I'm gonna be a mom (;

June 20, 2016

OKAY....

SO first of all, 

I'M GONNA BE A MOM!! 

Which means that I'm going to train a new missionary!! I'm so excited.

Secondly, I may have had the most exciting week of my mission.

The week started out normal, but on Tuesday we had the meeting for those who are going to train. My companion and I are both training so we went, and it was awesome. It's so fun to remember how excited one is at the beginning of the mission, and how dedicated one is to being obedient and finding and teaching people. I am so excited to be with a new missionary! And that same day, we picked up Hermana Wong as a 3rd companion, for a few days, for some logistical reasons. She hung out with us until Thursday, and it was so fun to be with her again because she was MY trainer. And it was cool to see how we had both grown, that we can teach better (that I can speak Spanish now), and to just be with someone who taught me so much. 

Then on Friday, I went on divisions with Hermana Wong to her area in Ixtapaluca. That's the part of the mission that was just added in January. It was my first time out there and WOW it looks so different than the city! Where she's at, there are still a lot of houses and people (there are some parts that are just little tiny villages), but the whole feel is just different. It's like a suburb instead of the city. It was so fun to get to see the area and work out there. And I really did like the missionaries and the ward. Although I was only there for 3 days, everyone was just sooo nice to me and I felt right at home. I think the members got used to me quickly too because the bishop asked me to give a talk in sacrament meeting! I'm not sure if he didn't understand that I wasn't staying or what, but it was pretty cool to be able to make a mark in a ward that I only served in for 3 days. And the work there is really great. They have some awesome investigators and I'm really excited for them!

So, last night I finally got back to our area, and then this morning we got up at 4:45 am, to be able to go with President and Hermana Stutznegger to the CCM to pick up the new missionaries. I'm currently in the mission office hanging out with them and helping them get prepped to go into the field. I still don't know which one is going to be my trainee... but all the sisters seem so sweet and I'm so excited to get to work with one of them!

But basically we have been all over the place and it's been crazy, but it's been fun! And it's been spiritual. I've felt the Spirit so strong this week and it just fills me with a joy that I can't explain. The work is hard, but it's so rewarding. I feel so grateful that God gave me the opportunity to serve a mission. I love the work. 

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

I don't have my thing to upload pics, but I'll send some next week!!

Trials and Triumphs

June 13, 2016

HELLO!!!

Wow... I have like a million and one things to share with you all (:

These last 2 weeks were a little bit difficult. The Lord just really put my companion and I through a ton of challenges. Three weeks ago we had many investigators with baptismal dates set and we had tons of people who were coming to church and progressing and we were healthy and happy and then all of the sudden... 

Our investigators started telling us that they didn't want to get baptized... even those, who came to church every week and had been excited for their baptism. We had someone who was supposed to get baptized two weeks ago who completely disappeared! (We still haven't found him). On top of that, my companion and I both got really sick... for like a week. One of the things that is the hardest for missionaries is getting over physical weakness. My companion was SO sick at one point, but did not want to rest, and I forced her to take a nap because the poor thing is so little, I felt like she was going to pass out or something if she kept going. But it really is a bummer to lose time to do the work. 

But I want to testify that God teaches us perfectly. He brings us down so that He can lift us up. Those weeks were humbling. I really realized that this is not my work. It doesn't matter if I am working hard because it's not about me or what I'm doing. I need the Lord's help. It drove me to pray harder and more consistently for our investigators than ever before. We even fasted while deathly ill (exaggeration, don't worry) because we needed Heavenly Father's help so badly. 

And at the end, the Lord still blessed us. We got to see 2 of our investigators baptized on Saturday! They are both so great and so prepared. One of them, we had dropped because he never went to church and then one Sunday, he showed up at church all by himself and hasn't missed a Sunday since! The other investigator was also pretty golden. When we first met her, she told us that she is super Catholic and believes in her saints and isn't going to change. But we invited her to pray, and when we returned for the second lesson, she was totally different! She told us that she felt an incredible peace after we left, and that when she did pray, she knew that this is something good. She accepted her baptismal date after that first lesson and the rest was history. Maybe we won't see all the baptisms this cycle that we thought we would as a companionship... but I learned some of the most powerful lessons, during this time in my mission.

Also, a member of the ward here died this past week. It was so strange because we had seen him a few days before and he was fine. He was a little older, but only in like his early 70s. It happened really fast. I was sad, as we had visited him quite a bit because he had been a less active member, until he was reactivated by the missionaries about a year ago and he has just loved the missionaries ever since! But, after he died, I really felt the Spirit testify that this life is not "IT". Also I got to see his son who was also less active, but who had recently returned to church with his dad, share his testimony and talk about how he is only going to be stronger and work harder.

And... last monday I went and saw some of my converts from my first area! It was so cool to see them, and even cooler to see that they are still going to church and have the temple as their goal! 

"Mormon Coffee"???

Although, I almost flipped out at one of them because they offered me coffee... But it turns out they found this type of coffee that's made from wheat... it's apparently been nicknamed Mormon coffee, but I hadn't heard of it before. They convinced me to try it  (not until after I had thoroughly read the ingredients list)... so now I know how coffee tastes... more or less. I'm going to be honest, I didn't like it all that much. 

Alsooooo we bought pants..... yikes. They are still being tailored... so I'm not actually wearing them yet, but we are picking them up this week. 

Love you all (: Have a great week!

Hermana Wolferts

We love these dinosaurs because they look like us when we knock a door and someone opens (:

My comp and I with 2 seventies

Puppies!!!

I am still coloring in my coloring book. :-)

My District Leader

The cookie looking thing is an Argentine cookie. It is super good! You'd like it mom, it's dark chocolate (: 

The Gospel is What Makes Us Happy

May 30, 2016

¡HOLA!

I'm,so sad.... I was basically done writing a great email and then something happened and it got deleted!!! ahhhhhhhh.

Well... I was saying that this week was great!! 

One thing that I love about being a missionary is that people love us... even those who don't want to accept our message recognize us as servants of the Lord with something special. We have one investigator who told us that he loves meeting with us and that he thinks of us everyday because he doesn't consider himself a happy person, but when he meets with us, he feels genuinely happy. In one of our lessons he fell over because he laughed so hard... and it's not because my companion and I are so funny or anything, but because just having the spirit there in that room made him happier than he had felt in a long time. The other day we went to see another one of our investigators who is a mechanic. We had planned to do service fixing cars with him so we put on pants and everything to go and help him but when we got there he told us that he wanted us to share a message with him instead. Well as missionaries we don't usually complain about that, but we were like "we put pants on and everything just to help you!!!" But he explained that our message helps him more than someone who helps him with the cars. And it's so true. The gospel helps us more than anything else. Also he made me laugh because he was fixing one of the cars with scotch tape. He was litterally taping a car together. 

The reverse is also true. We have one investigator who recently told us that he needs more time to get baptized, like a year. We told him we would keep seeing him every once in a while, but because he has been so busy, we hadn't seen him in 2 weeks until we went to take him a cat the other day (he has a mouse problem and a lady in our ward was trying to give a cat away so we gave it to him.) It was so strange to see him again. When we first met him he was always all stressed out and a little on edge but as we met with him he became happier and more fun to be around. But after not meeting with him for just a few weeks he had gone back to be the person he was before. 

I know that the gospel is what makes us happy. I have seen countless evidences of this. It's true. I see it in the missionaries too. Some of the missionaries have had incredibly difficult trials, but as they've lived the gospel and just kept working in the work of the Lord, they've been able to stay positive and happy! 

We also had interviews with president yesterday, which always helps me (: He is so inspired. When we prayed together he said something that was so true and that struck me... something that no one knows.... and wow I just felt the Spirit testify to me that he is called of God to be my Mission President and that he has the keys to help me and the other missionaries in this mission.

ALSO, have you heard the rumors that we are going to be wearing pants??? ahhhhhhhh que loco. There is a mosquito with a nasty virus and a lot of the sister missionaries started to get sick so they decided to give us permission to wear dress pants to protect us better. But I'm kinda nervous. I've grown really fond of skirts... and it's so weird to think about wearing pants in general...

Well, that's it for this week. I'm going to try to send this really quickly before I delete it again. Love you all (:

Hermana Wolferts

Saturday was a weird day because I don't think we had any normal lessons... we only did service!! Which was really good and it's a great way to show people that we really try to live like Christ. One thing we did was wash a GIANT dog. You can't see it that well because it was moving aroung like crazy, but it's huge.

I Didn't Come to Mexico Just to Learn Spanish

May 16, 2016

Hola!

This week was good, but not without it's trials. We had a few investigators that were really cool - one with a baptisimal date for this Saturday, tell us that they don't want to be baptized. The majority say they want a little more time, but some of them tell us that they don't want to change religion or things like that. It's always sad to hear that from people you genuinely care about, but we all have our agency. And people progress at different speeds. I've had the opportunity to reap seeds that missionaries planted months or even years ago, and I'm sure the same will happen with some of the people we are teaching now, and the missionaries that will be here in the future.(:

One cool thing about the mission is that we meet people from lots of parts of the world, especially because the missionaries come from all parts of the world. And something about Spanish is that it is spoken in a lot of countries and they all have very different accents. We had changes last week and our district leader, who is from Argentina was put with an elder from the dominican republic. Both of these countries have very different accents than the Mexican accent. I would say that that the Dominican accent is a little more complicated because they completely ignore the s. They literally don't ever say the letter s. The good thing is that my Spanish is solid enough now that I can understand them, but this past week we have all been teasing our district leader and his comp that they have to teach with the spirit because if they don't, no one is going to understand them. (: We must have got to our district leader a little bit because he recently gave a training about our objective as missionaries and he said "I didn't come to Mexico just to learn to speak Spanish better, I also came to invite people to come to Christ" (:

And I concur. I didn't come here just to learn Spanish. I'm here to invite people to come to Christ. Sometimes in the mission and in life we get confused about why we are here. But when this happens we become less successful. One thing that has really helped me is to pray and talk with my Heavenly Father about my objective in the mission and life and ask about how I am measuring up with that. I encourage you all to say a prayer and ask that question and see how you are doing with what the Lord wants you to learn and achieve (:

I love you all so much (: Thanks for all of your support! Have a great week!

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

Skyping with my fam for Mother's Day. The last time! :-)

Making cookies for the widows in our area.

God has bread for us...

All I can say is that we are blessed here. 

We have some really REALLY cool investigators. I always hesitate a little to talk too much about investigators because things change so quickly and sometimes someone is golden one week and then we end up dropping them the next or we never find them again. 

But one investigator who is really progressing has been taking the discussions for about 4 months now. Which is a really long time. For most of this time he was progressing... but very very slowly. He didn't want to go to church or pray to know if it was true. But FINALLY we got him to pray and (obviously) his prayer was answered and he knew he had to go to church. He's been several times and is progressing like crazy. Every time I see him in the church I am just blown away because I saw how difficult it was for him to go. But the Lord really is preparing everyone. 

Also the family of 22 people... a few of them have been going to church (there are still so many that we need to contact and teach!) has been progressing (: Which is really cool. We have been mainly teaching the wives because they are the ones who are home more and one of them expressed that she was worried that her husband wouldn't want to go because Sunday is the only day he rests and that they have together. But she told us that this past Sunday he got up early and got ready and asked her if they were going to go to church. She was so excited that he wanted to go! Really, the Lord is preparing the people that we least expect. 

Another unexpected person is an ex-alcoholic. He's in a rehab program and is progressing well and has been clean something like 6 months. The thing is that he is successful, has a good job, looks normal, he just got into some bad things. But he is the most receptive person that I have taught in my mission. I have never met anyone who understands so perfectly the gospel without ever having learned it before. 

We really are blessed with some really cool investigators.

Funny story of the week.... well the eternal struggle with Spanish is the accent. I've pretty much gotten the grammar down and although I occasionally make mistakes and there are a few things that are a little complicated to say, I feel pretty confident in my communication skills as far as the words I should say.

But occasionally the accent is a little complicated. One thing is that the 'L' in Spanish is a little more pronounced than it is in English; so the other day, I was explaining that God has a plan for us - "Dios tiene un plan para nosotros", but I didn't say my 'L' well enough so our investigator heard, "Dios tiene un pan para nosotros." - which  is God has bread for us. ha ha... good times. 

I love you all! Thanks for all your support! Remember that God has a bread for you too! ...I mean a plan! 

Love you!

It hailed like crazy here!! Fortunately, we were in the church when it happened.
It's the closest we get to snow haha (:

 

The Field is White...

Mexico got hot.

We got into the warm season here and I know it's only like 80 degrees, but I don't know what happened, I became like the people here! I bundle up like crazy if it dips below 70 and I'm just dying if it's hotter than 70 degrees.

Good news, I'm apparently not talking as much in my sleep (: But I think the whole wake up 6:30 am thing has become a permanent thing. This whole week, I woke up just before the alarm went off. It's 10:30-6:30 for life for me, I guess!

This week we saw some really cool miracles. 

A week or two ago we knocked a door, and out came a lady who was just super rude to us and told us to leave and that she would call the police or something. Well a few days later we went to eat with a member and when we got to the house, this lady, who had been so rude to us, opened the door! My comp didn't even recognize her but I was like, "do we go in what do we do...????" But, she welcomed us in and explained that she was working for the member that were visiting and helping her out with the cleaning and taking care of her handicapped aunt. Well we ate really quickly, and I was really debating if we should just leave running, or if we should share a message with her like we normally do. Well the spirit told me that we needed to sing her a hymn. So with some trepidation, I asked her if we could sing, and she accepted. After the hymn she just opened up her heart and started crying and telling us everything that was going on in her life. She asked us to forgive her for the things she said to us the other day and told us that she was just having a hard time and that she felt so bad for taking it out on us. Well, we got to contact her and tell her about the plan that God has for her. Really, we are all children of God. And she is just so important to Him, that He put her back in our path (when we would have never returned for fear of how angry she would be) because he loves her so much. It was pretty special to see. 

Also... my comp and I prayed for a family to teach. And...we found a family of 22 people! If that's not an answer, I don't know what is. A ver que pasa con ellos. 

And finally, the other day we went to look for a former investigator and even though she didn't live there anymore, we found a lady who welcomed us in on the spot (not something that happens everyday, or every week, or every month....) and just ate up the restoration! And she introduced us to her family (: YAYYYYY. We'll see what happens
with her too. (:

In other news, we did service pealing onions last week and my hands STILL smell slightly like onion. tips?

Basically, it was a really great week.

Love you all! Hope you are doing well!

Hermana Wolferts

Preaching day AND night...

April 13, 2016

Sooooo....

First of all, my companion is amazing, like I mentioned last week. A lot of times companionships pass through a rough or at least awkward phase while you get to know someone... but my comp and I never had that! She is just so obedient and on point in lessons and we just like to work really similarly and we both like to have fun so it works well (: It's usually pretty apparent what companionships are doing well and what companionships aren't, even to investigators, and we have this one investigator who told us that we just look like we have a party together every day. Which isn't actually true because we deffinitely work dang hard but having a good companion does make the work fun. 

The only thing that has been a problem is that I seemed to have developed a pretty intense sleep talking problem. My comp told me that the other night I was talking (in english) for about 10 minutes and that she didn't understand anything except that I started to give my testimony and then I switched into spanish and started explaining that I was testifying of these things because the spirit was telling me to testify and that if the spirit isn't guiding your words you shouldn't speak haha. Then I started contacting someone and asked to teach them a lesson and proceeded to teach the entire restoration, complete with questions and a petition for our member who was present in the lesson to share their testimony. I went to far as to pick up our phone to look for a baptisimal date and I invited them to pray about our message and if they got an answer to be baptized a specific day. All in all my comp told me I talked for at least 40 minutes (and I have no memory of any of this happening). And similar things have happened the last few nights. My poor comp isn't sleeping as well these days... 

This week I learned a huge lesson about the Lord's timing. We have been teaching a few investigators who are really good people and have faith and understand the lessons, but who haven't really progressed. I was pretty much ready to drop them when suddenly, something changed. I don't even know what happened, but we have two people who have just started to progress like crazy. We didn't change how we were teaching or do anything radical with them, but the spirit just started to get to them and they started oppening up their hearts. Sometimes we think people are lost-causes or that they have already had their chance, but I have learned to see people how God sees them--to see their potential. And when we remember that God loves every one of His children, we remember that He never gives up on anyone. I'm just glad that the spirit told us to keep teaching them for long enough to see their crazy progression start!

We also met one of the most prepared investigators I have ever met. He went to chuch the day after we met him and understood almost everything that people taught. He picked up on the priesthood, that we have a modern day prophet, that the church was restored, and we hadn't even taught the restoration yet! When we went back to teach him on Monday he basically taught us what we were going to teach. We just did a run down to clear up some doubts, and then we were good to go. And before we even asked him to pray to know if it was true, he told us that he was going to pray because he wanted to know if it was true. If that's not a golden investigator, I don't know what it. PRAY that he keeps progressing. The funny thing is that he was just a street contact and I thought that he had just accepted an appointment but wasn't really all that interested, but he proved me so wrong. I love that the Lord is in charge of this work. 

Ohhh and we went to the temple today! Thus, I'm writing today and didn't write monday. But it was AMAZING. As always. I know that temples are houses of God.

It's been good. It's been a little crazy. But I'm so happy to be here doing this (:

Have a great week!

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts