Raegan's Mission to Mexico: July 13, 2015: That's the Plan!!!

Hola familia! Everyone sounds like they’re doing great and are having a good time. Happy Birthday to my wonderful mommy on the 15th!!! Don’t worry Mom; you are one of the best looking 29 year olds out there ;) Seriously, how do you do it?

This week has been great! A little bit about my comp: Her name is Hermana Estrada and she’s from Guatemala, Guatemala. She is 24 years old and is super sweet. She likes to cook....and she’s really good at it too. I have a notebook now dedicated to writing down her recipes ha-ha. But the thing that makes her cool is this: SHE IS A BACKSTREET BOYS fan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost died when she told me....with happiness. Sometimes we sing their songs to "practice" English. Did you know that they sang some of their songs in Spanish? Yeah, I will be downloading those on my IPod when I get home. It’s a blast being her comp. The Elders didn’t have changes either, so Elder Beck and Raymond stayed. They remind me of Kip and Napoleon from Napoleon Dynamite. They kind of look like them! Anyways, we are in for a good 6 weeks :) We are preparing Ricardo for his baptism this weekend and set a baptismal date with Edmundo this week for the 8th of August. He’s progressing really well and is super happy at church. We taught him the Word of Wisdom yesterday, and he was super excited about it. I’ve never seen somebody so pumped about it in my entire mission. He had problems before with it but stopped and so he was happy he was prepared to accept it. So sweet! He is a cool dude. He is older and so whenever we teach him something, he always says, "Well, better late than never." ha-ha. We are also teaching the mom of a recent inactive convert and a less active of our ward. She is super cool and really loves the missionaries. We haven’t been let into that house in months, and now they are super excited to see us and it’s super hard to get out of there. They won’t let us leave! We have to excuse ourselves to leave like 50 times. Talk about a change of heart. So, we are going to activate both of her children and send the son off on a mission and baptize her. That’s the plan! We have had a lot of work to do. We got drenched the other day in a downpour. There was so much rain the streets were flooding. So fun :) I love the mission!

Well, this morning in my personal study I found something interesting. I was reading in 1 Nephi 17 and really got thinking about remembering and points of view that people have in life. In verses 1-3 and then 20-27, you see the different points of view from Nephi and Laman and Lemuel about their life in the wilderness. And then in verses 23-46, Nephi explains to his brothers that their problem is that they don’t remember who God is. Really, if you can remember all the wonderful miracles that God has done for his children throughout the history of forever, your point of view will completely change. Your point of view will be more positive and clear. God does have a plan for us and that plan leads us to happiness, no matter how hard the road. This I know for sure to be true. So read your scriptures to remember and also reflect on all your blessings. Remembering is key to gratitude. WE ARE BLESSED!!!!

Well, I love you all so much and hope that everyone has a great week! Hope Mom’s birthday is fabulous! I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH and am so grateful for the rock solid support system I have from my family. Thanks for everything you guys do for me and your sweet emails. I am doing great and having a blast and working hard. So proud of you all and all that you’re doing. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO until next week......

Con todo mi amor,

HERMANA ANDERTON

PS Tell Tai congrats on receiving the priesthood! That made my week!!! :)