Hello Fam!
It was a good week! Happy Mothers day! :) Love you marm! Thanks for all you do for me! It was so fun to see everyone on skype! Hope everyone had a good day with lots of chocolates and flowers :)
Sister Valladares and I did two days of splits with the sisters this week. It's a lot of work trying to figure out everything but we see so many cool things happen as we see help the sisters and as they help us. It was a good week. It was crazy with two exchanges in one week, but everything worked out. The exchanges are far more effective than I ever imagined. With Sister Christensen and Sister Reyburn the first time on Tuesday, we worked really hard and exceeded our goals throughout the day. All of our faith was strengthened. Sister Christensen is a great example and trainer to Sister Reyburn and Sister Reyburn is so diligent and humble with learning Spanish. They are great examples to me. They said that they had fun and they learned new things. It was great for us as well because they knew our area very well since we actually split the ward. I tried helping them with their boldness... by telling Jorge in one of our lessons that he was an Apostasy and he doesn't understand anything, expecially the Restoration... that was a cool lesson... and a long story. But they thought that was awesome. I felt that that was what the spirit told me to say. The next day Jorge told us that we were right and he needs to think about being baptized.
I went to Snowflake!!! If you're not familiar with that town.. its 3 hours away from mesa. President Ellsworth and Sister Ellsworth personally escorted me there... no pressure. It was a privilege to be able to talk to them for so long (6 hours) and get advice and council and reflect on my mission and on theirs since they will be leaving soon as well. Going to help the sisters in Snowflake was definitely needed. It's a small town that looks like Idaho or Kamas. And it's cooooold! Not really... but compared to Mesa I was freezin. As far as the exchange goes, it was a struggle at first because they thought that I was there just to tell them everything that they were doing wrong (they were pretty defensive), but once I explained everything and that i was just there to help and to lift their area and, their hearts opened. Especially Sister Tenny. She needed a friend. She has the desire to work hard, but it's hard for her sometimes because of her companion. Sister Crawford changed a lot too, it was hard for her especially because she has been out almost as long as I have and she hates people correcting her on anything. Sister Tenny told me that this exchange was so good for her because Sister Crawford had some accountability. We saw a lot of miracles and had a lot of success. Sister Crawford has to take a nap every day I guess because of her health, so while she was asleep I told Sister Tenny that we were going to call members to go out with us. We called and called and no one answered. I said that we were going to say a prayer and after the prayer I promised her that someone would answer and they would go out with us. After I said amen, she said, "I KNOW WHO TO CALL!" We contacted the girl and she said yes and came out with us. That was a cool experience. We found them some new investigators- one inparticular was a family that were all members except for the dad. Their son is even going on a mission in Sept. I asked their son to tell his dad his testimony of the Savior, everyone was crying... especially the mom. Now the dad is preparing for his baptism :) Sister Crawford said that that day was the "best day ever" and Sister Tenny said that it was the first time she had felt the spirit since she had gotten up there. I was present for their companionship inventory and it was really effective. They made some really good goals for obedience and for changing their attitudes. It was definitely a success.
As far as our area goes, we are just trying to keep up with it! We have so much work and so many people that just need to go to church and be baptized. Andrea stopped drinking coffee completely which made us so happy! The only problem is that she is attending a different ward with her daughter instead of Arboleda... they want to change to our ward though. She is scheduled to be baptized on the 25th. We plan to find, find, find! We've seen many miracles, but we know that there are even more prepared people! This week Sister Watkins and Sister Perries will come to me and Sister Valladares will go to Sister Miller and Ibyun. We are excited.
I gave my last testimony at Zone Training meeting. Weird. I talked about how the mission is a refiners fire and Heavenly Father likes His servants humble and through our trials, he can mold us and do what He needs to be done, not what we think needs to happen. I talked about how we are here to serve, not to BE served. It turned out well I think. Anyway, it was soooo fun to see the FAMMMMMM!! yay! But weird that I'll see everyone in just 3 weeks. It doesn't feel like it, but i'm sure it'll hit me one of these days.
Sister Valladares and I have been studying so much about Alma and Amulek! I want to be them. I hope you can read Alma 14 and 15 this week. They were so strong through everything. Love you all. "Seek for the Eternal"
Hermana Cottrell
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