Pictures!

Lots are from Christmas and Christmas Eve, one from my birthday that is great and I forgot to send, and we got to see Ever for a second so we took a picture!

Picture - Virginia Richmond Christmas Mission Conference

What a year!!‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Tue 12/31/13 9:00 AM

Hello my dear family!

 

Man, it was soo good to talk to you guys the other day! You are as weird as I remember. Thanks for not changing too much. Christmas was soo great! We seriously got so spoiled. I am so glad that I only have one Christmas in the mission because I just don't think that another one could compare to how great this one was! I just feel so blessed to be with this amazing ward. And it looks like I will be staying for another transfer!! But sadly, my dearly beloved Hermana Bingham is being transferred. She has taught me lots and now it is other people's turn to be able to partake of some of the goodness of Hermana Bingham. She will be greatly missed!

 

So greatest news ever, Filiberto has a baptism date!!! January 18 is the day!! He is so ready and so committed. It WILL happen! Something about going to a Spanish ward just really helped him a lot. We had a lesson with him and when he told us that he is ready for us to pick a date for his baptism, we were soo excited! Hermana Bingham and I were talking that night about it, and we were talking about how we both needed to stay in this area for this transfer because we both get so overly excited about everything and Filiberto LOVES when we get excited about his progress haha. So he is doing so well!

 

Veronica is also doing so well! She came to watch a baptism on Saturday and really enjoyed it! We also had a lesson on temples that same day and at the end of the lesson, she said, "Maybe one day we will see each other in the temple." Sometimes I don't think investigators realize what they're saying to us! That made us so happy. Just the thought of being able to be in the temple with Veronica brings me so much joy. Veronica is a person that I just feel like I was supposed to meet. She has touched my life a lot. Maybe she was one of the reasons that I was supposed to be here in Virginia. Not because I needed to teach her, but because she needed to teach me. I think that the path to baptism will be a long one for her, but I believe that she will one day make the decision.

 

I can't even believe how fast this year has gone! And the fact that I was on my mission for most of it just blows my mind. I am so grateful for my mission. It is going too fast! I still have so much that I need to do and learn! I hope and pray that I will use every single moment of this precious time for good. My mission has brought me a lot of joy. I was studying this morning about joy and I found such a great scripture. It was in Alma 27:17-18 (I think). It talks about how Ammon's joy was so full that it exhausted all of his strength. And the next verse goes on to say how this kind of joy only comes to those who humbly seek it. Joy is one of our purposes in this life, but it will not always come naturally. We have to have the humility to seek for it, especially in times of trial. There is nothing greater than the joy that can come into our lives through living this beautiful gospel! I hope that we can all try to seek to have a little bit more joy this year.

 

I hope that you all have a great week and a wonderful New Year's! Eat lots of food for me. I love you all!!!!!!!!!!! Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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

 

Feliz Navidad!!‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 12/23/13 8:46 AM

Merry Christmas!! Feliz Navidad!! Melacaleekeemaka! (I tried.)

 

I can't even believe that it is already Christmas! I am so excited to talk to the fam on Wednesday!

 

Well this week was great! It was kind of hard to get in to see people because everyone is going or doesn't want to see us right now, but we were able to fill our time with some great things! One great thing that happened yesterday, Filiberto went to a Spanish ward yesterday and he loved it! We didn't go with him, but we called him later that day and he just loved it. He belongs in one. But he said that he is almost completely convinced about baptism!! I don't know what they said to him, but I am almost positive that he will set a date this week! He is just so ready. The only thing that he had to do was realize that he was ready. We are so so excited for him to take the step of baptism. He will be such an awesome member! He is going to sing with some other Spanish saints at the zoo tonight! He is so excited.

 

So there is this amazing member in our ward who can barely speak any Spanish at all, but she is such a great help to us. She comes with us to lessons all the time and gives such a sweet and powerful testimony in Spanglish. She is a convert of about 9 years so she always brings out a great testimony of how her life is different with the gospel. But she had this great idea of caroling in this trailer park! So we did that last Saturday with her, some English Sister missionaries, another lady from our ward, and a youth. It was soo much fun! We sang to Spanish and English people. There were numerous people that said, "This is really great that you guys are doing this! People don't really go around and carol anymore." It honestly ended up being such a great experience. So many people were touched and we helped to bring a lot of smiles to people's faces. And then we got to carol again with the other sister missionaries in our ward last night! The mission puts together this choir every year to go and sing at the zoo that is actually in my last area, and so we were going to go and sing at it, but it was raining a ton yesterday so they canceled it. So now we were left without anything to do all evening. But we got with the other sisters and went and sang to a bunch of less actives and one of their investigators! There is just something so special about Christmas music. I don't know how you could hear Christmas music and not just fall in love with Christmas.

 

The weather here has been SO warm. I can't even believe it! So it was really hard to feel the Christmas spirit. But yesterday the power went out and it was out at our church as well. But everyone still showed up to church and we had sacrament meeting by the light of a bunch of lanterns. For some reason, that just brought the feeling of Christmas. Even though the weather was warm outside, and it was all muggy inside the church,  it felt like Christmas! That was definitely a little tender mercy.

 

I am so grateful for this amazing season of Christ. I have felt so close to Christ this season as a missionary. I feel like I was able to get a little bit more of a grasp on all of the amazing things that He really did, this month. Without Christ, we are nothing. We could not make it through this life and into the next without Him and His redeeming love. He is our Savior. We are saved through Him. The love of Christ is such a powerful thing. I have been studying a lot about charity recently and in the Bible dictionary it says that Charity is "the highest, noblest, strongest kind of love, not merely affection; the pure love of Christ." There is not greater love than the love that we can feel from Christ. We are so lucky for the opportunity to feel of that love.

 

I hope that you all have a very very Merry Christmas! I miss you all lots. I am so glad that I will get to see your beautiful faces on Wednesday. Take care! I love you!!!!

 

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

Sorry it’s late! ‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Wed 12/18/13 1:04 PM

Hola familia!

 

Sorry that my email is late! I had what we thought was a very nasty stomach virus on Monday. It was bad. But I went on exchanges Saturday and yesterday we had our Christmas mission conference and the Hermana that I went on exchanges with asked if I was sick or anything. We helped out at a birthday party while I was on exchanges and it turns out that all of the missionaries that went to that got super sick, so we must have all got a bad case of food poisoning. I am so glad that it is over! And that I was able to go to the mission conference. Which I had the opportunity of speaking at! I spoke on patience. There was a missionary that talked about each Christ like attribute. The whole thing was so good!! The most amazing part though was that we sang As Sisters in Zion/Armies of Helaman. HOLY COW. I can't even think about it without getting chills! The power that was in that room was amazing. There were very few dry eyes, and lots of big smiles. I was just so extremely grateful for my mission at that moment and the things that I have felt through this sacred calling. After we sang it President Wilson got up and said that he felt like he was in the celestial room. He was right. I was so extremely grateful that he pointed that out because I miss the temple more than anything and the fact that I was able to realize that I was feeling that amazing feeling that is in the Celestial room was just so comforting and so great. I just can't explain it. Overall, life is good. The mission conference was amazing.

 

So this past week was incredible! First off, Jose has a baptismal date for January 25!! We are so so excited! He just gets it. I love our lessons with him because you can tell that he is really trying to understand and doing his best to keep his commitments and everything. And he LOVES the Book of Mormon! He just loves studying the footnotes and see how much it relates to the Bible. We didn't even tell him how to use the footnotes! He just figured it out. Every time he studies, he seems to really get in and dig deep in his reading. We still have a long way to go with him, but we have faith that he will be able to be baptized on his set date!

 

We met some amazing people last week as well. We met this guy named Marco, had a lesson with him Sunday morning, and then he came to church that day with his daughter! When we had our lesson with him he told us about all of the life changes he had made lately and how much the knowledge of knowing that he is a child of God changed him. It was amazing! I have never heard anyone say something like that in the first lesson. We also met this awesome couple the same day! So earlier that day, I was thinking about how I wanted someone to say to me that they felt like they needed more in their life. Sounds weird, but it’s true! And then that night, we met Valeria and Fermin. Fermin said that his religion just didn't fill his heart the way he would like it to. I was so excited! How lucky are we to be able to say that we have the thing that will fill peoples' hearts more than anything else? So we told him that we had the thing that will fill his heart! They were both so excited! And at the end of the lesson, they gave us the most sincere ‘gracias I've ever heard. What a wonderful work that this is!

 

I am so so grateful for this Christmas season! Christ really is the reason. He is everything. We would be so lost without Him. I am so grateful to be a missionary around this season as well! You really do learn the true meaning of Christmas.

 

Speaking of Christmas, I get to talk to you!!! Woo! Apparently Mom doesn't want to Skype... So let me know very very soon if you want to Skype or call because I can do either! I can hardly wait! Just one week! I'm not really sure how it’s going to work out so I will let you know next Monday for sure. I might be able to call you for a minute before just to set up a time, but I will let you know for sure. Let me know what time is best for you! I love you all soo much! Merry Christmas!!

 

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

 

Pictures

Simple Joys‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 12/09/13 8:54 AM

Hola!

 

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes and everything! My birthday was wonderful! Hermana Bingham surprised me with Olive Garden for lunch and we went with some other Sister missionaries. Later we went over to Veronica's to teach her and Claudia and watch the Testaments, and then they totally just threw this little fiesta for me! They're the greatest! It was complete with chips, cheese dip, party hats and toys, and them making me put my face in the cake to take the first bite! They are the sweetest ever. And then the ward mission leader and his wife had us and the other missionaries in the ward over to have cake and ice cream! It was lots of fun! They are some of my favorite people ever! It was definitely a birthday to remember! And now we have 3 cakes at our house. We are getting chubby.

 

I'm not sure I've talked about him before, but our investigator Jose is so awesome! He is related to a recent convert in my last ward, and before a couple days ago, he seemed interested, but not extremely into it. But the other day we went over and asked him about his reading and HOLY COW! We had him read in Alma 32 and I have never seen someone enjoy that chapter the way he did. He just started getting so excited and talking about how everyone thinks that you have to know everything before baptism, but the thing he learned from that chapter is that you don't! How he got that on his own, I don't know, but it was amazing! He was getting so excited and so then us and our member present (who doesn't even speak Spanish) was getting so excited! I didn't realize how much we were all freaking out about it until we had stopped talking about it haha. But he is now thinking about a baptismal date! We are so excited because all of our investigators are having a hard time committing to a baptismal date, but he is so close!

 

Enrique and his wife Ruth are doing great! We reviewed the restoration with them the other day and watched the restoration DVD and it was so powerful. The Spirit was just so strong! Enrique was even crying because of how strong the Spirit was! We always ask them if they really want to know if these things are true, and he always says, "Of course. That's why we let you keep coming back." We have high hopes that they will commit to a baptismal date soon!

 

There was a pretty big storm here yesterday. Church was almost cancelled. I wish there would have been some snow involved, but unfortunately we didn't get any in Mechanicsville. But we couldn't go to a couple of our lessons last night that were kind of far away. We now had an open night and we weren't quite sure what we needed to be doing with our time. We don't really do less active work in this ward, so we asked the other sisters if there was anyone that they wanted us to visit. They told us the name of a lady that they had never met before. So we went and talked with her and she is awesome! She said she probably won't be coming back to church, but we were able to go and share a thought with her and help her feel loved. We later came to find out that she is very very rarely home and it was lucky that we caught her! It was such a simple simple thing, but we both knew that we needed to be there that night. I am just so extremely amazed at God's amazing plans. He really has a plan for EVERYTHING. We needed to be there. Even if she doesn't come back to church any time soon, we needed to be there to share our message with her. More and more lately I am seeing that plans falling through isn't always a horrible thing. Most of the time, God just needs us somewhere else.

 

I am so extremely grateful for this wonderful Christmas season! One thing I loved from the broadcast last night was when President Monson said something like, "Don't forget the simple joys that come from remembering Christ's birth." Christmas is full of lots of simple joys. I am so grateful to be able to go out and help people know Christ a little bit more. Being a missionary is so great!

 

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

 

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

 

Pictures!

The most amazing cat I've ever seen! I don't even like cats that much, but I was obsessed with this one! Look how big it is! Its called a Savanah Cat.

Decorating @ Veronica's

 

Pajamas Veronica gave me

 

Thanksgiving

 

Last week of teenagerdom‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 12/02/13 8:58 AM

 

Hello everybody!

 

This week was so great! I hope that everybody had as great of a Thanksgiving as I did! Thanksgiving was seriously so great. I am just so extremely grateful that I got to stay in this area with my amazing companion for this transfer of the holidays! On Thanksgiving we went and made breakfast for this cute little lady in our ward with the other sisters serving in our ward. Then we went with all of the other missionaries and had dinner/lunch with a family in our ward and holy cow! There was soo much food! There was a whole table just for the pies!! It was amazing and magnificent :) And then we went and ate at the church with some of the other families in our ward. It was so fun! The Mechanicsville ward is amazing. I love all of the members so much. They made our Thanksgiving one to remember! And my giant belly is also a good reminder of the glorious day.

 

So sad thing first. Our investigator Ever dropped us. It was pretty sad. Usually you are expecting someone to drop you, but this one came completely by surprise so it was pretty hard for us. We went to go meet with him and he said that he plays the music in his church he was attending and he is getting pretty involved with it and doesn't have time for both. It was also the nicest drop I've ever had too haha. He took us out to lunch after to thank us for everything we've done for him! He felt pretty bad about it, but I guess now is just not his time. We are crossing our fingers that he will notice a difference in his life and want us to go back and teach him, but if not, I know that God has a plan and one day I know that he will embrace this gospel. I'm sure that after this life we'll be in heaven (hopefully) and I'll see him and say, "Hey! You finally got baptized!" And then it will be a happy reunion and the seed we planted in his life will have finally blossomed.

 

Filiberto is doing fabulous! God really does have a plan. Lately little things here and there have been coming up that are things that need to be cleared up before baptism that wouldn't have been cleared up if he would have gotten baptized before. So as hard and as frustrating as that was, it was meant to be. But he is doing soo great! He knows that he needs to be committed to this gospel and he is willing to do those things that he needs to make the changes necessary so that he can give his all to this gospel! He is just so solid right now. He needed some help with translating recently and we got him in contact with someone from my last ward, and now that member has taken some serious initiative in befriending him. He got invited to go and do something there and apparently he said one of the prayers to open it or close it! He was so proud of himself haha. He is just the greatest!

 

Veronica is doing pretty good! I seriously love her so much. Last week I was just really tired and it wasn't one of my best days and we went and had a short lesson with her and she completely turned my day around with just her goodness and spirit. And the only Hispanic member of our ward had a family home evening at her house and invited Veronica and Filiberto and it was really good for her. This member was catholic before (Veronica is catholic) so she was able to relate really well to her and tell her about how this church has helped her life. It was a lot of fun! We ate some good food and partook of the good word of God. We had another lesson with Veronica and after she let us help her set up some Christmas decorations! It was so fun! Setting us a Christmas tree is one of my favorite parts of Christmas so I was glad that I was able to do it this year! And then after she gave Hermana Bingham some boots that don't fit her and she gave me some pajamas that she never wore that don't fit her haha she is the sweetest lady ever! Man, we have the best investigators.

 

We have a new investigator Enrique who is just progressing so fast! And now his wife Ruth is too! They are the cutest little couple. At first we weren't really sure how Ruth felt about us, but last night we had a lesson and she fed us. That is definitely a good sign from Hispanics! So now she is progressing as well. They are so great and just so humble.

 

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! And remember that December 6, 1993 was the day that your lives got a little bit better :) haha. (Dad, my birthday isn't Wednesday...) I love you all soooo much!! Happy holidays!!!!

 

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