"Did you turn the font off?"

This was a marvelous week! Firstly I have to send out a shout out to my sister Taylor and her hubby Travis. They were married last weekend and I'm really excited for them. The wedding was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

I am going to skip right to the best part of the week, Jesus and Ciriana were baptized. <3 It was one of the most beautiful, spiritual baptisms that I have ever attended. But to start off we had quite the adventure. Our ward mission leader, the Elders in our ward (the zone leaders), and us were waiting in the foyer for the Neri family to get there when the ward mission leader, Brother Fraser, says, "Did you turn the font off?" The Elders locked eyes with looks of terror and bolted toward the font room. We all ran after to see that the font had overflowed. We spent the next half hour taking water out by the buckets and trying to dry the carpet. I think it's safe to say we'll be the ones filling the font next time. The service was great though and so many people came to support them. We had the program in the chapel and it was so full it seemed like a sacrament meeting. After the baptism we did church tours and each auxiliary was there explaining what they do. 

Sunday we had a New member or Member and missionary fireside and it was so great. Jessica, a recent convert in the ward bore her testimony and I got to translate it for her. It's amazing to get so many recent converts with such powerful testimonies together and to feel the amazing spirit that they bring. It makes me remember my own testimony and how much this gospel means to me. 

With transfers Hermana Wrubell and I are staying here in May Valley together. We are excited for another transfer full of miracles. 

Con Amor,

Hermana Pier

                                the neris

                                                         our district

                                 Naomi neri, the cutest most sweet girl in the world.

El Libro de Mormon!

Hola!!! This was a good week. The entire mission is really motivated and working really hard to make September the best month ever. We have some really great things happening in our area right now that we're really excited about. 

We'll start off with the Neri Family. I just love them. Jesus and Ciriana are going to be getting baptized this Saturday and we're really excited for them. We've been helping them go over their baptismal program, interviews and all else that a baptism entails. Both them and the ward are SUPER excited! Please keep them in your prayers this week as they make this step to their Heavenly Father and to becoming an eternal family <3

Ronaldo is doing really well and is going to be baptized soon. We finished teaching him some of the commandments this week and went over the baptismal interview questions with him and he is definitely ready. He does feel that he still has some doubts so we are going to help him recognize the answers that he has already received and help him feel really for baptism.

This week I found out that Bere, a convert in my last area, had her baby very very early. She was 22 weeks along and the baby was born weight 1 pound. As far as I've heard she and the baby are doing as well as can be expected at this point. Please please put her and the Graham family in your prayers. 

One last great thing this week was church yesterday. The ward has been doing a challenge together to read the book of mormon over the last 9 months and this Sunday was the special Sacrament Meeting to share testimonies of the Book of Mormon. I loved hearing how the Book of Mormon has changed peoples lives. I know that it definitely has done the same for me. I LOVE reading the Book of Mormon and the happiness it brings me. President Marion G. Romney said a quote that I really love, 

“I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein. The spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to the counsel of their parents. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity—the pure love of Christ—will abound in our homes and lives,bringing in their wake peace, joy, and happiness." 

What a promise from a servant of the Lord!!! The Book of Mormon truly is another testament of Jesus Christ and shows us how to become more like him <3  

Con mucho cariño,

Hermana Pier

Pics-

       The Marrs!!! I lived with them in my first area and we got to see them this week <3

Sean una luz

Not too much to report on this week so I will try to keep this one short.

We'll start out with Carlos though! He's the son of some formers in Mt Si that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. He's so great. He's been coming to church and LOVES it. We went down this week and taught him and his mom about the restoration. Carlos was just amazed. He said, "Some people don't really believe things like that. Like my parents, it's hard for them to believe. But me, I believe. I know that that happened. I know that this is the church I want to be a part of!" We invited him to be baptized and to ask God if these things are true and if The Book of Mormon is his word.... and he is preparing for the 20th of September! He really is just an amazing. He hungers and thirsts after the truth and know how knows how to find it. Please keep him and the entire Larrios Family is your prayers.

Other than that I just wanted to invite you all to join in in something that we do in our mission. Everyday at 5 o'clock pm every missionary in the mission and members as well kneel down and each say a prayer for the missionary work in our mission but also throughout the entire world. So, I wanted to invite you all to set an alarm on your phone that will go off at 5 everyday and to pray for the missionaries and missions throughout the mission. I know that we definitely feel and are helped through your prayers.

One cool thought from church. One of the members of the stake presidency talked in sacrament meeting on Sunday and he gave a analogy I really liked. He said that sometimes children have this "I can do it alone" mentality and refuse their parents help. This often ends in things such as mismatched and inside out clothing, messes, shoes on the wrong feet, etc. He said how here in the world we have that same way of thinking with our Heavenly Father. He wants to help us out but we are so stubborn and set in our ways that don't let him in. He challenged us to not do it alone, to let the Lord pull us through those trials, to not do it alone. It will make us happier and result in less mishaps along the way. The Lord truly loves us so much and will bless us as we rely on him and learn to trust in his timing and ways.

Les quiero mucho!

Con Amor,

La Hermana Pier

pics

everyone here is pet opsessive. They barely open the door and peep one eye out because they're afraid their animals will bolt out. So funny!

May Valley Miracles!

This week was a week full of MIRACLES! It really was a good week of lots of great things. Hard, trying, but definitely very rewarding. Let's start off with the NERI FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're the family that I wrote about last week. They're basically members and have been coming to church for a year solid. Guess what?! They're on date to be baptized on the 27th of September. Their little daughters birthday <3 They announced it in church and are really excited to make this life changing step. They realized that they didn't have to know everything and that as they exercised their faith, God would bless them and help them to be even more sure of the decision. So yay!!! They came to the New Member Fireside and really enjoyed it. It was fun to have all the Hermanas together with them since basically every Hermana in the mission has taught them. I'll attach a picture.

Next up is Ronaldo. He's doing good. We had a lesson with him and he put himself on date for September 6th. He could definitely be ready for that day but it may end up being pushed back a few weeks because it's really hard to meet with him very often. He has sincere desires to be baptized and to be a member of the church but is worried with all his work and everything that he couldn't be as dedicated to the gospel as he needs to be. We're going to work with him to help those righteous desires that he has to work to form a testimony. 

Lastly is Luis. To say that we've done a lot of finding this week would be a complete understatement. It's more along the lines of that's all we do. I have probably knocked more doors this last week than my whole mission combined. But we found Luis which made is all worth is. Luis is from Mexico and is super great. He is very open to meeting with us, learning more, and would like to be baptized! The only problem is that he works on Sundays which means he an't make it to church. He's trying to figure out ways to work around it and get the day of. Please keep him in your prayers so that he can find a way to come to church this Sunday. 

That's about all for this week. Miracles are happening here in May Valley and we're ready to work hard and give our all to the work <3 Me encanta ser misionera <3

Con Amor,

Hermana Pier

The Harris' left there mission this week. We miss having such great next door neighbors. :(

The Seahurst gang at the fireside. I LOVE THEM!!!! Yared got her mission call to Honduras!!!!!

                                                       Us and the Neri family <3

Home sweet home <3

MThis week was definitely interesting. I think we have this super power to repress any of the hard times on our missions and only the really good ones really stick out to us. So even though I know that I've obviously had some difficult times, the good times seem to far outweigh those times. I think that happened a little bit with this area, haha I remembered all the miracles and good times we had here but blocked from my memory how difficult of an area it is. Nevertheless, I love it so much and am so excited to be here. It's completely different from the other areas I've been serving in for  the past 11 months so it's quite the change; namely because there's no Hispanics here hah.

But we do have a lot of good things happening right now! Not sure where to start so we'll start with down in North Bend. Firstly, Ronaldo. Still haven't met him, well I guess I have once. So my first day in the field at the beginning of my mission we went to visit him. He was leaving right when we got there and we talked to him for a second before he left. We tried to talk meet with him while we were down there but never saw him again the whole time I served here. But the Hermanas started teaching him again and he's great. Super busy but has desires to come to church and to prepared to be baptized. He came to church this week and we have a lesson set up for tomorrow. Please keep him in your prayers so that we can meet with him more often and help him prepare for baptism. 

The other investigator that came to church down in the Mt Si ward was Carlos! He's so cool! Carlos is 15 and is the son of some former investigators. We went to visit the family and Carlos was the only one home so we started talking to him a bit. He has a friend from band who is a member of the ward and we asked him if he's like to go to church with his friend Conner that Sunday. He said yes and so we said that he'd let Conner know and that they'd come and get him on Sunday. After coordinating with the members, Carlos came to church, loved it, is coming back next week, AND is going to high adventure with the scouts this week! SAY WHAT?! We're super excited because he's an amazing kid with tons of potential. He's going to be an amazing example to his family and eventually they're all going to want to come to church.

And then here in the May Valley ward we don't have too much going on. We have the Neri Family who could definitely use prayers. they've been coming to church for over a year now and know it's true. Since meeting the Hermanas they've been married, their son has been baptized, and they even have callings with the cub scouts; only problem, they haven't been baptized themselves. We're not exactly sure what the real reason is that's stopping them but we know that they're SUPER ready for that step. Pray for them <3 Our bishop and Ward Mission Leader are going to meet with them so we are praying that they can help resolve any concerns. Vamos a ver. 

Other than that, things are going great!!!! Marco came out and went tracting with us for a while and it was the best! Haha I can actually really communicate and talk with him unlike a year ago so that's a blessing. His temple prep is coming along and he has such an amazing testimony.

One cool thing I liked about church yesterday was a story we talked about in Relief Society. The lesson was on Eternal Marriage but I think it can be applied to lots of situations. She told the story of a women who took care of a nice set of silverware that she had. She made sure that they were safe and so on and so forth. And something the story said really hit me. "If you want something to last forever, you treat it so." I thought of it in the example of a testimony. If you want to always have a testimony forever, you have to take care of it. You don't just polish the silver once and it's good forever, you don't just go to church on Sunday and you're good for the week. We need so be read, praying, being grateful to God ALWAYS and we can become stronger. 

Con Amor,

Hermana Pier

Pics- 

Hermana Wrubell and me in the basement of a member here. They have a GIANT train thing. It's so cool!!!

Transfers....

It's that time again... Transfers. So exciting! Sadly the Aurora Spanish Hermanas area has been closed for right now :( So the Elders will be taking over all of our investigators and the work there. They're going to be super busy and see lots of miracles. I have been transferred to May Valley Spanish. Which just happens to include none other than... Mount Si! Hahah I'm going back to my greenie/ birth area. We cover a larger area now though. I'm excited! It will be different to go back to where the hispanics are few and far between but God will help us to find his prepared children here. I will be finishing the training of Hermana Wrubell. She's super adorable and an amazing missionary; we're excited to see what miracles are in store for us! 

As for back in Aurora, we had an amazing week.We decided that we were going to have what we called a "semana de fuego". What we did was during our fast last Sunday we prayed that God would help us to know anything that we need to change and how we could become more sanctified. We worked to hard to give the Lord EVERYTHING and miracles followed!

The only problem is... I don't have my planner with me so I can't really remember exactly what it was that happened. So y'all are going to get the watered down, not as cool version. Sorry! 

Firstly, Martin. He's great and I have no doubt that he's going to get baptized soon. We taught him the second half of the Plan of Salvation and he really liked it. He talked about how he feels good at church and he how when he's there, he has this desire to become a better person. When we invited him to be baptized he said that he does want to be baptized but that he wants to be completely sure. Hermana Norton asked him if he felt like he'd received answers from the holy ghost and he said that he knew he had. He just didn't feel like they was a huge flashing sign that says, "GET BAPTIZED!!!!" Part of a talk by Elder Ballard that I had listened to that morning popped into my head so I shared it with him. The story Elder Ballard shared was, 

Oftentimes we are like the young merchant from Boston, who in 1849, asthe story goes, was caught up in the fervor of the California gold rush. Hesold all of his possessions to seek his fortune in the California rivers,which he was told were filled with gold nuggets so big that one couldhardly carry them.

Day after endless day, the young man dipped his pan into the river andcame up empty. His only reward was a growing pile of rocks. Discouragedand broke, he was ready to quit until one day an old, experiencedprospector said to him, “That’s quite a pile of rocks you are getting there,my boy.”

The young man replied, “There’s no gold here. I’m going back home.”

Walking over to the pile of rocks, the old prospector said, “Oh, there isgold all right. You just have to know where to find it.” He picked tworocks up in his hands and crashed them together. One of the rocks splitopen, revealing several flecks of gold sparkling in the sunlight.

Noticing a bulging leather pouch fastened to the prospector’s waist, theyoung man said, “I’m looking for nuggets like the ones in your pouch, notjust tiny flecks.”

The old prospector extended his pouch toward the young man, wholooked inside, expecting to see several large nuggets. He was stunned tosee that the pouch was filled with thousands of flecks of gold.

The old prospector said, “Son, it seems to me you are so busy looking forlarge nuggets that you’re missing filling your pouch with these preciousflecks of gold. The patient accumulation of these little flecks has broughtme great wealth.”

This story illustrates the spiritual truth that Alma taught his son Helaman:

“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. …

“… And by very small means the Lord … bringeth about the salvation ofmany souls” (Alma 37:6–7).

I told Martin that sometimes we look for the giant nuggets of gold when really God has been giving us little flecks all along the way. I know I definitely have been that way before, expecting God to give me huge manifestations in answer to my prayers. Luckily he knows what will really help us and gives us what we actually need. Well Martin really liked the story and told us that he was exactly like the man in the story, neglecting the flecks because he wanted the nuggets of gold. 

I know without a doubt that God answers our prayers. I know it because I have seen so many times in my life the answers to my prayers. Having a hard time? Pray! God knows how to help!

Con Amor,

Hermana Pier

Ps everyone should look up this article in the August Ensign! It was written by my Mission President, President Choi. Read it! It's really great!

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2014/08/be-strong-and-of-a-good-courage?cid=HPMO081114390&lang=eng

Weekly Update <3

This would have to have been one of my favorite weeks of my entire mission! There wasn't any super crazy miracles that completely changed the world, but I did see the Lord's hand in our work so much this week. I really felt his guidance and saw the Lord putting people we needed to meet in our path.

I'm going to be going all out of order here as things pop into my head so bare with me here. Firstly Angeles, she's so great! We had a lesson with her in a members home this week and it was great. She really has desires to know if the church is true. She kept telling us that she really wants her 17 year old daughter to come to church as well, but she always tells her no and won't do anything for God. We told her that we would give her a call and invite her to church. She got so excited because she said she thought she'd listen because she was around our age and kids listen to their peeps and don't like to listen to their parents. Hahaha but it worked because after we called and talked to her she ended up coming to church! She's so great and really enjoyed it, especially the Gospel Principles class.

Also we had 2 exchanges this week which were both GREAT! The first was with the Cecpta's (totally not how you spell it) but the Russian sisters in the mission. It was so weird!!!!!! I'm not used to being the one who has no idea what's going on during an exchange. Hahaha the people would talk and just look at me as I stared back with a blank look. Then they would say to the Sisters, "She doesn't understand anything huh? " Good stuff. The other weird part is that they cover the Seattle, Everett, and Federal Way missions so we were way up in Mount Vernon. Which is like an hour outside our mission. So WEIRD! But I learn a lot from the Sisters, they're great missionaries. Our other exchange I went to Redmond. I loved it! We had a lesson with their investigator Pat and it was so great. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and the spirit was really strong. It was a really amazing experience for me as a missionary because the three of us planned out our lesson before we went to teach and knew where we wanted to go with the lesson. When we got in there we taught in so much unity and were really guided in our questions and comments. I think what I really learned was that it could have been a disaster. None of us had ever taught together before but God knew that she needed a message and helped us to be guided in what we said. I love Heavenly Father! 

One last thing. Everyday from 5-7 our mission has "Sacred Finding Time". We never set lessons during this time and we use it to knock, contact referrals, and street contact. We had decided on a apartment complex to go to but somehow ended up getting lost getting there. As we were going to turn around to go back we passed a complex and a thought popped into my head, "We need to go knock that complex." We drove a little further and that thought wouldn't go away so I told Hermana Norton that we should go back and knock that complex. While knocking we met a man named Jorge. It turned out that he was a former investigator that had came to church consistently for over 3 months about a year and a half ago. BUT get this, his 16 year old son is a member of the church, is planning on serving a mission, and lives in Utah. AND he went to high school with Hermana Norton! SAY WHAT?! He still has his doubts about the church but agreed for us to come back and he said he's ask his son about his testimony of the gospel. Lesson learned: Always listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. 

ADIOS!!!!!!!!

Con Amor, 

Hermana Pier

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY today to my beautiful older sister Tay Tay and yesterday to my mission mama, Hermama Phillips!!!!!!!

pics-

                                                          exchanges

the elders teaching me who to use hermana norton's epi pen in case she eats peanuts

                                                            and our district :)