Hello 2011

Well it appears another week has passed. I am now in week 5 of the transfer. Just one week after this before transfers. Crazy. It also appears that a whole YEAR has passed. Hello 2011.

The sad news of the week is that I never saw Sis. Lee. I don't know if she came or not, but I never saw her.

Moving on though, this was a pretty decent week. On Wednesday we had a lesson with hna veracruz, and she had read the whole restaruation pamphlet before we came. And Moroni 10. Not too bad. haha. She said she thinks she is starting to understand about Joseph Smith, so that is good. We had another lesson with her yesterday which was going super well. We taught the plan of salvation and she said that this was all sounding familiar and maybe it was because she heard it before this life. It was going really great until her daughter in law came in. haha. We thought that would be a good thing becuase she is a member, but it turns out that she is kind of a downer (this was the first time we had met her). Not like she did anything super bad, but she just didn't help out at all. She sat there looking rather depressed and brought the kids in with her who were super loud and distracting (right as we were going to invite her to be baptized...we never got to it....haha). Oh well, we'll invite her next time. She is awesome though.

We also saw eric on wednesday. He called us and told us that he wants us to teach his family, so we went over and watched finding faith in christ with him and his brother and his parents. It went pretty well. They don't seem super interested, but he is SUPER interested in them being interested. haha. The mom made us arroz con leche though, so that was a positive sign. (it's pretty much rice cereal, haha). Eric came to church again this week. He is doing so great. He told us he was going to make an appointment to talk with the bishop and that he wanted to come with us to lessons and things like that. He has really turned things around. I don't know if I would have believed that he could be this different a few months ago. The gospel is a pretty amazing thing.

We visited Ana Torres for the first time in FOREVER this week. Well, we have been trying continuously, but we actually found her again, so that was good. The ward had heard she was going through a hard time, so they gave us about 5 bags of groceries to bring to her, so she was really grateful for that. She seems to be doing better than the last time I saw her though. She is renting her living room to someone, so I think that is helping her out some. She said that she and Linda and Luis went to the mountains a few days before to try to see snow, but they didn't find any. haha. They are so cute.

So Friday was new years eve and we ahd to be in by dark...aka like 4:30 haha. We were at the battalion in the morning till 3 and it was pretty steady. Then we went home and weekly planned, since it was pointless to drive to our area and turn around and drive back. We did get permission to go to a member's house for dinner though, so we went there at 6. The Venegas family had invited all of the missionaries over for dinner. It was pretty fun. There are 10 missionaries in the ward still, so it's quite an experience when we are all together. haha. We had to be back from that at 7:30, so from there we went to the battalion where we had a little new years gathering. SOme people sang and Sis Stutz (a senior missionary) did her emma smith monologue from nauvoo. IT was pretty enjoyable. I was in bed by about 9:40, so I consider it a very successful new years eve. haha.

New Year's day was pretty much a fail as far as visiting people. We had our area in the morning and literally no one was home. haha. We went from person to person and no one answered. Really I think they were all home, just asleep still. haha. Finally our las appointment (a lunch appointment) was home. So that was good. haha. They gave us eggs with ham and beans and rice with tortillas. Like really fancy breakfast burritos. haha. Not bad at all.

Sunday our church changed to 11, so we were hoping more people would come since they can sleep in now. Unfortunately that is still prime time for the swap meet. haha. Eric was the only one who came for us. But that was still exciting. After church the other sisters had a baptism, so we stayed for that and then headed too the battalion. We work there from 4-9 now on sundays. The christmas break rush was finally starting to calm down. haha. It was pretty much dead yesterday morning.

Yesterday we ate with Hna Galvas, who was the gospel principles teacher, but is now in the new RS presidency. She is a hoot. The other sisters ate with her too. She doesn't know my or the other white missioanry's names, she jsut calls us both "guerita" (white girl). haha. She told us an awesome experience though. She had hit some hard times economically, and her sister suggested she teach her kids to fast. All her kids are older than 8, but had never fasted before. So they all fasted together (except her husband, who isn't a member). The next day the man who lives behind them, who never pays his rent, showed up with the full amount of rent. Pretty sweet huh? I bet those kids won't forget their first fast!

Yesterday at the battalion I gave a tour with Hna Johnson to a family and a couple from russia. The couple from russia was so adorable. They gave us their info at the end of the tour and were soooo excited about everything. haha. It's so cool who many people we get to meet at the battalion from all over the world.

Well, I think that's about it. I guess it wasn't the most exciting of weeks in my mission, but still not bad. We didn't get to se Adam this week, but we have an appointment with him tonight, so hopefully things will go well with that.

I hope that you all have a great week!!!! I love you!!!

love,

hna livingston

hola familia

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!!!!! It was fun to get to hear from you on Saturday! I hope that you all had a wonderful christmas. It sounds like you were all having a good time.

Let's see...so I already told you about some stuff this week, but I'll probably just tell you about it again in case anyone else reads this. Plus then you can have more details.

So last wednesday Daniel and Cleo came to the Mormon Battalion with their 3 kids. It was way fun to take them on the tour. Daniel had the best reaction I've ever seen to the photos coming to life. He nearly fell over it suprised him so much. haha. They loved the tour. I have a couple photos I will send from it. I tried emailing the photo from the battalion to mom, so if you got a picture of a random family at the mormon battalion historic site, it was them. haha.

We added a new investigator this week. Well, really we added 5 this week (which is good since we were supposed to add 10 in december to meet our mission goal of 1,000). But this one woman who we added, Maria Veracruz, but she goes by bonnie, she is awesome. Her son and his wife are members and she has come out to live with the daughter in law while her son goes to school for 18 months in a different state, so she is there to take care of the kids. Anyways, she has been attending the english ward since november with her son and so he requested that sisters come visit, so that's how we are visiting her (she does speak spanish too though, but we speak english with her). She seems way prepared though, and I know her son really wants her to get baptized, so hopefully some good things will come of that. She went to the battalion a month ago and loved it. She related perfectly to their story of faith and even said that just like them it took a lot of faith for her to decide to move out here. So cool.

Christmas eve was pretty fun. We had a practice for the MCRD (marine core recruit something) choir. Then we went out to lunch as a district. We went to Chili's and it was way fun. THen we had district meeting, which included a white elephant gift exchange. I received monopoly. haha too bad there is never time to play a 5 hour board game. haha. I gave a madagascar calendar and some nerds in a raisin bran box (I even left some of the raisin bran in it, which the elder who got it said was lucky because he just ran out of cereal haha). After that Hna D and I added the milk to the tres leches cake we had made that morning (we were bringing it to daniel and cleo's that night).

When we got to Daniel and Cleo's they weren't quite ready (surprise) haha so we did the dishes and helped them clean the apartment while cleo got the kids ready and cooked and whatnot. We had tamales and meat and asparagus and some shrimp thing with chile (I think I am becoming more tolerable of spicy things...not because I want to, it's just happening. haha). We read from Mosiah 3 about christ coming with them. It was a really fun night. THey told us all about how they met and got married and whatnot. THey are pretty funny. I'll include some photos from the night. We finished with our tres leches cake, which was not the greatest. haha. The milk didn't really seep through all the cake, so it was a little dry. oh well. They acted like they liked it. haha.

Then we headed to the battalion where we had a little christmas gathering with tamales and hot chocolate. (I am a little tamale'd out to be honest. I'll be ok if I never eat one again. haha). Then elder evans read the christmas story and we sang christmas songs throughout it, including silent night in about 5 different languages. The evening concluded with a testimony meeting. It was really nice.

THen we rushed home and opened some presents (because we wouldn't have time in the morning). I opened the box from mom and read the christmas eve letters. Thanks for sending those, that was the best christmas present. It was lucky I opened the green sweater, because I needed one to wear to the mcrd thing the next day. I am very excited about the chocolate bacon bar. I haven't tried it yet, but I can't wait.

The next morning we woke up at 6 to be ready by 7 for the mcrd. While Hna D was showering I opened the huge box from target (which I had assumed was the thing megan had ordered me), turns out it was a set of pans for baking (which I am still excited about), but it was kind of funny. hahaha. Then we headed off to the MCRD to sing.

The MCRD was a really cool experience. It was kind of sad too. There were a bunch of recruits who came to listen, some members, some not. We had a whole program in which the missionaries sang together, separately elders and sisters, and as senior missionaries. Pres and sis donaldson shared a christmas message at the end and so did their officer. It was really neat. BUt it was kind of sad to look around at all the recruits and think that many of them could give their life before I even get home from my mission. There was a real theme of sacrifice though in the talks given and in the prayers. Two recruits prayed (at the beginning and end), and it was very apparent in both prayers how willing those recruits are to sacrifice for the country and how well they relate to the savior sacrificing for them. It was pretty cool. They gave out cupcakes at the end (I didn't take one though because my stomach started hurting ... all those tamales I guess).

After that we went to a christmas party at the battalion again. haha. The senior couples had put together a brunch for us, so that was fun. They gave us presents too, a tote bag that says mormon battalion and new name tags that say mormon battalion historic site under our names, some nail polish and soap and things like that. It was really cute.

THen I went home and called my favorite people: YOU!!! haha. That was fun. Then Hna D called her family and I wrapped her present. I had gotten her a picture frame and made a collage of photos of us to put inside.

Then we were at the battalion. Believe it or not people came throughout the day on christmas. haha. I gave a tour with Hna CHristensen to a very strange man. He asked me to dress up as the soldier, which I did, but it was kinda strange. haha.

Sunday we had an awesome lessong with our investigator Berta and her husband Pedro and added their son Jose. Jose is awesome. He was askeing all these questions that related perfectly to the joseph smith story. It was great.

Yesterday we had an awesome experience. We ate with Hna Rivas (pretty much the best member ever). she gave us each a fleece jacket for christmas with some gloves. So cute. Then she came with us to see the Tapia family, but they were busy, so we just randomly decided to go see Adam, cause she has met him before. He answered the door, but had clearly just woken up, so he asked if we could come tomorrow, we said Wed. Then Hna Rivas just started talking to him and asked if he was ready to get baptized soon. hahahahaha. So good. Adam explained he wanted to wait and talk to his fam first in mexico. Hna Rivas just went off about how she is the only member of her fam but it is way easier to testify after being baptized and everything. It was SOOOO GOOOD! We were there in the hallway for a good 20 minutes. She pretty much taught a lesson on the holy ghost and invited him to pray about getting baptized before he saw his family. Hna D and I pretty much just stood there. It was awesome. (oh, and we went carroling to adam a few days before and martha was still there, so I guess we may need to go over the law of chastity again).

We also taught daniel last night. It was a good lesson. He is soooo interested. At the end he said that we can still come, but cleo isn't interested. He said that she really likes us as people, but that she is still studying with the jehova's witnesses, but that they talked about it and she is ok with him still learning more. So that's good and bad. I had always figured I would be dealing with more uninterested men, but i have had the opposite experience. haha. oh well. Hopefully cleo will catch on. BUt good news. Daniel told us that he nor cleo nor the kids have been baptized. So that will make things way easier when we explain about that.

Well, I think that's about it for the week. It was a good one. I hope that you are all having fun together!!! Can't wait for next christmas! But to be honest, I'm pretty content with where I am and what I'm doing. But I do love you. so no worries there.

Happy new year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love

hna livingston

Feliz Navidad!

Feliz Navidad! That's how we say it down here in city heights. Well, just when talking to hispanic people I guess. haha. Crazy though, it does not feel like christmas at all. It's been pretty rainy lately, but still not too cold (except at night). I'm pretty sure christmas will mostly just feel like another day except for a special phone call that I will be making around 12 my time (be there or be square).

So this week was a pretty good one. We have found several new investigators, including Daniel's wife cleo, who was our investigator forever ago, but wasn't showing interest at first when we added daniel again. We invited them to the spanish missionary fireside though, which was on sunday and was christmas themed and they came!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it was AMAZING. There was a missionary choir (which we weren't in because we were at the battalion during the practice) which sang several awesome christmas songs with recent convert testimonies in between. All of the testimonies were really concise and good this time (sometimes they get a little dragged out). Then pre. Jesperson (the counselor to our mission pres.) spoke. He spoke about some of the symbols of chrismas: the wreath = god's eternal love, the tree = always growing up toward heaven - us becoming better people through the atonement, red = christ's blood, the star = the light of christ. Things like that. When he got to the star all of the lights were turned off and a star lit up above the organ. It was way sweet. Then he kept talking with a flashlight and mentioned how we can have the light of christ with us here and how it is carried by the missionaries and they can bring it to us. When he said this all of the missionaries started flashing their little flashlights (he had given them to us before) so it looked like twinkling stars all over the stand and throughout the audience. It was way sweet. Daniel and Cleo really liked it. In fact, they (including cleo) told us to come over the day after (yesterday), so we did and we watched joy to the world with them.

After we watched the movie they asked us some questions. Cleo asked about the book of mormon, who wrote it and whatnot. She asked if Nefi was the one who started the whole religion and we explained about all of the writers being prophets in the americas. She liked that. Then Daniel started talking about wanting to undersand the bom better and cleo interrupted him and said that they didn't need to understand the book perfectly, they just needed to have faith. That everyone just needs to have faith and that we were there to help them have faith in christ because they don't have faith in anything. It was AWESOME. Usually she just talks about not really liking religion. Then we read part of alma 32 with the definition of faith and where he says that the people couldn't have a perfect knowledge of his words but they could have faith by experimenting on them. So we told them that's what they needed to do. It was a really awesome lesson.

At the end they asked what we were doing for christmas. We said we didn't have plans. They said that they didn't really either because they just moved to the u.s. like 7 months ago and didn't have many friends and don't have any family here. They suggested that we adopt each other since we don't have family here either and invited us over for dinner on christmas eve. So that's what we will be doing. Hanging out with Daniel and Cleo and their kids Isac, Stephanie, and Fatima. Pretty awesome.

We also got Luis and Linda Torres to come to the fireside, which was quite a feat. We talked to them for almost 2 hours before. Luis opened up saying that he wanted to change but it is really hard. We watched a mormon message about the atonement's healing powers and just kept telling him that all he needed to do was start doing something good. We kept suggesting that the fireside was the perfect way to start. Finally at 7:00 I just looked at my watch and said, oh it's time for the fireside, so you are going to follow us right? haha. Somehow or another, they all just got up and put their shoes on and came. haha. I watched behind us the whole time to make sure that Luis was really following us. They seemed to like it, but they darted out the second it ended. (Luis doesn't want anyone to see him at church or anything because he's embarrased he hasn't come in so long). haha. Obviously the way to fix that is to start coming. So I think he made a small step on sunday.

We had our ward christmas party on saturuday, which was kind of fun. Not too many people came because it was the same night as the counselor in the stake presidency (the one who speaks spanish), his son's wedding was the same night. Jazmin and her family came though, but she wouldn't got talk to any of the young women, so that was frustrating. Also, they didnt start serving the food until about 7:45 (it started at 6) and it was still taking forever...turns out they were grilling the chicken right then and there was only one man doing it. So it took forever. We got our food at about 8:45. Right as we had to leave to go home. haha.

We had another awesome lesson with Ruben this week. He has been praying and says that he has been in a better mood this last week than before. We talked a lot about christ and how his atonement helps us to heal relationships too. At the end we asked if he had a book of mormon (he was taught by the sisters a couple times before I got there) and he said he did, but he didn't want to read it yet because the other sisters told him that when he did and he prayed he would receive an answer (I think he knows that's true and he's not quite ready to completely change, so we need to keep working on that). But at least he was honest with us, that's a relief. Everyone else says they will read it and then don't. Who knows, maybe he'll read it anyway. haha.

Last Wed we went to see Magda before she left on Tuesday, but when we got there her son said that they ended up leaving that morning. Luckily I had given her my address the last time we saw her, and he gave me her phone number in mexico. we can call her from the battalion and get the missionaries sent to her in mexico so that Jorge can get baptized. That is one plus about being at a historic site. haha. I am one of the ones entering referrals.

Last Tuesday we added two new investigators who we found street contacting one day. She (berta) is way funny. The first time we met her she thought it was soooo funny that a white girl was in that area and that she spoke spanish (the white girl being me). haha. I stand out a little more now that I am with hna De La Cruz. haha. Or I guess she just blends in better than sis mortensen did. But we added her and her friend who was over and we showed her joy to the world and they loved it. She said she wanted to show it to all of her kids, so that's pretty cool. We are going to see her again tonight and try to teach her the restauration.

Basically life is going pretty well. We'll be having the mission christmas party on thursday, so I should be getting any packages you sent then. : )

I hope that you all have a very merry christmas!!!!!!! If you have anyone you want to share the gospel with, I would recommend giving them Joy to the World. Now that I've seen it aobut 10 times in the last couple of weeks,I have realized that it does a great job of teaching the apostasy and restoration through the common ground of Christmas.

Send me some pics from christmas break! And if you could include one of Max in his santa had or antlers, that would be lovely. haha.

I love you all!!!!!!! Can't wait to talk on Saturday!!!!!

love,

hna livingston

December 14th

So, transfers came and went on Wednesday and I am still in Barrio 20 with Hna De La Cruz, which is good, I have some unfinished business there. haha. I really love the ward and I wouldn't be surprised if I stayed there most of my mission. The girl who was in my area before was there for over a year. It's a really good ward though.

It is getting harder and harder to even remember what happened in the last week. haha. Everything just blurs together. But this was definitely a good week. We managed to add Adriana's brother as an investigator. his name is Ruben and he is awesome. We went over to Adriana's at like 7:30 because we didn't have anything else to do and we wanted to check up on how she was and what not. She wasn't there, but her mom let us in (Adriana is the only member in her family and she is super less active but was only baptized in June or so). We talked with the mom for a good while before Adriana came home and we chatted with her and helped her some with her homework. Then Ruben came home and we started talking with him. We talked about prayer and he told us about how he has all these decisions he is trying to make and he asked us how it is that we make our decisions. We told him about including God in the decision. Then he asked us to read in the bible with him, so we did. We read first the story in Mark 9 about the boy that's posessed and Christ saying that all things are possible to him that believes. Then we read in Matthew about Peter walking on water. Ruben said that he was a "man of little faith". He said he wants to be better and pray more and everything, but that he needs humility. We read Ether 12:27 and he really liked that. Then we asked if we could end with a prayer and explained how we pray. Then Ruben asked if HE could say it. hahahahahaha. Obviously we said yes. haha. That has never happened to me before or anyone I've talked to. An investigator asking if he could pray in the first lesson. Usually we have to really twist people's arms to get them to pray. It was a really good prayer too. It was a pretty awesome experience.

We tried to go see Magdalena this wee (don't worry, I haven't forgotten about her), but they are headed back to mexico this week and we haven't been able to see them because they moved from their apartment at the end of november and have been staying with her oldest son, but we didn't know where he lived. Finally I got ahold of her this week and got the address, so we tried to go, but she wasn't home. We talked to Chris though, and we are going to try again today or tomorrow. Hopefully we can see them because they leave on thursday and we want to get their address in mexico so that we can send the missionaries there so jorge can get baptized. Those lucky missionaries who get that referral, huh?

On Monday hna D and I went to see Eric, but he wasn't there, so we just decided to drop by Marisela's because it was a morning and hardly anyone is usually home. (Marisela is the less active who joined another church a couple years ago, but who we sometimes help clean/ were going to paint her bedroom with her). So we knock on the door and she answered and told us to come in and said that she just barely found out that her "husband" (they aren't married but have been together for 10 years) is cheating on her. She said that the day before her sister had called her (her whole family is or was members, they were raised in the church) and asked her if she ahd been reading the book of mormo, and then we showed up, so she was taking that as a possible sign of what God wanted her to do. So that was awesome. She is amazing and has a ton of faith and is somehow reacting really positively to the situation. We went over again yesterday and she told us that she just barely found out that she is pregnant, but that her "husband" said he didn't care and he didn't think he would be coming back. Somehow she was just smiling away and saying that she knew that if she was pregnant it was because God knew that was best for her. We encouraged her to read the book of mormon and continue praying and she said she would.

While we were there, her son, Diego, who is like 5 and is CRAZY, kept climbing into the fridge, literally, and eating the cake on the top shelf (like just smashing his face into it and everything). She finally noticed him and gave him a piece and then each of us a piece too. hahaha. It was pretty funny.

Yesterday we had MTE...some missionary training with President...aka awesomness. We have learned something interesting about the relation between finding and baptizing. One of the senior missionaries has created a statistical formula to predict the baptisms in our mission based on the number of investigators found and it is surprisingly accurate, or has been for the past 5 months. Apparently for every 20 investigators we add in spanish we get one baptism, and for every 10 in english, we get one baptism. So to reach our goal of 100 baptisms in january, we have to add 1000 investigators this december, which works out to about 15 per companionship. So we talked a lot about finding. Also we learned that a person found through a member is 10 times more likely to get baptized than one we found on our own. We are really trying to respond to the request from the brethren to double baptisms. hopefully we can do it.

The training was really good. Afterwards, each companionship had a "coach" go with them (just someone from another companionship), so sis Bowman came with us...but she doesn't speak spanish, so that may not have been the best planning on whoever arranged it's part. But that's ok. So we visited Marisela, which I already told you about. Then we saw Linda and read the first chapter of the bom with her. It was really good. Hopefully she will start reading on her own one of these days. She is just the cutest though.

Then we saw Jazmin, who came to church this sunday!!!!! And we tried to invite her to be baptized on the 26, but she won't commit to it because she says she doens't like to be in front of people, so we are going to keep trying with that.

Then we went to a dinner appointment in which they fed us a TON of food. I was way full, especially since sis bowman had been sick over the weekend and so she gave me some of her food while they weren't looking so that they wouldn't think she didn't like it. We went from there to teach Blanca and Jessica, but while we were there Old blanca brought us each a taco. I managed to eat it, but then she brought us each another and ANOTHER> hahahahaha. it was SOOOOO funny. We kept telling her no, but she would just bring them out and hand them to us. haha. so I ate them all, but it wasn't the most enjoyable eating experience I've ever had. hahahahaha.

All in all it was a great week.

OH. I almost forgot. We finally taught Adam and Martha the law of chastity on Sunday. It went pretty well, but Martha didn't say hardly anything the whole time except at one part when we were waiting for forever for adam to answer our invitation to live it, and she said, well adam, go ahead and tell them if you are going to or not. He said he would try, but we took that as they need to talk before either can commit. But it went well and we should be seeing them tonight. or maybe just him if they are already living it. We'll see.

So that's what's happening in San Diego. I hope that you all have a great week preparing for christmas! I'm excited to hear from you all, so be ready to talk to me!!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

love

hna livingston

another transfer ended...

Well, another transfer has ended. Transfer meeting isn't until tomorrow though, so who knows what will happen. Probably not too much.

For some reason I am having a hard time remembering what even happened this week. It all just blurs together, so if I write about something that you already know about, sorry. I didn't bring my old planner to check.

So at the battalion we have been having people come and sing and stuff in the theater during december (like what they do in DC but on a much lower scale). On Wed someone was scheduled to play the guitar and sing. It said "guitar soloist." so I was expecting Kevin JOnas or something. Turned out it was an 80 year old man. And he played and sang for 1/2 hours straight. wow. haha. It was pretty bad. I think the directors were kind of horrified. hahaha. he forgot the lyrics sometimes in the middle of the song too. But he was a nice old man and he was really enjoying it. It worked out though because only about 4 people came to see him (his friends) so mostly just all of us sisters were watching. I wasn't able to see it all though because .... ADAM AND MARTHA CAME!!!! yay.

So Hna D and I gave them a tour and it was GREAT! Adam was crying by the end...of course. He is such a softie. I sent mom the picture of us with them, so maybe you all saw it already, but that's what they look like if you were wondering. We still haven't managed to teach them the law of chastity yet because other than that we only saw them once this week and we were late and in a huge hurry so there just wasn't time. THey gave us tamales though. haha. He is always giving us food.

We taught the Tapia family a few times this week, well mostly just the 15 year old, Jazmin. But she came to activities on Wed and loved it and even brought a friend. We invited her to get baptized and she agreed, but then didn't come to church, so we'll have to change the date. It worked out ok though, because it was stake conference and it was really missionary focused, so next week will be better for her first week. But she is awesome and she invited another friend to come to activities this week. I just hope the ward will step up and take her in.

I talked to Magdalena this week. Just on the phone, but we haven't seen her in forever bcause they moved. They are planning on heading back to mexico on dec 16 or so. SHe and th boys are staying with her other son until then. We are going to try to see them this week though, so that will be nice. She is just awesome. She is going to bring the gospel to so many people in mexico. Everything will just work out perfectly.

Good news: we found Daniel and Cleo again! You may remember them from back in august. They are doing great. We watched how rare a posession with them yesterday and Daniel really liked it and wants to understand the BoM better he says. so that's cool. He's a funny guy though.

SO we had an amazing experience at the temple on Friday. Hna D and I were serving there (just outside talking to people). The temple workers came out and motioned for us to come over...aka someone had snuck past us. We went over and started talking to the woman (she was wearing a skirt and looked like she was just heading in to do a session, hence why we missed her). She introduced herself as Dr. Neera and said that she had felt called to come here. SHe was on her way to the airport to pick up her friend and she felt she needed to come. SHe said she didn't know why she was here so asked us to tell her. We told her what church we were from and everything and somehow started talking about the BoM. I said that it was a record of the ancient inhabitants of the americas, the ancestors of the native americans. She looked at me really intently and was like, the native americans have something to do with this? I thought I had offended her and said, well the people living on this continent, and she said she needed to sit down.

She sat down and said that God has been telling her for some time that the truth is somehow connected with the native americans but she couldn't figure out how. She said that this was the missing link. She asked to know more about the bom. She said she had 20 minutes and to tell her everything. I ran to get her a copy from the car...but we only had spanish ones, so I went inside and asked the people at the desk and they gave me one. I gave it to her and she immediately started reading the intro. SHe kept gasping. It was crazy. I explained about the nephites and lamanites and how the nephites saw christ and she just kept gasping.

Then she flipped through the book and saw Alma, and she was like THERE'S A BOOK OF ALMA!?!?!! and we said yes. And she said something about having been thinking about that word. She started reading the first chapter...about corruption in the church and whatnot. I was kind of worried, but she read out loud verses 16 and 19 i think. The first about there being corruption in the church (she had just been talking about corruption in the cathoilc church) and the second about the true believers being persecuted (she had been saying that the mormons were the most hated of all religions in the us). It was pretty amazing.

It was crazy. So she gave us her info and we gave her ours. She is from Houston. I mentioned living in college station and she was like oh my gosh....I guess that she had had a recent conversation in which both mormons and aggies were mentioned, so she felt like this was an important connection. She mentioned agin how the native americans were persecuted by those who claimed to be christian, and I told her that that was prophesied in the bom and she was way excited. It was amazing. Then she had to leave, but first she asked if she could hug me. haha. Of course I let her. But it was a way awesome experience. SOme people are just ready. And it's interesting...she was hindu, how random that she would be searching in the truth through Christ, but she was. I hope that the elder in my MTC district in houston gets the referral. haha.

Well, I think that's about it for this week. THings are going great here. I hope they are awesome at home. I hope that Emily had an AMAZING birthday!!!!! I heard her party was fun.

I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love

hna livingston

hola familia

Well, 6 months officially down. I am 1/3 of the way through. So crazy.

This week was a pretty good one. Thanksgiving was good, but very busy. Hna D and I had a full day in our area, but we somehow still didn't have time to do everything. The bishopric brought up some issues with the missionaries a few weeks ago...mostly things from before all of us, but I guess they still bother them, so we are trying to build better relations with all of them, so hna D and I took it upon ourselves to bake a million cookies and deliver them to the bishopric and all of the auxilary presidents. So that morning we started baking them...too bad our oven is terrible and so are the pans we have, so we burned the firs batch, pretty badly. haha. Unfortunately we had a limited amount of cookie dough, and it's not like you can just run to the store any old time as a missionary. We managed ok though. We ended up with enough not burned cookies to give 6 to each family and enough burned ones to bring to district meeting. haha. Missionaries will eat anything.

we had some of the elders and the other sisters deliver some of the cookies too. We hear it was pretty successful. The elders who delivered them to the bishope managed to get inside his house...which has never happpened since I've been in the ward. So that was good. Hna D and I delivered them to a few families too and they were way excited about them, so that was great.

At district meeting we all went around and said what we were thankful for....mostly our families.

After the meeting Hna D and I headed to the battalion for a thanksgiving feast hosted by the senior couples. It was excellent...turkey , mashed potatoes and everything. I have some photos I will send.

After that we delivered the cookies and then went to have thanksgiving dinner with the Mendozas. They had invited all of the missionaries from the ward over (keep in mind that that is 10 missionaries...haha). It was excellent. We had chicken and ham and tamales with cheesecake for dessert (I was worried we would have flan, so that was a great surprise). It was way fun. Their family is just the parents and 2 kids...6 and 9. So it was way fun. They love the missionaries. After that we rushed back to the battalion for our group meeting (like district meeting but for the battalion). We talked about incorporating the holiday season into the tour and offering christmas dvds.

Then I packed up a little bag because we were doing exchanges...I was going to spring valley yet again, but this time I was going with Hna Lee (we came out together). So that was real exciting. hahaha. She is way fun. We have become good buds so it was really fun to spend the day with her on friday, which coincidentally was our 6 month mark. haha. We were at the battalion in the morning and then in her area that night and we managed to teach a couple lessons and find her a new investigator, which is more success than I've ever had in spring valley before (I've been there a few times on various exchanges and everyone always just cancels on us, so I thought I was bad luck there).

On Wed (before thanksgiving) we taught Adam and Martha. They are so funny. We talked about the atonement and baptism and read mosiah 18 with them and asked them what was holidng them back from being baptized. We sat there for a really long time (or at least it felt like a long time) afterward waiting for their answers, and then Zeus, Adam's roommate who is way funny, came in and started chatting with us. haha. talk about bad timing. When he left martha said that she would like to get baptized, but she doesn't feel ready yet. so we talked about it not being a covenant of perfection. Then adam said pretty much the same thing. he wants to talk to his family first in mexico, he's going there in a couple weeks for christmas. They both kept saying there were things they need to change first, which is funny because we are pretty sure they are referring to the law of chastity seeing as how adam has a wife in mexico but is dating martha here. So we're planning on addressing that tonight. Also, we are hoping that while adam is gone, we can keep teaching martha and get her baptized. She is awesome.

While martha was still talking to us about things she needs to change and stuff like that Adam got up and was bustling around in the kitchen and came back with hot chocolate and pan dulce (like dessert bread stuff...donuts are better, but it's not too bad). Too bad it was like 9:20 and we really needed to leave, so we scarfed it down and then left. haha. I'm pretty sure adam knew we needed to leave soon so that's why he went ahead and made it, so we couldn't deny him giving us food. he loves to feed us. haha. It was good though.

We had a good lesson with Linda Torres yesterday, we went over when we knew luis wouldn't be home so that we could actually teach her. She really wants to come to church. She is so cute. She prayed at the end that she would be able to come to church and that Luis would change like he promimed he would. Hopefully he'll get his act together soon because they are an awesome family.

WE also taught eric yesterday, who did not come to church on sunday. He said he is thinking of going to the singles ward (he's 25). We takled about trusting in God and then about priesthood leaders and repentance and brought it around to talking to the bishop. He said he wanted to, but then all of a sudden he started laughing and said, did you plan that? talking aobut trusting in God but really just wanting me to go talk to the bishop. haha. We were caught off guard and Hna D just said, yes we did, but would he still do it, and he said yes. It was pretty funny though because we really do scheme as missionaries about how to get people to do things...good things, but nevertheless, I've never been called out on it before. I think we tied it together a little too nicely. ahhaha.

Things are good at the battalion. It was SUPER busy this week. It was like back in the summer with tours of 20-35 people. crazy.

I did get my violin from Wendy. THANK YOU MOM!!!!!! It sounds beautiful. I will be playing at a baptism on Sunday...not our baptism, but a baptism from Hna D's old area that we are going to and the sisters asked me to play while they sing. But secretly I will dedicate it as Emily's birthday song. : )

Speaking of which HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (on sunday). I hope you have a fun party. I want to hear all about it!!!!!!!!!! I love you!!! Thank you for you letter and note in my violin. I will write you back today.

Well, I think that's pretty much it for this week. Christmas is coming up fast, so you can look forward to hearing from me then!!!!!! I'm excited to hear from all of you!!!!!!!!!

I love you all!!!!!!

love

hna livingston

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!

So far we still just have 2 dinners planned...but I won't be surprised if we have a couple other surprise invitations. That tends to happen even not on thanksgiving.

So good news at the mormon battalion...I gave a tour to three women from spain and got 2 referrals from them. The two were sisters from toledo. So awesome. That was not my first tour with spaniards, but it was my first referral from a spaniard...they are harder to get to refer than the hispanics. It was funny though, during the tour there's a part where you can dress up, but usually you just wear a few things (like the photo greg took...i'm sure you saw it), but this girl only wanted to dress up if she could wear the uniforms we have there. So I said she could, but there are about a hundred buttons on it, so it took sooooo long for her to get it on and then get it off. haha. It was kind of funny. I've never had that happen before.

On friday was the ward thanksgiving party which was AWESOME. Before we got there the elders called us and said our investigators were there...jazmin and some other people. We were very confused because we didn't know anyone named jazmin, but they said that they had asked for us, so we hurried over. It turned out that Linda Torres had come (which was awesome, because she usually doesn't come to things because Luis doesn't want to) and she brought her neighbors! A mother and her two daughters (15 and 12). How awesome is that? So now we are teaching them and they are amazing. The youngest daughter, Miriam, lost her leg several years ago to cancer, but she is adorable and the mom has so much faith. Thank you Linda. haha. It was awesome too because Luis had dropped them off, so he had to come get them, and when he did we got him to stay for about half an hour. SUCCESS. haha. I even managed to get a member of the bishopric to come over and say hi to him, which was good because luis says he doesn't come because he's embarrased to come back.

Other good news at the party was that Adriana came, and she brought her boyfriend and his brother. So we are going to try to teach him eventually. haha.

Even better news though, is that Eric came (the one who was in the hospital not too long ago). It was so great. He showed up by himself, but when Giovanni (the son of a family in our area who is about his age) saw him, his face just lit up. He was soooo excited. Turns out that Eric joined the church right as Giovanni fell away and Eric helped to bring him back. Now Giovanni is way strong, but Eric has fallen away, so Giovanni wants to help him come back.

The Best news of the week though is that Eric came to church. He even managed to stay for most of it, which was way exciting. We went over that night with Giovanni and Mani (they are the YSA group leaders) and it was the best member teaching experience EVER. We had gone over to the Venegas family to invite them to come with us (Mani lives with Giovanni's family) and they didn't really want to come, but they did. But man, when we got there, they both just took over. They sat down and got straight to business just bearing their testimonies and telling eric he had to stay strong. It was so great. hahaha. Hna D and I didn't even need to be there. Now we really want to work on getting all three of them to go on missions because they could make great missionaries. So awesome.

Unfortunately none of our investigators came to church, but we were so happy about eric it wasn't that big of a deal.

So on Saturday our ward mission leader, Hno Morales, and his wife and two of their daughters were sealed together in the san diego temple. They invited us and we went and it was AMAZING. It was a very special experience. I'm so glad we got to go.

Nothing too exciting happened with any of our investigators this week. Adam is still MIA, but we are going to try to go over tonight. We told Zeus to tell him that we would be coming, so hopefully we can find him. haha. It's funny....he disappeared for a month after coming to the ward party. This time he came to a baptism and church and then has disappeared. Maybe he just needs time to recover from church functions? haha.

Well, things are good here. It's been a little chilly lately, but it doesn't quite seem like almost december. haha. It will be sunny one day and then freezing the next.

I hope everything is great at home!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hope you all enjoyed HP7. haha

love,

hna livingston

half way through transfer

Another week come and gone. We are halfway through the transfer, which is crazy. It has flown by so far.

This week was pretty good, but nothing too exciting happened. There were some funny things though.

You may remember my mentioning the Torres family before. They are less active and I love them. haha. Linda is my age and Luis is like 27 or something and he is crazy. Well, they invited us over for dinner on Thursday, so we happily went. She fed us enchiladas and meat and macaroni. It was all very delicious. Luis declined eating with us though, but partway through dinner he came into the kitchen and tried to sneakily get something from on top of the fridge, but failed at the sneaky part because it was obviously a pack of ciggarets. Oh Luis. After we finished eating we talked to Linda for a long time. We started reading in enos with her and I asked her if her sould has ever hungered, and she said yes and explained how on sunday when they go to the swap meet (instead of church...because Luis likes to) she always sees happy families coming out of church or playing at the park and she wishes she had that. SO SAD! Anyways, she told us more about her life, which is a rather sad story, and she ended up talking for so long that we missed our group meeting at the battalion (like district meetings, but for how to improve the battalion).

Anyways, so to help Linda we decided that on sunday we would go by their place before church and offer to walk with her to church. We showed up and luis answered the door (he had obviously just gotten out of bed) ... so he opened the door and then immediately closed it. hahaha. Then he opened it again and said "HERMANAS" long and drawn out (how he always greets us). So linda was still asleep but he told us to go wake her up, but we declined and just told him to get ready and when she woke up to bring her to church. he said he would, but of course they never came. Maybe next week.

On Friday we had a good lesson with Eric (the less active who was in the hospital). He said he was definitely going to come to church. We helped him to make a plan of how he was going to turn his life around. He needs to not go to Tijuana anymore, he needs to read in the BOM everyday, he needs to pray everyday, and he needs to come to church. (These were things he came up with with our guidance). We were all excited that he was going to come, he even said he was going to go to the young single adults activity, so we called the guy in charge and told him to call him and everything. Then on sunday, he never showed up. We talked to Giovani (the kid in charge of the YSA) and he said that eric had said he would come to the activity, but never did. LAME. On monday we went to see eric, but his brother said he hasn't seen him since saturday. Aka he is in Tijuana. SO LAME. we're pretty mad at him, but hopefully he will come this week.

On saturday we went to a farewell party for Becky Morales (a 23 year old girl in our ward who we're good pals with who is heading out on a mission in 3 weeks...she's going to Austin Texas.) It was pretty awesome. She had just gone through the temple and everything and is so excited to go. She is the first girl missionary this ward has sent off in at lesat 18 years (that's how far back teh bishopric can remember I guess). SO the ward is really excited. We're hoping this sparks some interest in helping us.

You are probably wondering what has been happening with Adam. NOTHING. He has officially disappeared again. Well, not totally. We talked to him on the phone on friday and he said to come sunday and he said he's been reading in the bom. So when we were on our way over on sunday we got a message from him saying not to come now bcause he was really "disorganized". So that was weird. We went anyways, haha, but his roommate, zeus, said he was asleep. So we don't know what's going on with him, but the last time he disappeared for a month when we found him he had taught himself the restauration, so hopefully he is learning about the plan of salvation r something now. haha.

Yesterday we had some pretty funny things happen, all at one house. I don't know if I've mentioned Blanca before, but she was a referral from the elders because she had a crush on one of them. She is 16. So we've been teaching her and her sister, Jessica (13) and her uncle, Filemon. We've been trying to add their cousin, Gerardo. Well yesterday when we went they were all there...Blanca, Jessica, Filemon, Gerardo, and Old Blanca (their crazy grandma, who is a SUPER less active member). Somewho Old blanca started telling us stories, that she seemed to think were related, but really weren't. The first story was about an old woman carrying a taco in her purse (that's all I remember from it). SHe did really dramatic actions as she told the story and got up and was acting everything out. The second story involved a boy in a taco shop who hid a taco to give to his mom and the owner caught him and then said that was fine, he could give anything to his mom. The third story was about her giving an old man a glass of water and then turning around to set down the cup and turning back and he had disappered. (I do remember now that this was all triggered by soemone saying that you should never refuse anyone who comes to your door because they could be sent by God). The last story was my favorite. I thought I misunderstood it at first, but I clarified with Hna De la Cruz after and it was right. She told us something about someone making a taco and setting it down and then i started moving around by itself. THE TACO WAS MOVING!!!!! hahaha. ANd she was swinging her arms all around to show how it was buzzing around the place. hahahahahahaa. We actually started laughing during this one, but the thing is, it was a serious story. hahahaa. Filemon was taking it very seriously, Gerardo looked like he wanted to laugh, i couldn't see the to girls from where I was sitting, but Hna D was about to die from wanting to laugh. hahahaha. It was way funny. After she finished telling the stories Filemon looked around really seriously and asked if anyone else had an experience to share. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Luckily no one did.

Eventually we managed to teach a smidge about the restauration and give them a copy of the movie. Then they decided that we needed to try these tacos they had made. They were shrimp tacos and would have been really dilicious if they weren't so SPICY. HOLY COW. I thought I had tasted spicy things before, but I had not. haha. Hna D doesn't really like spicy things either (which is more surprising because she is Mexican), but oh boy. We were both near tears and our noses were running. hahaha. She gave us 2 at first, so we ate them, and then she gave us each a THIRD. Oh my goodness. I thought I was giong to die; my mouth was on fire. Oh, and to top it off, they gave us sprite to drink with it. haha. Guess what I have learned on my mission. Soda does not help to cool down your mouth when it is on fire. hahaha. It was pretty funny though.

Last night we also visited adriana again finally. She was way happy (sometimes she is rather depressed, so that was really good). Her brother wants to come to church, so that's exciting. We have an appointment to teach him and her, so that should be cool.

Well, that's most of what I can think of for this week. haha.

I hope that you are all doing well. Thanksgiving is coming up, so that's exciting. The senior couples are planning a dinner for us at the battalion in the afternoon and that night a family has invited all of the missionaries in the ward over to eat (10 of us). So it should be a fun day.

I hope you all have a good start to the holiday season. Make a gingerbread house for me!!! Oh, and if you get a chance, I wouldn't mind a nice christmas cd. of uplifting music. : )

Well, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love,

hna livingston

Happy Half Birthday to ME!

Well, I guess it has been another week since I am emailing you again, but it went by so fast it's hard to say.

First off, Happy half birthday to me!!!!!!! Also, happy less than one year left in the mission. Crazy huh? Time is just flying by.

So this week we had some good things happening. The other sisters in our ward had a baptism on wed, so we invited Adam and Martha to come, and SURPRISE, they did! So that was awesome. Adam liked it so much he was crying during it. haha. he's a rather sensitive guy. Also, they managed to meet a ton of people from the ward, so that was awesome. We also learned some valuable information. A man in the ward asked martha if she was Adam's wife, and she got kind of mad about it and said no. Well, it turns out (we learned this later from Cesar's wife) that Adam said his wife is in Mexico. Yeah, so it appears that Adam is already married, but is living with martha out here. so lame. So tonight we will be addressing the law of chastity. woohooooooooooo. So that should be fun. haha. On Sunday Adam came to church though, and stayed all 3 hours, so that was AWESOME. We haven't gotten to talk to him since then, so we hope he liked it. But he was making comments and giving answers in sunday school, so he seemed to be pretty comfortable. So hopefully he will continue progressing and can get baptized this month (asuming things go well with tonight's lesson).

We added 3 new investigators this week, Blanca (16), her sister Jessica (13) and Filemon (their uncle). Their grandma is a member, but is super less active and kind of crazy. They were a referral from the elders because apparently blanca had a crush on one of them (I believe it, when we came she was like, when is Elder Gardner coming back? hahahaha) But they seem pretty cool. Their dad was recently paralyzed from the waist down, and their mom died several years ago, so they have a real need for the gospel.

On Friday we went to see one of the members in our area to see if she needed help with the thanksgiving activity the ward is having. She said she wants the missionaries to put on some sort of play or skit or dramatic reading that explains the first thanksgiving. If you have any ideas, that would be great, because we are drawing a blank on this one. haha. She was asking if we can wear our pioneer dresses though. haha. So it will probably end up being pretty funny.

Friday night I had a cool experience at the Battalion. I gave a tour, that started with just one girl in it, named Rebecca. She was probably near my age, maybe a smidge older. A family ended up joining during the intro part. I finished the tour and then took their pictures and the family left. The girl was hanging around though, so I started talking to her more. Turns out that she is from new mexico, but joined the navy about a year ago and just recently was sent to the navy base here. She services helicopters. We kept talking about the navy and whatnot and then I told her about gold panning outside, so we went out there. She panned for some gold and then somehow it came up that she doesn't drink or smoke or anything like that, so I was like, hey, neither do mormons. So we talked a little bit about why and things like that and then I was like, hey, if you want a book of mormon, you can fill out that card and we can get you one. And then she was like, actually I have one, so I was like cool! And she said, I have a quad. So I was surprised and said, how did that come about? and she said that her parents were members and forced her to be baptized and she has always resented that and she left the church a long time ago because her dad is an alcholic and her mom left him and married a horrible man. Basically she just told me all about her life. Then she said that she has recently come to realize that she thinks the only reason she has resented the church was because she associated it with her parents. So I asked if she had been reading in the BOM and she said yes. So I asked if she watned to come to church tomorrow and she said yes. I helped her look up where the nearest chapel was on her phone and then asked if she wanted to leave her info so I could be in tough with her. She said something about changing email addresses, so she didn't want to give it to me or whatever and then said she needed to leave. As I turned to walk away I remembered that I had a copy of the talke "come unto me with full purpose of heart and I shall heal you" in my pocket. (from the priesthood session of general conference). For some reason I had been reading it during the tour (in the parts where the movie plays), but I had never done that before. But the talk was perfect for her. SO I turend around and ran after her and gave her the talk and told her to read it and to go to church tomorrow, and she said she would.

It was a pretty cool experience. I have never felt after a tour like it was important that I give the tour, rather than someone else. But this time I think it was, not because of me or anything, but because I randomly had that talk in my pocket and I think she needed to read it. You should all read it btw. It was really good. It talked about how it's never too late to be healed by christ, we just need to come unto him and he can heal us.

Sunday was Justin's birthday (Magda's son), so we made him cupcakes on saturday while we weekly planned. We were planning to take them over sunday night. Sunday turned out to be a very busy day, starting with Adam coming to church, then we were at the battalion, then we were in our area. We had a lesson planned with Jose/Rosalba and we had even found a couple to come with us, the Navarros. They drove over and met us there and then it turned out that Rosalba had guests over, so she was busy, so that was rather obnoxious. Especially since she said she had gotten our message, but was too busy to call us and tell us ahead of time.

After that we went to try to find this woman, Arminda, who Hna Mortensen had added one day while we were on exchanges, so I had never met her before. We went to her house, but she wasnt there, so we called her. She was super excited on the phone and said she was at her brother's house with the trampoline and cake and pinata, so to come there. Obviously we knew that she had mixed us up with someone else, but we chose to use this to our advantage, so we went to her brother's house. Sure enough there was a birthday party happening. hahaa. When we got there she was like, oh my, I thought you were someone else on the phone, but she invited us to eat cake with them, so we accepted. It was really good cake...tres leches. haha. We talked to some of her friends there, and it turns out one had been meeting with the missionaries and then moved, so now she wasn't. we got her info and called the elders later, and they were like AWESOME, because they had been thinking of her but had no way to get in contact with her since she had moved, so that was cool. We also managed to set up an appointment for later in the week with Arminda. So it was fate that we needed to be at that birthday party.

Then we went to see Eric Robles (who was in the hospital a few weeks ago) because he had called us earlier asking us to come over (and I've learned as amissionary that when someone calls, and it's rare, you go, haha). We got there and his brothers were all watching amovie in the living room, so we went outside to talk to him because he didn't want to talk in front of them (he's the only member in his family). He told us that he broke up with his girlfriend and he wants to come back to church and that he keeps thiking of the blessing the elders gave him and how it said he would make a full recovery, but he couldn't remember if it said he had to do something so that he could recover. I told him what I remembered from the blessing .. that it was according to his faith, so if he exercised his faith and turned his life around, I knew he would recover fully. He told us basically his whole life story and kept crying throughout it (which was unusual to see, because he's a pretty tough looking guy). He told us about finding the church and how much it meant to him,but how he fell away and wants to come back. I told him about how when we were in the hospital with him I could feel God's love for him so strongly and I knew that God wanted him to come back and was just waiting for him with open arms. We talked about the atonement and how Christ is waiting there to heal us when we come to him. I was wishing I had another copy of that talk I gave to that girl at the mobat, luckily, I had printed one for hna de la cruz to read, and she had it with her, so we gave it to him and read part of it with him, and he really liked it. (I have decided to print a hundred copies of it and keep them with me just in case, haha). But it was a really good experience. He is such a good guy and if he can just turn his life around, he could really do some amazing things. He's young enough that he could still go on a mission if he wanted to, and I know he wanted to before he went inactive. So pray for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully he will come to church this sunday. I think he will though. He said he is going to stop going to Tijuana on weekends, which would be a huge help.

So after all that, we had a message on our phone saying that magda wouldn't be home tonight because they took justin to dinner for his birthday. So we tried to go anyways to drop off the cupcakes, but no one was there. So we gave some of the cupcakes to zeus, adam's roommmate, because adam wasn't home, and we are planning to bring some to justin tomorrow.

Yesterday was zone conference, which was AMAZING. It was all about the atonement and helping us understand it better so that we can teach better. He taught us a lot about hebrew and the ancient tabernacle. It's some juicy stuff. I'll write you a letter with more about that later.

Just know that I love you all!!! I hope that things continue to go well for all of you. You are amazing! God loves you so much!!!!!! And so do I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love,

Hna Livingston

about a year to go...

Well I have made it into my third transfer. Also, I only have about a year and a week left in the mission. Crazy how time goes.

So I guess you are all wondering who my new companion is. I was too, but then I found out. haha. Her name is Hna De La Cruz. And yes, she is a native spanish speaker. : ) She was born in Chihuahua, but raised in Tijuana, but her family lives in Salt Lake now, so she speaks excellent english (though she prefers spanish for everything). She is awesome. So far we have been working together really well. Oh, and she came to my area in Barrio 20, which I was pretty sure would happen, so no surprises there. We were the only spanish sisters to be changed (besides the trio she left). Some of the english sisters at the batallion were changed and we got a new elder in our district, but there weren't too many changes this transfer. I hear the mission department is pushing for companionships to stay together longer, so we'll most likely be together through all the holidays.

This week we met with Adam and Martha twice, and things are going so well with them. On Wednesday (Hna D and my first day together) we had an appointment with them. We went over and read 2 nephi 31 with them and invited them to be baptized. We got pretty much the same response as last time, that he would like to, but he wants to read more to be sure and won't set a date. Martha wasn't quite as sure. We tried really hard to have him set a date, just as a goal, but he wouldn't. We had planned to go back on Saturday, but he called and canceled, but said that he was planning on coming to church and that he wanted to talk to us about what's holding him back from being baptized, so we were really excited.

On Sunday, he did not come. We were pretty sad, but oh well. We called to invite him to the fireside our ward was having, but he didn't answer, so we just left a message. On Monday we decided we were just going to try to show up at his house, so we planned on going over about 4 times so that we would be sure to catch him. We went over at about 6:30 and martha opened the door and adam quickly started clearing the table off, ran and got their book of mormons and they told us to sit down, it was just like if they had planned on us coming. So we sat down and we asked if they had read the bom and they said no. GAHHHHHHHH. They said that they read the pamphlet on the restauration though, but it's just so frustrating that people are always willing to read about the book of mormon and watch movies about it, but when it comes to actually reading it, they just don't. We kept our cool though and started our lesson (we had planned on reading Alma 32 with them and it was PERFECT). We started in verse 26 or so and read to the end, stopping to discuss it. We were mostly just trying to show them HOW to study the BoM. It was a perfect chapter though, we talked a lot about faith, and Adam told us about some experiences he had had to strengthen his faith in Christ, so we were like THAT IS GREAT! But, there is still more. So we talked about how the book of mormon is the seed we want them to experiment on and we just kept emphasizing that they have to DO something. Adam started crying several times during the lesson. It was so great. Somewhere toward the end of the chapter Martha's daughter came over, so she talked to her for a minute and Adam was like, so do you want to know what I was going to tell you yesterday about what's holding me back from getting baptized, and we were like, no thanks. JK YES! haha. So he told us that when his sons were born he baptized them catholic, just because that's what his family had been doing for years, it's just what they all did. And now he is worried about telling them that he baptized them into the wrong church, so he wants to be positive before he tells them. haha. We were worried it was going to be something way worse. We asked him to read 1 nephi 8 this week (and read part of it then about Lehi partaking of the fruit and wanting his sons to partake of it too). At the end of the lesson we asked martha to pray. She has always declined, and once again said no. We talked for awhile about prayer and how it's really simple, just a conversation with your father in heaven. Adam started telling us about a friend he had in Tijuana, who when he prayed, he could tell that he was really talking to God. He started to really cry while he told the story. He is so great. Anyways, it ended up that Hna De La Cruz prayed, but it was still really good.

As we were about to leave they asked if we had eaten, we hadn't, so they gave us mole. When we sat down to eat, Martha said, oh fine I guess I will pray. haha. So she said the prayer. It was great. We ate and chatted with them and it was just a really good night. That ended up being the only lesson we taught all day, but it was so great. I hope that they actually read this week, but I have an inkling that he especially is starting to realize how important it is that he dos read.

Other than that we have mostly just been seeing a bunch of people so that Hna D can get to know the ward and our area. I think we are going to find a lot of success together. Hna D is a really good teacher, plus people love her because she is Mexican, so it's an instant connection. haha. I've noticed that people tend to aim their talking at her now, but that's ok. It's good because she can explain things really well since she has a much larger vocabulary, and I pick up on new words that she uses. With Hna Mortensen she pretty much had a routine of things she said, so there wasn't as much vocabulary and things to learn from her, so it's going to be really good.

On Sunday, like I mentioned, we had a fireside. It was our ward mission leader's idea. We're still not sure why he decided to do it on Halloween...there wasn't a super good turn out, but we were there to support. The missionaries were asked to do the musical number, so Hna De La Cruz and Werner sang with Elder Burnell and Linnemyer while Elder Sudwell (our new elder from the mtc) played the piano and Hna Latu and I did a duet on the violin. People loved it. Magda bore her testimony at the fireside, which was great, and the Morales' daughter, Becky, spoke. She is leaving on a mission in december. It was a good fireside. We were supposed to be in before dark on halloween unless we had a lesson or something, so we headed back to the battalion afterward to catch the end of the halloween party they were having there. We all went into the campfire room and Elder Evans (the director) read from Isaiah and we sang how firm a foundation (which is part of the tour). IT was awesome. Before we got theere they had had a talent show, so too bad we missed that, but we were glad to support Magdalena and Hno Morales.

Basically life is good here. It sounds like things are going well at home. When everything is put back together I want to see pictures of the house!!! I hope you all had a happy halloween!!!! My costume consisted of a pioneer dress for part of the day and missionary clothes for the rest. haha. I love you all!!!!

love

hna livingston