8/12/15 Week 73

I really just love life.  I love Denton. I love my companion. I love this gospel. I love my Savior.  I love the sun.  I love the Texas Fort Worth Mission.  I love our investigators. I love our ward.  I feel like I could just go on forever...do you ever have those times when your heart just feels like it is so full and you can't even think of a specific reason why? sigh.....OK I know I'm going maybe a little overboard with the sappyness...I promise I'll stop soon.....I feel like on the mission I've found a level of happiness that I've never really had before, for really no specific reason.  The longer I am out here the more I realize that the "no specific reason" is the spirit:) "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you." I really have a testimony of that verse.  If we want to feel happy, we need to ask our Father in Heaven...and then get off our butts and do his work! That's my spiritual thought for the day:) 

Well this week we saw PROGRESSION! What more can you ask for? This week we met Dinora, I think I wrote about her a little last week.  She is a cute young mom, who is just searching religions.  This week we ate dinner with her and Hermana Hernandez, and she literally asked us questions for like 2 hours. It was amazing! I looove questions! It shows that people are actually interested.  

We also met with Miguel.  He is this older guy that moved here from Puerto Rico, and is sad and looking for a church.  He has come the past 2 weeks and seemed to really like it! This week he asked us if he could be baptized! Wahoo! It is going to be a longer road for him since he can't read or write...but we set the date for Oct. 3rd.  The desire is definitely there and that's where it all starts. 

Hazel is still on for her baptism on Sept 3rd and she and her husband came to church on Sunday. Yayayay! She is so willing to do whatever the Lord asks even though her testimony isn't totally solid yet.  It's really inspiring! 

Idalia and Socorro are our other 2 main investigators.  Socorro is the friend of Hermana Gonzalez who just barley lost her husband and is now turning to God for help.  She was so happy after church last week! She has a 13 year old son who is autistic so she was scared for a while to come to church because she would have to bring him, and he can be kind of disruptive, but the ward was super cool to him! ...even though he did steal the gospel doctrine teachers marker out of his hand and start coloring all over his board.....haha it was a little funny..:)

Kevin is another investigator we found a few weeks ago.  We gave him to the YSA Elders and he came to church, but then he just stopped answering the elders calls and they had no idea what happened.  Well we were in the neighborhood so we decided to stop by and see if he was home.  The spirit totally led us to him! He was home and we had a great talk about everything that he was going through and we testified that if he puts God first in his life, all these other things will fall into place :)  The spirit was so strong!  We saw him yesterday at President Ames fireside and he looked like a different person! He had called the Elders, they had an awesome lesson, and he said he is preparing for baptism in October! Wow.  SUPER COOL experience.

The church is true.  I know it!  Joseph Smith was chosen as a prophet of God, and he translated the Book of Mormon.  I know we have a loving Heavenly Father who wants us to CHOOSE to come back to him.  Simply put - just keep the commandments and repent. That's it!  Great huh! :)   Have a fabulous week! Love you all! 

Hermana Bonny

8/3/15 Week 72

This week was a very splendid week full of bliss and joy and lots of other great stuff!      I LOOOOOVVVVVEEEEE Denton!  Why must all good things be so short lived?  sniff sniff.  Anyways,  I've got some good missionary stories to tell so I guess I will just get right to it… 

So we are working with an investigator named I, and she hasn't really been progressing, but she had a some health problems that made it so she had to be hospitalized for a few days :(   We were surprised to get  a call from her on Wednesday morning that she wanted us to come over that night AND that she wanted a priesthood blessing!! Wo.  We freaked out a little!  So that night we brought the Elders and Hermano Huot with us and wow, they gave the most beautiful blessing! The spirit literally filled the room.  Then, 2 days later we stopped by to see how she was doing and (not to my surprise) she was up and about, cooking dinner, and said she feels tons better!  Priesthood  power works:)  Then Sunday she came to church and loved it! 

Yesterday was Fast Sunday in case you forgot.  If you did, then repent I guess.   I'm not gonna lie, fast Sundays have been pretty rough for me as a missionary.  I can't just take a nap until dinner!  But as I've progressed through my mission I've actually started almost looking forward to them (I said almost!) because it seems like every fast Sunday, we always have some sort of miracle.  Yesterday was no exception! So we had been specifically fasting to find people who are prepared to accept and act upon our message.  Our area really needs it right now.  So  it was about 6pm and our cita had canceled, so we decided to go contact some potentials in this trailer park.  yippee. The first house we knock on, this cute little pregnant lady smiles and says "Oh sisters come on in!"  we both gave each other a look of "no way!"  then went in and sat down.  Turn out the person's house we knocked on was Di, this lady that the elders had contacted who was super interested.  They had given us the referral and set up a cita for us Sunday night at 7.  We ended up calling her and rescheduling because we had already made plans Sunday night, but God knows how to get the work done that he wants!  He led us right to her Sunday night at 7, after our other appt canceled.   Does that make sense?  It was super cool because on the strength of our fast, our faith, and our hard work, God led us to this super prepared  person.

Other than that, this week we had interviews with President Ames, in our apartment! Weird, but awesome! We made friends with this awesome ex-convict at the food bank, and I even went back to good ole Lewisville with my amazing STL sister Taele.  haha that was also weird!  it was an amazing week!  sigh......I really love being a missionary.   I think the more time I spend out here the more it hits me how much God  loves each and every one of us.  Don't ever forget that! Love you! 

Hermana bonny

I LOVE THESE KIDS!

7/28/15 Week 71

Sooo.....I've arrived in Denton - Yippee!  I miss Lewisville! I can't really decide how I feel!  I love both places but man after 6 months a place really starts to feel like home.  But anyways I've got a lot of stories to tell so I'm going to stop whining!  

Right now in Denton we only have several investigators, so we've been doing lots of finding these past few days...yay.....#trailerknocking..   We were out walking in this trailer park and we saw this kid kind of hiding behind his truck. I honestly almost missed him! We stopped and just started to talk to him, turns out he's 20 years old and has been recently thinking a lot about God. He said that he even has been thinking about coming to see what our church is all about! He feels like he has a lot that he just needs to get off his chest and he feels like church is where he needs to start. yyaaayyy! We ended up talking with him for 45 minutes! And here's the best part:  yesterday he actually came to YSA and loved it! The Elders are now starting to teach him! I know I've told a hundred stories like this, but living them never gets old:)

My awesome new comp, Hna Whipple has now been indoctrinated to essential missionary activity of Fro-yo'ing

Our 1 main investigator is named H.  She is married to this less-active named Jorge ( that I actually randomly met a few times in Lewisville while he was selling pest-control! haha small world!  Weston, he wants you to work for him..) Anyways she has been taking lessons for FOREVER! This past week we went over and talked with her about baptism. She said that she hasn't felt like she has ever gotten an answer about it. We started talking a little more about it, and our exchange Hermana Hernandez told her the PERFECT thing! She told a story about how she didn't get an answer from God until she just acted, and then after she felt the confirmation that it was right. I think that really impacted her, because after that she said "yeah, I feel that maybe I just need to do it and with faith." hallelujah!  if only everyone could have that point of view!  We set a date with her for sept 5th (sniff sniff, 3 days after I go...but oh well:) I don't really know her well yet, but I know she was feeling the spirit. 

This thing was a big as my hand!

Setting a bap date was a pretty fantastic way to start off things here:)  Other than that, this week we went sing tracting (my favorite),  bought ghetto ice cream from a scary Mexican paletero (really just so we could start talking to him about the gospel..but now I can check that off my bucket list), we a delicious brisket dinner with bishop and committed his son-in-law to take the lessons, and helped for like 5 hours at a clothing swap where I got a fabulous present for my dearest sister who is going to be 14 this week!:):) SHOUT OUT TO KATE!  LOOOVE YOU!  (Hehe hope you like your present) umm what else....we prayed allot, read a lot of great scriptures, talked to lots of strangers. Solid week.  The church is true! Love yall!

Hermana Bonny

7/22/15 Week 70

This is my last first week of transfers!  Man that makes me feel so trunky! All I talk about is getting married, going to the spa, and how excited I am to watch Spider-Man 2.....haha did I get ya?? ;) Actually the work is suddenly EXPLODING in Lewisville!! I already wrote about David's baptism date right? Ya and this week he came to watch a baptism and we gave him a church tour.  He said he felt super good and loved the whole thing!  Everything has just been going so smooth with him, it honestly kind of has me worried.  There is always some sort of a problem.   Not to be a rain cloud...but I've been out here long enough to know that there's always something.  Keep him in y'all's prayers por favor! :)

Oh ya! Transfer news! ....drum roll....I'm going.......to......Denton!!!! Ahh!!  What the?? Yep I get to go die alone:(  I'm seriously going to miss Lewisville sooo freakin much! My comp is sister Whimple and funny story  - she is actually one of the sisters in our training leader stewardship and I just went on exchanges with her on Saturday!  I was joking the whole time about us being comps.  I guess I jinxed it.   As sad as I am to be leaving Lewisville, the great thing about missions is that you always know that God is really in charge of what's going on.  That still doesn't mean we always like it...;)

Could someone please photoshop my eyes open...POR FAVOR!

This week...let's see what else cool happened....we did service at a horse farm, we scared the snot out our zone leaders, we've been goingaround to the other wards in the stake and introducing ourselves, and we've already gotten 3 referrals out of it!  Yaaaa!  Well, sorry this
email is kinda short! Got to pack!! :)

I always have time for this:
I know with all my heart that I have a loving Father in Heaven who knows me. He wants me to succeed.  He feels my joy and sadness, and all he wants is my eternal happiness.  I know that he sent his son Jesus Christ, my brother, to the earth to atone for all my sins. His love for me is also perfect. He is the best big brother we could ever ask for, because all that’s needed for us to be happy has already been done. Now it's just up to us to choose it. I know that when we choose to follow God and his commandments, we are literally choosing happiness. Satan really only has as much power as we give him. I love this gospel.  I can't imagine living this life without knowing about the plan of salvation!  I know who I am,  I know where I'm going, and most importantly I know how to get there.  I know I Book of Mormon is the word of God, I know Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration, I know Thomas S Monson is the living prophet today!  Oh how I love this work!   Hermana Bonny