Sis. Silos is leaving me...and tornado? - 3/28/22

Mission email sent 3/28/22

 This week was a literal tornado. So many highs and lows and plot twists. 

LAST PDAY- we played chair soccer, which was so fun. I hadn't played for a long time, so it brought back memories. Anyway, that's not even the most eventful thing that happened that day. Our pday got cut short because of a tornado warning!! The first one I've ever had. Sister Silos and I were not trained, we didn't know the severity of the siren or the protocol for that, but luckily the Grecos took us in and gave us shelter. We ran over to their house while the sirens were going and it was super windy and rainy.  Apparently the sirens mean that a tornado is touching ground or really close...we did not know that until the Grecos told us, but know we know hehe. Nothing really got damaged, only a school down the street had its roof peeled back.  Anyway, either from chair soccer or running to the Grecos (probably both) Sister Silos hurt her achilles heel. The next morning she could barely even walk on that foot,  so yeah, the beginning of the week was slower pace than usual. 

DINNER WITH STAKE PRES. AND YSA MISHS- Wednesday night we had dinner at the Growalds. Our stake president and his family are the best, they are so thoughtful of us missionaries. They went out of their way to feed 7 missionaries all in one night! And we had some really yummy food,  it was all Italian themed because that's where both him and his daughter served!  They were called Pancerotti, like a fried pizza. Anyway, peep some of the pics below. 

YW'S, COOKIES, SONIC, AND SISTER GRECO- Wednesday night, after dinner, the Young Women were having a cookie fundraiser where they make cookie dough and sell it for girls camp. That was really fun. After, we helped deliver cookies to some people. Then, Sister Greco took us to Sonic to get shakes. We all got an oreo peanut butter one with fudge and it was absolutely delicious. 

WOMEN'S CONFERENCE W/ SISTER ABURTO- Friday night, we drove to Colleyville with Sister Villarreal to a women's conference and we got to hear from Sister Aburto. Ahh she was so amazing. One of the questions that she had us ponder is what makes covenant keeping women different from good women of the world? That's something really good to ponder and it helped me realize the importance of the covenants we make with God. After the meeting we got to take a group picture of all the sister missionaries with her. It was amazing. Plus, I got to hug her twice so practical it was the best and coolest day. 

ADULT SESSION- Just a normal stake adult session right? Wrong! Little did I know that I would be going up and bearing my testimony. The guy really said, "Is Sister Masina her?" I raised my hand and he asked me to bear my testimony after the song. The Grecos got me on screen, so I'm practically famous. 

SISTER SILOS IS LEAVING ME- sooo what the heck I was not expecting this. Sister Silos is going to a Spanish speaking ward and I'm staying in Watauga. I thought that I would finish her training or at least leave Watauga before her, but President really threw us a curve ball. I'm gonna miss her :( but I know she'll be living her dream in her Spanish Ward. My new companions name is Sister Mavy. She's been in the zone the last transfer so I know her, we'll be having a great time :) I've never had a companion for more than a transfer, we'll see what happens this time. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT- I want to emphasize three things.

PRAYER, PRAYER, PRAYER, PRAYER, PRAYER, PRAYER, PRAYER, PRAYER,

STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY

 TEMPLES, TEMPLES TEMPLES TEMPLES, TEMPLES, TEMPLES, TEMPLES, TEMPLES,

Okay, hopefully all the people who just scroll down to the pictures at least saw those three words. They are vital. Growth aside, you need them to survive. There are so many distractions out there, you have got to fight back. Where can you turn for peace, where is your solace? It's not in the world. It's in the Lord. The fog of apathy is closing in on us and if we do not get closer to him, we will slowly lose our way. Bring true joy into your life by these three things. Here's an invitation: go to the temple. Go to any temple and if you can, go do some ordinances as well. As you do this, I know you'll feel the difference in your life and you'll want to go again. When that happens, I invite you to not be lazy. Sign up again and again. 

Pics of the week:

-rainy pickleball pday

-dinner at the Growalds

-growalds pt. 2

-growalds pt. 3

-Sister Aburto

-I had the opportunity to bear my testimony in Stake Conference hehe

-packaged pepperoni at CEC

-Sister Silos commentating the tornado. You can hear the sirens if you listen hard enough. 

Patience and agency and lots of drawing - 2/28/22

Mission email sent 2/28/22

 As the title may suggest, I learned a lot about patience and agency this week. I guess I should start at the start of the week. Tuesday was sooo good. We were busy, had lessons, and we were already on a roll. We had a lot of things planned for this week which made me super excited. BUT then, a storm had to hit, and we had to stay inside for Wednesday and Thursday. We tried to save our lessons by asking people to do Zoom, but for some reason people didn't like that idea (I'm using sarcasm if you can't tell, obviously it makes sense why someone wouldn't want to Zoom) so that was kinda sad, on the bright side, I got to draw some cool stuff, I wrote some letters, we cleaned, it was great   

Liu was going to get baptized this week with her cousin Michael, but her and her mom didn't feel like it was the right time. Between her mom being super busy and recently moving, it makes sense.  And although it hurts, we would rather that Liu has that support from her mom, so we will be patient :)

One scripture kept popping up thus week in studies and church ect. 2 Nephi 10: 23-25

Which now that I'm putting it into my email, I realize it can seem a little dark, but let me show you my side of it. 

   23Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.

   24 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.

   25 Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise him through grace divine. Amen.

 God has given us the gift of agency. As a missionary, I have so many choices that I make. It's been very good for me to learn time and time again, that this is the Lord's work and I am merely an instrument in His hands. He knows best. Something I know I can work on is using my agency to follow Him and His direction, knowing that He has perfect timing and vision. Two scriptures come to mind. 

Alma 37: 36-37 

"Counsel the Lord in all thy doings:

D&C 112: 10

"Be though humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers"

I guess the questions that I will be focusing on this next week that invite you all to focus on as well is:

How can I humble myself and reconcile myself to the will of the Lord? Do I humble myself enough to counsel woth the Lord in ALL my doings?

Pics from the week

-last pday

- flipped upside down like our plans this week

-no explanation

- I drew this for my great grandma (spoiler for her letter that's being sent)

- smile

-Just need some paint

I almost met Jesus this week and I'm training hehe - 2/21/22

Mission email sent 2/21/22

 Sooooooo I didn't send a very good email last week, so I'll have to recap what happened last week and this week. 

Last week was kinda crazy. The two Africa Elders (the elders in charge of all the French speaking people) left to Tahiti, and Sister Lunt and I were in charge of both our Watauga area and the Africa area for a whole week. I absolutely loved it even though I don't speak a lick of French. Our schedule got really busy though between two different areas and trying to clean what would be Sister Lunts new apartment. Elders lived there before, and I'm not saying that as a bad thing...all I'm saying is that they didn't even own a mop or a broom, that's how much cleaning we had to do. Anyway, I actually enjoyed cleaning and organizing so I'm not complaining :)

A day before transfers, Sister Lunt and I were driving to the mission office to get something. Out of nowhere this car serves into our lane, and because Sister Lunt is a pro driver, she swerves away to prevent an accident. This car really pushes us off the road, we jump the curb and almost hit a big pole. So Lunt swerves back the other way. We miss that pole, but we're speeding towards a metal pipe. No joke, we stop literal inches from hitting it

So yeah, that's my story on how I almost met Jesus this week. 

Next day was transfers and I got my new companion Sister Silos!!! I'm training her, which is so fun but also super scary. I hold too much power and responsibility in my hands now. We've had a great few days together. It's fun to teach her about area book and to go over lessons, I thoroughly enjoy that type of stuff. 

We also had a bomb restoration lesson with two of our friends. They know so much about the Bible and asked so many good questions. We were able to direct them to the Book of Mormon and invited them to read the introduction page. They also came to church woot woot!

Okay, I think this email is long enough already, but what's an email without something spiritual right?

I would like to thank JoEllen, my ward's music Conductor at one time, who asked my family to sing a song in church. Because of her, I have a valuable scripture engraved in my brain that I often have to use. Please excuse any punctuation errors. 

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 

Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

John 14 and 16

The past two weeks were a whirlwind, a tornado of stress and excitement. In those moments, singing this has helped me push forward. I don't know everything yet, but I've been feasting upon the word of God, and I have come to understand both with mind and heart that Christ is my Savior and Redeemer. I trust Him. I know that I really can have peace because of everything He's done for me and everything He continues to do for me. 

As near sighted sheep, we sometimes want to go off and explore a little on our own, but we forget the knowledge of our all knowing shepherd who is incapable of leading us astray. Whose mission is to protect and guide us and can see all the dangers that were unaware of. 

I don't mean this in a demeaning way, but you and I know absolutely nothing compared to the shepherd.  If we are humble and understand who and where we are, our lives become a lot safer and peaceful. Let's follow our shepherd, the one who has already overcome the world, he knows how to do it and he's an expert. 

Pics of da week

-We reached our goals, so we rewarded ourselves with Doctor Pepper (ft. Sis. Lunts little plant)

- this close to hitting a pipe thingy

-Sister Silos and I :)

Ran out of time today, here are some pics - 2/14/22

Mission email sent 2/14/22:

So yeah, like the title says, I ran out of time but I still wanted to send something. So here are some pics. 

I've been reading and going along the Come Follow Me this year, and Abraham 1 and 2 really stuck out to me. With so many churches in Texas, I have been pondering what makes our church different. This is what I've found:

1-The book of Mormon- another testament of Jesus Christ and the fullness of His gospel

2- the Priesthood Authority and with it, the covenants and ordinances needed to become like Christ and Heavenly Father, and to one day live in the Celestial Kingdom. 

3- ongoing revelation. From prophets and for ourselves. 

Learning about the Abrahamic covenant really helped me understand the difference of our church. While everyone is saved by Christ, we can only reach exaltation by making those sacred covenants with God with the correct priesthood. Find the same desire that Abraham had to be better, to have better, and to live better. That is what the fulness of the gospel is. I wish the best for everyone, in saying that, I wish everyone could understand the joy of this gospel and yearn to make those covenants with God. 

Okay bye ya'll, see you next week 

🦕Parry the Parasaurolophus🦕 - 3/21/22

Mission email sent 3/21/22

 I was told it's really nice when I sort and section out my emails, so I'm gonna do that more often now...

SERVICE: For me, a great week is one where lots of service is involved, and boy was this a great week. We went to two different Foodbanks, helped out at Janie's dress shop, and made food orders at Bishop's Storehouse. One of the Foodbanks let's us take some food home after we help, so I took the opportunity to snatch some croissants and and little pecan pies only a little expired hehe

EXCHANGES: We had exchanges this week which was super fun. Because I'm the old one in the companionship I got to stay in our area this time. Sister Kohler switched with sister Silos. We had a really great time serving at the dress shop, taught a few member lessons.  It was a fun learning experience to saw the least :) When Sister Kholer found out we had a guy she was so stoked. They don't have a gym so she made made she got maximum use out of our gym for the one day she was her. I'll put a picture of us below. 

WARD CONFERENCE: We had ward conference this Sunday. I absolutely loved the theme, Gathering Israel!!! Being a missionary, I realize how important it is to get members involved. Sadly, before my mission, I didn't necessarily know that! Need help knowing how to go about this? It's simple. Love, share, and invite. Find different ways to love the people around you whether that be family, coworkers, neighbors ect. With your love, share what's important to you, hopefully one of those things is the gospel. Then, invite them! Invite them to FHE, to chili cookofffs, to church, to parties, and whatever else. Give them some agency. If you never invite them, they never get the chance to choose. 

PARRY THE PARASAUROLOPHUS: My sweet mama sent me a package this week. It was filled with lots of goodies including my favorite chocolate eggs. Intriguingly, this was not all. In the bottom of the box I found a dinosaur egg. To make a long process and story short, I put the egg in cold water, and out came Parry. I thought about giving the egg away to a little kid so they could have fun with it, but I'm sort of glad that I kept him hehe. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: What is faith? I like to think of myself as a pretty logical person and so sometimes I have struggled with understanding faith and learning how to be faithful. That was until I read Alma 32 four different times. Faith is an experiment. How do you know something to be true? I don't think you can actually know something to be true unless you experiment for yourself. How do you know that sugar is sweet? How do you know a hot stove can burn your hand? It is because you've experienced it or seen someone else experience it. Then, you can assume in the future, or in other words, have faith that in the future, sugar will still be sweet and a hot stove will still burn your hand. Without action, faith is dead, it doesn't work because the point of faith is scientific. It's to eventually lead you to know things for certain, but you can't do that without experimenting. If you just sat there stagnant you wouldn't rule out anything. 

Never give up on the experiment of faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Multiple experiments may be needed. I invite you all to make a conscious effort of this. I know it will bless your life so much. You'll understand things you could never grasp before, and you'll find overfilling peace and joy as you come to know our Savior and everything He has done and continues to do for each one of us. 

Love you all :) 

Pics of the week:

-We went on a hike last Pday with Sisters Lunt and Kratz

-don't they look majestic

-us taking our foodbank food home

- St. Patrick's day package

-Me and Sister Kholer on exchanges 

-us waiting for Parry to hatch

-exchanges pic pt. 2, the sun was bright

-can't remember if I sent this pic last week

-There's Parry!! 

An email like me- short - 3/14/22

Twas a hard week with not much progression from our friends and not much excitement. Sister Silos and I are keeping our heads up and remembering our purposes for being out here. We know God has a plan, and as long as we're working hard and being obedient, we are doing the best we can. 

We have a lot of fun things planned for pday so I'm sorry this email is short. 

Here are some cute pics from the week

-stake relief society party

-saw this humongo lizard 

-breakfast 

-the infamous Grecos and Carlos

- Buffet palace dragon

-beautiful sunset  

Cows and more cows 🐄 and hope 🙏 - 3/7/22

 This week went by so fast I barely remember it. So you'll be getting just the highlight reel of my week this time. 

STOCKYARDS! Last pday, Sister Huber took me and Sis Silos to the Stockyards which is apparently a big deal to Fort Worth. Basically, you watch a herd of longhorns go through the city. There were also lots of cool shops. I was so tempted to by some cowboy hats and boots, but I refrained. Until next time

SELF DEFENSE CLASS- We went to this young women's activity. So fun and so useful 10/10. You can find Sis Silos and I practicing literally everywhere haha. As missionaries we sometime go into some sketch places so this was very useful to us. 

ZONE CONFERENCE- we had zone zonferenxe this week. It was so good. It helped me realign my focus on my purpose and also taught me a lot of good things about repentance. Which leads me to my spiritual thought

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT- Our faith in Christ and our love for Him lead us to repent. What is faith? I havent found the wording for it and I'm genuinely asking. What is faith to you? To me personally, I believe that my faith in Christ has been something that I've built up by reading the Word of God and following commandments. Faith leads to repentance, but what does repentance lead to? If you're a missionary and want to be smart with me you would say it leads to baptism, which is part of the answer. What I have found this week is that it leads to hope. Before and through repentance, we focus on the past, but after we repent and that weight is taken off of us, we can look forward. We have hope of being better, we have hope of moving on, we have hope of living with our Heavenly Father again. This is all made possible by one. Our Savior and Redeemer. He gives us our future. We can look forward because of Him. If you're tired of looking back and being weighed down, just turn to Him amd He will heal you.  If you want, read. Here's where I found that. Alma 22: 15-16

Pics from the week

Stockyardsss

Cute pics

I made a pancake flower