HOLA,
This week was fun. Tuesday we went on exchanges cause the district leader had to go to some conference thing, so Elder Nordyke went with Elder Lyon and then Elder Rhett and I were together...we had some fun and enseñared some personas hah this week we picked up some new investigators, one we met tracting in a trailer park and is named Denise. We haven't been able to see her yet though, cause she´s always gone. We met her on Thursday...so, hopefully we can catch her again sometime this week, she seemed pretty interested. We pretty much gave her the first lesson at her doorstep. I talked about the Book of Mormon...IN SPANISH of course and it went just fantastic :) We also visited this guy Yoyo who is one of our progressing investigators. He´s awesome. We went over to his house the other night and watched conference talks. He missed conference and felt super bad so he called us and asked if we could bring our notes over, but then we told him he could still watch the talks, so he was happy, so we watched some of my favorite ones, like the one from the priesthood session, the guy that talked about wearing sandals instead of shoes, and also watched the one that the prophet gave. It was cool, we watched them off his PS3 off youtube :P kiiiiiida awesome. and we gave him one of those kid Book of Mormons cause he doesn't really like reading and isn't that good at it. We also told he and his wife about how they can put all the scriptures on their ipods, so I might be helping them out with that this week. Guadalupe, the lady that got baptized last week, is doing great. She´s trying to start her own business selling tamales, so we tried to help her out a little and went to get her a phone and help her try to sort things out. Marta is awesome, she's the 15 year old that got baptized. We went over to her house the other day and her friend was there and she had us teach her a lesson and we committed her friend to baptism. It's sweeeeet, Marta is such a good member missionary. Marta is hilarious too, she´s Guadalupe daughter. Everyone is like connected that we talk to. Guadalupe is Alma's mom, and Martas mom, and Pidas mom, Guadalupe also has a son Luis, who is best friends with Yoyo, and ya...its just crazy hahah its all connected, and its so cool cause just because of one baptism in that family, the gospel has been brought into the lives of all these people are connected to them. That's why just ONE baptism is so important, because through that one can come so many more. It's awesome. I read about the allegory of the olive tree on Saturday in Jacob cause I just finished 2 Nephi FINALLY. It's taken me so long cause I´ve been reading so many different things at the same time. But I think it's chapter 5 that talks about the allegory of the olive tree, which I happen to know ALL about cause I had to write that 14 page essay on it for my Book of Mormon class in college. That's a sweet chapter...and the end of 2 Nephi is super, super awesome and I loooooooove it... Elder Rhett and I have been reading the Book of Mormon together in Spanish for practice, its really helping. I've been reading A LOT in Spanish and can read pretty fast now, hahah i just gotta work on understanding it now :) but I read ALL the pamphlets in Spanish, one a day, like the first day I read the restoration, then the plan of salvation, then the gospel of Jesus Christ, then the other ones the other days. It takes a while but it really helps and I´m understanding them more and more. It's really fun to read in Spanish too haha :P and someone told me that one of the prophets said that if, as a missionary, you read the Book of Mormon in your language (Spanish for me), all the way though, that you will be fluent by the time you finish it. So it would be wonderful if someone could find WHERE it says that, hah cause I don't know if that's true...but if it is, I´m going to start reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish as fast as I can and I´ve already started, but how COOL would that be if I finished the whole thing! Then I´d be fluent, cause its a PROMISE from the prophet:) So i´m gonna do that:) oh and I forgot to say something, so when we found Denise we were walking so we walked back to her trailer with her, and we asked her how old she though we all were, and guess what....she thought I WAS THE OLDEST!!! hahahaha she thought the other two were twenty two and nineteen and then said i looked like i was 24!! ;) I guess it's just cause I look so old and mature and stuff.....yaaaaa.....probably... thanks for all the letters and stuff. I got 11 letters on Friday. I think they were all forwards from the mission home, but it was sweet, and I got the juice and and pants and other stuff:) I LOVE candy, especially starburst, thanks for the candy :) I got some awesome uncooked tortillas and I make quesidillas every day and b-fast burritos and I throw in that healthy cereal stuff with the eggs, its like honey bunches of oats, it tastes SOOOOOOOOOOOo good!!!! and the people make the best tacos here!!! and i´m branching out;P i eat peppers now and all kinds of weird stuff hahaha!! its great though, i love it!! :) I cant wait for this week though, we´ve pulled in some new investigators, so we´re going to be teaching a lot more, so I´ll get to practice my Spanish lessons more ..a lot of people speak English so we teach a lot in English, but we have some good Spanish investigators too :) It's really fun though here, I love it. Our investigators are AWESOME and the new people we have I think will be good and I can't wait to try to find some new people this week...it's like a big awesome game of hide and go seek, its way fun.... i have been loooooving reading my Book of Mormon though in the morning. I sit outside and do it. It's freezing now in the morning, not like way way cold, but even if i´m wearing my sweats and sweatshirt AND my rain jacket I´m freezing hahah I wish I would have kept that thermal thing ;P but once the sun comes up a little it's way nice and peaceful and quiet and it smells like Park City, it's just THAT smell....I love it....its awesome...so, I do all my studying outside. I´ve been working on my master outlines too, which is where I kinda do an overview of all the lessons and write three sentences for each principle then a question that makes people think, then a couple scriptures. We´re all supposed to do it as missionaries. It really helps. Studying is my favorite part of the day :) I love learning more, it just gets better and better. The Book of Mormon is SO super duper totally awesome and I learn so much every time I read. It's so helpful and we can apply EVERYTHING in it to our lives. I love it, it's totally the word of God, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve this mission and serve others and teach them the gospel. It's been SUCH a great experience so far and I look forward to another 20 months....cause I reached my 4 month mark on the ninth hahahah I can't wait to go to Mexico, hopefully that´ll be SOOOOOON!!!! Pray for my visa pleeeeeease :) Thanks for everything, I love you all!!
LOVE,
Elder Bertha
Oh, I totally forgot to talk about how cool church is here....k so it's like half and half. There is just one sacrament meeting but some of the talks are in Spanish and some are in English....but there is always someone translating. It's pretty cool. and some people say one sentence in Spanish, then one in English. It helps with the Espanol too. The priesthood lesson we had was cool too. They separate for priesthood, English and Spanish, and I went to the Spanish one, and it was super good. I didn't understand ALL of it, but the parts I could understand were awesome and there were a lot of good questions people had. It was a sweet lesson. The Mexican people in the ward are totally awesome, they're super nice. I had to introduce myself in English AND in Spanish. That was pretty cool :P After church we visited some people and visited Alma cause she leaves for CA next week, which is a bummer cause she's the best.
I wanted to include a little about what I read at the end of 2 Nephi. It was super good, and I pretty much highlighted the whole thing, but a couple things stood out to me, and this is just the end of it, cause 2 Nephi is so long. You know how people say the Isaiah part of 2 Nephi is like the hardest part to get through, I didn't even think about that when I was reading it and those chapters I found super interesting hahaha I loved those ones.... So, here are some of the scriptures in 2 Nephi that I liked: 25:26, 27:14, 26:13 (I loved when it said in this one scripture "he will manifest himself to all those who believe"), 26:24, 27:23 is suuuuper good. 2 Nephi talks about so many good topics, and covers so much doctrine. I love the parts about the apostasy and about faith, I especially love in 29 when it talks about other writings and stuff like in 29:7 "7 Know ye not that there are more anations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the bisles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the cearth beneath; and I bring forth my dword unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?" I copied and pasted this cause its just so awesome haha, but its so neat how he says that he will bring forth His word to all the nations of the earth. So it's so cool to think that there are probably still records out there that people just haven't found yet. I love when it talks about the mysteries of God in these last chapters. Pretty much from 29 on is absolutely amazing. I love chapter 31:9,10, then 16 when it talks about enduring to the end, and 20 where it says we have to press forward, 21....and then really the rest, and I think I really did highlight everything in 32 and 33, so ya'll should read those two for sure :)))) yup that's pretty much it :P This weeks gonna be awesome :)
