May 25, 2015

On Exchanges!  Hermana Clark (my sister, Hermana Hurley trained her also), Hermana Webb, and Me!

1. Nine months...holy cow. I cannot believe it has been 9 months already. Who would have thunk I could have made it this long? The mission is seriously the best thing in the entire world. This week I have been so stressed about things but I wouldn't change it for the world. It is the best kind of stressed because it is the Lord's work and He controls it. I'm stressed over something so righteous and I'm so grateful for this change I have made in myself. I feel happiness creeping into my life and I just feel JOY. It took me a lot time to get into the groove of life but I'm starting to grow and see my progress. I noticed that the change only came after I forgot myself. I focused on the people I was talking to, and the investigators I was teaching, and everything took off from there. When I forget myself I feel so happy. Sometimes I slip and those are the worst days because I'm so focused on how I'm feeling. The elders usually remind me to get back to work.

2. Hermana Flores went home and I was so sad. It was a lot harder to loose her than I thought it would be. But I'm not going to type too much in case she reads this. I don't want to make her feel bad. But, she is sorely missed here in the mission. 

Along with Hermana Flores, most of our zone were emergency transferred. Elders Snapp, Owusu, Riplie, and Bilbrough got moved. It was pretty stressful and we were all really sad to see them leave. It was super weird and we are not sure why it happened. We are adjusting to being a new zone but so far so good. 

3. THERE WERE TWO INVESTIGATORS FROM GALT AT CHURCH ON SUNDAY. 

You better believe momma was happy. I was so so so so so happy I almost cried. Ruben came and he is progressing to his date nicely. Also, we taught Ruben the word of wisdom today and he totally understood it. We asked him what he thought hot drinks would be and he said..."Ummmm, coffee and tea." When we asked him to live it he said "yeah, that'd be easy. Coffee and tea make me gag anyways." I love that kid so much. He makes me so stinking happy. He said he is really nervous about church but the more he comes the more he will get used to it. The Elders were really sweet to him and stayed about his side for most of priesthood, until a member stole him and took him to young mens. That was bad because Ruben doesn't speak English and young mens is in English. Ugh. Elder Williams and Elder Anderson felt really bad for loosing track of him. But all is good and he wants to come back next week. I love that little booger. 

Nathan was our other investigator that came to church. He is a beast. He is 10 and his mom and brother are members. We went over to their house this week and asked Nate if he wanted to be baptized and he said yes. He is currently praying about what date we wants to be baptized on. He is a little cutie and we are so happy for him. 

This week has been amazing and I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to serve the Lord. The blessings are coming and I can feel it. 

Les quiero, 

Hermana Porter.

 

Our Trio!

My Zone Leaders.  Elder Graham and Elder Snapp (E. Snapp left)

Elder Owusu, MY FAVORITE ELDER EVER!  I'm so sad he left.  We had spent 4 transfers together.

Elder Williams, Elder Owusu (he left), Elder Anderson, me, Hermana Flores (she left), Hermana Cuesta, Hermana Webb, and Elder Riplie (he left)

When we play basketball in the morning, Elder Snapp (he left) and I would always wear the same shirts.  We had to take at least 1 selfie before he left.

Last pic with my buddy.

Hermanos Amaya.  They are my FAVORITE!!

Homegirl, (Hna Flores) is gone and Momma is sad.

Our Apartment!  Hna Cuesta, Hna. Webb, Hna Flores, and me.

 

May 18, 2015

Me and Hermana Flores!!!  My new companion.

Hi beautiful world. How has everyone been? Today I am a mixture of good and bad. Good because Luis struck again and I had another crazy spiritual experience with that kid. Seriously, I think I came on my mission for him. Bad, because it has been two weeks since we have added an investigator. I'm really struggling to focus on the good but the Lord is helping me though this hard time and I am becoming more and more aware of the blessing that the Lord is putting in my path. Luis and Ruben are two of those.

Transfers always bring a learning curve that I really wish didn't come. SO this is just part of that learning and the Lord has helped me a lot. I'm letting myself learn instead of become destructive and getting disappointed. I'm trying and am not perfect yet. Step by step! 

Anyways, last week Ruben lost his baptism date and we were really sad. He has had a problem with coming to church. We decided to have a lesson with him talking to him about WHY baptism. We didn't want him to feel like we were shoving it on him. We talked to him and he understood so we asked him to choose his own date. He did. He chose the 7th of June. We were so happy. We were literally floating on clouds by the time that we left there. He has promised us that he would come to church but he didn't show up. I'm not going to  lie...I was a little bit angry. Elder Anderson kept saying "Calm down, Hermana Porter. Maybe you shouldn't go over to his house after church. You might beat him up." 

The good news...I didn't beet Ruben up. The bad news, his excuse for not coming to church was really lame. But we did have a really good lesson about WHY we come to church and he said "Oh, I get it now. Church is a really important thing...I HAVE to come. I'm not going just because you asked me to." Sometimes...things like that happen and I feel like a crappy missionary but then I'm just so excited that he understands that I forget all about it. So Ruben...progress. Hopefully next week my email will be all excited about how he came to church! 

Luis....man I love that kid. He is Brad to a T. The more I spent time with him the more I'm like, Dude, you are Brad. But we had an amazing lesson with him that I'm not going to share all the details of but a lot of stuff happened and it ended in him promising to come to church every Sunday for a month. Holy cow I feel the spirit so strong every time I talk to that kid. He was at church on Sunday and he made an amendment to the promise...he gets to sit on the couches outside of the chapel...I mean it's progress, right? He was cracking us up because his girlfriend just joined the church (well, ex girlfriend) and so that makes him really nervous to go. He told us "Ugh, why did she have to join the only true church? Why couldn't she have joined one of those hundreds of others that are fake?" That kid is my favorite.....

Anyways, this week has been really good. The next few weeks are going to be really busy because we are preparing to receive the IPads. We have an IPad training on the 26th of this month and we get our IPads then! We are all so excited! 

Les quiero, 

Con amor, 

Hermana Porter

 

Ruben (in the background) and  his little brother, Andrew.

Selfie Sunday with mi companera.

We got to play some soccer after correlation on Thursday with the Lopez family.  It was a blast!

MY BROTHER!

Yeah..... masks to the maxxx.

 

May 11, 2015

The New House.  Hna Cuesta, Hna Webb, Hna Flores, and me!!

 

Splendiferous Speech Patterns

 

Happy Mothers Day! Mothers day is now my favorite holiday, and Christmas of course. I was so happy to be able to talk to the family yesterday. Have I ever told any of you that I have the best family in the world, Because i do. The funniest moment was probably when Amanda's family got on and all the kids got to ask me one question. All of them were asking "What do you like about your mission?" "Is your companion nice?" "when do you get back to Nana's house?" It was Miles turn he didn't really have one at first so he just decided to state a fact "Maya's birthday is on Wednesday." Later on, however, he did decide that he had a question. The said (in the cute little accent I don't really remember him having) "When you were a baby, what color was your hair?" I seriously almost died. I love that kid so much.

The whole time I was just so thankful to Heavenly Father for the family He has given me and I am also so thankful that there is a way that families can be together forever. I'm so grateful for that gospel truth that I know. Families can be together forever, I always want to be with my family! Thanks for taking the time to talk to me! 

Lesson wise this week has been really good. We got to see Ruben (Yay for Ruben) and it went really well, although he did not come to church this week. That is something we have been having a problem with. We find really cool people to teach but it is really hard getting them to come to church. We hope that Ruben will be able to come soon. We are trying to bring fellow shippers but we will see how that goes. There aren't a lot of youth that live in Galt. We taught Ruben the Plan of Salvation and when we finished Hermana Flores said, Ruben, do you feel awkward when we come over. He said, Yes. That is going to be something that we will have to resolve. I'm going to work on being his friend this week. 

We also had a great family home evening with the Esparza's. I schooled Luis and Oslvado in Basketball. It was really funny. We are making so much progress with that family! 

Sorry this week is really short. I feel like I talked about everything but I haven't. Next week will be better! 

les quiero, 

Con amor, 

Hermana Porter

 

 My Zone last transfer.

Elder Owusu, Elder Phillips and Elder Anderson.  They bought us all watermelon.

 Spanish Sisters and Elder Wednt.  He was going home so he was desperate for pictures.

My Zone Leaders last transfer.  Elder Wednt and Elder Snapp

The Elders were super nice and gave us brownies and a letter with Indians on them.

Welcoming the New District!

May 4, 2015

Pepe Sanchez.  Aurelio's dog.

Me and April.  She is from the service we do in the morning.

How are you liking Galt?

I still love Galt and thank goodness I am not leaving! I am staying here for one transfer more! I'm getting into the swing of things and we are finally learning how to find people. Things are getting kind of hectic again with a lot of service and new members and TRANSFERS. Transfers always throw us off for at least a week! 

Is Hna Sellers leaving?

She is. :(  She is going to Stockton...AGAIN. She is going to be serving with Hermana Carpenter. We think she might die there because she only has 3  transfers left. Although she is so excited to be going back. Stockton was her favorite place to serve in the mission and she has a lot of recent converts there. 

Who will be your new comp?

My new companion will be Hermana Flores. I think I have sent some pictures of her home. She is a super cute, tiny little asian (Filipino) and she is so stinkin funny! I am so excited to be her companion. She will get here tomorrow. 

How's the apartment living?

In the news of apartment living.....HERMANA CUESTA IS COMING BACK! I'm going to be living with her AGAIN! I love that lady so much! I got to talk with her last night and we will be having a blast. Hermana Webb is staying too so it is going to  be a party. The crazy thing is that Hermana Webb has been companions with Hermana Flores and I've lived with Hermana Cuesta so it is like we all know each other. It is going to be weird all living together but I'm SO excited for it. 

Do you still like driving?

I love driving. I am going to still be driving this transfer because Hermana Flores can't drive. At least that wont be a cause of contention...am I right?

What was your high of the week?

Alright, high of the week. So we had service in the morning and so we usually don't get language study in on those day but we really felt like we needed to start getting it in. So we found a park that we were going to start studying at. Well we went to that park and we met a guy named Paul. Paul is amazing, homeless, but amazing. He wanted a Book of Mormon so we gave him one and he started reading it. WE saw him a few days later and he was still reading it. He said that he has to read everything twice because he doesn't understand. So we went to that park again to hopefully see him and he wasn't there. We decided to leave and later that day we were on our way to a lesson and we saw a guy, Juan Carlos , there but we didn't have time to stop and see him so we kept driving and we would go back after the lesson. Our lesson was a no show so we went to our back up plans. On our way there I had a prompting that we needed to go back to the park. I thought it was to see Juan Carlos but when we got there he was already gone. I said we needed to wait because he might be in the bathroom. We waited the few minutes and we were getting ready to leave when Hermana Sellers noticed a girl sitting on the bleachers alone. We decided to go talk to her. WE taught her the restoration and then, at the end, she started to cry and said she was sitting here so alone and she just wanted someone to talk to and we were exactly what she needed. She wanted to take the lessons becasue she was looking for God but then gave up her search. We got to send her as a referral to the Galt sister missionaries. 

What made you laugh the most?

This week we bought a gallon of milk to give to our district leader, Elder Anderson. He LOVES milk. He buys 3 gallons a week and drinks all of them. He also loves deer. So we drew deer all over the milk and then we made brownies and brought the milk to correlation. It was quite a good time. We couldn't stop laughing because he was SO happy about the milk. 

What is the best thing about being a missionary?I seriously love everything about missionary work. The good the bad and the ugly. It is all my favorite. The change is slow and it is hard but it is totally worth it. The change is slow with everyone. The mission has taught me patience. It is ALL in the Lords time. 

I love all of you so much. I can't wait to talk to the family this week. 

I am going to skype sunday sometime after 4. I am going to call on saturday night with definite plans. Okay

Les quiero,

Hermana Porter

 

A semi we saw.  We loved it!

 Us and the Milk.  haha  We thought we were so clever.

 

H. Silva.  I LOVE HER!  She is Ruben's aunt.

The Ku's.  I LOVE THEM so much.

One of the last pics of me and Hermana Sellers as companions.

Andres, he is Ruben's little brother.