The Will of God

Hello all!

I can't believe this transfer is almost over already. At the end of this transfer I will have been out on my mission for 4 1/2 months with 3 months in the field. WHAT IS LIFE. I am so incredibly blessed to be able to have this opportunity! And it's already flown by so fast!

So lately, I have been struggling a lot with the language and feeling like I am not able to communicate effectively with the investigators and the members. But, Hermana Hernandez, my sister-training-leader, said that the people won't judge me or think I'm stupid as long as I'm trying to communicate with them in their own language. She said that I just need to have faith in myself that I can do it, have patience with myself that the language will come as long as do everything I can, and have faith that Heavenly Father will help me with the language with time. 

It's just like the Christ-like attributes that I was talking about last week. Having faith and being patient in those hard times. We all need to have patience with ourselves and faith that things will work out. In this day and age everything has instant gratification or results. We can google something and get an answer immediately. We have endless instantaneous answers with the technology we hold in our hands, pockets, and purses. But, Our Father in Heaven's timing is different. It's perfect. It is the timing of eternity. He has a greater plan that we could ever imagine. Sometimes we may be confused that things we think are the right path don't go our way. Sometimes that confusion can lead to frustration with God. But, if we are patient and have faith that He knows what is best for us we will receive more blessings than we ever thought possible. I love this Mormon Message called "The Will of God." It has helped me understand that I need to look at the bigger picture, have patience, and have faith in Heavenly Father. I encourage all of you to watch it! 

Unfortunately, no exciting pictures from this week. I know, sad day. So here's a selfie of all of us emailing!

 

 

We are going bowling with our zone in about 5 minutes and I'm super excited about it! And I know we'll take lots of pictures there! And I'll be better next week I promise!

I love you all and hope you continue to grow closer to your Father in Heaven everyday. I pray for you daily and know that God loves you! I can't wait to hear from you!

Love Always,

Hermana Café 

For regular mail/letters:

720 S 200 W #2

Logan, UT 84321

For packages that won't fit into a regular mailbox:

179 E 800 N

Logan, UT 84321

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience in Thine Afflictions

Hi All!

This week was hard because it seemed like no one would open the door and our appointments kept falling through. But onward and upward right?! We did get one new investigator and I got to teach that lesson with a really cool returned missionary named Paige, who served in the Argentina Buenos Aires West mission! She got back two weeks ago! She is super sweet and has an amazing testimony of this gospel. 

In other news, the three of us have been sick off and on all week. Two days ago it was Sister Lucas, yesterday Sister Michia, and it looks like I'm next. It's making the rounds which really puts us out of commission if we don't have a member to go to lessons with one of us! But we press on!

 

Sister Lucas and I started Insanity: Max 30 yesterday. It is kicking my butt! It's super hard, but a really good workout. Gotta get that exercise in! Other than that nothing else new is really going on other than snow. Here is a picture we took the other day while it was snowing outside:

Precious right?!

Anyway, onto the spiritual thought of the week! 

This week I was studying Christlike attributes. Christ is our ultimate example of what Heavenly Father wants us to be like and what a better way to be like him than to follow in his footsteps? So, I was studying Faith and Patience this week; how they relate to each other, why they are important, and how to have them. 

In Preach My Gospel, the guide to missionary service, it says this about faith, "Faith leads to action, including repentance, obedience, and dedicated service. When you have faith in Jesus Christ, you trust the Lord enough to follow His commandments—even when you do not completely understand the reasons for them. You accomplish what the Lord wants you to accomplish."  I never really thought of that before. Faith is not just something that you have. It's something that you act upon. You have to show your faith by doing something. And when you have true faith you trust Christ and Heavenly Father and follow the pit commandments "even when you do not completely understand the reasons for them." Faith is not knowing everything and then acting. It's completely putting your trust in Heavenly Father knowing that He has a plan for us individually. That's where patience comes in. 

Preach My Gospel says, "Patience is the capacity to endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering without becoming angry, frustrated, or anxious. It is the ability to do God’s will and accept His timing. When you are patient, you hold up under pressure and are able to face adversity calmly and hopefully. Patience is related to hope and faith—you must wait for the Lord’s promised blessings to be fulfilled." This is something that I'm seriously working on. Heavenly Father truly has a plan for each of us and His timing is completely different than our timing. Anyone who knows me knows that I have always had a hard time with being patient! But I know I need to have faith in Heavenly Father and be patient with His timing because His timing is perfect. 

A scripture that I came across the other day when I was feeling really down about our lessons being cancelled was in The Book of Mormon. In Alma it says, "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success." (Alma 26:27)

I really love that. Even when we are depressed or feeling like we're drowning in our afflictions we can find comfort in the Lord. He will "give unto us success" if we are patient and have faith in Him through our hard times. 

I am so grateful to be able to turn to my Heavenly Father and to Jesus Christ to find that comfort. As we become more like our Savior, we will be able to truly grow closer to Him and to Our Heavenly Father and truly feel Their love for us. I know that as we are patient and faithful to Their commandments, teachings, and plan for our lives we will see countless blessings come to us. 

I love you all and hope you continue to grow closer to your Father in Heaven everyday. I pray for you daily and know that God loves you! I can't wait to hear from you!

For regular mail:

720 S 200 W #2

Logan, UT 84321

For packages that won't fit into a regular mailbox:

179 E 800 N

Logan, UT 84321

Love Always,

Hermana Café 

It's already week 3?!

Wow. Week 3 of my second transfer. This transfer is FLYING by! And exciting things are happening!!This past week we have gotten 7 new investigators and 5 of our investigators have a baptismal date! The gospel is true! Let me tell you about some of our investigators.Veronica is from Guatemala and has been here for about 10 years. Her two children are still back in Guatemala and she works and sends what she can to them. She has an INCREDIBLE testimony of the importance of repentance and prayer. She wants to be baptized and she knows that this is true she has just been really sick lately so we haven't been able to see her. When we did see her last, we had an AMAZING lesson of the Book of Mormon with Hermano Morales (the 2nd counselor in the bishopric). He has a beautiful testimony of this gospel and especially gaining a testimony thorough reading the Book of Mormon. And when he shared it the Spirit was SO strong! Veronica is such an amazing woman who has been through more than you could ever imagine and she still turns to her Heavenly Father through it all. She is such an example to me of fully relying on God! 

Brian is 17 and a junior in high school. He has a 1 year old son named Lorenzo who is absolutely ADORABLE. His girlfriend Kaytlin is also in high school and is a less active member of the church. They are incredible parents for Lorenzo and Brian is very intuitive. He asks such great questions that really are his soul trying to search for the truth! Unfortunately we are going to have to pass them off to the English Elders since they want to attend church in English. Sad day, but he is searching for truth so that is what we are happy about! Their family will be so blessed from having this gospel in their lives.

Marta is from Jalisco, Mexico and has been in Logan for a long time. We met her while tracting and shared the A Savior is Born video. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and really enjoys our visits. She has 3 sons; two are grown, out of the house, and married, and the other's name is Junior. Junior is incredible. He is 15 years old and has Downs Syndrome. He is so sweet and loves the Book of Mormon. He goes to Special Needs Seminary, so he already knows everything about the gospel and loves it. Marta calls him her little angel. He truly is. He is probably closer to Heavenly Father than any of us! Marta is really starting to open up and let us know truly what her fears, hopes, and needs are. 

We are so grateful to be able to touch the lives of these incredible children of God. We know that this gospel will bless their lives and the lives of all of God's children! 

If you are not a member and want to learn more about the message of Jesus Christ that we share you can to go https://www.mormon.org/missionaries and request to meet with the missionaries (just like me!) in your area! 

Last week, we celebrated Dia de Los Reyes Magos (Day of the Three Kings/Wise Men). The Hispanic culture celebrates the day that the Three Kings or Wise Men found Jesus and presented their gifts to him. Instead of getting presents from Santa Claus on Christmas it is the three wise men who are the bearers of gifts. The children leave their shoes outside, with water and grass for the camels (like the cookies and milk for Santa), to get the presents from the wise men. We ate the traditional dessert of "Rosca" and it was great! We celebrated with one of the members in our ward, Tami.

 

Sister Clark, Hermana Michia, Hermana Lucas, and Me with the Rosca!​

It was really good!​

Miracle for the week! Our water heater pilot light went out as we were getting ready to go to the temple this morning. We called them to come over and look at it when we got home and then we found out that there were parts missing (safety guards) and the water heater was leaking. Hermana Lucas checked the knob on the water heater this morning and it was set to "off" rather than "on" because it's normally set to on when then pilot light is on. Not one of us changed it recently. So we are convinced that an angel definitely came and turned it off so we wouldn't get sick or die from a gas leak in the middle of the night. The guy who came out was really mad that someone even tried to light the pilot light because it is so old and there was stuff missing. He said that it's a miracle that someone wasn't killed! We are getting a new water heater in the next couple of days. Heavenly Father is truly looking out for His missionaries!

We got to go to the temple this morning and it was great! I love being able to go to the temple and feel the incredible Spirit that is in the House of the Lord.

Hermana Lucas, Me, and Hermana Michia!

And here is just one of my favorite pictures from this week!

​We are goofballs.

Onto important business. Remember how I said that our Mission Office asked that we have our packages and mail sent directly to us instead of to the Mission Office? JUST KIDDING! You can send me regular letters to MY address, but if it won't fit into a regular mailbox then you need to send it to the mission office. So now the correct information is:

For regular mail:

720 S 200 W

Logan, UT 84321

For packages that won't fit into a regular mailbox:

179 E 800 N

Logan, UT 84321

Sorry about the confusion! 

You are all in my prayers daily! I love you all and can't wait to hear from you! 

Love Always,

Hermana Café (Brown)

Surprise!

Feliz Año Nuevo!!!

It's 2016!!!! Gahhh!!! 

So, last Wednesday we got new missionaries! I'm not the youngest in the mission anymore! Unfortunately, none of them were Spanish speaking so I'm still the baby in the Spanish program...

We spent our New Year's Eve in a church building playing Volleyball from 6-9 and then we went home, planned and slept. Of course, we were promptly woken up at 11:59 pm to fireworks and loud noises in our front yard to which we responded "Happy New Year, Hermana" "Happy New Year" and then fell back to sleep. Such an exciting new year!!!!! 

Nothing else exciting happened until today! So the reason for the title of the email is that SURPRISE! we have a new companion! I am now in a trio with Hermana Lucas and Hermana Michia! She is from Argentina so I'm really excited to be able to have two native Spanish speakers around. I think it will really help me learn the language.

Everyone keeps making me jealous by talking about the Star Wars movie and I freak out everytime we see anything Star Wars related so naturally I had to take this picture...

​

If anyone tells me any spoilers I WILL CRY. So please don't! It's hard enough with all of the things I want to buy in Walmart!!! Haha!

Onto important business. Our Mission Office has asked that we have our packages and mail sent directly to us instead of to the Mission Office! So now my address is:

720 S 200 W

Logan, UT 84321

Last, but never least, a spiritual thought! This week I was reading a talk by President Uchtdorf, 2nd Counselor in the First Presidency, called "The Power of a Personal Testimony." And there was a quote that I really loved. It says, "A testimony is a most precious possession because it is not acquired by logic or reason alone, it cannot be purchased with earthly possessions, and it cannot be given as a present or inherited from our ancestors. We cannot depend on the testimonies of other people. We need to know for ourselves." That is such a powerful and true statement. We all need to know and find out for ourselves that Jesus Christ is the resurrected, living Son of the living God, Our Heavenly Father. He is the only one who knows us completely because He suffered for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross at Calvary. He is the only way we can return to live with our Heavenly Father again. We must come unto Him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit having full faith in Him. Only then may we gain eternal life. I know that my Heavenly Father lives and He loves us. I know that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son who suffered for all of us. He knows us perfectly and wants us to turn to Him in our weakness and our sorrow. I am so blessed to have this opportunity to share this gospel with the world, especially the people of Logan. I encourage each of you to pray and find out for yourself, to gain a personal testimony as President Uchtdorf teaches.

I love each of you so much and I can't wait to hear about your wonderful New Year!

Love Always,

Hermana Brown

720 S 200 W

Logan, UT 84321