July 26

Well, another week is gone. I am glad to hear that Megan had a happy birthday.

So last tuesday and wednesday were mostly consumed by preparation for standards night, which the missionaries played a large role in. We had a dress rehersal on tuesday night and sis. Stevens and I were put in charge of making bouquets for the wedding scene. We also helped some of the young women put together modest outfits and even lent them some of our super stylish clothes. (that reminds me - mom there is a new website with the NEW missionary dress standards - it is something like missionary.lds.org/dress-grooming check it out. It will blow your mind. If Megan or emily decide to serve a mission shopping will be much easier). After helping at that we went around inviting all of our YW age investigators to come.

Wednesday morning was really busy at the mormon battalion. Mostly I gave a lot of tours to scouts. A lot of troops come do the tour as part of their scout camp. After the battalion we had a lesson with Norgia that went really well. We just read with her in alma 32 and she loved it. She loves everything we teach her. She should just get baptized. She even whipped out a crayon to mark some passages that we were reading. She is awesome. Her house continues to be cleaner than it used to be, though it wasn't quite as spotless as last time.

We had to help get ready for standards night and then stayed for the actual event. It turned out really well. Everyone enjoyed it. They did a skit about language and then we started the fashion show. They modeled clothes to wear out with friends, church clothes, beach clothes, mission clothes and then a wedding scene. It was pretty intense. I have a couple of pictures that I will include.

On Thursday I gave a tour with sis Kunz to a family that sis. Brenchley told me were from Poland. So naturally at the end of the tour I asked if they would like to receive a book of mormon in Polish. They looked at me funny and said they were dutch. Oops. I guess sis brenchley mistook holland for poland. haha. Oh well. They were nice about it.

In our area we spent the first couple hours looking for people who weren't home. Then we went to eat with los valladarez. We brought Mitsy a birthday cake because her bday was on wednesday. She was way excited about it. She said that missionaries had never done anything like that before. her mom said she would print a picture of us with the cake and she would frame it. They loved it. Sis. Stevens and I definitely have an in with most of the YW. There are only a few more that we have left to win over. It was funny though because Mitsy's cousin, Lupita, just happened to be over. Her birthday was on Friday (2 days later) so we were planning to bring her a cake on saturday, but we had bought one chocolate mix and one vanilla. We brought mitsy the chocolate one and while we were there Lupita kept saying how much she LOVED chocolate cake. haha. So obviously we couldn't bring her a vanilla one, so we had to get one of the senior couples to lend us a chocolate cake mix for Lupita.

We saw Daniel and Cleo that night because they had sort of disappeared for a few weeks. We kept calling daniel and he would never answer, so we were concerned about that. We went to see them and it turns out that his phone hadn't been working, so everything was fine. Hno Hernandez happened to have the same plan as us and was there when we went over, so we all chatted together about the priesthood and things like that.

Friday we were at the temple and there were tons of weddings because the temple will be closed for the next two weeks. There was one in particular that was pretty horendous. The photographer was just awful. They took pictures for about an hour right in front of where we sit, so we had a front row view. I will include some photos I snapped of it. haha. The photographer kept saying things like "GQ pose now!" "superman pose" and things like that. it was very dramatic and hilarious. Greg and Melissa will be jealous that they didn't have him take their pics. Don't worry, he gave us his business card when he left, so I will totally use him. haha.

After being at the temple we went to contact a referral we received from the mormon battalion. They live in a gated apartment, so we decided to just wait outside for a few minutes. A woman came out, but she looked at us and quickly closed the gate tightly behind her so we could not get in. So rude! Usually people just ask who we are trying to see and then let us in.

We taught Amelia and her kids that night. We used some jenga blocks to teach the restoration and it went well. After we taught Amelia (who is known to be super chatty) went of for quite a while about how there is no perfect church and what is wrong with the priests in the catholic church and things like that. We finally just had to cut her off and leave because we were late for a meeting at the battalion.

On saturday morning I got a call from William seeking advice because he found his other son and I guess that Norgia doesn't want him to contact him. Their life is always so dramatic. I am glad to be a part of it. William is just such a funny guy. We taught Maggie that afternoon and had a really good lesson. She is less active, but coming back. She is way excited about learning and even asked about the possibility of rebaptism because she was baptized when she was 11 because her parents made her and then she went less active and 2 years ago she was baptized baptist. She is definitely ready to come back thought, but I don't think she'll be able to be rebatized.

We had dinner with los Garcia that night and brought Lupita her chocolate birthday cake, which she loved. She turned 18, so she will be joining us in relief society. It was a great dinner appointment, mostly because their family reminds me of you all. Just hilarious dinner conversations. We were talking to the 22 year old son, Fidel, trying to encourage him to serve a mission. He was telling us about his experience doing a mini mission for a week several years ago and how he saw elders get spit on and all these things. The way he told it was hilarious though. We are going to give him a copy of the talk preparing the world for the second coming from conference. He would love a mission once he was there.

We had a good lesson with Alicia after that. We taught the gospel and invited her to be baptized. We taught in spanish this time, so she actually understood. She said that she wouldlike to be baptized, but not yet. She wants to keep reading and praying so that she will feel comfortable coming to church. It was a really great lesson for her. After that we covered someone's shift at the battalion for 2 hours before heading home. It was pretty cool. None of our plans fell through for the whole day, which is pretty rare.

Sunday was good. Only sis veracruz came to church though. We had a great sacrament meeting on preparing to serve missions and go to the temple. It was really powerful. Then in relief society we had an amazing lesson. It was Hna Mendoza's first time teaching and she was way nervous, but did a great job. After she taught the stake RS pres who was visiting gave our ward a new assignment. A while ago she put us all in groups of 6 or so and has been making us meet once a week to do fun activities together. She came on sunday and said that she finally realized why she had done that. It was so the women of the RS could learn to love each other and now expand that love toward those who are less active by bringing them into the groups. She has asked us to fast and pray about who is ready to come back and then do everything we can as a group to fellowship them. It is actually a pretty cool experiment and I think it will produce some results.

Right after church all of the missionaries and a few other women ate with Hna Magadan. It was delicious food. Hna Orrosco, this old woman who is always knitting us stuff, was there. We were sitting by her and I complimented a ring that she was wearing. I've noticed it forever, it is a little snake that winds around her finger. She took if off her finger and put it on mine and said she wanted me to have it. Then she gave sis stevens one of her other rings. SO NICE! It is a pretty sweet ring.

After that we were at the battalion, where it was busy as always. I took a fun spanish tour with a peruvian family though.

Monday was an excellent day. It was our full day in our area. At first it started a little rocky with no one being home, but we did manage to have a good visit with a member, hna sevilla, who gave us carrot juice to drink. It was mostly good, just a little thick and it made our lips kind of orange for a while. She gave us a referral though, which is exciting.

After that we showed up a tiny bit early for our lesson with Sis Veracruz. she was a little frazzled we were early and we discovered that she usually spent the half hour before we came studying, so she can tell us all about what she read. It was good we came early though because then she didn't spent 15 minutes telling us every detail of what she read, so we just jumped into the lesson. We had spent over an hour preparing the lesson that morning. We were pulling out all the stops. We retaught the restoration using jenga blocks and scriptures from the bible to explain exactly how Christ established his church. Then we explained that when the prophets were gone, the whole church collapsed. We explained about the great apostasy and how without prophets there was no revelation, no priesthood, no apostles, no baptism and no gift of the holy ghost. We showed that the church could not be built the same way. Then we brought up joseph smith, and it was like we were teaching it for the first time and she finally got it.

After we explained it all we asked if she believed it was true. She said yes. So we asked if she wanted to be baptized. This was the closest she has ever come to accepting. She said she didn't want to say no, so we said "well then say yes." Through our discussion that followed we finally figured out exactly what her doubt is. She feels like getting baptized means letting go of her old church, her old way to worship. She was pentacostal and still misses a little bit the way that they worship there...a little more involved with waving your hands and things like that. We explaine that more than leaving it behind, she was just adding to it - adding these covenants that she would make through Christ's priesthood. She finally seems to get it. We read her the baptismal interview questions and she is definitely ready. We invited her to be baptized on aug. 6 and she said that she would pray about it. It was a pretty amazing lesson. She will definitely get baptized. We explained that waiting may eventually make her decision for her and it will be a no, so we told her to make a decision by next week.

After that we tried to see a few people who weren't home and then we went to visit the flores family. They gave us some referrals and also made us eat with them even though we told them we had a dinner appointment in 2 hours. The food was good though. After that we contacted a referral named Olga. She is an old woman and her grandson just got home from his mission and called us and asked us to teach her. She was busy, but we set up a time to come back.

Next we were going to see manuel, but we drove right by the apartment that is always closed where the referral from the battalion lives. We saw there were kids outside, so we pulled over and ran up and a kid let us in. We knocked on the door and the mom was home! She let us right in and asked for teh book she had requested. We had an amazing lesson right then about the book of mormon. We explained what it was and how it helped the men in the mormon battalion and how it can help her and her family. We read several passages to show that it was a testament of jesus christ. We answered her questions about it and about the trinity and things like that. She asked if she could come to church. It was a pretty amazing lesson. Hopefully we will be able to teach the whole family soon. We set up another appointment for next week.

After that we went to eat with daniel and cleo. They had a friend over who we have already sent the missionaries to because she lives outside of our area. She is way nice. We ate shrimp soup with them...the only thing is the shrimp still had their heads/eyes and everything. It was good, just you had to stop and keep peeling the shrimp and then you could eat it. Daniel and Cleo are still awesome like always.

Well, that's about it for this week. Pray for sis veracruz that she will have the trust in God to make this decision!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her son is coming next week, so it could work out perfectly that he could even be here to baptize her.

I love you all and I hope you have an awesome week!!!!!!!!!

love

hna livingston