To Become...

July 25, 2016

Hello!!!

My comp and I have been transferred to Ixtapaluca and it is sooooooo fun!!! After having been in the city for a year, it is super cool to be in a place like this. It isn't super, super rural, but it kinda has a small town feel. I love it!

I am starting to realize that going home is really going to happen. I have just over 4 months left on my mission! For a while it has felt like my mission is my life and I wasn't ever going back, especially since all of the sister missionaries came at the same time and we've all had our entire missions in front of us. I hadn't seen a sister missionary go home until this past cycle. When I saw the sister leave, it made it all the more real - that this is really going to end one day. The good thing is that while I might have thought more about going home lately, I really have the desire to work super hard in this time that I have left. One of my favorite quotes is:

From such teachings we conclude that the Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts - what we have done. It is an acknowledgement of the final effect of our acts and thoughts - what we have become. It is not enough for anyone to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.

This is my goal in my mission and in life. To become. Sometimes we may start to think that we have done a lot so we can rest a little more at the end of our mission. but that's not how the mission or life works. We need to continually strive to become. Our actions are important, not just because they are good works, but because the very act of doing those good works, helps us to become the person our Heavenly Father intends us to be. I truly want to apply this principle and end my mission as the best missionary I have been in my whole mission. It's what the Lord deserves. Now that I speak fluent Spanish and know how to work effectively, He deserves that I use all the knowledge and testimony that I have gained to serve Him.

I love you all!

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

My companion, Hermana Jonapa.

 Hermana Jonapa, Hermana Gonzalez, and me

At the temple

Isn't she the cutest?!

Ixtapaluca!

I don't always feel so gigantic here... but when I see the pictures we take,
I realize how large I am compared to the people here.

Adorable Mexican children

Surprise party for my 21st birthday. We had a pizza per companionship (we ate it all!)  and 4 cakes (A LOT of cake).

Vale la Pena

July 15, 2016

Hi family!

Quick update.... 

Things have been very busy and I haven't had a lot of time to write. These past few weeks have been good, but not without their challenges. 

The hardest thing has been that I got really sick.... again. I had basically perfect health all my mission until these last 2 or 3 months and I've gotten sick quite a few times. This last episode was pretty miserable... I don't know if we ate something or if I got some stomach bug or what.... but I was up all night just crazy sick. It was the first time in my mission that I thought "I just want to go home." That's normally not something I would share... that I had a rough time or that I thought about wanting to be home... but I share it because it makes the experiences that followed more meaningful. 

After that bad night, I started to get better. By Sunday I was still feeling a little sick, but well enough to go to church and work. However, I was still just feeling a little sad. It was the first time I had gotten really frustrated in my mission because we had had some investigators drop us or decide not to get baptized, all while I had been so sick, and at the same time I was training a new missionary and trying to set her up to have the best, most successful mission possible. I was just feeling a lot of pressure, and maybe like I was failing a little. But that Sunday, as I sat in church thinking about all of this, I looked around at the investigators around us. I watched as they took the sacrament and thought about how I was helping them to progress towards making covenants with God. Just then, the Castillo Family from my first ward walked in. They were my first baptisms in the mission and had come to our services here in Neza to see me. I couldn't help but cry. I just felt like God was telling me that what I was doing was worth it. That He knew that it hasn't always been easy for me, but that He has always been helping me and He appreciates my work. 

The Lord brings us down so He can build us up. He tests us so He can make us stronger. 

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

This scripture has become one of my favorites. The Lord has given us weaknesses. God needed to remind me that this isn't my work and that I can't do this on my own. That I need him. And He is changing me. I have grown so much and I understand the gospel so much better. I want to bare you my testimony that this is the true church. I know what I am doing is worth it. In Spanish the expression, "it's worth it" is said "vale la pena" -- which litterally translates to "it's worth the pain." And it is. The mission is not easy. But it's worth the pain.

But in general, things are really good here. I'm healthy, we do have some progressing investigators and my companion is great. I hardly even feel like I'm training because she is such a great support. And I love being here. I really do. And I live with 3 Latina missioneras, which is just a BLAST! Imagine sassy latin ladies talking super fast in spanish... that's my life and it's so fun. (:

One crazy thing is that tomorrow I turn 21 which means that I will have never seen my family in person while having been 20 years old! wierdddd....

I love you all so much. Thank you for all your love and support. Have an awesome week.

Love,

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

Pictures

July 4, 2016

My ex-comp had her birthday!

My new companion, Hermana Jonapa

It gets cold in the house! We have a portable heater under the blanket. My comp is from a really hot part of Mexico, so she's dying.

Visitor Center

Member Missionary Work

June 27, 2016

This week was awesome... but a little exhausting! 

I got super lucky... the missionary I'm training (Hermana Jonapá from Chiapas, Mexico) IS AMAZING!!! I love her so much. She is kind, funny, and a great missionary, with the desire to serve and work hard. She's going to do amazing things in her mission. 

And I am still here in the same ward... but we had our area split in half. Half the area to work in would sound easier and less stressful, but half the area means half of the investigators that we had before. Which means that we focus even more on finding than normal. Which means a lot of contacting - knocking doors, and the like. There were a couple times that we ran into a member in the street and I was just like "hey... can you take 5 minutes and present us to your neighbors?" We always try to get the members to help us... but I was never so direct until I became so desperate to find new, quality investigators like I was this past week. And we had some members who were totally awesome and took us to meet their friends and neighbors in the moment and we found a few really cool new investigators. I INVITE YOU ALL TO HELP THE MISSIONARIES. You would never believe the difference it makes to show up at the door with a member with you. When we go alone, the truth is that knocking doors is not all that effective. But when we show up with a member we are almost always invited in, or if they really are busy they invite us back. But seriously, members are key.

There´s this huge collection of apartment buildings in our area and we were knocking doors and talking with people over there, and at one point I wasn't thinking and I knocked the Relief Society President's door.... so then I panicked because... well, it's a little awkward to knock a members door when you weren't planning to visit them, but even more awkward, was that I had actually asked her if we could visit so that I could present my new companion to her and she had told me not that day so I was going to be super embarrassed if we showed up uninvited... so I told my comp we had to run. She was a little confused... But those split second decisions are sometimes a little funny.

We get really attached to the members and investigators and this week we found out that one of our investigators had his cancer come back ): He had stopped going to church and wasn't working very much and he just told us it was because of his diabetes... but we didn't realize until this week that it was something more serious. It made me really sad. Hopefully we can keep teaching him and help him to complete all the things that we should do in this life.

We were teaching this same investigator and we were telling him, like we always do with those we teach, that he needed to pray to know if what we were teaching was true. And he told us that he would pray but he also told us he already felt that it was and that he "didn't think we would come from so far away to lie to [him]." It was so cool to hear that from someone. A lot of people don't feel that way, but the truth is that the mission is only special because the message we are sharing is true. I know that this is the true church and I know that God loves us and wants us to come back to live with Him and that He gave us His Son to make it possible. Not a doubt in my mind.

I love you all! Hope you have a great week! 

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts