No tengo tiempo para escribir ):

Okay, so today was pretty much the BEST day. We went to downtown Mexico City, or Centro or Zocalo and just had the best day ever. We took one of those tour buses around the city and were able to see a lot of things and enjoy some good food that wasn't Mexican! I love my Mexican food, like a lot, but it doesn't have as much diversity as what I've been used too. 

Moral of the story is that Mexico City is amazing! My comp told me, it is to Mexico what New York and DC are to us in the Estados Unidos. We got to ride the Metro, which is a subway and is super, super crowded (so crowded that at certain parts they have cars for guys and cars for girl to avoid people being touched ways that they don't want to be--we certainly appreciate that) but so fun! I really love taking the metro haha. It's exciting!

And downtown Mexico City is AMAZING. It is so different from where we live. There is a lot of money there. We went to a mall and it may be the nicest mall I've ever been in. It has super, super high class, expensive stores. And since everything is in pesos, it looks like everything costs a million bucks (: The culture is amazing too! Because the Spanish colonized the area, there are a lot of European style buildings. My district took lots of pictures, since I don't have my camera, and they promised to send them to you all. 

Thanks for your love and support. I love life here. I'm going to have to write a really great letter this next week. The temple was also dedicated last week! We saw all 3 rededication sessions and I got a different answer about a different thing in every session! It was great. I'll share some spiritual insights next week.

Thanks again!

Love, 

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts (I've started telling people my name is "wolferst" because no one can say it haha. Good stuff)

A picture at the Temple Open House with Elder Young.

Cleaning the refrigerator is serious business!

Our family was baptized (:

September 7, 2015

¡Hola!

This week was soo great! 

First big news is that the family that we have been teaching got baptized!! I seriously love these people so much. We call them "our family" because we are teaching them but also because they are so kind to us they are like family.

They have such strong testimonies and so much faith. They are a great example to me. Here`s a humorous example of how much faith they have:

The other night we were eating dinner with this family and the dad asked me something about Thanksgiving and how it was celebrated at my house. I started telling him about how we have all the family over and we have turkey and sweet potatoes and SO MANY pies and all that good stuff and he was like "so you do celebrate thanksgiving, then?" and I was like "yes..." So we got it all straightened out that mormons do indeed celebrate holidays. Then he and his wife were giving us a ride back to our apt. because it was getting close to the time we needed to be home and they asked us if, after they are baptized, they can listen to music and dance. He's all like "I really like jazz, is that okay? I'll still get baptized, but I really like jazz." Of course, we reassured him that that was fine! There are sometimes rumors about what mormons can and can't do haha. And, as missionaries, we aren't the best examples of what normal life as a member of the church is like. But it was amazing to see that they had testimonies strong enough that even if they had been asked to give up those things, they would have. 

An Hermana I live with had similar faith this past week. She really didn't feel like shaving her legs, but she decided she would because in the MTC they told the sisters that they needed to shave and she decided she would do anything that was asked of her, no matter how small or petty it seemed. We`re all tested by different things (; Haha, this is just to remind you all that we are still having fun around here. 

But anyway, their baptisimal service was wonderful! I got to give a short thought about baptism and it was so cool to testify to your investigators that in literally 5 minutes their sins would be washed clean. It was a really neat experience. The other AMAZING thing was that our Mission President was the one who baptized the mom and dad! He had come with us to one of our first lessons with this family and they really had a connection with him and asked us if he would be the one to baptize them. My comp and I weren't sure if he could or would, but when we asked him he said "of course!" That was amazing to see. I've been blessed with the BEST and most loving mission president in the world. He takes great care of us.

Our time working at the temple came to a close this week. I have loved working in the temple, but I'm excited for the temple to be open once again! We are hoping to do some family history with the family we just baptized and take them to the temple to do baptisms for the dead! The blessings of the temple are so amazing and I'm so excited that the members around here will have them once again. 

Part of being a missionary here is working with less actives, as well as people who are investigating the church. The church here in Mexico is the same as the church as the one I attended back home, and I had that testified to me so strongly when I watched our investigators be baptized and confirmed by the same priesthood authority. But the church is younger and we struggle with having a good portion of the ward be less active. The temple has been so great for this though! When our less actives walk through the temple you can tell that they want to go through for real, and to do that you have to be active. With the temple having been closed, I think people didn't feel a huge drive to have a temple recommend, but now that the temple is about to open, we are hoping that a lot of people will renew their goal to make it to the temple. 

People ask me about the food a lot, so I will tell you about one weird thing they eat here. It's called chicharron and it's fried pìg fat. Like, straight pig fat thrown in boiling oil. As if it wasn't unhealthy enough, right? People LOVE it here and it's sold on every street, at least. It tastes alright, but I can't get over what it is and how bad it must be for me, so I don't really eat it. And sometimes people soak it in salsa sauce stuff and make it all soggy and gross and that is not my favorite thing. I've only been given that once and the trick is just to eat it really fast. I've been really lucky, though. Some other american missionaries from my generation had cow stomach a couple weeks ago and they described it as rubbery shag carpet that tasted like what you would imagine a stomach would taste like. I'm counting my blessings (; Overall, the food is really good and not nearly as spicy as I would have thought! 

Love you all! Talk to you next week!

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

At the baptism

The baptism

Sister Wong and me.

Love these ladies!

President Stutznegger and the Hermanas.

The best week so far!!

¡Hola!

Wow... what a cool week. And a very spiritual one. Probably the best of my mission so far.

Working in the temple has been an amazing experience, but it was really hard going from teaching 10 lessons a day to teaching about 3. With our temple schedule we wake up at 5:30 am, get ready and head to the church. We don't even have time to study. Not the scriptures, and definitely not language. We try to read on the combi but the ride is so bouncy it's really easy to get sick. I can't remember ever having been car sick in all of my life before this thing... but it's something special. We all stagger out and practically kiss the ground when we arrive at the temple each morning. After working at the temple we get home around 4 or 4:30 and eat. Then we procelyte until 8:30. I try to sneak in some personal study when we get home at night, but it can't replace the hours of time that we used to dedicate to studying each morning.

Needless to say, I was ready for something super spiritually uplifting. And Heavenly Father really nailed the timing, because this past week Elder D. Todd Christofferson came to visit us! It was so amazing! It was also the first time I saw the whole mission together! THERE ARE SO MANY OF US. Sometimes it feels like my district are the only ones who share the crazy, amazing, and sometimes difficult experience of being a missionary here, and it was an amazing strength to talk with the other missionaries. Anyway, the meeting with Elder Christofferson was in the form of a Q&A. We had known this before hand and had the opportunity to fast about questions we could ask. I didn't physically ask a question during the meeting, but I definitely had questions answered. It was all in Spanish and I swear, this weird thing always happens where I feel like I understood everything, or at least 80% or so, and then other missionaries start talking about "when he said this...." and I wont remember him having said that! But Spanish is definitely coming, although it is a process. 

After the meeting, we took a mission picture with the Apostle. Lets just say I'm very happy to have that forever (: But after the picture we were lingering and talking to other missionaries for a moment and who comes up to me and starts rubbing my back and asking how I am?! Elder Christofferson. I really don't think I've ever been so starstruck in my life. One of the Elder's from my MTC district would always talk about great moments in his life where "he knew he was doing something right" and this was one of those moments for me (: 

A lot of times on the mission, I have had experiences with people where we have felt like God lead us to them and like everything was going to go perfectly, but then we haven't been able to find them again or they haven't ended up deciding to accept the gospel. A few weeks back I wrote about a golden investigator who isn't really progressing now. Those things are tough, and a reminder that people have their agency. I fully believe that God does lead us to people, even if they don't accept the gospel. He allowed us to give them the chance to learn more and he allowed us to plant a seed.

However, sometimes we have the opportunity to see people change their lives and let the gospel in and that is just the most amazing thing. The joy we feel is unlike any other. We have been teaching a family that was found by the Hermanas that taught English class in our area before Hermana Wong and I came. For some reason, they weren't visited for a while. About 4 or 5 weeks ago, we ran into them and were able to set up an appointment. And they are SO PREPARED.

We've been meeting with them for a while now and they have been attending church and gaining more faith and the desire to be baptized. We were planning on waiting at least 2 more weeks for them to be baptized, but with the temple being rededicated so soon we are looking into having them baptized early and interviewed for temple recommends so that the can attend the rededication. There's a rule here that someone needs to attend church 5 times before being baptized, and they are only on their 4th week, so we aren't totally positive, but they have a ton of faith so we are hopeful.

One thing that they have really taught my companion and me is that the gospel really does bless families. They have a really great family, but they aren't without their problems. However, everytime we meet with them we feel more and more love and unity. It's been a miraculous change! Last night we had planned to teach about fasting and tithing, but the spirit lead us to teach about how the gospel blesses families again. It was amazing to remember our first lesson with them (a great lesson and we could tell they were very receptive) and to compare it to our lesson last night. Their testimony that the gospel helps their family is so strong. It was a moment where I felt that God had sent me to this mission not because these people needed me, but because I needed to see this. 

ALSO, we got to take our investigators to the temple open house this past week! We were already at the temple because we had been working there all morning, but when we saw a bus FULL of the investigators from the misisonaries in our district, words cannot express the joy! We went to the visitors center and watched a tear jerking movie about families and then got to take the tour through the temple! It was so amazing to get to see our investigators there and imagine them in a year or so, dressed in white, making eternal covenants in those very rooms. Ahhh the temple is so great and everyone can feel how special it is.

As always, we are having a blast here. The Hermanas I live with and I have been studying Moses a bunch and the other day Hermana Lambert was getting all excited telling me that she thinks she knows what the "secret combinations of Lemek" are. She has taught me a lot about how to study the scriptures. She is truly someone who feasts upon the words of Christ and reads to learn and to understand. I'm so grateful to be surrounded by such great people who teach me so much. I'm also really grateful for all the people in my life before my mission. I love you all so much. Thanks mom and dad for teaching me so much about the gospel and being such a strength in my life. I've met people from all over the world and from various family backgrounds and I've come to see I couldn't have wished for anything better. So thank you so much (: 

I hope life is exciting and fun there! Keep me posted! 

Love,

Aubriana

Mexico, Mexico City Southeast Missionaries

Our District

A full mission picture!! We were all together because.... Elder Christofferson, yes, THE Elder Christofferson came to visit our mission!!!!!!

My roommates at the moment.

In the Reception Tent at the Open House.

In the combi!

This sweet lady from Riverton, UT was vacationing in Mexico and came to the Mexico City Temple Open House. She snapped a picture of us and sent it to our moms!