Merry Christmas! Skyping tomorrow!

Hello family! this is just a short email to say when I will skype tomorrow :) Merry Christmas eve! Tomorrow I will skype at 1 (arizona time) so everyone be ready!! I only have 40 min so if you have questions write them down because i don't wanna waste anytime.. if not.. cool :) I'm excited to see everyone! My birthday was good. The cake got sent to the vc and so i was worried about it all day because one of the sisters said it was going to be sent to the house and I was moving between 3 different houses so I thought it got lost somewhere or the elders ate it. I found out AFTER transfer meeting that I wasn't moving into the house that my allergies started in. Sister Ellsworth came up to me and said, "I stuck up for you to president" and i was like, why? for what? Apparently they forgot to inform me that I was moving to a different house. I started to cry haha but it made me feel good because they compared me to Abraham going to kill his son and he was obedient and right before he did it god said that he didn't have to. Its been good with sister holladay. Its weird not having to do everything... after 3 transfers of training, it's an adjustment because the work is balanced. It's super weird being back in my greenie area but kinda fun to have people welcome me back and say that my spanish is so much better :) anyway... I will fill the rest in tomorrow :) love you all!!
See you in 24 hours! Yay! Merry Christmas! 
The chapter is Luke 2... I know that's not in the BofM but... ya know :)
love you
Love,
Hermana Cottrell
SFTE

Dec. photos!

Rachel Waters visited at the VC and ran into Sister Cottrell!

Stocking we sent to Sara to open a daily scripture until Christmas!

New Coat!

Merry Christmas almost 2012

Hello family!

Well random news. I am being transferred. But I'm being transferred to my old area- Liahona 1st. What the? I have only had 2 areas my whole mission and i'm being sent back to the first one. My companion will be Sister Holladay. This is her last transfer. I am excited to see everyone. My theory is this: When I was there I wasn't supposed to get transferred yet, sister fors was supposed to leave, but I got really sick and they transferred me out and when I got better Heavenly Father said, nope! You're not done. I think there is someone I am supposed to meet or something. I have lots of faith in the Lord, but I'm also a little afraid because of my allergies. I'm going back to the same house that started everything... and that's why they took me out of there. So hopefully with the medicine i've been taking I will be fine. I get transferred tomorrow on my birthday which is kinda sad haha but it will be good. 

This week has been good. We had a lesson with Jazmin and asked her to be baptized and she said, "does it cost?" Awesome. The only problem is that she lives with her gma and we went to go pick her up with a member for church and the gma said, "she's in her room and she doesn't know what she wants, she can't think for herself and she's not "prepared" to go to church, come back when she's older" I told her that God wants everyone to go to church, especially her because He loves her and she has her agency... and a few other things. But she wouldn't budge. It was pretty sad. Jazmin wants to learn but she doesn't have the support. 

We have been at the vc every night this week till 1030 and then getting up super early. We went to the temple and then had a fireside type thing which was really good. Something I liked that President Ellsworth said was, "Give of yourself, don't think of yourself" We even had a meeting inside the temple which was pretty special and I lead the music. Sister Fors left yesterday! Well her parents came last night actually. But she asked me to give her "memories" at our vc meeting. It went really well, she was a really good trainer :) I saw the Barretts while I was working at the vc! That was really fun. There are lots of people that come which helps this time of year :) 

I'm so grateful because of the experience Heavenly Father gave me when I was deciding to go on a mission because it has helped so many girls go out on their missions! There has been probably about 10. Heavenly Father gives answers to other peoples prayers through us. That's why when we are going through a hard time or looking for an answer to our prayers, you can always find your answer/peace as you are trying to be the peacemaker/answer to someone elses prayer. Something I liked in companionship study this morning was this "In your morning prayers each new day ask Heavenly Father to guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve one of His precious children" Will you all do that? I know when you do you will see so many miracles. 

Merry Christmas! Ya know, theres a lot of people that say "if you take off the "mas" in Christmas, you are left with "Christ"... BUT "mas" in spanish means "more"... So "more Christ" I know that Christ came to earth so He could save the world. He grew and organized His ONE church (not thousands of churches) He called His 12 Apostles. He set the perfect example for all of us to follow and was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. Yet He was despised, spit on and crucified.  He suffered for our sins, pains (emotional and physical) so He could now how the rest of us feel. He smiles when we smile, he cries when we cry and He will never leave us. I love the famous picture where Christ is standing at a door knocking. Did everyone notice that there is no door handle on the door? He is always here but we have to do our part and open the door. Do your part. Do your best and He will make up for the rest. The meeting was at the temple was all about giving everything to the Lord because He gave everything and more for you. I think this will be the best Christmas ever if we can all focus on that.

Love you all

The chapter is alma 7. Look for the Christmas scripture :)

Love

Hermana Cottrell

LINDSEY visited Sara!

Happy Birthday Stink! 12-10-12

Hey family

This computer isn't working but hopefully I can write a quick email. Another good week. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMMERS (on friday) I'm. so. tired. But i'm good. Sister Valladares is like a never ending ball of energy. She's always like, "why are you tired?" and i'm like, "why are you not?" Did I tell you she wakes up like 2 hours before she needs to just to get ready... it's crazy. Usually we have to wake up at the same time as our companion but I talked to the mission president and i was like "um... i can't do that, sorry" he told me not to anyway haha. I got to see Lindsey and her cute family last night at the lights! That was so fun! She even brought me some cookies :) 

There's not much to share this week. We have had a total of like 2 hours in our area the whole week. That has been reaaallly hard for me because I reaaallly like numbers.. not that missionary work is about the numbers, but I like to see improvement. We see crazy miracles with the small time that we do have in our area though. We had a lesson with Adelfo the other day at the vc. He just gets it! He's so smart. He hadn't come to church for the passed couple weeks because sometimes he gets called into work and he has to go. I told him to think about "how much faith do I have" when he gets called into work. He kept saying, well I have to work! So I said, ya know... we all gotta make sacrifices here.. I talked about what we have sacrificed as missionaries. I told him that I sacrificed my job and my school and a bunch of other stuff right now but now that I've done that, i've been bless sooooo much more! More than I could have imagined. Guess who came to church yesterday??? Woot woot. He loved it. Except... he came to the first 2 hours and right before the sacrament started his brother called and said he needed a ride to work :/  The other lesson we had was amazing too! Adelfo had a couple minor problems with the word of wisdom, he loves his coffee. BUT! I don't know if i had a dream or just while i was thinking about it in my bed but I was given the answer! Hot Chocolate :) We gave it to him in the lesson and he loves it! He's kept the word of wisdom! 

We had to run to walgreens during our lunch break because sister v ran out of makeup... nice. Well, as we walked in I saw a familiar face sitting on a bench. It was RORY! An old homeless man that had came into the VC like 2 months ago and we taught him and told him he could change his life around. We set up another appointment at the vc because he didn't have a house that we could send the missionaries to but he never came. I asked him how he was doing and he said that everything is still the same. "Everything is still the same because you haven't changed anything" We told him to come to the lights that night and we would teach him. We left and as we were almost home I turned around because I thought, why didn't we just teach him right there? I knew that if he didn't change his life he was going to die. So we went back and as I turned in the parking lot one of my tires popped! And rory was gone. What the heck? Well I stopped (obviously) and two people walked up and said, we heard something pop! The guy that walked up just so happened to be an expert in cars and changed the tire in like 10 min flat and just so happened to talk to missionaries LAST week! The lord works in mysterious ways that's for sure. We were able to teach them and give them an invitation to the lights and we gave them "the testiments" movie. Too bad they speak english, we have to give them to the english elders.

That's about it this week other than there has been a few antis coming in the vc with the christmas lights. So funny. I saw one guy and i said, hello! welcome to the visitors center! How are you enjoying your night? He looked at me and said, "good except I chose to believe more in christ than in joseph smith" I said, that's cool! Us too, have a good night :) I was so proud because I have been praying to have more charity for people and usually i would be super annoyed and would talk to him and make him feel a little bit dumb for his ignorance, but... nada! I even prayed for him. "to love people that are easy to love is humane, but to love people that are hard to love is a disciple of Christ" Although i've got a longgggg way to go with that, it's a much happier way of living and it feels good. Another thought is, "The greatest sacrifice you can give is to sacrifice something you love for the God you love more" Think about that as you go through your Christmas season knowing that Christ sacrificed everything for you, what can you sacrifice for Him? Love you all :) hope you have a great week

The chapter is Alma 1 :)

SFTE

Sister Cottrell

The wedding!

Miracles and cow TONGUE 12-4-12

Crazy week!!

Oh my goodness where do i even begin? Okay so miracles every day. In the vc I have had families EVERYDAY this week come in lately and say to me, "I just feel something here... I don't know what it is... but I just feel something" Coolest thing ever. I have been able to get the information of all of them and teach them over the phone, in the vc and send missionaries. 

So the LUJAN family!!!!! We went to go give them the money that we had raised for their wedding and they said to wait before we paid and everything because they had something to tell us :/ we were nervous. We went over there and they told us that they had to move back to mexico in like 5 days because they were too poor to keep living here and they had no choice! That ALWAYS happens to me. We had one more lesson, almost giving up all hope. We brought some members with us to try and convince them to stay because they had just come back from living in mexico and they said its HORRIBLE there. During the lesson they told us that they already sold everything they have to move and they had no choice. Claudia, the mom was getting upset because she wondered why she even came to arizona, she doesn't have family, money or a job. I stopped and started to cry and told her that I knew with all my heart that she came to arizona to know that she could have an eternal family and that by her coming here was NOT a lose. Everyone was crying. I told her that I know she has a testimony of the book of mormon and i know she knows its true. So i told her that we were going to have a wedding in the morning and her baptism the next day before they left to mexico. I have never felt the spirit so strong in a lesson before. She accepted!! So that NIGHT the zone leaders just happened to not have an appointment and their neighbors who are members just happened to pull up to their house right when they needed a ride to have their interviews and we had their interviews, we called the bishop to marry them, the relief society came in and took her shopping for a dress and bought her a cake and we had an incredible wedding! We looked up their ward in mexico and got all the numbers so that they can stay active too. I even played the piano at their wedding! Their cute little girl snuck away and started pulling my skirt down and pulling my hands off the piano... but they didn't see her doing it so everyone was like... yikes, spirits gone. Way funny.  My zone leader said that the baptism was the best (hispanic) baptism that he's ever been to. I'm.... tired. But it was the biggest/craziest thing i've seen on my mission. So cool. During our lunch break yesterday we went and printed off all the pictures and put them in an album. Its so cool that we work at the vc too because i got permission to continue teaching them over the phone and make sure they are staying active. Crazy how everything worked out. Everything was like a puzzle with all the pieces there. 

The christmas concerts have started and we are getting thousands and thousands of people every night. The first concert was Rob Gardner and I was assigned to give the announcement in spanish in behalf of the vc to invite everyone in. I REALLY wanted to do it, but earlier that day sister v was telling me how much she has always loved Rob Gardner. I knew Heavenly Father was giving me an opportunity to show her that i love her and to serve her... so i got permission for her to do it while I covered her shift and she could watch the concert and meet him. Well... yesterday, the next night, I was assigned to announce it again. Good Karma! :) It was fun I announced the mesa high school choir performance. The lady in charge told me after that someone asked her where I was from because my accent sound "ethnic"... cool! My little Honduran is helpin me out. Heavenly Father is quick to humble me though every time I feel like i'm doin good. Like I one night I was on the front steps of the vc greeting people and a couple walked in front of me and I started speaking spanish because... well call me racist, but they had darker skin and they just looked at me like i was retarded and said.. "...uhh we don't speak spanish" and laughed to each other and walked away. Awkward. 

Sunday we had the confirmation and it was sooooo good. Astrid- the 10 year old wants to go on a mission. Before they left for mexico i gave her a hug and after I slipped one of my extra missionary tags in her hand. She looked at it like it was gold. I can't wait for them to go through the temple as a family next year! 

Sunday I ate lengua de baca. Do you know what that is? COW TONGUE!! I ate it and thought.. this meet has a lot of fat.. gross. But we were with members and didn't say anything obviously. Well we started talking about crazy things that we have eatin on the mission and sister v says, "have you ever eaten cow tongue?" and the member said, "yes of course we eat it all the time" and sister v said, i will never eat that! it grosses me out. The member started to laugh sooooooooooooo hard i thought she was going to pee her pants. Yeah... we ate a tongue... of a cow. I actually have tried it before but I felt sick the rest of the night just knowing what it was. Anyway that's the week in a nut shell. Love you all! :)

The chapture is Mosiah 23

Love,

Hermana Cottrell

ps there is a new mormon.org campaign for christmas so look into it.