Another week in the record books

Another week in the record books

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 8/25/14 8:59 AM

Hello dearest loved ones!

 

I can't believe how nice the weather has been here lately! We have had a pretty nice Summer. Not too many excruciatingly hot days. This morning was nice and fresh. Felt like a Utah morning. But the mosquitoes have been pretty nasty the last couple weeks. We all have some nice battle wounds from having too many mosquito bites. 

 

This past week was a great one! We had Spanish meeting last Tuesday and we learned lots of great stuff that we brought miracles as we have been applying it. And then last Friday we had a zone conference with Elder Andersen from the Seventy. It was so good! He and his wife are so cute. One of my favorite things that I learned was that he talked about the pride cycle. He drew a circle on the board and around the circle he wrote these words in this order: Pride, offend Spirit, failure, humility, invite Spirit, success, and then right back to pride. He told us that we won't be humbled after failure if we get angry and that we won't get prideful after success if we have gratitude. Sometimes being successful and humble are hard to have together, but it is definitely possible with humility. He also had a fireside that night with new members and investigators that we were able to go to. He talked about some of the things that we do as missionaries and some crazy things that we go through. He also taught the restoration. It was so cool! The Spirit bore witness to my heart again that the message of the restoration is true. I just love the power and simplicity of the restoration. It is such a beautiful story.

 

We were knocking doors this past week and we found this lady named Maribel. We were having this really great lesson and I was teaching about the Atonement and she started to cry. I just felt so grateful that it touched her heart! It just feels like so many times we tell people the wonder and happiness of the Atonement and it just completely goes over their heads. So then she went on to tell us about a dream where she was choking and she had to go to the hospital. One of the doctors there was Christ and he was telling her that her and her husband needed to follow Him. So she now realizes that that is what she needs to do in her life. Towards the end of the lesson her husband came home. It turns out that they had been to church once before and that they know one of the members in the ward! The husband works a lot on Sundays, but hopefully they will start coming soon.

 

Lizeth is still doing great! We had a lesson about baptism last week and we went over the baptismal interview questions and now she wants to learn more about sin and repentance. We're still having a hard time getting her to church, but besides that she is doing awesome!

 

I hope you all have a fabulous week! The Church is true! I love you!

 

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

 

Pictures!

These pictures contain:

-Matthew's baptism

-The Sisters we live with are having a hard time finding so we've been trying to help them get creative, so we drew the plan of salvation in a park! 

-Us eating lots of Hispanic food :)

 

 

 

From the land where we say "y'all" and "hola"

From the land where we say "y'all" and "hola"

Sent:	Mon 8/18/14 8:50 AM

iHola!

 

I hope you all had a great week! This past week was weird, but great. We felt so exhausted yesterday and we felt like we had done so much and then we looked at all of our numbers for the week and we were pretty surprised. It’s just proof that numbers definitely don't show everything. We had some really great service time though. We are helping this one member of our ward with family history every week. Last week we entered her first family name into the temple and she was just crying. It was a pretty precious moment. It almost made us cry because we just had this moment like, "Seriously though, this is so cool what we are doing here!" Family history work is the best. I have been on familysearch a couple of times lately and I have noticed how basically all of our family history work has been done... Oh well. I'll find a way to contribute to our family history! 

 

Lizeth is still progressing really well! She read in the scriptures last week which is a definite improvement. She is so cute. With our first lesson with her we brought her cookies so then for the next lesson she brought us chips and dip. She loves baptism as well. It’s so cool. We gave her one of those "Stories of the Book of Mormon" books and she was looking through it and pointing out all of the pictures of baptism. And in one of her prayers last week she was saying how she was lost and confused before, but now she has found the path to return to Heavenly Father. We're having a hard time getting her to church, but she'll get there. She also changed her date to September 27 because her cousin is having a birthday party on the 20th. We're just glad that she is thinking ahead so much.

 

So I talked a little bit about the Pico family last week. They are a less active family that is being reactivated. And their little boy Matthew was baptized yesterday! He's 8. It’s been so fun getting to know the Pico's! I just really came to love them a lot this last week and I'm not really sure why, but they're so great! And Matthew was being so funny at his baptism. He was just walking around everywhere super bent over and just saying "I'm nervous. I'm nervous." He also had a couple of moments where he was just lying on the ground, either sprawled out or in a ball. He's a crazy little kid. We love him a lot. 

 

Life is great here! I love Hermana Dangerfield a lot. We're just having lots of fun. Everything from speaking in British accents, to singing opera to MoTab, to playing this cup game before we go to bed, to playing soccer while we're running in the morning, to just constant laughter. She's a great one. I hope you all have a very wonderful week! Make it a fun one! I love you!

 

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

 

Gospel=Happiness

Gospel=Happiness

···

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net
Sent:	Mon 8/11/14 10:36 AM

Hello family!

 

This week was a great one! Lizeth set another baptismal date!! She felt like she could be ready to be baptized by September 20. We had this super great lesson with her last week. We watched the Restoration DVD with her and she said that the part that stuck out to her the most was the part where Joseph's dad is getting baptized. She said she liked it because they looked so peaceful. Her testimony is slowly growing. She said that she thinks the church is true because ever since we started visiting her that she has been praying more and has just been feeling better. The Spirit was seriously so strong in the lesson. Lizeth will definitely get there.

 

This past week we went on exchanges with our mission mom and it was seriously the greatest. One of the hardest that I have laughed in a while. We went and visited a couple of families with her. The first family was the Sanchez family. They are a less active family that is becoming reactivated and is starting to prepare to go to the temple. A huge focus that we have in our mission is that we are making the temple the goal for less active members. There has definitely been a lot of success with it! Especially with this family. The temple is something that they really want. The other family is the Pico family. They are becoming reactivated as well. We are especially teaching the kids because they don't know that much about the church since they haven't gone to church for most of their lives. And the youngest boy Matthew is going to get baptized soon so we are teaching him some of the lessons. They are such a great family! The mom is supposed to start getting Sundays off starting in September so hopefully they will be able to become fully reactivated. Sister Wilson is seriously the greatest though! I just feel really blessed to have a mission president and mission mom that try to take time to go out with the missionaries. And it’s even greater that they understand that we love to have fun while we're doing the work! President Wilson always tells us to have fun and be excellent. We shouldn't just be good missionaries, we should be excellent missionaries, but also have fun while we're doing it.

 

Being a missionary is seriously the best thing ever! I just feel so happy! My companion is just so wonderful and the sisters that we live with are so much fun. Even if we don't have the most successful day ever, it’s all ok because if I truly did my best then I can be happy and I know that at the end of the day that I can come home to a house full of happy sisters. This work seriously brings so much joy! I am reading in Alma right now and there are so many good missionary stories and scriptures in there. This past week I have started underlining all of the times that it talks about the joy that they feel and they talk about it a lot! It’s the coolest thing ever. Amidst the sad and horrible things, they are still happy. This gospel is happiness. 

 

Have a wonderful week everybody! I love you lots!

 

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

 

The Joys of the Work

The Joys of the Work

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From:

Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net

Hola familia!

 

So my new companion is Hermana Dangerfield. She is from Cedar City. (No, she doesn't know the Sanders.) She has been out one transfer less than me. She is soo awesome! I seriously love her so much already! We knew each other a little bit before and I always wanted to serve with her. She is just so happy and such a hard worker. We have had so much fun already! 

 

This week was a very blessed one. Lizeth had kind of been falling off of the radar a little bit, but last week she made so much progress! We were teaching her about the plan of salvation and she knew that to go to the celestial kingdom she had to be baptized. That has been one of her conflicts lately because she doesn't know which church she should be baptized into. She's been praying a lot about it lately. At the end of the lesson she told us about a dream that she had where everything was white and she was being baptized, and her family was there and we were there. We pointed out to her that that was an answer to her prayers, but she hasn't quite grasped that yet. But that definitely made her think a lot. She was really excited and ready to come to church yesterday, but then something happened last minute and she couldn't come. But progress was definitely made!

 

So we were knocking doors the other day and we find a golden new investigator! Her name is Marina. We knocked her door and told her who we were and she said that she didn't have time because she was cooking. We told her a little bit more about the message that we share and then she decided to let us in. We talked to her for a little bit and she opened up to us and told us how she has to get dialysis and how it has made her really depressed, but that she is trying to act happy so that her kids are happy. We were able to testify of the happiness that the gospel brings and she was really interested in coming to church! Unfortunately she ended up having to work. But it is just so great to find those people that are so prepared to hear this gospel!

 

The coolest thing happened at transfer meeting last week! So there was this kid who is from Virginia, and he was on a little mini mission here to see if he could handle a full mission. He was here for about 2 transfers. I think that's a pretty common thing to do. But anyways, he got his real mission call last week. President brought it out at transfer meeting. First we sang the first verse of Called to Serve and then the kid opened his mission call over the pulpit. I think that literally every single person in the room was in tears. The Spirit was SO strong. I think it brought us back to the time that we all opened our calls and the overwhelming joy that we felt. There was just so much happiness in the room, and we all just cheered after he opened it. And then we sang the second verse of Called to Serve. I was just so overwhelmed with the joy that I feel because I am a missionary. This is such a blessed calling.

 

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

 

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