FYI....

Buenos dias mi familia!

Como estan? I hope that you had a great week! This week flew by so quickly I think that I may have gotten a little bit of whip-lash! I don't know where all of the time seems to be going. On Saturday I hit my 17 month mark. How crazy is that?! Hermana Buttars wanted to celebrate my last month mark on the mission so she made us all pancakes for breakfast and put the number 17 on mine. One of our roommates is new on the mission and is about to hit her one month mark so she was stunned that people actually make it that far. I feel the same way! I still feel like I have 9 months or so. It goes by so quickly! It doesn't help that we got our flight itinerary, invitations for our departing devotional etc. I am still the only Spanish missionary going home this transfer so that will be fun.

Nothing super exciting happened this week. Hermana Buttars and I were discussing what we would email home and there wasn't too much to say. We got to eat something new and exciting! On Friday we had Nepalis. I thought it was just soup with the giant chile in it but it ended up being cactus. Let me tell you, cactus is weird! It has a rubbery texture but it actually isn't gross. The soup that we had it in wasn't very good but now I can officially say that I have had Cactus! 

On Saturday we had dinner with a family in our ward and they gave us these amazing little tacos with carne asada and mozzarella cheese. The only bad part was that they gave us three so that was a lot of food. They were so good!!! However, after that we had another dinner with Aileen and her family because they were celebrating their birthdays and they fed us a ton as well. I was so extremely full. I decided that it is much more manageable to be hungry than super duper full. We practically had to roll home and Hermana  Buttars ended up throwing up. Poor thing. Good thing the  food was delicious!

The best part about this week was yesterday. After church we had Marisol have her baptismal interview! She was so nervous. Marisol is Melissa's sister, the girl who got baptized over conference weekend. She is getting baptized the 8th of November and we are excited for her! She passed her interview and is getting ready. We should also have Aileen's baptism the 14th. She finally told her mom yesterday so it is official! yay! This is going to be amazing. Also, the Pineda family will be getting sealed on the 14th as well so this next month is going to be the best month ever. 

I am so grateful to be here right now. I love you all so very much and your love and concern and support for me means the world. I could not have done this without all of you! If there is anything that I can do for you please let me know!

Love always,

Hermanita Morey. 

P.S. In our church building we have the Spanish ward and the Tongan ward. After Marisol's interview someone in the tongan ward came up and started talking to us. She was a little weird but she mentioned how she had a friend going to Texas on their mission speaking Mexican.... FYI don't ever call it Mexican they get really offended if you say that!!!! 

Loyal, Strong and True....

Buenos Dias!!

Uff. I am TIRED!! This has been a crazy busy week and then today the departing sister missionaries and companions went on a hike with Sister Van Cott. It was a hard hike but today was a wonderful day to do it because it is a little chilly! The hike was stunningly beautiful though. I didn't know Redlands could be so pretty! I had a blast though.

So, I understand you a lot more mom! My ear had been hurting a little bit for the last couple days and then on Saturday night I Felt like something was crawling out of my ear and then all of this liquid just started coming out. It made it completely impossible to hear from my left ear. It also hurt a lot! On Sunday during church it got so bad that I texted the mission nurse and she has me to go a members home in Redlands who are ear specialists. She was shocked because you couldn't even see my eardrum it was so full of liquid. Needless to say... I have an ear infection and I had to go get medicine. I am feeling better now but I still can't hear out of that ear. I most,y pretend like I understand what people are saying. It makes things difficult!

This week was really good though. First off.... Transfers. We were slightly frustrated because we didn't find out about transfers until Tuesday after studies. However, I get to stay here with Hermana Buttars!! We are so happy! Also, this transfer we have a temple trip, zone conferences, my departing temple trip, and interviews. It is going to be super busy because we are also having several baptisms! I am so happy. We have a ton of investigators right now. Last week we had 16 commit to come to church! Granted only two of them came... But those two people are amazing! The Ward was really friendly and they enjoyed it. There is just a ton of work to be done.

I am really happy. Even though some days are harder than others. We are seeing such amazing things happening here. So many people ready to hear the gospel and almost more work than we can handle! I would so much rather have this problem than not having anyone. I have always joked around with my companions saying that someday we will have too many investigators and we won't know what to do with them... I was right! It almost felt like all at once everyone started praying for the missionaries. We aren't the only ones seeing this success but our font is booked every weekend next month! The work of the Lord is rolling forward and "the labor is great and the laborers are few but if we're united we all things can do." I am so grateful to be a part of this work right now. I can't think of anything else better!

Thank you all for your support, love, and prayers. They mean the world to me! You are all amazing and I love you all with all of my heart!

Keep moving forward and trust In The Lord!

Love,

Hermana Morey

P.S. My ponderizing scripture of the week was 3 Nephi 21:29 "And they shall go out from all nations; and they shall not go in haste, never by flight, for I Will go before them, smith the father, and I will be their rearward."

Just in case you were wondering, guess who got accepted to BYU starting in January?!

And thus begins the last transfer...

Dearest Family and friends,

Hello! I can't believe that this month is already flying by. I think the weirdest thing that happened was that all of the people that I went to Bolivia with, went home. I have to admit that was really hard.

From the moment I met them I was excited to have the going home adventure with them! However, I am so grateful that I still have six weeks to work. Don't worry, I am really busy here.

So, today starts my final transfer. That is weird. The hard thing is that starting today we won't find out about transfers until tomorrow morning. So, I have no idea where I will be for the next six weeks.

Hermana Buttars and I are praying really hard to be able to stay companions here for my past transfer. We just work really well together and this area needs us. I guess I will let you know next week.

I am going to start with the creepy story of the week. Yesterday at 3pm we were trying to visit some investigators and they weren't home.

As we walked back to the car a man, about 50 years old, stops by our car and asks for a dollar. We are very poor missionaries who don't have money so we told him that but we offered him a Plan of Salvation Pamphlet, like very good Hermanas. He then asked if we were North Americans and when we answered yes he said "I want to marry you."

Umm... Eww. Hermana Buttars looked taken aback but I Just told him that as missionaries we teach people about Christ and tries to give him the pamphlet. He then turned to me and asked if I hadn't heard him and repeated himself. After that he interrupted my annoyed response by asking me if I liked his face while he ran his finger down his face like a tear. Now we were super creeped out and we could start to smell the drugs that he was on. I just said Nope! And we hoped in our car and drove away quickly. It was funny because Hermana Buttars got in the seat behind me since I was driving. We got away safely through!

Now, for the miracle. Last night we had a lesson with Aileen. She is the one who went to conference and her sister doesn't want her to get baptized. We spent an abnormally large amount of time at their house yesterday. We had dinner with her mom, she was asleep, then her moms twin stopped by, after Lupita, the mom left, the twin talked to us for an hour. That was a very long time! But she left and we were finally able to talk to Aileen alone. She asked if yesterday was fat Sunday, which it was, and was super sad that she had missed it. You would have through the she had missed a test! We asked why she hadn't gone and she had been planning on returning from an early morning home in time but they ended up getting back right as church ended. She was very sad at that point. We started to ask her what was going on. She has received so many answers to her prayers and we pointed out every single one. She hadn't realized that she had received to many huge answers. As we pointed them out she admitted that she knew this was all true but what should she do about her family who would hate her if she got baptized? This is the amazing part. I literally felt this glow come over me. It was honestly like I sat back and someone else took control of my body and spoke through me. The promised blessings were real and they were there. They were exactly what she needed to hear and the spirit was stronger than anything ask have ever felt in my life. You could almost feel the Angels on the room pleading with her to accept the promises.

She did. I can not even describe the feeling in the room. It was so powerful. I know that Aileen is going to change the lives of hundreds of people and that she just needs to be brave enough to take the first step. She picked a baptismal date for November 14th. We will be fasting and praying with her for the strength to keep moving forward.

I am so excited about that!!

Other than that we just had a really good week. Melissa got confirmed yesterday as well. Oh what joy this work brings!! It was Marisol's birthday on the 9th so we stopped by to give her a card and they gave us some homemade blueberry lemon cake. It was wonderful.

I have seen so many tender mercies of the lord this week. I can't even put them in one email. I just hope you understand how amazing this work is. I hope and pray that I will get to stay here for another transfer with Hermana Buttars. I will let you know!

I hope you have an amazing week!! I love you all so much!

Love,

Hermana Clarissa Morey

P.s. My ponderizing scripture from last week was D&C 10:5 what was yours!?

God Loves Us

Buenos dias!! Como estan?

How was your week?! This past week was crazy busy because about a million and half things got done! I can't believe how quickly it flew by. Fortunately this week I have a little more time to tell you what happened! Now, where to begin?

I guess all of the busyness started on Thursday. We had MLC which is the Leadership council with President up in Highland! We were there almost all day but it was a really good conference. We talked a lot about using Facebook! We talked about good ways to use Facebook through the members, for example, having them share a scripture on Facebook. create an event for our activities and invite friends, add our investigators as friends on Facebook, etc. This will be good right now because everyone can share their favorite conference quotes! The hardest part will be picking their favorites! We also talked a lot about having the faith to achieve our goals. Last week we were challenged to have every companionship have a baptism in November and December. Then we talked about raising our vision, troubling the Lord through prayer, and having the faith to have it happen! It was so good and we all left really excited to achieve these goals.

On Friday we had exchanges again. Fortunately it was our last one! I felt like we were always on exchanges! This time I was with Hermana Jaynes in my area. She is from Riverton, and we actually have apparently been super close by each other our whole lives but have never met until the mission. She was super fun to be around and I laughed harder than I have in a long time. It was a blast! Not only was it fun but we learned so much! In her area they are struggling with their relationships with the members. Apparently due to some really rude missionaries their ward doesn't like them! How sad is that? They are the sweetest sisters. We talked for a long time about how to fix that relationship and finding people to teach. we both learned so much and I was so grateful for the chance to work with her.

On Saturday, conference started. What a blessing! How does each conference get better? I seriously saw miracles worked during that conference. My questions were definitely answered and the spirit showed me ways that I need to improve so that I can progress! I just want to spend another two days and just watch them again. One of the miracles that we saw was with Aileen and Natalie. I don't know if I mentioned this but they got to go to the Saturday afternoon session of conference. The night before they left we stopped by and read the scriptures with them. We read 1 Nephi chapter 15. We talked about recieving answers to your prayers, etc. It was a good lession. However, the miracle happened at conference on Saturday. While they were there James B. Martino read the exact same verse in 1 Nephi 15 and talked about conversion, recieving answers to our prayers etc. It was amazing. We both felt the overwhelming feeling that they will be getting baptized soon. I wanted to cry I was so happy!!!

Another thing wonderful that happened was we got Melissa and Marisol to come to conference. After the last session yesterday Melissa was baptized. Can you talk about amazing?! The spirit was so extremely strong. She was sad earlier this week because her mom had said that she couldn't come and I prayed all week that her mom would show up. She did. She took a late lunch break so that she could be there for her daughter. She isn't a member but the pride and happiness on her face as she watched Melissa baptized was enough to melt any heart. It was amazing. Now Marisol her sister said that she wants to get baptized in November! After we cleaned up the baptism Hermana Buttars and I were just overwhelmed by the love that Heavenly Father has shown to us and to all of his children. Since yesterday was a stunningly beautiful rainy day we went outside and just sat for a moment with our hearts full of gratitude.

I hope that you all had an amazing week and that you were also able to feel the strength and the spirit that comes from conference. I know that now comes the hard part of applying it but we can do it. :) God loves us. He is our father. He wants us to progress and to have joy! I hope that spirit stay with you this week and remember that you are in my prayers.

Love,

Hermanita Morey

P.S. Thank you so much for the letters of love and encouragement that I recieved this week. I am so grateful for every single one of you!!!

Conference

Hello family and friends!

I am so sorry but I really don't have much time to write but I will do my best to get it all in even though this will be short.

This week was hard. Hard, but amazing. I think that one reason that it was so hard was that sometimes Satan just wants us to feel like we aren't doing anything and that we are failures. I am working so hard on getting over that and I can tell that Heavenly Father is answering my prayers. Even with Women's conference! I love how they talked about how we are daughters of God and that he loves us! These are things that we know, but we just needed to be reminded sometimes.

Another way that the Lord helped me this week was through exchanges! This week we went on Exchanges with the Rialto 3rd Hermanas. Usually we don't go back to old areas on exchanges but I had a strong feeling that I need to go. So, I went and worked with Hermana Orr. It turns out that night we had dinner with the Pineda family. If you don't remember them they were my first converts and one of my favorite families in the world! As we went to dinner I heard someone yell "HEY! What are you doing here!" I looked up to see Isreal and he turned and yelled in the house "Morey's back!" Everyone came running outside and they were so happy to see me! But I was even happier to see them! Yayis just had a baby and I got to meet her! While we were talking at dinner I learned that Israel just got the Melchizedek Priesthood, he is serving in the Young Mens, the baby got blessed in the church, and they are all preparing to be sealed as a family in November. I was so overwhelmed with the spirit. To see the amazing changes that they have made and to know that God let me be there to be a part of it. I was so extremely happy. They are also making sure that I will be there for their sealing and said that they would drive all the way down to Indio to pick me up for it. I am so blessed.  

Also, Melissa is getting baptized this week! I will tell you more about that next week.

I am so sorry but I am out of time! I am so excited for conference and hope that you all get a chance to watch it! Also, if you want to get excited for it watch the video "Why conference matters." I love it and I am super excited!!

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Morey