice clock for the basement, and relaxing CDs. She loved everything =)

Let me tell you the story behind this ugly looking cake... my mom wanted angle food cake and so I took the liberty of making it, however I did not know that when you make it you have to mix it in a metal or glass bowl so no oils get into the cake which will make it flat, until after I had already put the mix into a plastic bowl... sooo due to my amazing talent of messing up even the easiest recepies, the angel food cake did not taste or look much like angel food cake. Sorry mom! Anyways we just used white cake instead so it doesn't look all that great. Oh well I learned haha!

Mom is turning 84 now too! No worries, in 2 years she'll be turning 5 years old ha

If you can't tell, Caiden is also blowing from afar. He wanted to blow out the candles so bad too haha. So cute =)

Happy Birthday mom I love you sooooo much and couldn't ask for a better mommy!!!!!!!

TEMPLE!

2009-05-25T10:12:00.001-07:00

On Thursday April 16, 2009 I entered the Bountiful Temple to receive my endowments! It was quite overwhelming at first but wonderful. The spirit is so strong as you're in the Lord's house and I am soo grateful I now have the opportunity to go to the temple whenever I want. I have gone back several times since that Thursday that I first received my endowments and I plan to live worthy all my life so I can go back again and again! Thank you so much to my all my family that was able to attend that special and wonderful day!!! =-)

Mission Showers

2009-05-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I have posted anything. I'm going to catch up before I leave for my mission. On Tuesday April 7 Aunt Sandi threw a missionary shower for me. It was so nice and I never expected to get so many nice things. I got a whole bunch of really really cute shirts for my mission, knee highs, gift certificates, and other fun things. It was so fun! Thank you everyone who came and thank you so much Aunt Sandi for putting that together!!! I'll have to get the pictures from Aunt Sandi and post them later =) Last Wednesday, May 20, a girl from my singles ward in church also through a mission shower which was so sweet of her. Sadly I didn't take any pictures though. It started out by everyone giving advice for my mission which was great advice that I'm definitely going to use. Then we played mission jeopardy. I really didn't know any of the answers so I'm glad other people knew them for the most part lol, I learned a lot. After I opened the presents. I got hand santitizer, mint mouth drops because you can't chew gum, flip flogs, lots of stamps, stationary, and some mula. We had brownies and ice cream after. It was a lot of fun! Thank you Annette and everyone who came and helped!! I had never heard of missionary showers until I came to Utah lol but I like them and I'm so grateful that I got some thrown for me for serving a mission =-)

EaStEr!!!!

2009-05-25T08:40:00.001-07:00

Sunday April 12, 2009

HAPPY EASTER!!!!

After Church, which was great, we all looked for our Easter baskets. This is after we found them and went through them. Before we looked for our baskets Dad gave us a lesson about Christ's resurrection and the true meaning of Easter which is our Savior.

As you can tell Caiden did not want to get a picture taken. Sometimes he absolutely hates pictures being taken of him and sometimes he likes it. This picture makes me laugh though

Here we are just enjoying ourselves

Us kids god mom and dad lil treats for Easter. Not a whole lot but it's the thought that counts =) My dad got black liquorice, yuck, and mom some milk chocolate

It's tradition that we always have an Easter egg hunt, so dad hid the eggs mostly for Caiden but us bigger kids looked too. Grandma and Grandpa had an Easter egg hunt at their house for the little kids but Caiden didn't do too well, I think because there were too many people which makes him nervous, but he had fun here and ran constantly to find the eggs. It was cute

Lyndsey and I looking frantically for eggs ;-)

Oh and Caiden didn't want to wear his clothes so he went out in tennis shoes and a diaper haha

Booty shots! Somehow my dad took some pretty good pics of our 'back sides' which I thought was pretty funny. Well I guess it's not too hard to get when we're out there specifically picking up eggs lol

Do you see that ora above me?? It's in a couple of these other pictures... It's a ghost!

Courtney helping Caiders to find eggs

Lyndsey is very rudely pointing to my basket because I found only like five eggs because I thought the ones on the ground were just for Caiden so I was looking for the ones high up... there's my excuse for not finding very many haha. But Lyndsey did share with me so I didn't end up with barely any eggs... how sweet =-)

Today was not a good day for picturing taking for lil Caiden... Here we are once again trying to get him in a picture ha

I'm trying to make Caiden laugh... not a very good picture of any of us but I like it still ha. Oh Caiden is holding purple eggs because they were about the only eggs he wanted. He loves purple

Still didn't get a real great picture of all of us, but this was good enough

I got my MISSION CALL!!!!!

2009-03-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

Ok so I didn't mention that I have been planning on serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints but I am!!! I felt that I needed to go when I watch General Conference last October but it took a lot of convincing because it was scary and I was not planning on serving a mission because I have been focused on school. I prayed and prayed and finally started my paper work when I came home from BYU in January. It took a while to get my medical and dental work done but I finally got it all done and turned in my papers. I recieved my call in the mail on Wed. March 18, 2009 which was two weeks after they were sent in. I was so nervous and had to wait the whole day for everyone to get together so I could read it to my family. It was quite hectic and I appologize to everyone that was there in person or on the phone for that. So I tried to download the video but we couldn't figure it out yet so I'll have to post it later =)

IM SO EXCITED!!!

We wrote down where everyone guessed I'd go, but nobody guessed right haha

And here's the my mission call!!! =)

I'm going to the California San Jose Spanish Speaking Mission!!! I leave to the MTC on June 3rd so it's coming soon!

sKyDiViNg!!!!

2009-03-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday March 28, 2009

So this Saturday a group of us went SKYDIVING! It was so fun!! Except that I threw up while in the air still haha but here are some cool pictures of my jump! I suggest it to anyone, unless you get sick easily in little planes...

Here is Sugi my instructor

Getting ready to jump!

Whitney, Whitney's little brother Tyler, Kayla, and I rode in the same plane together while the rest of our group went before us

They said there was going to be a 20 min senic view but I had no idea it was actually going to be pretty

I just saw Whitney jump out of the plane and I was getting so excited and nervous

There she goes! (shes the one in the yellow)

You fall so quick

My turn!

And there I gooooo!

I look look like superman haha!

I just gave Ryan, the camera guy, a high five

I don't know if you can tell, but we're holding onto Ryan's footJust to let you know that is not our parachute we use after falling. They have to use that little one to slow us down enough so its the same as the weight of only one person. When you don't tandem fly they don't use the little parachute because there's only the weight of one person, other wise if we didn't have it the weight of two people would make us fall way too fast

There we are coming down with the parachute out. I'm pretty sure I threw up about there haha. I don't know what happened I wasn't feeling sick until we were just hanging there which was a bummer because the ride was so cool and smooth. I think I got sick on the plane ride and I didn't have time to feel sick until we were just sitting there... and it really hit me

Can you see the throw up all down my arm and side?? Some of it got on one of Sugi's arms too... poor guy haha

I broke Sugi's streak of never having someone throw up on him the 10 years he's worked there haha. I love this picture, I'd be gagging if I was him too ha

Fun in Idaho...

2009-03-30T08:33:00.001-07:00

My best friend goes to BYU Idaho and I went to visit her last weekend (March 20th) And just to warn you were very silly but we had fun... It's the way to be!

While in Idaho with Whit, I went to school with her, just hung out doing nothing really (which we are best at) and my last night there last Tuesday we took some pics of once again us doing nothing more than nonsense haha. Kayla, Whit, and I went out and took pics of us exploring

We planned on wearing all black and then Kayla suggested we draw warrior marks on our faces which turned into beards also haha. My name was Ricky, Kayla's name was... I can't remember but something French, and Whitney's name was Ali. So, as you can tell I'm from Puerto Rico, Kayla from France, and Whitney from Arabia

Ricky!

Kayla and I showing off our manlyness ;-) ;-) ;-)

And now Whitney, Kayla, and me...

Balance is an art and a skill that all great ninjas need...

oh and also a positive attitude and sense of humor...

We weren't very sneeeeaky... but of course we weren't trying =)

Whit and Kayla and jumping down. I tried to get them in action but didn't do a very good job

We're striking ninja poses... very sneaky... you can hardly see us!

Whit and me

I love this pic of her... very mysterious ha

Ninja!

Warriorsss!

Whit and me

I got to her appartment that Friday night and we went to a dumb party but had fun taking pictures =)

This is Allie (one of Whitney's roommates), Whitney, and me

Here's Shalie, me, Whitney, and Kayla. We took so many of these pics and did not get one where everyone was in the air but this was close enough

Here we are in the midst of the crowd =)

California

2009-03-29T11:03:00.001-07:00

We all drove to Bakersfield, CA to see Camie and Brooke and their families. We left on Friday February 27th and drove back to Ut on Monday March 2nd. It was waaay too short but we had a really fun weekend being there. We got to see Sydney Brooke Olsen for the first time and she is soooo cute! She was born on January 16th so she was already a month and a half old when we finally got to see her but she was still little and she's such a little cuddle bug! Leyna and Alaura have gotten so big and they are cuter than ever. It was so nice to see everyone and ended too soon! Dad, Lyndsey, Courtney, Caiden and I left on Monday and mom stayed for another week with them. She got to go to Disneyland and spend a lot of time with them. We didn't take any pictures for some reason so I don't have any to post but Brooke and Camie took a lot =) We had so much fun and love and miss you guys!!!!!!

Dad's little bud =)

2009-03-29T10:56:00.001-07:00

Thursday February 19, 2009

We came home to find dad and Caiden asleep together. Caiden idolizes dad it's cute

Dad's Birthday!

2009-03-29T10:40:00.001-07:00

Monday February 16, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!
Grandma and grandpa Matthews, Becky, Brenda and Canyon and Riker, Robert, and Grammy and came over on his birthday which is February 16th
Present! Lyndsey and I both got him mystery books... dad loves to read!

Here's all of his presents!
Here are some pics of everyone that was there =)

Dad isn't very happy about turning 84 years young.....
He already blew out the candles but I made him blow again for the camera haha
We had apple and cherry pie with some icecream... very yummy!

We love you Dad soooo much! I would never ask for any other Daddy, you're the best!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2009-03-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

We had a fun Valentine's Day! Dad, mom, and Grammy gave us kids Valentines and we went to Olive Garden as a family. Lyndsey and I were matching and we waited for a table for the rest of the fam while they went to walgreens. We acting like we were each other's valentines haha. I held onto her arm and we talked all mooshy to each other... I don't know what other people thought but we had fun being dorks haha

We had a very slowy Valentine's Day

Dad got this for mom... so cute!!!

Dad got us chocolate apples that had a gummy warm inside... we loved them!

Some random/fun pictures

2009-03-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

All of these pics were taken around February 8, 2009... I'm starting to get caught up!

Mom pulled out of the driveway and forgot that she might need to shovel the snow, so she got stuck and when we finally got the car out we shoveled the whole driveway... well mostly mom did... man it's a tiring job shoveling snow

And here's Caiden waiting for us in the car... I think he was getting a little sleep lol

Here's Caiden playing with his favorite toys from Christmas, train tracks with Thomas the train and his train friends

And some more photography taken by Caiden =)

Lyndsey and Dad are enjoying eating something..........

And what is it Dad and Lyndsey and eating??.... Nast looking sardines... I can't get over how sick they look! Dad loooves sardines and so pretty much every year he gets some in his stocking for Christmas and mints for mom haha

Ooooouch!

2009-03-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

I got my wisdom teeth out!

These pictures were taken two days after I got them out (I got them out on February 6, 2009) so it's not quite as swollen but I never did get very swollen luckily. On that Friday when I got them out I went to the Draper Temple open house. I'm so glad I went, even though it went a lot longer than I had planned and I was a half hour late to my dentist appointment. It was beautiful and I was so happy I got to go through it, that was my first open house I have ever gone through. So, back to my wisdom teeth... Dr. Jones told me that if he had known that my teeth were going to be so difficult to get out he would have referred me to an oral surgoen, which I am sooo greatfull he didn't know because we didn't have insurrance to cover this so an oral surgeon would have been a looot more. I definitley count my blessings. It was pretty funny though because while he was taking them out he going off on how hard it was and told me I have concrete bones that did not want to let go of my teeth haha. Well other than it being very difficult for Dr. Jones everything very well, and I am so grateful for that. They don't hurt at all anymore but I still do have two holes in my gums where food still gets stuck in them haha. It's kind of grosse but I know they'll close up eventually and I'm glad to have them out

Iceskating!

2009-03-29T09:20:00.001-07:00

On January 19, 2009 we went iceskating as a family. It's cool because every year they open the iceskating rink for the public for free and serve cookies and hotchocolate. It was a lot of fun and free!

We've waited in line and finally got our skates in the right sizes

I love this picture of him =)
Almost ready!

And ready to go!

If you can't tell mom is walking with Caiden in her shoes and Caiden has his shoes off. My mom couldn't even stand of in the skates (it was pretty entertaining to watch her try and get on the ice in them haha) and Caiden did not want to wear iceskates, so we didn't even try to put them on him. He and mom had fun just walking around the rink though... until they got kicked off for wearing shoes ha

Dad and I =)

Courtney, Lyndsey, and me

Lyndsey is pointing to her foot. Those skates were killing her ankle for some reason, she was pretty sore after

Other than any sore ankles from the iceskates, we had a looot of fun!

Dad and Caiden =)

More fun pics =)

2009-03-29T08:54:00.001-07:00

Caiden loves taking the camera and taking pictures of EVERYTHING around the house. He has seriously taken over a hundred so I just picked a few. He's taken pictures of sealing fans, beds, half of our faces, and just random stuff. He's a cutie, we have to hide the camera now because we're affraid he'll break it. I think mom and dad need to get him a kid camera like Alaura's, he'd love it

I just thoutht this one looked cool

I was in the bathroom getting ready when Caiden started taking pictures, here's one of his favorite toy he got for Christmas, Thomas the Train

Thats Caiden's shadow
And here is one of the many pictures he took of all of piled on mom and dad's bed

Lyndsey was rolling around on our yoga balls and Caiden thought it looked fun so he jumped on her and Lyndsey kept rolling back and forth with him on her. He thought it was the funnest thing, he was laughing sooo hard it was funny

Winter sunsets!

2009-03-28T20:12:00.001-07:00

If you ask my family, you know that I loooove sunsets and clouds and our house has the most gorgeous sunsets... I love it! One of my favorite God creations =)

Caiden's Christmas tree!

2009-03-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

We were putting Christmas decorations away (always a sad day) on January 10. We took some pictures of Caiden's Christmas tree. My parents put it in his room and he decorated it himself and loved to turn on the lights. He loved that tree!

Birthday with the Family

2009-03-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a late birthday celebration (January 7, 2009) Grandpa and Grandma Matthews, Brenda, Robert, and Grammy came over here to celebrate with us

Presents!

This the most yummy cake! Courtney made this for me, which is also the same cake she made for her own Birthday... so good!

21 Candles... I'm getting so old haha

Caiden loved the cake too!

Grammy and I =)

Fun pics =)

2009-03-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

Just a few days after Christmas one night, Dad was putting Caiden to bed, which is really cute because he always reads at least two books and then sing songs that Caiden requests which some of them always consist of "twinkle twinkle little star" and "I am a child of God" because dad started singing those two from the beginning. Caiden now loves everyone to make up songs about anything and everything. He say things like, "sing door please," "sing light please," "sing white star please" and so on. It's so cute! And he has such good manners, he always says please and thank you. He's adorable. Anyway, that night he wanted to put a tent he got for Christmas over dad and him while he was being put to bed. Here are some pics. We thought it was hilarious!

As you can see only half of dad's body fits in it and Caiden is all the way inside. He wanted to sleep the whole night like that. It was so funny

Here's a good look inside haha

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

2009-03-27T15:06:00.001-07:00

Santa Clause came! He left us a note, some nuts, brownies, book (for Caiden), sardines (for Dad... yuck), and some gum. His elves, Robert, Roberta, Brittany, Bart, and Holly left us a letter also. They said sorry for not coming at all during the month before Christmas; some of Santa's elves usually come and leave us letters and some kind of treats but this year I guess they couldn't find the new house or something ;-) They've been coming since Brooke and Camie were babies, so hopefully next year they'll do better!

We always set up our little Christmas village. I remember helping mom set it up in our old old house in Bakersfield when I was young... memories =)
Presents.... Time to wake up!
Lyndsey went into Caiden's room to wake him up while Courtney and I were in the bathroom getting a little bit ready to be in front of the camera ha

Picture of everyone after opening presents from Santa and each other. Lots of fun! Grammy came over Christmas morning and we had Grandma, Grandpa, Becky, and Robert come over for Christmas dinner. I wish I had pics of that =( Oh and we're all wearing beanies that Grammy knitted for us, they're so cute we love them!

Us kids in front of the tree =)

Mom dreading the mess that was left ha. No worries we all pitched in and cleaned up afterward and then had DELICIOUS omlets for breakfast that my dad made. Yum

A silly family pic in front of the tree. It was funny, my dad had to run over over to that spot after pressing the timer on the camera... it was quite squishy but it looks cute I think =) Poor Caiden looks like he's getting crushed by us, but don't worry he's perfectly fine haha

Merry Christmas love the Alveys!!!

Happy 14th B Day Courtney!!

2009-03-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

I missed Courtney's birthday because I was once again in Provo studying for finals but here are some cute pics of her birthday on December 16, 2008 =)

Make a wish!

Here's Courtney's yummy cake! I sure wish I was there to have some!
Caiden =)

Just grandpa.... ;-)

Grandma!

The Birthday girl and Grammy!

Yobert, as Caiden calls him haha, is of course hiding from the camera... or sleeping, I can't quite tell haha

Mom!

Yobert once again hiding from the camera haha

Presents!!!

Hmmm ya think dad was ready for this pic? ha

Studdley Caiden =)

Snowy December

2009-03-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some cute pics of Lyndsey, Courtney, and Caiden playing in the snow in Layton while I was in Provo studying for finals =-/

Saying goodbye and snowed in

2009-02-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Saying Goodbye!

I didn't meet too many people in my classes but I did meet a few. I had Kevin in 3 of my classes (well 2 after I dropped statistics) and we always sat together. I had a lot of fun with him

Here's Jeni and me. This is Human Development, probably my all time favorite class out of the semester. Professor Nelson was amazing... such a good class, although not easy at all lol. My other favorite class was Parenting and Child Guidance. Our teacher was working on his PHD and was so laxt. That was a way fun class. I always sat by a group of girls, they're were so sweet and fun. I really loved all my classes so much and my professors were so amazing. It was definitely a bitter sweet being done with that semester

This was our last pic we got all together before everyone started leaving. It was sad to say bye to everyone. I had so much fun with my roommates in that apartment

This is our quote wall. Whenever someone said something funny we'd write it down and stick it up there. My quotes were "I love chinese babies!" "Um, I ate out of it..." "Wait, Don't sit down yet!" and "Eeew are those weaties?" It was fun to look at the quote wall because we'd just start laughing when we read someone's quote ha

Bye bye to my favorite room =(

Snowed in

So I was going to drive home right after I was done with my finals but it was so stormy so it wouldn't have been a very good idea to drive home that night. So I just went home and watched a movie with 2 of my roommates and chilled for the night. It was so nice not to worry about any homework, essays, or tests... just total relaxation

This is our apartment complex the next morning after the storm... it really snowed a lot, but I thought it was pretty. That week was probably the second time it had actually snowed... I thought that was crazy that the snow didn't stick until December. It was a very slow arriving winter, not to mention a very nice and warm autumn... I loved it but was happy for snow finally

So this was the last of Raintree Apartments. I really had a lot of great memories there. I loved my ward, I loved teaching Gospel Principles class (that was definitely a new and at first a scary experience for me because I had never had a calling like that, but I ended up absolutely loving it. I grew so much from it and if know one learned or profited from my lessons I sure did. I definitely count that calling as a blessing), I loved my roommates, I loved my classes, and I was even sad to not be riding the extremely over crowed bus everyday (you have no idea how crowded it would get, oh man I wish I got a pic of how many people would fit inside those small buses haha). I really had a great semester and I was actually a little sad to pack up my car. Oh and I wish I had gotten a pic of my car because is was packed soooooo full haha. I couldn't see out of any of the back windows which isn't very safe but I made it home to Layton safely =) Although I was a little sad to say bye to everything in Provo for a while I was so excited to relax and have a vacation. It was already December 20 and Christmas was just around the corner, time flies so fast!

End of the semester and my BDay

2009-02-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

Happy 21st!
I had a great Thanksgiving and it was hard to get back to school but I only had 2 weeks of classes and then finals and it was over. I had a lot of essays due plus I had to fit in time to study for finals... very busy. So I got my essays done the Wed. before finals which didn't leave me much time for studying for finals. I was hoping to get my finals done befor my BDay, which was Wed. December 17, but things never work out the way you plan lol. I ended up not finishing my finals until that Friday but I was releived to have them done. I did pretty well with them. Some of them were not as well as I wanted but I pulled off pretty good grades. I got all A- s and one A. During the stress of studying for finals my BDay was actually not forgotten about lol. Tuesday night my roommates came in my room at about 1 AM singing to me. I had decided to go to bed early because I was sick of studying so I was way out when they came in. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on but I just laughed and kept saying "aw you guys are so sweet!" "Aw the cake is so cute!" "Aw you guys are so cute!" haha I was so out of it. They just laughed told me to go to bed and so I did ha. The only sad thing was that no one ate the cake. I think when they made it that night they ate a lot of it so they were sick of cake ha. I wish I had gotten pics of them when they brought the cake in and sang but I was definintely not thinking about that at the time lol. Here are some pics I took later after my BDay

My cake!

Jen, me, and, Ash

Ashley made it

Bri bri ha

Cyndi and me

On Wedensday I decided to take it easy since it was my BDay and all. I didn't study much but took it easy and watched some TV. I got a Birthday card from grandma and grandpa Matthews, they're always so good at mailing letters =) Everyone in my family called and wished me a happy BDay and to my surprise I got a package in the mail. One of my very best friends, Whitney, sent me some goodies for my BDay. She's so sweet I loved her! And no I didn't have a big drinkin bash for my 21st ha ;) I had a good BDay, nice and simple =) It was nice to relax but then I had to get back to studying, it was so nice to be done with my finals on Friday. I felt a huge load taken off

Christmas at our little apartment!

2009-02-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

When I came home from thanksgiving some of my roommates had decorated our apartment a little. There was missel toe at our door, a little snowman in our living room, and maybe couple other decorations. My Grammy gave me a cute little Christmas tree. We put it up on our kitchen counter. It's a really shiny red and has red lights. At first it kinda scared us haha but it quickly grew on us and we loved our little tree. I was determined to get an actual Christmas tree to put in our living room so I went with shopping at wal-mart with my friend Scott before we went out ha. We found a cute little tree that had lights on it already. I didn't buy any ornaments because I was too broke so I figured a tree was better than no tree. So we packed my tree in my car and headed for our date. Funny story, so I wanted to see Twighlight even though I heard from a lot of people that it was horrible. Scott did not want to see it at all but he was a good sport and took me. So pretty much the whole time he was laughing and gagging everytime the main girl came on. For some reason she really really bugged him. I'll admit the movie was pretty dumb and I was laughing too but he was literally laughing the whole time ha. So I was like fine lets leave and watch that other movie you wanted ot watch. I insisted we go because he was absolutely hating Twightlight so to his relief he agreed. So when we got up his cell phone flew on the ground in the next row ahead of us. Pretty much we were stuck there so he had to bare through the movie ha. It was pretty funny. Luckily he found his phone but he had to watch the whole thing ha. So after the movie we went back to my apartment and after he left I set up the tree with my roommate. It was so cute! We even strung popcorn for it and cut out paper snow flakes to decorate it haha. Here is our cute Christmas tree that my roommate said looked like a cupcake... I'm gonna have to agree with her haha.

Isn't it oh so cute?! I loved it... our little cupcake Christmas tree ha

Thanksgiving break continued...

2009-02-10T18:41:00.000-08:00

It was so fun having Camie and Brooke and their families here in Utah. We wish they lived here so we could see them more often! We had a lot of fun Thanksgiving weekend. Other than the Thanksgiving dinners, temple square, and dinner; we also went to Layton park to see the lights there. That was fun. The lights were in all kinds of disney characters and different kinds of animals. It was really cold but fun =) I sadly had to go back to school. I think it was that Sunday that Brooke had to go to the hospital because she had her second kidney stone. Poor Brooke had to get a stint put in her so that the fluids could pass from her kidney to her blatter. She went through so much pain and luckily everything went well although she had to endure a lot of pain the remainder of her pregnancy with Sydney. Eric and Juan left Camie and Brooke here in Utah to get back to work because Brooke couldn't travel yet. They had to stay an extra week until Brooke got the ok from the Dr. that it was ok to drive home. Brooke and Camie stopped by orem so I could come and say bye to them again. I got to see Alaura and Leyna one more time and then sadly had to say good bye. It was a very long drive home for them with the little ones and because

Brooke was hurting from sitting down so long. Luckily they made it home safely although it was a long uncomfortable drive. Other than that part of the vacation everyone had a great Thanksgiving break and we miss them so much! Can't wait to see you guys, love you!!

Thanksgiving weekend

2009-02-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

The Friday after Thanksgiving was way relaxing. Other than sitting around we did go to SLC. We met up with Camie and Brooke's families and just walked around. Once again we didn't have our camera with us when we walked around temple square but luckily Camie and Brooke took pics. So temple square was nice as usual. After we walked around there for a bit we last second decided to go out to eat. I can't even remember where... I think it was Chilis. Anyways here are some pictures

Here we are waiting...

....and waiting....

Isn't Brooke so cute?!

And Eric fell asleep while waiting ;)

.....still waiting...

Grammy and Leyna!

And we made it! It took a while to get tables to fit our big family =)

Thanksgiving!

2009-02-10T17:15:00.000-08:00

So, the whole month of November got pretty busy and hectic with school so pretty much all of November I did homework and studied. Luckily I was able to fit in a little fun... I went on a few dates, hung out with my roommates some, and the best was Thanksgiving with my family! Camie and Brooke and their families came here for Thanksgiving! It was so fun seeing all of them!! So the Sunday before Thanksgiving we celebrated it with my mom's side of the family. We didn't take any pics with our camera so sadly I don't have any to post but luckily Camie, Brooke, and Uncle Brent took pics with their cameras. It was so fun seeing everyone and celebrating Thanksgiving together. So after that weekend I had to go back to Provo for school and headed back home on Wed. after school. Man that was a stressful three days. I had so much due, but luckily it was all over and I could go home and enjoy Thanksgiving with my family.

Here are some pics on Thanksgiving day with my dad's side of the family. It was very different from how we usually spend Thanksgiving but it was so fun to see everyone. I haven't seen a lot of my aunts, uncles, and cousins on my dad's side in a long time.

The kids had fun kicking around a ball and just running around after they were done eating

There's Camie, Juan and little Leyna!

I'm holding my cousin Heidi's baby boy. He is 5 months old in that pic and sooo small! I think he was only 8 lbs (around there) in that pic. He was adorable I loved holding him

Here's all the food!

Pretty fall pics at BYU

2009-02-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of the pretty fall we had in Provo. BYU has a gorgeous campus. I should have taken pics a lot sooner but later is better than never. Even though a lot of the trees were already starting to loose their leaves, I found I lot that were still pretty and colorful. I took these Nov. 7 while walking around campus before I went home for the night.

This is my favorite. In the summer they have a water fall and it's really green. It's so pretty all year around

This was our first snow fall haha. Not much but it's still there! The snow didn't actually stick until December which I thought was very weird, but I definitely enjoyed the warm weather that stuck around for so long

Halloween for the Alveys!

2009-02-08T16:31:00.000-08:00

So while I was in Provo my family was of course in Layton celebrating Halloween. Here are some cute pics of them!

Here the kidos are getting ready. Lyndsey dressed up as a fairy, Courtney dressed up as a pirate, and Caiden dressed up as Clifford the red dog. Caiden is in love with Thomas the train so my mom bought him a Thomas the train costume but it freaked him out... it would freak me out too ha... it was pretty ugly ;-)

My mom is chasing Caiden around trying to finish his nose and wiskers ha

Good enough, isn't he such a cute doggy?
Almost ready!

Courtney the pirate and Clifford are all ready to trick or treat!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!