Living the Dream: My Heart is truly full of Gratitude

Feliz dia de las gracias! I have so many things to be thankful for! Where do I even begin?

Last week we had zone conference and Elder Baxter of the Seventy came. The conference was SOO powerful. Elder Baxter and his wife are from Scotland. Tiff would have loved their accents. He is very bold and blunt but I think it was what we all needed. They spoke to us about teaching with the spirit and really focusing on listening to the spirit. I loved when President Lewis said, "It doesn't matter what they know, it matters what they feel." I received a lot of great revelation for myself and our investigators. President also asked us to do a few new things. Read everyday from Preach My Gospel, The Book of Mormon and sing to investigators. Elder Baxter shared with us so many promises will come from just opening our mouths. Elder Baxter also read a lot from D&C 31 and he told us how we are angels on earth. Think of that powerful thought and promise. We have been called, but after his explanation it has an ever deeper meaning to me. After Zone Conference, we as sister training leaders and zone leaders, got to have a little meeting with President and Sister Lewis and Elder and Sister Baxter. We went over what we learned and what we are going to implement to help those we help lead and teach. At the close of our meeting, we kneeled in prayer and it was INCREDIBLE. The spirit was so strong as Elder Baxter pronounced all these blessings on us in the room and over the entire mission. I wish I could have written every single word down. I do remember that he blessed us with more power in teaching, accelerated work in our area, every missionary to see a baptism, etc. Words can't even describe.

Lets start with the 3 intercambios we had this week. Sister Gutierrez (she is an English speaking missionary from Mexico) came into Spanish work with me for a day and we had the best time ever. We just spoke Spanish all day, she was so happy to have a day of work in her native language. We did some service for the Timalach's and Magdalena (mother) finally prayed out loud. Hermana Hurley also came up to Lodi with me, she has been out for a few weeks and is doing awesome and we had a fun short day. I also went down to Stockton with Hermana Dando and we had an incredible day full of miracles. For companionship study we went over what we learned from zone conference (since we are in different zones) and decided to try to apply it. We had the coolest experience ever. We were out finding and knocked on a door to this lady Helen. The first thing that came out of my mouth was, "You are a child of God". Then Hermana Dando said we wanted to sing her a song. So just right there on her doorstep we sang "I am a Child of God". The spirit was so strong and she was a quiet, then just as we finished she started crying. She said she really needed to hear that message from her Heavenly Father. She told us her faith and hope had been dwindling. She told her son had just killed himself a few days before and it has been really hard. The Spirit was so strong as we testified of the plan of salvation and the spirit we felt. WOW. I have never experienced anything like that before. She was so receptive and has been prepared. She is English so they will have to pass her off to the English missionaries. The power of intercambios!

I was able to go back to East Sac this week to see Roxana get baptized! Oh it was an incredible night. She is Ana's sister, remember when I was teaching her? Her prayers are incredible, she talks to God like they are best friends. It was such a blessing to sit next to Hermana Skimore and watch Roxana enter the waters of baptism. I was also asked to give a talk on baptism. It was so fun to see the Woodlands, Hermana Cardullo, and all the ward members.

Out of time now, but I hope you all have the best week ever. Eat lots of Turkey, I don't know what we will be eating today :) LOVE YOU!!!