Monday, December 13, 2010
Arriving Home December 21st
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.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
3/8/10
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 =-)
Love,
Hermana Alvey =-)
3/1/10
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 =)
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
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
Love,
Hermana Alvey
2/17/10
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 =-)
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
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 =-)
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
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
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
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