Raegan's Mission to Mexico: April 27, 2015: En el Pueblo de Sion

Hola Familia! Everyone sounds like they are doing great!! Maddie is wrapping up nursing school and Kennedy is just chillin like a villan in school. Wow, I can't believe that Sharon and Ric are leaving in a few days! I remember when you guys told me about them leaving and I thought May was so far away. Time is flying. Yep, 10 months gone away....ah! It's going super-fast right now.

Well, this week was good. We had a great activity in the stake yesterday. Oh it was perfect! It was for the recent converts and the investigators. The recent converts shared their stories and their testimonies and the missionaries sang, "En el Pueblo de Sion". Maria seemed super excited and happy after the activity. There were cookies and Hershey kisses afterward and Lluvia was eating them all and stuffing them in her pockets...ha-ha children. But it was a little bit embarrassing; we had to remind her to share. Anyways, Maria is progressing adelante again, I was a little worried there for a few weeks that we were going to lose her...but she's come through. It makes me so happy!!! Missionary work is the strangest thing on the planet. There are so many hard/ridiculous things you do like walking around all day, getting sunburned, getting blisters, eating some weird food, people rejecting you, others only looking for a heated discussion about religion, sometimes really missing your family, etc.....but it is ALL worth it because you get a front row seat to the gospel changing people and their lives. It's like workouts preparing for a race, everything you do is worth the sacrifice. The gospel works miracles in people. We found a biker group this week, they were super cool. Hermana Ferrell was super excited about it because she worked in a Harley Davidson shop before her mission. One of them asked if we knew Jesus: We sure do!!!! We gave them cards to check out church videos, they didn't really want anything...but hey, seed planted. We found a woman outside of the hospital and she unloaded to us for a good 30 minutes about her life. After her rant, she said we had showed up for a reason. Her grandma was in surgery and she was scared, so it was easy to tie in gospel principles, and we sang her a hymn. Her name was Claudia. So yeah, we've had some good finding experiences this week. Funny story: on Wednesday everyone wanted to give us an overflowing amount of food. I was dying!!!! I just couldn't do it anymore!!! So, by the time we got to the last one, she made us omelets. I thought my stomach was going to explode. She went into the other room and I had an empty water bottle...sooooo I stuffed the omelet in there as fast as I could and put it in my bag after so I didn't have to eat it or hurt her feelings...yep that happened. Oh! We saw an advertisement for the big marathon that is here in Juarez in October. Since I will still be in my mission for this one, I want to come back and run it in 2016. :) The maintenance guys that our over our apartment finally came to fix our sink that's been plugged for about a month, ewwww. When we washed dishes we had to throw the water outside. It was a process. I will never ever complain about washing dishes in a sink that functions now ha-ha. But long story short, the owner that rents the apartments remembers me from when we started renting the house and stuff and asked if I would ever leave. I told him probably not. He started asking questions about scriptures and wanted to know where he could buy a Bible...and we gave him a Book of Mormon and explained that that was something he could give a whack and that it complimented the Bible. We then gave him the address of the temple store so he could also get his Bible. But I think if he opens up the Book of Mormon, he will find everything he needs.

Speaking of the Book of Mormon, that is my spiritual thought for you guys. I really believe that it's a super powerful load of scriptures that we don't treasure enough. It is a great source for testimony and strength. I love my scriptures, all of them, but especially the Book of Mormon. That book changed my life (Alma 5 to be exact). I know that if we take time daily, at least 5 minutes (if you can't manage to have at least 5 minutes for God, you're too busy and might think of rearranging your priorities. God always comes first! Our lives will be blessed greatly. We will find better guidance and peace in our lives. We will be led by the hand and receive answers to our prayers, but we must search them out :) Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do. Don't nibble on the scriptures, feast on them and don't miss out!!! Everyone read at least 5 quality minutes personally!

Well, I love you all so much! Thanks for the wonderful emails! I have the best family in the world!!! Thanks for all your love and support! Have a great week everyone and keep up the great work!!!! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO #livingthedream

Con Amor,

Hermana Anderton