Life is Like an Avocado

You just never know what you're gonna get! Sometimes it looks good on the outside, not too squishy, not too hard, and then you open it up and it's nasty. Sometimes it's pretty squishy and bad on the outside and you open up the most perfect avocado ever! You just can't judge an avocado by its squishiness...And ain’t that the truth for people too?!

The first one was nasty on the outside, the second one felt perfect but then we opened it up.

Life is like an avocado

This week I actually have some things to share! woo hoo! To explain the weird opener, last Sunday we had dinner with the Saunders, and we were eating avocados with our mole. I'll send some pics :)

We had a lesson with a recent convert, Antonia and her husband who is an investigator, Jose. It was a pretty crazy lesson, and also pretty funny too. I don't know why but he randomly had so many deep doctrine questions! Usually we are just talking to them about the Plan of Salvation, or the Restoration, or Family History work, and all in Spanish, of course. But the other day we knocked on the door, and Jose answered and started speaking (in perfect English!!) "So I've been thinking about it, and if God is our Heavenly Father, and we are His spirit children... that must mean we have a Heavenly Mother!" And it just got deeper from there! It threw me off to hear the deeper questions, but what threw me off even more was the English!!  IT was so crazy. Another crazy but awesome thing was that earlier that day when I was packing up my bag to go out, I had this feeling like I should bring my English scriptures with me. Usually I just bring pass along book of Mormons, and my Spanish Bible, but I just had this feeling like I might need my personal English scriptures today, and boy was I glad I brought them because apparently Jose knows English perfectly, and that way I had all of my notes and stuff. 

We started working with several new people this week too! Emma, (girl from my post last week), Ale, and Lea. Lea is completely adorable, by the way. She is a 9 year old girl, daughter of one of our recent converts. She is so, so, so cute. Like a Hispanic Emma Watson or something. She really wants to be baptized too, but her dad wants to make sure she really understands everything first. 

This week we went to visit another recent convert, Daisy, a couple of times, and on Thursday we brought Sis. Lewis (mission president's wife) with us, and we all watched “Meet the Mormons”. I love that movie! I think my favorite parts are the ones about the football coach, and about the pilot from WWII. So cool! 

I almost forgot! We had Zone conference this week! It was Easter themed, and it was so good. First we had a talk from Sis. Lewis all about the last week of the Savior's life. Something very interesting that she pointed out that I hadn't really thought of before, was the days in between His death and His resurrection, when Jesus was visiting all the people in the spirit world. It was a really beautiful thing to think about. We also heard from Pres. Lewis, and the APs and then heard a bunch of "final testimonies from missionaries who will be going home soon. Some of my favorite quotes from Pres.: "He gave LOVE. If love becomes the motivating source in our lives, we can truly be representatives of the Savior, Jesus Christ." another was, "If we are just enduring, but not learning anything from our trials, what's the point?" 

Some of my favorite quotes from the testimonies are: "You don't need to be worthy of a second chance.", "We don't always know the impact we make in these people's lives, but God does.", "Everyone is a child of God and deserves to know the truth", "Maybe I'm not perfect yet, but I can look back on my mission and see that I have made progress.", "If the lessons you are teaching aren’t' about the atonement of Christ, why are you teaching them?", "I've learned I'm not as good as I thought I was, but I've also learned I can change.", "There’s a difference in disappointment and discouragement. Disappointment doesn't have to become discouragement - the Atonement takes care of that." And " Bear His name on your chest for LIFE."  Gah! So many encouraging things were said.

 Excited for Zone Conference, with Hermanas Hawkins and Streuling!

 Zone Conference

Hna. Hawkins and Hna. Juarez were best friends 

at the MTC in Mexico. They finally got to see each other again.

The next day after Zone Conference, Hna. Hawkins and I were working together for exchanges (switching companions for the day) and we didn't know where we were going and we don't have a GPS. Lol it was great, we only had this little map and it was SUCH a struggle. But we somehow managed to do it! I was pretty proud of us. We have also been sharing our car, since there are two companionships in the apartment now, and so I have been walking a lot more. It's been really awesome. I am finally breaking in my proselyting shoes. It's finally getting warm enough to not wear boots. Turns out the shoes I thought I would love, I am not a huge fan of, and the ones I thought I would hate are actually like walking on a cloud. Thank goodness I have a few pairs to choose from so I don't have to wear the ones I don't like all the time. I really like how we have the ability to walk in this area, I LOVE Royal, but I also really like being able to just randomly run into people on the street and start talking to them. It’s so interesting to see, now that I have been here in Yakima for a month, the differences in my first two areas. In Royal we were a lot more focused on our area and our members, and here, since we are right near mission headquarters, it's a lot more about other missionaries and the mission in general. Both are good, and helpful, but it's just very different. 

I finally saw it! I haven't gone inside yet, but I saw it!!! 

Pretty tree. Happy Easter!

Another awesome thing this week was getting to watch the Women's General Conference broadcast! AND I got to watch it in English! Ha ha! I was a little concerned about that, but fortunately since we have an investigator who prefers English that we were watching it with, we went to the English broadcast. I love Spanish, but I think I definitely understood a lot more in English. I loved it so much. Especially how the choir for that session was made up of women and girls from 50 countries and cultures! How cool was that?! I loved how in the front row there were those two little girls, one was Asian and one was Indian, and they were holding hands. SO cute. 

Hermanas Hawkins and Knight on the way to Women's Conference 

Women's General Conference Broadcast

So this is kind of random, but I was looking through all of my office stuff the other day and came across this book that I have that I forgot about. It's from the missionary library, but it's really good for literally anyone, missionary, member, or even non-member. It's called "Our Search for Happiness" by M. Russell Ballard. I actually can't put it down! It answers so many questions that I didn't even know I had, and also lays out the foundations of the gospel so simply but so thoroughly. And it has a ton of scripture references, so of course I love that. 

I was SO tired yesterday, My Spanish was like 20% there... it was a struggle. I went to bed early, but still woke up with a huge headache and stomach pain. I think I'm getting ill :(  I think I'll ask the Zone Leaders for a blessing later on. We are visiting some new people tonight! And we are going to a park to play soccer for p-day. I don't want to miss out! 

I think that's it today! Love you and miss you!

 Dark chocolate dipped strawberries at the Saunders' house. Mmm!

 Jose (investigator) made this bird out of an apple. Talent!

 This pine cone was bigger than a Book of Mormon!

These flowers in front of our place remind me of bluebonnets

I love wearing service clothing, AKA pants!