Muriendo de frio!

January 25, 2016

Hello (:

This past weekend, since I last wrote, was good! 

Firstly, we did an activity in our ward where we went to visit menos activos. Ironically, a lot of the members that showed up to help us were menos activos... probably didn't want us to have to visit them (: One of our investigators even came to help us out! And it just so happened that one of the menos activos on the list that he had was his uncle! Unfortunately, his uncle passed away 9 years ago (part of the point of the activity was to clean the ward lists)... but it was pretty cool to discover that his uncle was a member of the church! 

Also... we'd been "muriendo de frio" (dying of cold) but it's started to get warm again. These past couple weeks we've been bundling up with our tights and coats (I wore the coat I said I'd never wear here...) It hasn't even been that cold... maybe like 50 degrees, but that's freezing in comparison to the consistent 70-80 degrees that we have! 

But we've been happy. We've found some cool people and we've put out a lot of goals for baptism. So hopefully some of these people will progress! We took a family to church yesterday and they were so happy because they have been so worried about their 13 year old son having good friends and he met so many nice kids and the amazing members here fellowshipped them so well and invited him to hang out with them and play soccer tomorrow!!! Ahhh if the missionaries bring people to church in our home ward, don't forget to fellowship them! Seriously, it makes all the difference. If people feel comfortable and happy, they can feel the spirit way better than if they feel lonely. But after that the dad told us that they were going to be at church every 8 days ((: Weird Spanish thing that they do, "every 8 days" is the most common way to say weekly, and every 15 days is biweekly. Strange, huh?

I've started teaching English classes here! One thing that I like to do is sing a hymn or primary song in English. I really like English classes because they attract people that might say no to us initially, as well as to the invitation to come to church, and yet, once they are inside we pray and sing a hymn, which totally brings the spirit and gets them interested in the message we share. On Saturday we sang "I Am a Child of God". I can't even describe how special it is to hear people sing that song. I appreciate the words of that song so much more now. I really have a testimony that we are all children of God. If we remember that always, it really changes how we treat people. 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Wolferts

The "Salt Lake City" of Mexico City

January 22,  2016

Hello!!!!

Wow.... It's been a while since I updated you all on everything! Things have just been crazy busy here... but crazy good!

My companion is Hermana Llaguarima! She is just amazing! We have seen some really cool things happen in this area together.

We learned some pretty cool lessons this week. Firstly, we watched a worldwide missionary broadcast entitled "teach repentance and baptize converts." I LOVED it. The point was that we need to teach repentance better and that repentance is critical. It was a good reminder because sometimes we teach like: HAVE FAITH (repent) and BE BAPTIZED!!!! And we don't really focus on the fact that repentance is essential before baptism and that repentance is a complete change of heart. It also made me think about my own repentance habits. Repentance is more than confessing our sins to our Heavenly Father. We have to change our behavior and our heart too.

We also learned that the Lord's will is what really counts. A lot of times when I think of taking the Lord's will into consideration, I think of those moments when I want to find people to teach or I want someone to get baptized, and it doesn't happen either because of the agency of other people or because it wasn't the Lord's will. But this week I learned that this works the other way too. My comp and I had decided to drop an investigator that didn't seem to be progressing. WE decided that it wasn't his time. But then this investigator sought us out this week and told us about some of the changes he's made in his life and how he is going to start coming to church every week. We were so humbled as we realized that we neglected to even pray about the decision to stop teaching him. Who were WE to decide that he wasn't going to progress without even consulting the Lord? With this story in mind I extend to you the invitation to invite people to hear the gospel and to pray about who is ready. I see SO many people who tell us that none of their friends will want to listen, and then we contact their friends and they accept us. It's not about what we think. The Lord is preparing EVERYONE.

Hermana Llaguarima and I set up an activity for the sisters where we focused on the positive things in our areas and in our companions. There is a lot of power in recognizing the positive and ignoring the negative. To prepare for this activity, Hermana L. and I looked for the good things in our ward and in our area. We really are blessed to be in a strong ward that wants to work. We decided that our ward was the "Salt Lake" of the stake and this zone and that we are blessed to work here. And it's not because this ward is perfect. I can tell you that it is nothing like good old Mountain Vistas (oh how I love our home ward). But with a positive perspective and by focusing on the blessings we have, we have become so happy and excited to work here. So whatever your challenge is now, ignore all the negative things and see only the positives. The same with people. In the mission, you don't want to be the comp who always criticizes, and it's not effective to do so. Miracles start to happen when you complement your companion. When you tell your comp that you love how they contact, they want to contact more. When you tell them how great they taught a part of a lesson, they have more confidence. The same thing applies at home, I'm sure (:

I hope you know that I have a testimony of this church and of this work. I was reading in Preach my Gospel and a certain part really stuck out to me. It said that the purpose of a missionary isn't to just baptize to have more members in the church or even to help people live better lives, but to help people to make it to the celestial kingdom. No one else can give that to people but us. No other religion, no other self help program... this gospel is the ONLY way. Wow... how that makes me want to talk to everyone. Missionary work is love. I feel so grateful to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord in this great work. This church is true. The Book of Mormon is true. I see it change lives in fast motion here in the field as people begin to read it for the first time. 

Well... we have to head out and save some souls (: I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

families can be together forever...

January 4, 2016

Hi Family!

So, as promised, I need to update you a bit on last week! I got to see a family that I had been working with be baptized! The dad was baptized on Saturday, and he received the priesthood and then baptized his son, niece, and sister on Sunday!

The coolest thing was that we didn't expect the sister to get baptized. She's had a testimony for a while now, but she hasn't wanted to get baptized because her parents have both passed away and were Catholic, and she felt like she would be betraying them. 

Well, on Saturday, she brought her daughter in for her baptisimal interview. During the interview, we were sitting with this sister, teaching her a little and talking about the baptism. She, once again, said that she wanted to get baptized and that her daughter really wanted her to get baptized too. She doesn't like to feel super pressured, but I felt prompted to talk about when she wanted to get baptized and how she could be an example to her daughter. At first she said that she wanted to do it eventually, but she still didn't know when. Then we talked about the importance of goals and not waiting to make these covenants. Then she said maybe the next week. I was actually super happy with that because I thought she would want to wait longer, so I settled down and said okay. But about 5 minutes later, she said "actually, tomorrow is better. I want to be baptized with my daughter and be an example to her." So we sent her into an interview about 15 minutes later, and she was baptized the next day!

Everything went pretty perfectly.... except we had to bucket out the water of the font for the baptism on Saturday (it wasn't draining fast enough) to try to fill it with water a little bit warmer... but as usual, the warm water is super tempermental. So it was pretty much freezing. We got it a little warmer on Sunday, but it was still decidedly cold. All in all, it was beautiful! I've been lucky to see success with families. Seeing one person baptized is AMAZING, but seeing a whole family baptized and knowing that they will keep each other strong and be able to be together forever is SUPER AMAZING. 

This week I found out I have changes. I'm pretty much positive I'll be going to Nesa! It should be cool! With only 20 sisters, and a little information, we can usually guess pretty well what's going to happen. Every Saturday night before changes, we get a phone call that tells us if we will be transferred, and if we need to bring our suitcases with us or not. If we don't bring out suitcases, it means we are staying in the zone; if we do, we are leaving the zone. The next Sunday morning is always filled with phone calls to find out who has what... and then we make predictions. We even wrote all our predictions out. Haha, it's like march madness, but for the mission.

After 4 transfers and not being changed for nearly 6 months, in this area, it's pretty hard to leave some of the people. Sunday after church was filled with photo ops and tears, saying goodbye is hard! I've come to love the people here and it's going to be hard to leave them. But I'm excited to see a new part of the mission and find the people that the Lord is preparing over there. 

I love you all. Have a wonderful week! Remember that the church is true, and that prayers work. My comp and I were reflecting on all the prayers we've said that have been answered, and there have been many. I don't think I mentioned this, but the family that was baptized were former investigators of Hermana Wong's and mine. To see them decide to get baptized after all this time is a miracle and I can't tell you how many times I've prayed for them. Also, we saw a couple of less actives that we have prayed and prayed for that have become active again, including 2 families that have goals to be sealed. SOOO COOL. The gospel is not just about going to church, my friends. It is about making covenants that will last forever and getting to be together forever, There is nothing that makes a missionary happier than to hear that people want to get sealed!!!

Okay, I love you all so much (: Have a great week. 

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

Hermana Lambert and I are fabulous :)

"change is good"

My comp bought me this shirt because I have changes, haha... (: 

We Roam With The Spirit...

December 21, 2015

I can't even tell you how great this week was! 

First of all, we just got back from visiting the pyramids at Teotihuacan! They are sooo cool. Also, they are situated farther out of the city, so we were driving on roads with trees and open spaces. There were moments that I felt like I could be back in Utah because it randomly started to look so much like home. While I was there, I had a really cool experience! It's a tourist destination, so tons of people from all over the world were there. When we were walking over to the pyramid, we saw an older lady that was struggling with the stairs. It was pretty obvious she wasn't Mexican, so we asked her if she needed help in English. She responded and as we were talking to her, I realized pretty quickly from her accent, that she was from Germany. I asked her where she was from, and sure enough, Germany. I told her that my grandpa was from Germany and she was so delighted! Then I asked what part of Germany she was from (thinking the whole time, what if she says Wuppertal?!), and she replied... Wuppertal! I was so excited and told her that my Grandpa was from Wuppertal. She didn't seem to recognize Opa`s name, but I was just so excited to get to talk to someone from his home town. Of course, I contacted her and invited her to go to a church service and seek out the missionaries when she gets home (: 

This past week we were helping our recent converts to find all the family names that they could to take to the temple. Fortunately, they had some records like birth and death certificates and other things that we were looking through to find some missing information. We came across a registro de fallecimiento (I don't know what these are called in English... it's a record about their death)  and it had some pretty funny information. One of the things that needed to be filled in, in the record, was time and place of death. They litterally wrote, "Yesterday, in her house." Haha....

AND, this past Saturday, President took me, my comp Hna Martinez and ex comp Hna Wong to the temple to take our recent converts to do baptisms for the dead for the first time, to do the work for the names we found!! I can't express what it feels like to see these sweet new members all dressed in white, in the temple. It's something really really special. Probably what it'll feel like to see them in the Celestial Kingdom one day. 

And then later that day we got to see the baptism of our investigator, Guillermo! Hermana Wong and I started teaching his sister back at the beginning of my mission, and even though she has a testimony that the church is true, she hasn't decided to join the church because she feels like she will be betraying her father who was Catholic and has passed away. But her brothers have decided to join the church now! It was pretty cool to go from baptizing the dead in the morning to baptizing the living in the afternoon (:

One of my new hobbies is translating things directly from Spanish to English. The thing that makes learning a new language hard is just that things don't translate litterally. I'm starting to get the hang of all that and I'm learning the phrases and the more common ways to say things, so I've started trying to see what they would be like if people said them literally, in English. Well there's this one word "andar" that is usually translated "to walk" or something.... but the thing is that it's not just to walk. You can andar on a bicycle, or a car, or by foot, or in a specific building.... so some Elders decided that it meant "to roam." So the other day we were contacting and just finding some really solid people to teach and my companion said "andamos con el espiritu." And it just made me happy because all I could think is that this translates to "we roam with the spirit." (: And I couldn't be happier to roam the streets of Mexico City with the Spirit on my side. 

Also, I was reading in the Book of Mormon the other day and I found a scripture that proves that we are supposed to listen to our big sibblings. Nathan, Trevin, and Sara, see below:

 10 And I command you to take it upon you to counsel 

with your elder brothers in your undertakings; for behold,

thou art in thy youth, and ye stand in need to be nourished by your brothers. And give heed to their counsel.

Haha, studying the scriptures is fun. I highly recommend it. 

Also.... we get to skype on Friday! Whattt. It came so fast! I'll update you on everything else then!

Love you all! Merry Christmas!!! Feliz Navidad (;

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

Family photo with my family Christmas morning

The Week I Wasn't a Missionary...

December 14, 2015

Okay... So I am still a missionary, but this week was super strange!

On Tuesday I went out to the zone conference in Los Reyes to sing with a few other missionaries. We sang "The First Noel" (but in Spanish) in a 4 part harmony. It was really fun (: Afterwards we went out to lunch with President and finally made our way back to our area and started working in the late afternoon.

On Wednesday we had our own zone conference and it didn't take as much time, but we still didn't get to work until 2 pm.

Thursday was the one normal day! YAY!

Friday was the day before the day of the Virgin Mary. We were given explicit directions to go home at 3 PM, no exceptions. And to stay home for all of Friday afternoon, night, and then ALL of Saturday.

It might sound exciting to be given permission to not work, but when all you do is work, you get really antsy when you have nothing to do. The 4 of us were pacing back and forth, making crafts, studying our scriptures like crazy, studying Spanish and English respectively, watching movies from the Church, and at the end of all that, we realized that we still had like 5 hours to kill. So we gave each other makeovers. I don't have my camera cord, but Hermana Lambert turned me into a zombie. It was pretty cool. 

And then Sunday we had the dedication of the Mexico, Tijuana temple! Our mission president encouraged us to go to all 3 sessions, and when we learned that Elder Oaks and President Uchtdorf were the members of the 12 and First Presidency that were going to come, we weren't about to ignore the counsel of our mission president. So we went! 

And then today we had the Christmas party! Can I just brag about how I am in the best mission with the best mission president ever. He is so righteous and so in tune with the Spirit, and he inspires us to be better. 

But, after a super exciting week, I'm ready to hit the pavement and be with our investigators again! I can't wait! We've seen miracles this last transfer. Yesterday the bishop told us that they wished we would never have changes and we could have these 4 missionaries in the ward forever. That's a HUGE compliment as a missionary. You aren't always going to be recognized for your hard work in the mission or in life, but it's pretty cool to have someone see it. 

Speaking of changes, I don't know if you have heard the chisme (gossip), but they are adding a huge stake to our mission! And it has areas for sisters! It's called Itztapaluca. I'm not sure what it's like, but we know it has mountains! 

Also, it's been brought to our attention that Christmas isn't all that far away... and apparently we get to skype or something?? (; We are planning on skyping (as of now) at about 6pm (Mexico City time, so 5pm there, I think) on Christmas Day. I'm kinda nervous! I haven't talked to you all in a while, what if I just fall apart!? Prep some questions in case I'm awkward (; 

Thanks for all your love. I really do love you all and think about you all the time. Be good, have family prayer and scripture study, and be nice to everyone. (:

Love, 

Hermana Wolferts

Singing "The First Noel" for the Los Reyes Zone Conference with a few other missionaries

Me and Hermana Emily Jones

At our own Zone Conference

Merry Christmas! Let's have a Christmas party!!!

I love Prez and Sis Stutz!

Arm wrestling with Hermana Erin Jones

Look at that intense concentration...

For the championship...

And the winner is... Hermana Lambert!!!

Hermana Wong and me in a "Stick Pull" contest

Chocolates or Spiders?

December 7, 2015

Hi! How are ya'll?

No, I'm not serving in Texas haha.

Well, things are good here in Mexico! We are definitely starting to get into the Christmas swing! Last night we had a Christmas event for The First Presidency Christmas Devotional! The missionaries stood outside the church singing Christmas carols and contacting and dragging people into the church for a tour and to watch the devotional! We got some good references (: And the devotional was great! I kinda want to watch it in English... I understand everything now but some things just don't hold the same power for me when they aren't in my native language... like I can't appreciate exactly HOW the general authority phrased something, I only know the general significance.

We are planning on having a few other activities like this soon! I'm excited! December is tough because everyone is busy and working all the time, but people are also more receptive. 

I had the opportunity to do some service activities this past week! First of all, we have some recent converts who were preparing for a chocolate exposition and had to make a TON of chocolates. So we went over for an hour and helped them out! I had some major flashbacks of helping my mommy make cupcakes before the mish! I was using this activity to focus on developing the Christ-like attribute of patience. These detail oriented type things really try my patience and stress me out! It's so pathetic because it's chocolate... meanwhile my comp was at heaven with this activity. She's super artsy and a graphic design major, so this was right up her alley! But overall, it was really fun!

Also, we went by to help another recent convert clean her little front yardish area. It was just totally overgrown with weeds and she's a young mom and we knew she didn't have time to take care of it herself. So we went and started wacking at these weeds. Well, there was a little bit of trash that I started to pull out of the weeds, when all of the sudden I saw a GIANT spider. This thing was HUGE. It's body was maybe like the length of my thumb? And Mexico City isn't the most habitable place for wildlife so I just assume that anything that lives here is tough and possibly poisonous. So naturally my hands instantly turned into butter. I was still pulling out trash but also experiencing mild panic attacks everytime one of the weeds touched me. I felt like I was playing that pick up sticks game as I reached through the weeds to grab the trash because I didn't want to rustle everything around and make the spider move to where I couldn't see it!

Eventually, all the trash was out and we were ready to wack the weeds! But as we started out in the corner where I originally saw the giant spìder, a ton of these spiders started pouring out! Some of them were smaller... but not by much. My comp was laughing so hard at me because I started freaking out and talking in English. All the words I used were mission approved, but they were in English and the poor lady whose house it was was soo confused. She went and got insecticide and we sprayed them... I feel bad hoping they all died, but I really hope they all died. After that she told us that one morning the week before one of her children had woken up with one of those spiders on their forehead. ughhhhh *chills*

Needless to say, the chocolate service activity won favorite of the week.

But the real highlight was Diego's baptism! Earlier in my mission, we baptized the rest of his family, but he wasn't ready and didn't have the desire quite yet. But recently we went back to see him, and he said he was ready and so we set a date! About a week ago we were talking to his mom and realized she didn't know that he had decided to be baptized! (Teenage boys don't tell their mom's anything here, either.) She was so excited and emotional!

When we got to the church on Saturday to set up for the baptism, we realized that none of the lights in the baptisimal font or the room attached to the font worked! And this baptism was scheduled for 6, which is 6:30 Mexican time, and it's already dark at that time, this time of year. So that was a problem. The witnesses have to see if he goes all the way under! Well we got creative and used some of the Christmas lights to light the font and room a bit. And it was super pretty! His sister was complaining that her baptism wasn't as pretty as his haha (; 

I love you all so much! Have an AMAZING week!

Hermana Wolferts

ps. Mom! First I love you! Second, I got the dress! It's dang cute! I love it! And so did everyone else. I wore it yesterday and got lots of compliments. It's the best I've looked my whole mission. Thank you sooo much!

Me and my companion Hermana Martinez.

Me and Hermana Emily Jones

The Elders putting up the lights for Diego's baptism

Look how beautiful our solution of light for Diego's baptism turned out!

Our recent convert who just recieved the Aaronic Priesthood and got to baptize his son!! Their family is the best. Start practicing Spanish so you can talk to them!

After the baptism

Our Christmas tree, haha!

Our apartment gets cold! We look like this every morning! Okayyy maybe it's only like 60 degrees....

About to cut Hermana Jones hair! Getting some good practice... Should've paid more attention, Mom (;

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 30, 2015

Hey family!

Ahh this week was a happy one (: 

We found sooo many new, very prepared people to teach. There is this one family that is just remarkable. They have been searching for the Gospel, but they just didn't know where to find it. We started explaining the Restoration and how Jesus Christ established his Church and how we need to have the same church in our life. And then the father said, "Well that church doesn't exist anymore. People have changed the Bible and interpreted things differently and they don't have the authority to do that."--Basically exactly what happened in the Great Apostasy! So then we taught him the Restoration and how that church HAS been restored and he was just so excited! Previously, we were super bummed because we had started teaching his wife earlier in the week, and she had told us that she was going to be at church and she didn't go. But, if she had, we wouldn't have come by at the time when her husband was home and who knows if we ever would have started teaching him! So it was a little miracle disguised as a disappointment. There are a lot of those in life. 

We also have several other investigators who are progressing really well. And we get to see how the gospel can really change lives. The biggest differences are in the families. Families that were once filled with contention and resentment are suddenly filled with love. It's really really cool to see. 

We also got to have a good ol' Thanksgiving dinner with President and Hermana Stutz! They are so good to us. It was sooo yummy. I love Mexican food, but I really do love our American food too. Also, I feel like I really nailed Thanksgiving this year. I got to eat a ton and didn't even feel terribly full after! The mission has just been amazing training for this. We usually eat a light breakfast and then a huge meal at like 2 or 3. This manner of eating has trained my stomach really well to stretch for a Thanksgiving-like meal every day. So yeah, pretty much nailed it (; Mom, you are going to have to help me heal my metabolism when I get home. I am gonna need sooo many green smoothies! 

Tell Uncle Brian and Aunt Angie thanks a billion for the sweet Christmas package! I love it! I have the service manger all set up and put up the decorations. I also colored the coloring page already! Coloring has become very destressing for me... I've been coloring things in a lot... you do what you can. I think it started when I lost my music and didn't have that anymore. I got a lot of my music back when I was at President's house, though! But seriously, thank them for me. It was really really nice of them to think of me! Tell them I love them!

You guys all look so good! Everyone is looking so tall! It's going to be so weird to come home to big sibblings. Also, I'll have you know that EVERY time I show pictures of my family to people they all RAVE about how gorgeous you all are! And it's true. You guys are really cute. 

I love you all. Have an amazing week!

Love,

Hermana Wolferts

Happy thanksgiving Mom and Dad!! President is so happy to let us talk to you... He practically wants us to FaceTime... Maybe not, but I'll talk to you really soon! I love you so much and am so grateful for you(:

Hey look! You are joining us for Thanksgiving!

Mom has been a little teary-eyed missing our cherished daughter today, but so grateful knowing she is where she should be!

Picture of the Hermanas on Thanksgiving in front of Mission home.

President Stutznegger and a few Elders cooked Thanksgiving dinner for all of the Sisters.

Chillin' with Hermanas Martinez, Lambert and Wong.

Ahhh... The benefits of being in a mission with almost no Sisters for Thanksgiving.

The Wolferts side of the family enjoying the time together back in my home,
and also missing those of us who aren't there with them.

The cousins!!! Yep... I'm in there too.