Start the lights! 11-26-12

Hola! Como estan?

 We had a good week! I don't know what I am going to do, we've only had like 3 days of christmas lights and i'm exhausted. It's so amazing though! We have seen crazy miracles every night. I wish i had time to share them all. The biggest thing that has been on my mind though is la familia Lujan! They are so amazing. We have been teaching them for a while now. The husband, Leonardo is a member.. but doesn't know anything and his "wife", Claudia and his daughter Astrid are not members. They have all been coming to church every week without fail but they are not married! Ah... people. So we told them to get themselves married so they could get baptized but they don't have the money to get the license. They literally sat on the floor while we taught them tithing this week, they are selling everything just to get food on the table but yet they still had the heart to feed us a couple times in their house. Breaks my heart. So.. we talked to our zone leaders to see if we could do a fundraiser for them and within like one day we have the money. Everyone is paying 4 dollars in the zone to get 75 for the marriage license and they can get married!!!! We are really excited. We hope to have their baptism next Saturday. It's a little scary though because they are starting to have problems in their relationship now. We will see.  

Something cool that happened this week was in the morning i was reading my scriptures and.... okay i was a little bored because i wasn't understanding all of in spanish so I was ready to move on and read preach my gospel but i had an impression to keep reading so I did. I read about what a prophet and a seer is. I thought 'someone needs to hear this today but i don't know who' (especially because we didn't have hardly anytime in our area with the christmas lights) So i went about my day not thinking much of it. We got to the vc and a sister asked me to end her movie because her shift was over. i went in and it was a single guy in his 20's and we started talking he told me that he has fallen in the church so many times but "the prodigals son" was just what he needed to watch right then. he told me that the only problem that he had with the church is with prophets. I told him my experience in my studies and i said, "So I read this for you.. so pay attention" at the end of it he said, now I know what I want to become... worthy of my priesthood like those men. He said that he is never going to fall again. COOL! Church is true. 

Thanksgiving was really good :0 We woke up, did studies and then played soccer for like 3 hours with our zone. Then we had a lesson with adelfo in the park. We had a special meeting earlier in the week with all the trainers in their 2nd transfer with their trainers and sister ellsworth said that if we do roleplays in studies that we will receive revelation and if we don't we are missing out on revelation. I didn't want to do it that morning.. so I knew i needed to for some reason. It was cool though because adelfo said WORD for WORD what we had practiced like for the whole lesson. We started laughing sooo hard... he asked why we were laughing and sister v. said that it was because we are happy.. i laughed harder. We then went to the Escobar's for dinner. The gonzolas and rodrigous were there too. I shared with them alma 26:37 and talked about how we should give thanks to god forever. We ate and then played a game with the ten commandments. I love all of them! I have been in this ward for a good 6 months... so i'm pretty close to a lot of them. I was able to speak/sing in church yesterday so it was good to tell them all thank you. That night at the VC, the lights started. Every day I have a different complanion (one english and one spanish) we call it a zebra companionship. There were lots of people that didn't know if they were allowed to come in the vc so I had this feeling to walk up to the door and invite this family in. I scared them and they started to walk away fast, they thought I was going to tell them to leave or something haha but I started speaking spanish and told them to come in and at the end they asked us if we could send missionaries to teach them. also, there was a girl that came in that night that I told her my story and she's going on a mission! So fun. Christmas lights are the best.

We had a couple lessons with Jesus this week.. we ran into a problem that I never thought I would have. He has anxiety around lots of people. he grew up in a small town so he like cant breath when there are lots of people.. we found this out when we took him to the christmas lights haha poor guy. He was REaLLY nervous to go to church.. but we wanted him to go anyway so we showed up to his apartment with hno escobar and told him to get in the car. he loved church and he told us that he knows its true, but he's scared to get baptized and "he's already baptized" how many times to I have to share moroni 8:11?? We were talking after church and he said he can't commit to be baptized even though he knows its true. We had a really dramatic scene (sister valladares is teaching me how) We were telling him that we are representatives of Christ and if you reject baptism and our message you are rejecting Christ! and then we stormed off. I had a straight face until we walked out and then I laughed. Not use to being dramatic.. but thats what he needed.

anyway.. this is a long letter. Love you all! The chapter this week is moroni 8! Share it with all your Catholic friends, it'll be great.

Love you

SFTE

Sister Cottrell

Nov. 2012

Happy Thanksgiving 2012

Hey family! 

It was so fun to see pictures from kinzees wedding! Even though I cried haha. She looked beautiful! I'm so happy for her. I can't wait to see more pictures. Happy Thanksgiving this week! I'm sure everyone will have a good time. What we have planned is we have a zone activity and then we have a party/dinner to go to and then we have to be at the VC at 4 because we open at 5 and the lights start! yay! it's soooo pretty! I would have to say it's better than Salt lakes lights :) I'm not bias or anything.

This week we saw a lot of miracles! It's so good to be apart of this work :) Everyday I am picking a christlike attribute to focus on and yesterday was charity. i had to laugh because Heavenly Father gave me so many opportunities to use it. One the way to the VC Sister V ate her granola bar too fast so when we got there she started to throw up. She was really upset because she has no more money on her card and she doesn't have much food left because she eats a TON! haha and she's so little- super funny. I could tell she was upset so I took her to lunch on our break. She was crying in the car because she was embarrassed that i was going to buy it so I grabbed her favorite cd with her favorite song on it and blasted it in the car and she started laughing hysterically and then I found the most ghetto hispanic food place I could find (she was missing her home food) and got her the super supreme nachos (biggest thing they had) and she ate the whole thing. She was happy the rest of the day :) Anyway, there was lots of things that happened like that yesterday but I don't have time to write!

We met with fransisca who has met with missionaries for years but her boyfriend that she has kids with and lives with is married to someone else and wont divorce her because he gets legal rites as he is married to her (super lame) I told her "What are you going to say to Christ when he says, 'I sent my missionaries to you, you knew it was true, and you didn't act?'" She just kept saying, "I know, I know" i thought that would be enough to get her to church but she didn't! Ahh... agency.

I talked with an ex-nun on mormon.org. She was a nun for like 100 years... so I thought the conversation was gonna go south for that reason BUT. It was superrrrrrrrrrr cool! We talked about babies being baptized. i read out of Moroni 8 and told her it was an abomination to the lord to baptize babies because they don't have any sins. She said she was so overwhelmed because all this time she didn't know and her eyes had been opened! She just kept saying "it all just makes so much sense!' She said that now she realizes that she needs to be baptized. Anyway, there are a couple cool stories that I had this week :) I can't believe we have less than a month in the transfer and sister valladares will be trained! My guess is that she will train really soon. She is such a good missionary. I am learning a lot with her. 

Happy Thanksgiving again! Love you all

The chapter this week is Mosiah 2- king Benjamin is the bomb. I'm gonna find me a King Benjamin when i get home.

SFTE

Love,

Sister Cottrell

From Sister B's Blog

Nov. 13, 2012 - Transfer day- I stay!

HAPPY BDAY DAD 11-13-12

Hey Fam!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADUHHHHH! LOVE YOU! HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY! LOOK FOR SOMETHING IN THE MAIL ;)

Good week this week. Except i'm FREEZING! It's a weird feeling... long sleeves and everything. This week was all about getting our feet on the ground with all of our new investigators. It was pretty successful. I don't remember if I said this last week, but we found Adelfo when I had the feeling to stop by a former investigator. Some random guy opened the door and said that he former investigator moved back to mexico-shocker! but as we were talking to him, Adelfo walked out. We found out that the guy we were talking to was baptized already! Because I said that I felt like we needed to knock on this door again, why? and after he opened up. He was a little bitter at the church though. We walked away and there was Adelfo texting on his phone. We talked to him and he was interested and he came to church and he is getting baptized on Dec 1st! yay! We have been finding soooo many prepared people! Right before the Christmas lights too! For the christmas lights I will be in the VC every night from 5:30 to 10:30 starting the day after Thanksgiving. It's going to be crazy. I think Heavenly Father is giving us REALLY prepared people right now so they wont need us as much. I was praying really hard to know what to do so that our investigators can still progress while we can't see them (because almost all of them work during the day and we have to see them at night) BUT I received revelation within like 10 seconds of my prayer. I came up with this spreadsheet that we are giving all of our investigators that has what they will read and pray about every day on their own. I haven't tried anything like it, but I know something will come out of it because it was an answer to a prayer. 

We got transfer news this week! I am staying with Sister Valladares and finishing up her training! Yay! We get along really well. She is an amazing missionary. I am teaching her how to catch! Hispanics do NOT throw things! It's the funniest thing in the world. At least 5 times a day I run around the corner and toss/throw something at her and she freaks out. "HERMANA!" I just say, "you have to learn!.. you're in America now!" In return, she takes pictures of me every time I turn the corner. 

And we are staying in the VC this transfer even though I thought for sure we would be full field. I actually don't know if President will ever put me full field again because of my allergies- fine with me.  We had lots of missionaries go home today. It was really sad. You get soooo close to all of the sisters in the VC because you go through so much together and you see them every day. We will all stay in touch though. 

We are WEDDING PLANNERS!! Claudia and Leonardo are getting married and Wendy and Gabby! Hooray for keeping the law of chastity! We are going to be professionals by the time we get home. Except mexican weddings are... super different. Claudia and leonardo keep wanting to set me up with people because they say i'm "guapa" NOT yet! 

The lights are almost all done! We have nativities from all over the world in the VC and we will be playing Luke 2 in the theaters so everyone and their gma can come and feel the spirit! We are so excited! We have been listening to David Archuletas Christmas CD all week. It's weird without snow though. 

Anyway, that's about it ;) Oh yeah, I dyed my hair dark again! I will send pictures. :)

The chapter this week is Jacob 6. Soooo good! 

SFTE

Love,

Hermana Cottrell

Halloween Photos! 2012

Nov. 5, 2012

It's been a good week! Except i've been sick... again. It started with a sore throat and now it's turned into a bad cold. I think it's because of the weather change. 

Halloween was really fun! I got up super early and decorated the bathroom for Sister Valladares. It was really funny because she went up to the door and it said "Boo!" She was really scared to open the door. So she turned on the light so confused and stood there for a good 10 seconds debating weather or not she should open the door and then opened it and there was a big banner and "sucker ghosts" on the mirror. I don't know why but all of my companions have been soooo scared of the house we live in. We went over to Sister Gonzoles house for dinner and her neighbors house burned down! So we got dinner for them and took care of them. It was sad, but we were really glad we were there to help them and no one was hurt. We dressed up and took lots of hilarious pictures (but i forgot my camera cord) :( i'll see if i can get some from sis V.'s camera. Anyway, it was a good/weird halloween. 

We found 12 new investigators this week and I didn't even realize it till I counted up our numbers this week! It was a blessing because like I said, i've been sick. 

We gave Wendy an Ultimatum. She is living with her boyfriend and says that she only lives with him because she cant afford to move out and she has kids with him. We told her that she had to figure out a way to keep the Law of Chastity, go to church and set a baptismal date or that we couldn't stop by anymore because she has all the lessons. I told her that I prayed and I knew that she could figure out a way to be ready for baptism on dec 1st but that she had to act. She accepted! yay :) I hope it happens. Like I said in my last letter, dropping has been such a blessing as we've been sacrifice. Every time we trust God, and get out of the way, He blesses us double. Just like tithing. We have some really solid investigators that want to get baptized! We found Aldelfo this week. I kept having this impression to go stop by a former investigators house and I didn't know why. We went and some random guy opened the door. Our former investigator had moved back to Mexico (happens all the time) but... I was really up front with him and said, "Well, I had an impression that I needed to come knock on this door, how come?" We started talking and it turns out he was baptized in the church but doesn't believe it any more. He was pretty argumentative, but I know something sparked in him again. We walked away and his roommate was outside. We talked to him and he said he was interested. We had an appointment with him last night at the VC and he told us that he has felt this whole inside, but he doesn't know what it is! Prepareduhhhhh. He's a really good guy. We are excited for him. We also watched the Joseph Smith movie with the family that passed us and the little girl said, "mommy I want to go to church" They loved the movie and cried! They said they were all going through a hard time too and that they needed something in there life. Miracles!

The Christmas lights are all almost up! They are so pretty! That's about it this week! Love you all. Happy November! 

The Chapter is 2 Ne 32. God wants us to pray.. but there's also someone who doesn't! 

SFTE

Hermana Cottrell

From Sister B's blog, new computers!