Elise's mission letters

  Iaorana mes amis et ma famille!  Happy Thanksgiving...and merry beginning of the Christmas season!  The week started with an incredible lesson with our friends Hector, Billy, and Rita! Billy has gone through some very difficult hardships, including some jail time, and we decided to focus the lesson on repentance. Billy got emotional talking about the regret and shame he feels because of his mistakes, mistakes that have driven his loved ones away from him. It was awesome to be able to testify of the love and care that God has for him, regardless of his past actions. God still loves him. Repentance, forgiveness, and the blessings of purity, strength, and peace are still available to him.  Funny note of the lesson: we asked Billy if he reads the scriptures. His response: "yeah I had plenty of time to read the Bible in jail!" He is a silly Billy.  We ended the lesson by inviting them to baptism! Billy said yes!  The date I extended for baptism was December 11...

  Ia orana tout le monde!  What a crazy week.  I'm still processing it. Let's talk about it! I have narrowed down the adventures to a few key stories but included in pictures is a screenshot is a list of ALL of the adventures. If you would wish that I expound upon any other story, do let me know. 1. Because Hermana Lander's trainee Hermana Alipoyo was flying in on Tuesday morning, Sister Dailey, Hermana Lander, and I were in a trio. On Tuesday morning, after we happened to open a gate to the church only for this giant hunk of metal that was the broken gate to fall onto the ground, we found out that Hermana Alipoyo MISSED HER FLIGHT.  Aaaah So instead of picking up Hma Alipoyo, we were back in a trio for another day because the new flight landed at 9 pm.  It was fun to be in a trio for a little bit longer! We went to Riverside to pick up a prescription. On the way back, we somehow accidentally drove from Riverside to Moreno Valley instead of Ontario even though t...

  Ia orana tout le monde!  Or better yet: HOLA!  'Twas an interesting week in the bario de Español!  Fun fact: I still don't speak Spanish and I left our last Spanish event with a HEADACHE, but it was very maita'i roa!  Knowing that my comprehension and ability to communicate wouldn't be the greatest during Spanish lessons, I instead decided to focus on what I felt while teaching. With this focus, it was much easier easier recognize the Spirit that was felt. It was amazing to feel peace and upliftment during lessons and be able to still share my testimony. During one lesson with our amigo Mario, I shared a thought about repentance and it was then translated into Spanish. Mario kept pointing to me throughout the lesson. I had no clue why and just sat there in silence, hoping that the reason why he kept pointing to me wasn't because he got horribly offended by my statement. It turns out that he loved my thought and that it really helped him understand what repenta...

  Hello mes amis! Iaorana et Hola!  The "hola" is a foreshadowing to the adventures that are sure to come this week as I serve in the...... Spanish ward. I don't speak Spanish. No hablo Español?  Isn't it kind of ironic? I feel like I am on a sitcom. Follow a girl as she tries her hardest to learn french and tahitian only to be put in a Spanish ward for a week. Because Hermana Lander's lovely companion Hermana Bascom left for Ecuador today at 4 am, our areas are combining for a week so that everyone has a companion.  Please pray for me and my language ability. This week was good!  One cool thing that happened this week:  We decided to call this number that we had for a woman named Mary that neither of us have met. She did not answer, but her nephew Xavier answered and he is interested in learning more! We had an amazing phone call lesson with him. It has been really amazing to see the miracles that can come from phone calling and social media work, finding ...

  Bonjour mes amis! Iaorana!  I hope you all had a happy happy Halloween.  I did but, alas, I didn't really get to dress up.  However, it was still a very good week! (although extremely stressful haha) I went to the ~consulate~ for my visa appointment on Wednesday! Sleeping in till 5 am (had to wake up at 4:30 to take a roommate to the airport the day before), I hopped into the car with a senior couple (the Costlows) and another elder!  Off to LA we went, and boy does LA live up to its stereotype of having bad freeways. The car GPS system looked a little like this:  30 miles left, 50 minutes.  20 minutes later:  30 miles left, 1 hr 4 minutes.  Luckily, we got to the vfs office early and the 45 mile trip only took 3 hours!  It is strange to say that my very first time going to LA was to go to a government office. Like going on a road trip to go to the dmv. Strange, but the appointment went well and I had a lot of fun with Elder and Sister...