Referrals are blessings from God.

Honestly this week was busy.

Devotional with Sister Driggs and Sister Medley- Every week there is a devotional for the online MTC classes. But our President encourages us to watch them since it's an extra opportunity to watch and listen to a servant of the Lord. So we've been going to different apartments to watch them so we can actually see our sisters in our zone.

Sauceda/Mendez fam--Okay Irene is the mom and she requested a Book of Mormon. Jut we accidentally gave it to the wrong trailer because she didn't explain where she lived super well. But we found her on Facebook and we started video-calling her and having lessons with her family. They are all pretty shy, but love waving at us haha. They can't come to church because she thinks she has Corona. So we had a. Little Sunday devotional and she really liked it. We are going to give her and her four kids all copies of the Book of Mormon tomorrow. So we're super excited for them. They are so willing to accept the Gospel. God answers our prayers!

 

Walks-we are allowed to go on walks throughout the day to keep us sane. And something our president is allowing us to do it pass out Jesus cards or flyers for our Facebook page. It's like not prossing but like lowkey prossing. So we're excited. Honestly we met this super cool guy who is down to let us "practice our lessons" in Spanish with him. Hahaha we're so sneaky. His name is Armando. 

Map-These past few weeks I have been working on a huge map of our area. I screenshot Ted and printed out like 60 pages of Google maps and taped them all together lining everything up as if it was a gigantic map. I'm on the last step of taping the whole thing front and back as if I'm laminating it. This is going to help us a ton with actually knowing our area even though we can go touch doors still. 

Doris-We got a call from Salt Lake this week about a referral. Her name is Doris. The sister missionaries over there had already taught her the restoration and she loved it. So we got her info and called her up. She was so excited to here from us. We invited her to church and she was also extremely excited to get a book of Mormon. She sadly didn't show up because she had to leave to Mexico. But we are going to be teaching her as soon as she comes back this week. BLESSINGS!!!!! 

Father's day-Man you never realize how much of an affect your parents have on you until you're gone for over a year. My dad is my superhero. He has been such an amazing example to me in my life. He has shown me how to work hard, have fun, and bool with the spirit. I am eternally grateful for the sacrifices he has made to support our family.

My Dad has helped me understand the importance of having the restored gospel in my life. He's also this biggest goofiest, nerdiest, strongest man I know. He helps set the bar for me and what I should be accomplishing in life. 

Church-We got to go again. And it was super amazing. The spirit is still there when you're 6 feet apart and wearing a mask. 

Everardo and fambam-So I don't know if you'll remember this story but here it goes. When I was serving in Mission I was teaching a guy named Roy. He was getting close to baptism then I was moved to Portland. His girlfriend was a member, Yacaira. 

Well we were told by the elders in the English ward that this member wants to start coming back to church, Everardo. So we talked to him and it turns out he is Yacaira's ex-husband.

He showed us a picture of his kids and I literally had a picture with them from when we would have lesson's with Roy. It was crazy!!! 

So we told him a out church and he came, brought his girlfriend, and his two kids. Ishmael, the little boy, told me he remembered me in his brain. Hahaha I love them!!!
Bro's wedding this week—HUGE SHOUTOUT TO MY BROTHER KOLLIN AND HIS SOON TO BE WIFE JESSICA. They are darn near gettin' murried this near Saturday. So excited for them and their new adventure. I hope the wedding goes perfectly and they have a great time. 

Guys I hope you know I love being a missionary still. The circumstances changed but the result is honestly the same if you think about it.
We can all do hard things if we have faith in Jesus Christ.
I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love spreading the gospel through technology and walks.

I am so grateful for my parents and their example

have a dope week guys.

Stay 2 legit 2 quit!
Con todo mi amor,
Hermana Darling


Not a ton of pics
Irene and us
My perfect pancake

My one word to describe my dad

Transfers!!!!! 🤩🤩

Time flies when you're having fun.

This week was super amazing and full of some crazy spiritual experiences. But I'm going to list them out for you guys. 

TRANSFERS!!!!!

I am now comps with Hna. Morgan. We were in the same CCM district and it honestly brings us back to those good CCM days. She's super awesome and it's nice that we already know each other. I KNOW that God put us as comps for a reason. This transfer is going to be full of miracles. I can feel it!!

JILL PICKED HER OWN BD FOR THE 5TH OF SEPTEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!

She has literally been taught everything and had a baptismal interview. But wouldn't pick a day for the longest time. She said she needs time because of her home life situation (separated parent and different religions) but she said September 5th would be amazing. So we actually made. A faith calendar for her and she'll be able to read the whole book of Mormon during that time.

ESMERALDA AND ELIDIA

We have been grinding hard this past week and we have found some amazing potentials that are looking for the truth in their lives. And these two are a few of them.

I FOUND OUT I HAVE A NEW SUPER POWER. 

I can catch flies out of the air. It sounds super gross but I don't really care. I caught like three in a row one day. 

ROAD TRIP TO SEE OUR SEESTERS

We traveled all the way to Edinburg to McAllen to Weslaco to Mercedes and back to Pharr. We used like 75 miles and actually got to have face to face conversations with all the sisters in our zone. We also brought them watermelon, pineapple and banana bread that I made. We didn't have eggs soo I might have improvised a little. But they said it was good. 

CHURCH OPENED!!!! 

We finally got to go to church after three months of quarantine. We were restricted to 50 people and had to sanitize constantly and wear our masks the whole time. But Javier and Jill went. Yay!!! 

DEVOTIONAL

Every week there is an MTC devotional where we can hear a servant of the Lord speak to us. This week's was fire. I felt so spiritually uplifted and figured out some things that I need to do to be a better missionary. 

BIKE DAYZ AND WALKS IN THE PARK

We have been biking like almost everyday. And we've been walking in the park and by the canal. It's been super fun. 

It makes me sweaty and tired. It makes me feel super satisfied as well. 

I also read a really amazing talk by Elder Uchtdorf this week. Of Regrets and Resolutions. (click the name to read it)

You should all read it. It talked about a lot about how we can be happy in this life and how we can be better people. 

I love you all. I know this church is true. It was restored. We have the same authority of God on the earth today. 

Stay 2 Legit 2 Quit and Party hard my friends. 

Con todo mi amor, 

Hermana Darling

 

I'm going to sell these bibles at the pulga tomorrow... Uhhh what?:/

These past few days have been packed full of errands to run. I love staying busy, it makes me feel super accomplished when I am physically and mentally tired at the end of the day. I guess that's a blessing I get from being a missionary. I'll take all the blessings I can get...I'm going to need them haha.

Here is a list of some things that happened this week:$Quarantine shirt- my mija sent me the quarantine shirt our "district" designed last transfer. It looks dope.
$Interviews- President Ocampo did interviews this week that always go really well. Our president is so happy and nice literally all the time. He shows high love but also high expectations for everyone...especially leaders.

$Bibles for the pulga- We got a bible referral that wanted 8 bibles. So we showed up with 8 bibles and she tried telling us that they weren't bibles. We only had spanish new testaments. After 2 minutes of convincing her she told us that they would be perfect and she's going to sell them at the pulga the next day? Excuse me what?? We walked away really confused...she just jipped us. But as we were walking away I saw a pony right across the road just chillin on the side of the road eating grass, living his best life.
$Firestone (X2)- Our car needed an inspection so we had to take it in. We showed up and they told us to come back in an hour and a half . So we did then we waited literally an hour and a half for it to be finished. that was annoying.
$Javier and Jill's gifts (and her interview)- Javier and Jill got us literally baskets full of snacks, nerf guns, gum, chips and dip, you name it. It was the sweetest thing ever...and super yummy. They also brought us BBQ sandwiches. Their love language is definitely gifts and they are so generous and constantly giving us such amazing things. They also got me a mexican shirt and Hna. Donaldson a mexican dress. They are super cool. She also had her baptismal interview and did super well. So hopefully she can find a date to get baptized.
$Our video - I was thinking of some ideas we could do for a cool video. Our video talks about prayer and why it's important. We had a ton of fun doing it. and we had so many bloopers that I made a video out of those when I was done hahaha
$Hank Smith- He spoke to our mission on Friday and his stories are always really funny and always centered on gospel topics. Score!
$Church is opening up soon for the valley- We get to go back to church on the 14th. PUMPED. There are still a lot of restrictions but church is church and I'm tired of being a less-active missionary. haha
$SNMZGN/FHE- We had a little spiritual thought then played charades. Not a lot of members from the zone joined in. So we're brainstorming how we can get more people to join. Any ideas?
$Free doughnuts from Krispie Kreme cashier, he's a homie- This week Krispie Kreme had a national doughnut day for like a week. So we got some free doughnuts and this guy gave us like 2 extra doughnuts for free. We finna baptize this guy.
$Pistachio Chocolate Chip Cookies-This one is pretty self explanatory. I made chocolate chip cookies and added a packet of pistachio pudding. They turned out pretty good actually.
$Members and their baby- We got a call from a member earlier in the week to come help her with a favor. That favor was to literally take three bags of snacks home. Haha a ton of it was cartons of milk from the schools and pizza pocket things. They also had the cutest 4 month old baby. Awwww I miss holding babies so bad. So we snatched a picture with them before we left. That was pretty fun.
$Transfers calls- My compa Hna. Donaldson is going to Laredo. And I'm getting Hna Morgan!!!!!!!!! We were in the same CCM district and Hna. Larsen and I would always hangout with Hna. Morgan and her comp. This is going to be so awesome. I can't wait to see more miracles!!!!

We have some people who were progressing but then stopped answering our calls. So that kind of sucks. But it's okay. There are people out there just waiting to hear the Gospel. People God has prepared. We just have to keep moving forward in faith and hope.
The world is a little crazy right now. But I know God has everything under control. If we ask for his help he'll reach out. He is always there and he hears our prayers. I know that for a fact.

Oh another thing I was going to put was that some really good friends of mine are going home this week. It's sad to see their missions cut short, but God has bigger plans for them now.

I love you guys!!!!

Stay 2 Legit 2 Quit and party hard!
Con todo mi amor,
Hermana Darling


Dem pics dohh
My and my shirt
Us and the doughnuts
Hank Smith and us
Us and the gorls
MIS galletas

Ya tengo un año en misión ?? Cómo es posible??

It's kind of a long one this time...sorry not sorry haha 

[Editor's note: it's even longer because someone hasn't kept up on posting these blogs. Lo siento]

There have been some super cool experiences these past couple days. You can probably tell by the title of this email.


Well to start, we were all able to watch a movie this week as a mission again. We watched Spirit of the Game. It was pretty cheesy and confusing because it’s about missionaries serving in Australia. But they didn’t even have tags on. So red flag...they were just JW’s the whole time I guess. Haha

But they started a basketball league for Australia and started playing teams from all around the world and beat them. One of the games was against France and they beat them by one point.. But then France wanted a rematch because their coach was a sore loser. So they agreed, anyway boring story short they are in this huge arena and they are up by one point with like 15 seconds left on the clock and France had possession. So tFrance literally dribbled down court and scored. Game over. Missionaries lost. And the movie ended basically. I was ticked. What a crappy ending hahaha. It just goes to show that missionaries will always have the hard way out in life and in basketball. Hahaha Al they cared about was the Spirit of the Game. Which they mentioned one time during the last five minutes of the game. Hahaha I’m grateful our Mission president allows us to watch some movies. It’s pretty nice, even if they are cheesy church ones. A blessing is a blessing.

Anyway one thing that I did this week was go through Facebook and found a ton of “friends”( but like not really) friends on Facebook. I took screenshots of like over 45 people and sent them to the missionaries serving in my home ward. I hope they are able to find some people with interest in saving their souls, I know a lot of people in our town need it...KIDDING. Haha

There is a recent convert here named Ruben and he’s pretty old. And funny. Man I love old hispanic men.

But we were finally able to have a lesson with him and his brother Joe. Joe told us that he can’t wait until church opens up again and he can go and then get baptized there too. WOOOHOOO

LETS GO JOE!!!!

He has like 5 teeth. We just kept telling him that he has to stop drinking. He said he knows it’s hard but it will be worth it. So that was pretty awesome.

I have mentioned in previous emails that we have little Spanish lessons with some Hermanas preparing for their missions. A cultural thing they do in the Philippines is when they are learning something that’s difficult they’ll pretend to have a nosebleed. I don’t know if that makes sense. But anyway when these girls aren’t understanding anything they’ll pretend to have a nose bleed and it’s pretty funny because sometimes they’ll just say I have a nosebleed hahaha and we’ll all laugh because they aren’t understanding anything. So we’ll help them out. Anyways it’s a little inside joke now I guess.

But when we started one of the lessons this week we were talking about a random section like...adverbs

And they both were pretending to have nosebleeds and we were kind of ignoring it because it can get a little annoying. So we continued with talking, but then my comp was like Sister Torsak you actually have a nosebleed...her right nostril was all bloody hahah

So we’re kind of laughing about how ironic it was. We told her to just shove something up it like a tampon haha.

BUT THEY FREAKING PRANKED US. She showed us her hands and it was all fake blood. She even had a “bloody napkin” to help her prank us. We were dying laughing. I loved it. They told us that they thought of it when we were dealing with a phat leak in the sprinklers outside. Props to them. I like pranks. I actually did a few on some sisters back in Brownsville. Hahaha Good times. They weren’t super happy with us, but they got over it...I think.

Anyway that was awesome.

We had a lesson with Javier this week and after that we got on the subject of our favorite foods. He started talking to us about Raspas, which are really yummy like shaved ice almost. But his favorite is piccadilly. He explained it to us and it sounded nasty. It's basically a cherry raspa with chopped up pickles and a Kool-aid packet poured onto it and chamoy. There is a layer of pickles at the middle and a ton of pickles, chamoy and Kool-aid at the top. We told him there is a snowball down the road from our house that sells raspas. So after our lesson we drove over there and got a piccadilly raspa. It looked nasty, but it actually was pretty good, you just have to mix it all together. I would actually recommend it. It's funky but yummy!

There are a buttload of bugs here. And they love coming into our apartment, it’s also super easy for them to do that also because our backdoor has literally a two inch gap. It’s basically inviting all bugs to come party in our apartment. So we shove a towel under it but that only does so much you know. But Mario our bug guy has sprayed before and we still get huge cockroaches and camel spiders.

HOLY CRAP DID WE GET A SURPRISE THIS WEEK.

So Hna. Donaldson was taking some clothes out of her laundry bin to do a load of laundry BOOM a phat dead WOLF SPIDER. It was huge with its legs curled up underneath it. So she left it there for a day because she didn’t want to deal with it. Then the next day I asked if she still had it chillin with all her clothes. Yep. So I got my pliers out and grabbed it by one of it’s legs. I then thought of the best way to get rid of it. Light it on fire. I’m pretty sure it was the spirit obviously telling me to do it. We literally wrote down a lighter to buy at the store on p-day, but forgot. So the elders came to the rescue. They brought over a couple of lighters and we got lit in the backyard;) Haha

I put the lighter up to it and the spider legs would fling out and expand, that was pretty creepy. The legs eventually burned off but the body was still crispy and not really doing anything. I then thought back to what I was taught to use growing up...laundry lint. The perfect fire starter. Luckily we had some. So we put the spider body into a ball of laundry lint and lit it on fire. It became a crispy black spider lint ball. That was probably one of the funnest times I have had on my mission. Shout out to my parents for teaching me the best ways to light things on fire.


This week had its ups and downs...like any week as a missionary, but something I’ve been working on is my attitude with this whole situation. Holy cow does regular life sound great. But I’ve been called to this area at this time because the Lord needs me to be here. I’m coming up on my year mark this week, which honestly is crazy to me because I feel like I was at the MTC like 3 months ago let alone a year ago. I have loved my mission this far and I know I‘m here still for a reason. I just have to remind myself that. I am so grateful to be serving the Lord for a year and a half. I wouldn’t want to do another thing during this time in my life. He knows me and loves me. I know he is there for all of us. I know Jesus Christ shared his gospel with everyone and I need to do the same thing. I hope that you guys are able to draw closer to our Savior. He lives. He is with us every step of this mortal journey.


Hey again.
This is coming up on the last week of the transfer. May is already over. These months are honestly going by so fast and I can't believe that I hit a year this past week. I have loved my mission so far, I have had some of the best experiences of my life during this past year. It's crazy that I only have 6 months left to spread his gospel to the wonderful people down here in the south tip of Texas. I'm blessed to be here in the TMM. Wouldn't trade it for anything. But to celebrate my year mark we got Red Robin with the elders and ate it at the church. I missed their food. It's been a while. haha
I have had a pretty good week. We've received some referrals that we are hoping to get in contact with, they haven't answered us like at all. Ian is still trying to figure out a date for his baptism so we're praying that can happen sooner rather than later.
There is a recent convert here who loves us, his name is Javier. He is so amazing and we're teaching his daughter Jill. But he loves to give us tons of stuff. So we got like four watermelons last weekend and then this week we got two watermelons and two pineapples. At the end of Monday night we decided to carve our watermelons. I made a monster face and he was puking watermelon so that was pretty great, it also had watermelon hair that kind of looked like french fries sticking out of the top of it's head. My comp carved a pineapple into her watermelon, she obviously would've rather had a pineapple. He also got us some bags from the flea market he works at. They're full of bright colors and they remind me of the stuff my brothers would take pictures of in Guatemala.
Our mission is transitioning into phase 1 of returning back to normality. So p-days we are allowed to hang out with our district and now we're allowed to have district councils in person. HOLY COW you have no idea how good it felt to finally not have a meeting over flipping zoom. It has been about 2 and a half months since my last district council in person. That's pretty ridiculous. We brought lunch and all ate together. Man, human interaction is my favorite. But as some of the elders were leaving they came back in to tell the other Hermanas that their car had a flat tire and if they wanted them to change it. My comp and I said that we can help them so the elders didn't have to worry about it. So after we were done eating we went out to help them change it. IT STARTED DUMPING RAIN ON US. That felt super good. But we were completely soaked after 30 seconds. The other elders came out to leave and asked for help but we said no. They were like okay good because we don't want to be in the rain hahaha. But we got the tire changed so that was funny.
We started doing different challenges for our zone,the ZL's did one of who can do the most push-ups in a minute. So my compa and I were brainstorming the best way to do them. I already knew that the elders would destroy the sisters. So my comp did a few push ups over a bowl of ice cream and every time she went down she would eat some ice cream. She stopped part way and said push ups are hard and started planking and eating all her ice cream. hahaha everyone thought that was pretty great. But for mine I found a part of our wall with no pictures or anything and I put my hands against the wall to do my push ups. We moved the camera so all you could see is me doing "push ups" with a basic background, as if they were regular ones but then my comp zoomed out after like 15"push-ups" and we both just started laughing because I wasn't on the ground. I was voted second place by my ZL so that felt pretty good. hahahah
Every Friday we have been having devotionals with our whole mission. But we had an awesome opportunity to have a Zoom conference with Elder Soares...again! That's the second time he has talked to our mission. #blessed.
He gave an amazing lesson on how we can cry out to the Lord to help us with our unbelief. To help us gain strength to become better. To cry out and just let him know how we are doing. He talked about some difficult times in his family and how he has had to cry out to the Lord on multiple occasions. The spirit was super strong when he was sharing his experiences with us. I love that man. He is such an amazing apostle of the Lord. But when we finished up he was waving goodbye to all of us. And he looked at a few slides of missionaries and he said "Good-bye Hermanas Darling and Donaldson". AN APOSTLE JUST GAVE US A SHOUTOUT???? That was pretty awesome. We felt pretty cool after that hahaha
Right after that our ZL's texted telling us to not let it get to your heads hahaha we were like oh whatever. They were just jealous about it.

Saturday we had to do a Live stream video for our zone's Facebook page. That was super nerve racking, but it went pretty well I think. We did gospel trivia in Spanish. and every correct answer I got I smashed my comp's face in flour and every incorrect answer I gave I got an egg smashed on my head. There were a couple times that egg didn't crack and my comp literaly hit my with her fist, hahahahaha that hurt. But holy crap was it messy. we both got flour and egg ALL over ourselves and my hair got nasty crunchy from dried egg. But the video was a success...hopefully. We had to clean it up and that took a bit.

But during it we watched my friend Taylor get married so that was super cool. Congrats Taylor and Samantha!!
My trainer also got married the same day. Congrats Audrey and Trevor!!

Everybody's getting married hahaha 

We had another Saturday Night McAllen Zone Game Night #SNMZGN
That was pretty fun. We played Guess who/20 questions and during the time when a companionship was discussing who they wanted as their person an elder would sing for us. He sang the theme song to Phineas and Ferb, eventually different companionships would join him. It was hilarious. we've been working on making sure our zone is more unified and they seem to like the challenges and games nights we've been doing so that's a blessing. Another challenge we did this week was a lip sync battle. My comp and I dressed up like elders and were showing off the nice ties we have and obviously just making fools of ourselves. After we sent it in people were reacting to it and an elder commented about the ties and if we wanted to trade. hahaha We had both got our ties from our "Dads" so it's considered a posterity tie and also a gift tie. And if there is one thing I've learned from the elders it's that you don't trade gift ties. They were a little upset when we both said no hahaha.
Also shoutout to Oscar (my brother) and Eloise (my cousin) for getting baptized and confirmed last Monday. I was able to watch it and talk to them about the importance of baptism. It was super cute. And fun to so tons of my family members.
I hope you all have an awesome week. And party hard!
Stay 2 Legit 2 Quit.
Con todo mi amor,
Hermana Darling



PitcherzUs changing a tire in the rain

Chillin on the mailbox thing

Mi compa y yo

ELDER SOARES!!!!

Our lip sync outfits

Us and the floor after our Facebook live!

Piccadilly Raspa

A bug stick bug on our window

The dead wolf spider in the laundry basket

Video of me lighting it on fire

I'll send more pics of the other spiders too.

Picts from Oscar's baptism