Time to get fat!!‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail
Sent:	Mon 11/25/13 9:01 AM

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

I can't believe it will be thanksgiving this week! The weather before yesterday has been pretty great so it didn't even seem like the holiday season should be beginning, but yesterday it definitely started to feel like it. It was sooo cold! Holy smokes! The cold here is different... Straight to the bones it goes. But my snazzy coat is helping me to stay warm! If anyone is feeling super generous this season, send me hand and feet warmers por favor.

 

We had a great week! Lots of new investigators! We had kind of been lacking in the new investigators department lately so this week we did a lot of finding and had 5 new investigators! It was great. We just met some really great people this week! One of the people we are now teaching is this guy named Enrique. He is so cool! We have already have a couple lessons with him and he is keeping all of his commitments and doing even more than we ask him! He agreed to be baptized once he knows more, so hopefully we will be able to get him on date soon!

 

The Lord always has a plan. I am so grateful for that. We just need to follow that plan. This week we went to have a lesson with someone and they weren't home. But there was this lady that was sitting at a table in front of her trailer across the street and Hermana Bingham felt that we should go talk to her, even though she wasn't Hispanic. Turns out this lady is having a really hard time right now. She was just crying the whole time and was just like, "You are the angels that I needed today!" This lady is amazing! She is having such a hard time right now and yet she is always trying to help out other people, even if it means making huge sacrifices. She was definitely an example to me! She didn't want to commit to having missionaries come teach her, but we told her we might send some by. I have faith that this message will touch her life and she will be baptized! If not, she has a huge heart and a huge love for God. I am sure that this message will be something that she will accept in the next life! I am so grateful for my amazing companion and the guidance of the Lord!

 

We had stake conference this weekend and it was soo good! In the adult session we talked about the hastening of the work. President Wilson spoke and he reminded us to not forget the whole sentence: "Hastening the work of salvation." He shared what the definition of hasten is: to excelerate; make something go faster. That is exactly what we are all doing! It is a part of our purpose in life. I hope that I can go back and be a good member missionary. I am not here to serve the Lord for just 18 months. I am here to serve Him and preach His gospel for the rest of my life. I hope to one day be like Grandpa Poulsen! Haha what a guy. Thanking all the Hispanics for the Book of Mormon and always giving one to random people!

 

The next day in the adult session, President Wilson talked again and he talked about what has become one of my all time favorite stories in the scriptures! He talked about John 21 when Jesus tells his disciples to put the net on the other side of the boat and then they have so much fish that they can't even cast in the net. But that's not my favorite part. I love verse 9 I think it is. So before this, they don't know that it is the Lord that is talking to them from the shore, but then one of the disciples tells Peter that it is the Lord. Now this is my favorite part in verse 9 when it talks about how after Peter heard that that, he cast himself in the water. Peter loved the Lord so much that he couldn't wait for the boat to go to the shore. He threw himself into the water and swam to Him. Peter's love for the Savior is such an example to me! I hope to be the kind of person that when I see the Lord, I will be so excited to see Him that I won't be able to wait until the boat gets to Him. I will throw myself in the water and swim to Him! I will work my whole life to have love for the Lord like Peter did. I love the Lord so much and I know that I need to show it even more.

 

I hope that you all have an amazing Thanksgiving and get really fat! Eat lots of stuffing in honor of me. I love you all so much! Have the best week ever!!

 

And now I close mine epistle. I am Hermana Horton.

 

Pictures! Callie's Mechanicsville District

The Beauty of Missionary Work‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 11/18/13 8:56 AM

Hola familia!

 

This last week was weird. Great, but weird! We just had meetings almost every single morning (which were AMAZING!) and so it just made the rest of the day go a little differently, but it was great. We had a meeting with all of the Spanish missionaries in the mission last Thursday. HOLY COW. It was soooo good! A lot of it was in English, but I just felt so edified and even more excited to go out and do Spanish work! I meant to bring my notes to the library, but I forgot so I will try to remember some of my favorite parts. We had a really great lesson on language study and just on learning the language. The missionary that gave it was pretty much fluent in like 4 months so it was really great to hear everything that he had to say. One thing that I loved was that he talked about how fast we learn the language depends on our dedication. I know I won't be the first to say this, but learning another language is HARD! You really have to put your mind to it and have a desire to do it. There are a lot of things that I have done in my mission that I probably would have never done otherwise in my life. Asking someone to be baptized in a language that I don't even know on my 5th day in the field? Yeah. (And I totally didn't even say it right haha) But the Lord has called me here to Virginia to speak Spanish to the Hispanic people. That's why I did it. That's why I was even able to do it! And you have to speak Spanish a lot of times when it is the last thing that you want to do at that time. But we do it anyways because we need to be dedicated to learning this language. Another thing he talked about was how we need to constantly be progressing in the language. Learning new words, new language rules, and always perfecting our accents. It was great! President Wilson gave some amazing thoughts about learning Spanish too. He talked about how we need to keep using it after our missions because the Lord may have other uses for it. AND he said that we can now communicate with about 90% of the members of the church! How cool is that?? I am really grateful for Spanish. Its probably been one of the most humbling experiences of my life trying to learn this beautiful language, but I am extremely grateful for it!

 

So transfer calls were last night and we didn't get a call so Hermana Bingham and I are staying here!! WOO! We are so excited! We were hoping that we would at least be able to stay together during the holidays and with this ward, so our dreams came true!

 

We had a really great lesson with Filiberto this week about temples. Man I miss the temple!! But missing it has made me appreciate it more and helped my testimony to grow. But we were talking about temples and reading some things in the "Preparing to go to the Temple" booklet. Half way through the lesson he looks at us and says, "I'm going to go here someday!" Our day was complete. Actually, it pretty much completed our whole week. He is so ready for baptism. He just needs to set a date and he will be set! Hopefully he will set one this week!

 

I am so extremely grateful for the guide of the Spirit in this amazing and precious work. Last night we had done everything that we could think of and we had time left and we just didn't know what to do. We were sitting in this parking lot of an apartment complex trying to figure out what to do. I was just praying so hard because everything had fallen through so obviously Heavenly Father had something else in mind for us. So after just thinking and praying so hard I looked at the green door near by and had the thought, "Go knock that door." My first thought was, "I think He is just trying to see if I'll do it." Sooo we went and knocked the green door! We talked to a really cool guy and gave him a restoration pamplet, but he really wasn't interested. But after we saw this lady near by doing something so we went to go help her and we ended up talking to her for a good 40 minutes and she is just so spiritual and totally interested in coming to our church! The Lord works in mysterious ways. But he lead us to this lady through the guy behind the green door. We definitely wouldn't have talked to the lady if we didn't first go to the green door. We had another experience like that with a less active. After we had walked through a store looking for Hispanics, we came out and saw a less active that we just love so much but who has been too busy lately for a visit. This place was outside of the Mechanicsville ward boundaries so we are the only missionaries that could have been at that place at that time. Even though we didn't find any Hispanics, we were able to talk to her. Such amazing tender mercies!

 

I am so so grateful that this is the Lord's work and that He is there to guide us every step of the way. I hope that I can always be worthy to receive His help.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all mucho!!!

 

And now I close mine epistle. I am Hermana Horton.

Hey ya'll!!‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Tue 11/12/13 9:09 AM

Hello all!

 

Sorry that this email is a day late. We had a member of the seventy come talk to us yesterday! So our p day is today instead. It was so great! His name is Elder Sitati. Him and his wife are from Kenya. They were so cute and so funny! They gave us soo much good advice! Elder Sitati broke up our missionary purpose into little sections and he showed us how all except for one parts relates to us too, not just our investigators. My favorite part was with the beginning of our purpose. The first line is, "invite others to come unto Christ." He changed it to say this, "Come unto Christ to invite others to come unto Christ." Whoa!! It’s so amazing how different a mission is than what I thought it would be. I knew that I would change when I was on a mission, but I thought it would be so much more of helping to change other people. I have found this to be soo different. We can't even begin to help people if we aren't changed ourselves. We are here to better ourselves so that we can eventually help others. Hermana Bingham and I had to give a training in district meeting last week about our purpose. I related it something that I learned in the Red Cross. On our shirts it says, "Ourselves. Our community. Our world." We have to first help ourselves and love ourselves, then we can help others and love others. And through these things we are helping the world to be a better place. I was so grateful to hear Elder Sitati speak! But I almost didn't! I got some super nasty stomach something or other on Sunday. It took me out for almost the whole day. I was feeling WAY poopy before I went to bed and we weren't sure we were going to be able to go. But I got a blessing and our district leader and his companion brought me Sprite and saltines and that helped a ton. We were able to make it! It was definitely a miracle.

 

Ever came to church!!!!! We could not even believe it. Filiberto walks in and behind him walks in little Ever. Both of our jaws dropped and we were soo excited!! Filiberto went and talked to their boss so that he could come to church. The boss let him but said that he won't be able to go every week. But still!! I honestly didn't know if we would ever see him at church unless he lost his job. But thanks to Filiberto he was able to come! Filiberto is so great! He is still doing great. Doesn't want to make a baptismal date just quite yet, but he'll get there after everything with his work is better. I know he'll be baptized.

 

Our investigator Claudia is also progressing a lot!! We had dinner with her and Veronica (who also came to church!!) on Saturday and after we had a lesson about the Sabbath Day. We know that Claudia has to work on Sundays and that we've kind of talked to her about it before. But we just told them how it was and how it is such a huge blessing in our lives and that God will always supply a way to live His commandments. I was kind of afraid that it would sound like we were chastising her, but after the lesson she talked about how good she felt and that she was really grateful for what we said. She is going to try to come to church as soon as she can!

 

We've found another place with a bunch of Hispanics!! Its in the town of Sandston. We're just beginning to teach some people there, but we have high hopes for this place. There is a trailer park there and a couple of apartment complexes that are loaded with them! It is so great to be a part of this area and help it to grow. I love when we are able to find these places and introduce them to something they've never heard before. It is so much better than being somewhere where almost everyone there has seen missionaries before. This Sunday is transfer calls and we are crossing our fingers that we get to be in this area for one more transfer! Especially during the holidays, I would love to be with Hermana Bingham and with this ward over the holidays. So keep your fingers crossed!

 

I hope you all have a lovely week! Remember that I love you sooo much and am so grateful for all that you all do for me. I know that prayers are being sent my way. I can feel it. Thank you so much. I love you!

 

And now I close mine espistle. I am Hermana Horton.

Semana de loca

Semana de loca‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 11/04/13 8:58 AM

ALOHA!

 

I hope ya'll said 'aloha' back. Well this week was absolutely crazy! I will get the bad out of the way. Filiberto unfortunately didn't get baptized. We were super bummed. Just sooooo much happened and he got offended about some stuff and he called us Wednesday night to tell us that he didn't want to get baptized anymore. We were SHOCKED, to say the least. On the phone he didn't really explain what happened and he didn't have time for us to meet with him in person until Sunday. We basically spent every single day ripping our hair out trying to figure out what happened. There were some complications with the building scheduling and just one thing lead to another, he was offended, but he's ok now! We talked everything out and he's got all this stuff going on with his work, but he thinks he will be baptized next month. Until then he will continue to take lessons from us and come to church! We know that this was all a part of God's plan. And in the long run, he can make his testimony even stronger until then! We are sad that he didn't get baptized Saturday, but we know that God has everything is His hands. (So glad it's in His and not ours.)

 

I got to see Jordan's parents and sister and her kids on Halloween! That was fun! They took Hermana Bingham and I out to breakfast. It was great to see a familiar face. It was funny though because I haven't had anyone call me by my first name in forever! Its strange how fast you get used to being called something else. It was lots of fun.

 

So at the end of last month we ran out of miles so we did A TON of walking last week. I felt so much like a real missionary! My feet sure felt it too. We also bummed a lot of rides from members. It was really interesting, but lots of fun! We were really grateful for the beautiful weather last week. I can't even believe how amazing this weather still is! Its chilly today, but not too bad. And Fall is in full bloom over here. It is sooo beautiful! Fall had become one of my favorite seasons. Especially if the weather is this nice!

 

Dad sent me the talk by Elder Bednar about tender mercies and I loved it so much! It might be one of my all time favorites now. There are really tender mercies all around us and we are all worthy to recieve them, we just need to look for them. Even on the worst one days. Last Tuesday was just one of those days. Wasn't too bad, but just wasn't the greatest. There was a member driving us to Ashland and on the way we started talking about this amazing restaurant in Ashland that we wanted to try. She talked about how good it was and then when we were getting out of the car she handed us $30 to go and try the restaurant that day. Day completed. There are so many things like this around us all the time. Life is going to be so much harder if we can't go about it looking for the tender mercies about our day. I then started to realize that the gratitude journal that I keep is more like a book of tender mercies. And since I've started looking at it like that, I am even more grateful and see the tender mercies even more. So look for the tender mercies in your life. And I can promise that as you are obedient to God's commandments you will see them even more in your life. We just need to try our best and open our eyes. Thanks for the talk Dad!

 

I am just so grateful for life. And having a happy life is totally a choice. Sometimes it is not an easy choice, but if we choose to be happy and try our best to be happy, we are going to be. At zone meeting on Friday this girl said a quote that I just loved a lot. It was, "If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." -Henry Ford. We CAN be happy, even through the bad. We have so much to be happy for in this life. Another quote that I heard that I loved is, "If God is all you have, then you have all you need." -Elder Holland. If we have God in our lives then we have SO much to be happy about. I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father and the love that He has for me.

 

Well I hope you all have a fabulous week! Try this week to be a little bit happier and look for the tender mercies more. I love you all sooo much!!!

 

And now I close mine epistle. I am Hermana Horton.

 

P.S. Happy birthday Laura!!!

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