May 3rd

Well, it's official, our mission has expanded. We got 2 new stakes, so we had an extra transfer meeting on monday, but no worries, my life is still the same. haha. We did lose 3 people from our district, so now we have 2 sets of sisters and 1 set of elders. Kind of strange, but should be good. I'm not exactly sure how we will divide up the new boundaries yet.

As I told you last week, elder Perry came, so we took most of our preparation on thursday, which made the week go by super fast. On Wednesday we were at the temple from 11-5. I remembered to wear sunscreen on my face and neck, but didn't think about my legs or arms. oops. haha. Now I have a nice tan on the front of my legs below my knees. haha. Wednesday night wasn't too eventful, mostly just a few canceled appointments.

So thursday was our p-day until 4. Hna D wanted to go look for an outfit to wear home (since she returns in 3 weeks). We found her a good dress at ross. I also managed to find 3 new skirts, which was exciting. One of them was just $6 so that was super exciting. haha.

That night we tried to contact a referral named Juan, who lives in the same complex as Daniel and Cleo. Turned out that he lives in the same apartment as a former where we made a contact named Efren several months ago. As we drove there we saw Cleo walking up the street, but continued on our way to contact Juan. he wasn't there though, so we quickly left and "ran into" cleo outside. She invited us over, so we went over and Daniel gave us each a HUGE piece of watermelon. We are talking like half of a huge watermelon (but not actually half, still a skinny piece, but a half circle). I felt like a cartoon character trying to eat it, but it was really good, epecially since it was so hot outside. We chatted with them for a bit and Cleo said that she really enjoyed church. They also told us that they want to invite all of the missionaries over for cerveche, which should be fun. I think Cleo is slowly warming up to the church. We are jsut biding our time. haha.

Later in the evening our appointment canceled, so we came to try to contact Juan again. He wasn't there again, so we randomly decided to stop by Adam's. If you'll recall, we used to teach adam and martha a ton, but they have an issue with the law of chastity, and we haven't really been able to teach them since we taught them about it. Well we went by and Adam let us in (martha was in the bedroom) and we talked with him for a bit. He told us that he still wanted to have a party and invite all of the neighborhood kids over to watch the testaments or the restoration. He is such a funny guy. We chatted about what he's been up to - mostly just working - and then he mentioned that that morning he had randomly thought of joseph smith and included him in his prayer that morning. Martha suddenly left, so we had to quickly leave. Adam prayed before we left though, and he said in his prayer that he thought our coming now was an answer to his prayer from that morning. Pretty cool. Hopefully we can start teaching him again and this time he will be ready to be baptized.

On Friday we had the morning in our area, so we went to see Linda. We had planned to talk about the sacrament, but once we got started she asked us what she was supposed to do if when she got to heaven God told her nice try, but that she had been in the wrong choice. This led to us talking about the book of mormon. By the end of our discussion she agreed to read it where she had left off - 1 nefi 3 (we read 1 and 2 with her before). Linda is so adorable. I just love visiting her. Especially since she is open again to coming to church and reading in the BoM and whatnot. She is so funny though. She spends a lot of time at home with just the girls, so I think she gets pretty lonely. She kept asking us what we were going to do for lunch and if we had anything after this. Finally she just got up and made us each a sandwich with some pasta and a glass of chocolate milk. So adorable.

Friday night was an exciting night. Los Sapon came to the mormon battalion and we gave them a tour. It was teh girls' first time there. After the tour we talked to hna sapon about her baptism and when it should be and suggested again that the girls get baptized with her. She agreed and they are all going to get baptized on Saturday night!!!!!!!!!! We are so excited. Right after they left I went to the resource room and a tour was just getting out and it was President Donaldson with an area 70 and Elder Robbins (of the 70 who spoke in conference on being vs doing). Obviously I went in and hung around the camera and got to take their picture. haha. Then I told pres. Donaldson that we just had 3 agree to a baptismal date. He was excited and told the general authorities and they were also excited. SO that was way cool.

On Saturday there was a cinco de mayo celebration in old town. Tons of people came and so we gave several spanish tours that weekend. It was way fun though. By the way: the reason we celebrate 5 de mayo in the US (they don't really celebrate it in mexico) is because there was a battle in Puebla, Mexico against the french and mexico won, thus thwarting france's plans of taking over the US through Mexico. I just learned that on saturday.

That afternoon we tried again to contact Juan. We got there at the perfect time. Efren was in the hallway because he was moving a new bed into the apartment. He told us that juan moved to tijuana yesterday, but he told us to come over on thursday to teach him, so that was awesome.

After that we tried to see several other people, who weren't home, so we went over to los Torres because it was Noemi's 2nd birthday so we brought her cookies. I also brought linda some sweaters that other sisters had left when they went home and i had worn a couple times but didn't really need. She is always asking us where we get our clothes, so I figured she would like them. It turns out that they were having a carne asada for her birthday and invited us to stay and eat, which we did. They also had a pinata, which was way fun to see. I will send a couple pictures. We saw Ana Torres there too, which was great. SHe is going to have her baby May 20, so that is exciting.

On Sunday we had stake conference and Elder Grow of the 70 came to speak. We had a spanish session at 1 and all but one of the talks were in spanish (the one was translated) so that was nice. It was really good. Daniel sang in the choir and Cleo came. SInce daniel came early to practice, Cleo's jehova's witness friend gave her a ride and stayed for the whole meeting. SO COOL!!!!! Los Sapon came too, so that was really good.

Yesterday I had a cool experience at the mormon battalion. I gave a tour with Sis Smith and at the end a woman asked us a bunch of questions about the BoM so we pretty much just taught her all about it right then. She said she really wanted a copy, so we went ahead and got her a copy and gave it to her right then and we will send the missionaries too. It was really cool though. I have realized since being on my mission that I LOVE the book of mormon so much and if people will just actually read it, they will love it too.

Well, that's about it for this week. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I am excited to talk with you on sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you all!!!

love

hna livingston

April 26th

Sorry this email is a lot later than usual...there is a good reason for the delay: Elder Perry came to visit our mission today. More on that later though.

So last week we met with Amelia and had a good lesson in which she asked us lots of questions about the book of mormon, which was good because that meant that she had actually read it! She read the intro and all of the testimonies and even the first chapter, so that was awesome. We also got to know her husband a little better so hopefully we can start teaching him too soon.

On Thursday I was on exchanges with Hna Lee in her area. We were at the battalion in the morning and had a really awesome experience. I was standing in the front entry area when a couple came in who spoke spanish, so I stuck them in the theater to wait for the next tour in spanish. While they were in there a mexican man who looked like he was on his lunch break during work (which he was) peeked in. I told him we were about to do a tour in spanish and he said he wanted to come but he was going to go get his friend to come too, so I waited for him before starting the tour. It turns out that his friend was a big black guy, who only spoke some spanish, but he came along and really enjoyed it. The Mexican man's name was Salvador. All 4 of the people loved the tour. Hna Lee came with me for it. At the end we passed out the referral cards and salvador said that he was interested, but that he didn't have his glasses, so he couldn't fill it out. The man next to him (in the couple) asked him if he had ever learned from missionaries in his home, he said no. So the man just took his referral card from him and said "what's your address" and then filled it out for him and gave it to us. The black man also filled out his card - referring himself and a friend, so that was awesome. Even more awesome is that I talked to Salvador after the tour and he said that he has family that are members and that they told him he should look into the church. He said he is catholic, but not really happy with it, so he wants to change religions. He asked for the address of teh church closest to him. I didn't know it, so I got his number and said I would call. I called him and gave him the address and he told me thank you for the tour, it changed his life. Then I figured out what missionaries would visit him and it turns out that it is sis. Werner, who just left my district after being together the whole mission, so I called her and told her about him and they are going to go visit him tonight!!!! So awesome.

We had a training by Bro Lusvardi, who is in charge of all visitors centers/historic sites this week. He came one morning and talked to us about the site. It was cool to hear some behind the scenes stuff and see how important all of the details in the site were when they were making it. He gave us lots of good advice. Then he followed me and sis kennington on a tour, which was a little intimidating, but oh well. haha.

Daniel came to the battalion this week after work one day. He brought us some sweet bread (something from a mexican bakery) and then he watched the testaments. He told me that Cleo was "sentida" with me and sis de la cruz. I didn't know what that meant, so I asked him if it was good and he said no. He said it is like being mad, but not really mand, but kind of sad. Still because we wouldn't hold her baby. So that was sad to hear, but good to hear that Daniel is planning on inviting some more friends to come to the battalion. He said he had some friends who were catholic, but he knew that we could straighten that out. haha.

On saturday we had an easter activity that we have been planning for a while. It was an easter egg hunt for the primary and it was way fun. I have some pictures from it I will send later. Daniel and Cleo came with all of their kids and cleo loved it!!!!!! IT was perfect because her main issue is that Christ told the children to come unto him and so she is bothered that we wouldn't hold fatima. So i think this helped her see that children are important in the gospel. Amelia came with her boys too, which was way exciting. Maybe the most exciting for me (besides Cleo coming) was that Linda Torres came with her girls. She walked all the way to the chapel by herself with the girls in a stroller. It turns out that her and Luis are thinking of separating, which is sad, but I'm sure glad that she was able to come. The girls seemed to really enjoy it.

After the easter egg hunt we had some food and then turned on the prince of egypt for people to watch, while we went to a play practice for our next activity. I don't think I mentioned this before, but the elder's quorum president planned this huge activity and invited the mission president and stake president. Hardly anyone came to the first practices, so Hno Dantes decided to change the whole activity. It was originally going to be 4 rooms with peter james and john in one room explaining the gospel, Joseph Smith in another, talking about the restoration, and Christ in another talking about his gospel. Hno Dantes changed it into a play about Joseph Smith. It actually turned out really well, except that it was on easter, so that was strange. haha. I will explain more in a second.

Easter Sunday was really good. The relief society president made each of the missionaries a little easter bag with some candy, so that was really sweet of her. Cleo came with Daniel to church!!!!!!!! And all of the kids!!!! It was really exciting. She seemed to really like it. Before all of that though, we went to try and get Linda to come to church. We rang the doorbell about 7 times before luis answered looking very unhappy to see us. He let us in and told us to go wake linda up, then he laid back down on the couch. We went in and woke linda up and helped the girls get ready and then walked to church with her, so I was really glad she came. It was a really good sacrament meeting that was really focused on the savior and the atonement, so that was great. Daniel said that Cleo really liked it and is planning on coming more. Also he told us that she said that we are welcome to come over whenever now, so that is really exciting.

That afternoon we served at the mormon battalion until 6:30, when someone came to take over for us so that we could go to our activity: the play about joseph smith. The play escalated to being pretty intense. It started out with a scene with Joseph Smith (Elder Lewis) giving a sermon to a bunch of us (missionaries and members). Then he had to leave because his son was sick and needed a blessing. In the next scene a mob came to attack and was beating up Elder Lewis. Hno Dantes has quite the imagination. He wanted it to be really realistic, so they poured chocolate over elder lewis and then put feathers all over him. Yup, they tarred and feathered him. It was pretty ridiculous, but the members loved it. haha. Then in the next scene we were all sad because Joseph's son had died, but then Joseph came in and gave another sermon on the resurrection. It was pretty intense.

After the play the stake president spoke. He started otu saying that he thought he was going to be sharing an easter message, but was grateful for the opportunity to testify of Joseph Smith. Then out mission president spoke and did a good job tying the two together. Over all the activity was a success. We didn't invite too many nonmembers because we were worried about it being about joseph smith on easter, but los sapon came and they seemed to like it. Mostly it was just hilarious for all of us to watch elder lewis get tarred and feathered with chocolate. I wish I had a picture of it.

Yesterday we had a miracle happen. A long time ago Eric brought a friend to church and we tried to go teach him, but he was always busy. He called us last week saying that he was going through some difficult things and that eric took him to the church to get a blessing and that helped, so now he wants us to teach him. We went on monday and he is soooo ready. We taught about the gospel and how Christ can help us with anything. Then we introduced the book of mormon. At first he said he didn't want a copy, that he wasn't ready for it. Then we explained more about it and why we wanted him to read it - that it would bring peace into his life. He practically begged us to give it to him then. We read the intro with him and then he pretty much testified to us that he already knew the bookw as true and that it would help him. I can't wait for him to actually read it!

Last night Daniel invited us to a seafood restaurant. Well, he actually invited us about a week ago, but we went last night. It was an all you can eat seafood/sushi buffet. It was way fun. We are talking all you can eat lobster and a variety of other things. haha. Dad would have really liked it I think. haha. It was fun to just chat with him though, and at the end he told us thank you so much for all that we had done for him and his family. He is such a nice guy. I was very full after the experience because I knew that it was on teh expensive side so we were trying to eat as much as we could.

Today we had an awesoem experience. Elder Perry came and spoke to our mission and the Carlsbad mission. It was way good. Elder Perry is awesome. You know that voice he gets when he is passionate about things? Well, it's way better in real life up close. Also, I get the feeling that he must be hilarious. He said that he is now in charge of the public relations, which he said is the "worst position in the church" haha. He mentioned that braodway is doing a play on the book of mormon, so I need someone to look that up and tell me more about that. haha. He said "it's not exactly what we would have written" but that they are grateful for the publicity. haha. Then he just talked about the restoration of the gospel and especially the priesthood and how important it is to share this message. He talked about how Christ really is the head of the church and how only the senior apostle can use all the keys of the priesthood. He said that Christ controls who the next prophet is because when there is a vacancy in the 12 the prophet spends hours and days seeking revelation to know who the new apostle should be and then that person takes the #12 spot. As people die, they move up. He said that God controls who lives and who dies, so he is in charge of who leads the church. I've never heard it explained quite like that before. He told us not to waste time and to be diligent!!! He also told us to work closely with the wards and we would be blessed. It was a really good meeting.

Also, there are some exciting things happening her in San Diego. Our mission is expanding. Carlsbad found out about it today, but we have known for awhile. We are taking over two of their stakes next week, so there will be lots of changes coming up. I know that our ward is losing a set of missionaries, and I have it on good authority that it is not me. I'm pretty sure it is elder reagan and au. It's exciting though, because we have a lot of missionaries - more than we need for the stakes we have. But there is going to be a lot of whitewashing going on in the next few weeks.

I got the easter package you sent today!!! Thank you! It was perfect timing because today is our investigator, Veronica's, birthday, so we made her cookies with one of the mixes. Also, I got a bunch of letters from the achievement day girls in the ward!!! I am excited to meet all of them one day. They were very nice cards. The leader - I don't remember her name, came through on sunday, but I wasn't here, but sis. Smith told me about her visit and she said that my little sister Emily loves me a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I already knew that.

Well, I think that's about it for this week. Hopefully Hna Sapon will get baptized this sunday. If not this one, the next one (it's stake conference this weekend, which makes things a little more complicated).

I love you all! I'm glad that you all had a fun weekend together!!! Happy Easter!!!!

Love

Hna Livingston

April 19th

Well, you are probably wondering if I was transferred....................................nope. haha. Everything in my life remained exactly the same. I am still with Hna D in Barrio 20. I figured that's what would happen and frankly, that is what I wanted to happen, so I am happy about it. This is Hna D's last transfer, so It's pretty safe to bet I will stay at least one more transfer to take over the area again. We did get 5 new sisters at the mormon battalion though, so that's been fun to start getting to know them. I was in one of 3 companionships that didn't change. Everyone else either was transferred or got a new companion. haha.

We had some good things happen this week, but just so you aren't anxiously waiting: no wedding and no baptism. But things are going to work out great.

I enjoyed seeing the burtons on Tuesday night. I just had time to say hi before heading out though, so hopefully they enjoyed the tour.

Tuesday night we taught Amelia and it was a really good lesson. It was a long lesson though. haha. We taught the restoration and focused a lot on christ's ministry. She was suruprised to learn that the book of mormon is a record of the people here in america. But she was excited to read it and I have it on good authority that she has started it. (She told us and said that she has some questions - usually when people say they have no questions it means they didn't read it or didn't understand it at all).

We have continued teaching Veronica. Let me tell you, she is a fun one to visit. SHe is so excited about everything we talk about! WHen we went on wednesday she had just read the intro and the testimonies at the start of the book of mormon. She loved Joseph Smith's testimony and explanation of how he got the plates. She is hilarious. We finished teaching teh plan of salvation, which was easy because she read the pamphlet, then we taught the gospel and she is still excited for her baptism and wants her daughter to get baptized. We just need to actually teach her daughter. She is never there when we are. She is having a rough time financially though, so if you can please keep Veronica in your prayers. She has a week to come up with the money for her rent before they kick her out and she doesn't have a job. She came to church on sunday though and continues loving it. Also, her bed is in the living room and it has a camp rock blanket. So everytime we go to visit I get to see the jobros. haha.

Daniel came to the battalion this week and brought some friends. It was a family with 3 kids, who were all hilarious. They LOVED the tour and want to come back to watch the testaments. He told us he wants missionaries to go teach them (they live outside of our ward). So that is awesome to see him doing missionary work. More on him in a minute.

We found 2 new investigators this week. One is named Rosa, and we found her from the same list of names that we found Veronica with. She is a little skeptical though. Our first meeting with her went well, but we saw her again yesterday and it was one of the worst lessons ever. She is just a huge skeptic and is really into logic so she had so many questions and comments that the lesson just got out of control. She asked us at one point if we do human sacrifices in the temple, so we told her no and explained a little about temples. Then she got really hung up on the fact that the temple in san diego is sooo fancy and why doesn't our church spend that money on helping people who are starving in africa instead of building temples. It was a little frustrating to hear her say things like that, but obviously she just doesn't understand why we have temples. She said that she was going to ask her pastor about joseph smith, so who knows where things will go with that conversation.

We had a great lesson with Los Sapon earlier last week. We taught tithing and fasting to them. Hno Sapon was being so funny. He had just gotten this new computer carrying type bag. A dell one. He got it at a yard sale for $5, but it was in really nice condition. Anyways, he showed it to us and was really excited about it. Then he set it on the table. In the middle of the lesson he picked it up and put it on his lap and kept stroking it. haha. Then he put it on while he was sitting down. At that point we all just started laughing, especially Hna Sapon. haha. He was just so proud of his new bag. It was like a little kid with a new toy. He is so funny. They had an appointment to get their marriage license on Wed, but more on that in a second.

We added another new investigator named Adalberta. She is the cousin of a less active, who told us to go visit her. SHe seems really open and says she wants to get closer to christ, she jsut doesn't have a car. SO hopefully this will help the less active and her to both come to church.

Have you all heard about the new Joseph Smith movie? It is like 60 % new footage. ANyways, we saw it and it's way good. We watched it with Luis and two of this friends this week. It is aimed at people who are not members of the church and is super good. I hear you can see it online or something. Check it out. Or maybe they have it at the DC visitor's center. You could call and ask. I know they are showing it at the legacy theater.

Amelia came to the mormon battalion and brought her two sons and her sister. THey all LOVED it. They are going to come back and bring her husband.

This week on one of my tours I got a comment card that said that the woman's son now had a testimony of tithing because he knew that part of the money went to fund the mormon battalion historic site and let kids look for gold and he LOVED coming there. haha. So that was kind of funny.

Sunday was a great day. Blanca came to church. I don't know why she doesn't jst get baptized. She loves coming to church and everything. She just likes the ability to be rebelious I think. But she is great. Veronica came too, but she came an hour late because her sister was coming to take her daughter to LA. She sure loves church though. After church we ate with Los Ameneyro, who are such an awesome family. He is the 2nd counselor in the bishopric and they really support us missionaries (the bishop doesn't quite as much, so we all LOVE Hno Ameneyro). We talked for a while about how we can gain more of teh bishop's trust and get ward members more involved. They gave us some ideas and then said that on monday they wanted to have either los sapon over for an FHE or daniel, whoever could, so we said that was awesome and we would help out.

That night we went to the ward's choir practice for stake conference. It was hilarious. I don't know if you have ever heard a group of mexicans sing, but most of them seem to be tone deaf, so it was pretty funny. Hno Hernandez, who is conducting, was having auditions for a solo, which was very entertaining. I did not try out. haha.

Right after that we had a ward fireside, which was SO GOOD. Daniel was the first speaker and Cleo and the whole family came, which was amazing, since they didn't even come to his baptism. She seemed to like it and the ward was super welcoming. Daniel's talk was great. He started off by talking about easter and what it means and shared a scripture from teh BOM (which I had shared with him the last time we had taught him) and then he talked about how he came to join the church. He said that he had a lot of quesitons in the beginning but las hermanas (us) told him to just read the book of mormon and pray about it and he would know, so that's what he did and he got his answer. At the very end he said that most of all he wanted to thank his wife for supporting him and being there tonight. It was so amazing to hear him speak. ALso, he wore a white shirt and tie and a suit jacket. So awesome.

The rest of the fireside was good too, but Daniel was the highlight for me. Hna D and I gave him a journal we had gotten him with some pictures of his baptism and whatnot glued in and a note from each of us. He called us the next morning and left a message saying that he loved the journal and he said at least 3 times in the message that he loved Hna D and I as "hermanas" and that we would definitely stay in touch after our missions. It was pretty precious.

Yesterday we had a full day in our area and we had a ton of appointments lined up, but most of them canceled. We taught Hna Veracruz though. We read 2 nefi 31 with her and then she asked us a question about mosiah 5 - the last verse - about being sealed to christ. We talked about taking his name upon us and read the sacrament prayers. It was a way good lesson, but still no committment to get baptized. One day.

In the evening we went to see los sapon because they didnt come to church and they weren't answering their phone. We went over at like 6:30 and ended up staying with them the rest of the night. It turns out that the reason they didn't come to church is because Hno Sapon got taken by the police saturday night. He is going to be deported, but since he is from guatemala, it's a way longer process. Hna Sapon (or I guess I should say Hna Lucas, since they aren't married and obviously won't be for a long time) seemed surprisingly ok with it. SHe said this has happened before and he came back like 8 months later. SHe has a job and everything, so they will be ok. She said that she is hoping this will help him realize how important his family is and make him stop drinking, because he hadn't really stopped even though he acted like he did. So ti's bitter sweet - good that she can get baptized now without any problems, but sad of course because he was taken.

THis is an oddly familiar story to me - you may remember magda and jorge. I was thinking about it and I just can't imagine living my life with the fear that I could be taken by the police or my husband or dad or anyone in my family. That would be pretty scary. We couldn't get ahold of the ameneyros, so we just did the FHE with them at their house. WE made cookies with each of the ingredients representing a step in teh gospel. They loved it. Especially the girls. Hna sapon said she can't get baptized this sunday because she has something she has to do, but she wants to get baptized on may 1. We asked the girsl if they wanted to get baptized too and they both said yes, but hna sapon wants them to wait longer to be sure they want to. We are going to have hna morales talk to her to help her see that they should just all get baptized together since the girls want to and everything.

So things are going well here in Barrio 20. We just found out this morning some way good news. Hno Ameneyro called and said that they had daniel over for an FHE last night and Cleo and the fam came. They talked about the plan of salvation and eternal marriage and cleo loved it. They said that she said that she didn't have a religion so she just was going to follow Daniel pretty much. They are so funny though, Hno ameneyro said that they were sooooo sorry, they forgot to ask her if she wanted to take the missionary lessons. THey said they would talk to her and get back to us. haha. They are so awesome. So hopefully Cleo is warming up to the idea of learning more and eventually baptism.

I hope that things are well at home!!! I love you all!!

love,

hna livingston

April 12th

Well, another transfer is come and gone. We said farewell to 5 sisters at the mormon battalion last night and we are expecting their replacements tomorrow. So who knows if I will be transferred or not. I am guessing no since this is Hna D's last transfer, but we will see.

This week we had a few miracles happen that were pretty awesome. On wednesday a bunch of our appointments canceled so we went to see people on this list of potentials that we have from a zone blitz forever ago - so mostly names that came from knocking doors and stuff. We tried a few with no success and then came to this one named veronica. We went to her apartment and knocked on the door and she answered and we asked for Veronica and she said hang on just a second and went to put on a sweater. Then she came back and was super excited and said that she had just talked to her mormon friend in las vegas this morning for an hour and told him that she wanted to change her church and he told her to go to his church, but she didn't know where the closest one was, so she was going to look it up online, but then we came. haha. SO that was pretty amazing.

She let us in and we talked for a bit about church and she said that she didn't like her church becuase no one seemed to care about her at all even though she had gone there for 7 years. She had gotten sick a while ago and no one called her, but people from other churches did. She said that she was planning on coming to our church on sunday and that her daughter would come with her. Her daughter, Maria, came out and we met her and she was excited to come to our church. she is 13. It turns out that one of her friends is mormon. We looked her friend up on the ward list and it turns out that she is a less active - the sister of Chris Garcia, who we met the other day when he was walking home from school by eric's house. God sure does know how to set things up!

We saw Veronica again on saturday and taught her the restoration. Maria wasn't there because her brother wanted her to practice singing with his christian band (he goes to a church called the Rock and is very prominent in it). It was a good lesson though and Veronica is just SOOO EXCITED about everything. haha. They really did come to church on sunday, which was pretty amazing. Oh, and we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. Someone was confirmed on sunday and she told us that she is sooo excited to get baptized may 1. Her and her daughter. Too bad we haven't even gotten to ask her daughter if she wants to yet. haha.

On Thursday Hna D had another training meeting, so I went with Sis. Monarrez again. We went to my area first for an appointment with Norgia. When we got there a random woman answered the door and told us that norgia was in teh bedroom talking to her husband. They came out after a couple minutes. I guess that they had just barely had a little spat because William told noriga that she was starving him to death and she took offense and said their marriage was a mistake and he took offense to that. So we just stood there kind of awkwardly for a bit. It turns out that the random woman (who william works with) is mormon, but not active. She told them that this was a good church to look into, so that was cool. We ended up just setting up another appointment because clearly it was a bad time.

We tried a million other people in my area and in her area, but literally no one was home, or if they were, they were busy. haha. Just one of those days. But we got a delicious lunch at las cuatro milpas, so it's all good.

We went to see Jonathan the other day and we dropped off a copy of the testaments since his mom wasn't home. We came back on friday and he wasn't there, but his mom let us in and told us that Jonathan had been taken by the police the night before because he had been drinking and he was still on parole. SHe started crying while she was telling us about it. It was so sad because you can tell that jonathan is a good kid who just hangs out around people who are not a good influence. We gave her a book of mormon and she actually read it! So that is awesome. Hopefully they will both want to be baptized now. But jonathan doesn't ahve a baptismal date anymore since he didn't come to church this sunday.

We saw Los Sapon on saturday. We didn't take the moraleses this time because we wanted to get through the lesson a little faster and they are all super chatty together. haha. We taught the law of chastity, which was crucial because they are not married. They agreed that they would get married and we are now in the process of helping them do that this week, so hopefully she will still get baptized thsi sunday, otherwise if this takes longer we will just wait until next week. SO pray for them!!! But they are sooo awesome.

The Venegas family invited all of the missionaries over on saturday for dinner, so that was fun. They gave us each a plate of nachos that probably could have fed 3 people. haha. I didn't manage to finish mine because we had had district lunch at panda express earlier. haha.

On Sunday Daniel was asked to say the prayer in sacrament meeting. I wish you could have seen him. He wore a light blue button up shirt with a pink tie. I have never seen him wear a tie before. I do not think it is common in the mexican culture. He was looking pretty slick though. And he said a good prayer. It's so fun to see him progressing along in the gospel!!!

Yesterday wasn't too eventful. We spent the morning planning and stuff and then were at the battalion in the evening. I gave several tours to families from utah, since they are on spring break now. That night we had a farewell get together for those leaving, which included the senior couple, the Ricks (who might be my favorite senior couple here if I had to choose.) So that was sad, but also awesome. Elder ricks had composed a poem with a couple lines about each of us sisters, which was adorable. it is so fun serving at the mormon battalion with all these sisters and senior couples. I can definitely see a need for more senior couples serving missions!!

Well, that's about it for this week. Next weeks email should be exciting - hopefully including a wedding and baptism!!!!!

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

love,

hna livingston

April 5th

This week was pretty excellent. I am going to just go through it chonologically for convenience.

Tuesday night we headed to our area at 6, but there was a soccer game - mexico vs venezuela I believe, and so because of that there was TERRIBLE traffic on the freeway. Had we known that we would have gone another way. Usually it takes us 20 or so minutes to get to our area, but that night it took us over an hour. Yikes. That meant that we missed our appointment with Jonathan and just had to go straight to see los Sapon. It ended up being a really good lesson though. We taught the plan of salvation and then focused on how baptism is important in this life. When we were talking about baptism Hna Sapon expressed concern about not knowing enough to be baptized. For this very reason I carry a photo of our family after Emily's baptism in my scriptures. I showed it to her and then talked about how what God wants for us to be baptized is to become like children and be willing, not to know everything. After that we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. She has a date for the 17th of april. Then we turned to Martha (16) and invited her, and she said YES! She said that that was all she wanted - to get closer to God. SHe was so excited. Pricila wasn't there, so she doesn't have a date yet, but I think she will get baptized with them.

Wednesday we went to see Lourdes. We talked about prayer and then a little bit about baptism. She had studied with the missionaries in utah. She said that she didn't want to get baptized because she knew she had to get married first. Her reasoning was that they have been living in "deathly sin" as she called it for so long that why would they change now. haha. That doesn't really make sense, but oh well. We invited her to pray about it, so we will see what happens there.

After that we were going to go to burger king for dinner because we had some coupons for free chicken nuggets, but eric had called and left a message so we called him back and he said it would be better if we came right then, so we went to see him instead of eating. We sat outside since it was a nice day and we were chatting when a kid walked by down the sidewalk and eric said hi to him and then told us that he was from the church. we had never seen him before, but eric told him that he would give him a ride home, so Chris, the boy, came over and talked with us for a bit first. His family are all members except his dad, who he stays with on weekends, hence why we didn't know him, he doesn't come to church. His whole family is less active. Eric told us that he would be willing to go visit them with us, so that was cool. THen they had to leave so he could give him a ride home.

Next we decided to see Jonathan instead of going to BK again. We sat outside with him since his mom wasn't home. The lesson started out pretty horribly. We were trying to teach the restoration, but he didn't seem very interested or anything. Finally we just abandoned the lesson and started asking him questions and stuff. Eventually we asked him if he felt like he had done too many bad things to ever feel peace, and he said yes. SO we told him that he could always be forgiven and compared it to a chalkboard covered with marks that can be washed clean with baptism. Then he was flipping through the restoration pamphlet and saw the picture of the first vision and he asked if that really happened. We said yes. He said that he believed it. Then we talked about baptism some more and how the restoration allows us to be baptized and be clean again. We invited him to be baptized on the 24th and he said yes!!!!! So the lesson turned out to be awesome. Jonathan is such a good guy, but he seems to have had a rough and rebelious life. But he is a good kid deep down, you can just tell.

After that we went to contact a woman, named Amelia. I can't remember if I mentioned before about when we were planning at teh church and a woman came wanting to make a donation, but she wasn't a member. Well that happened, so she eventually made the donation and we got her address from teh bishopric and went to see her. They let us right in. She was there and her husband and an old couple and her brother in law/sister (her sister married her husband's brother). It turns out that her bro in law/sister were recently baptized in tijuana. We talked for a bit about missionaries and what we do. Then we gave her a copy of finding faith in christ to thank her for her donation. We set up a time to come back. Right before we left the bro in law said that he would like a copy of finding faith in christ too, so we told him to come with us to the car and we would get him one. He and his wife came and once we were out there they told us that they really wanted amelia and her husband to get baptized, but they were stubborn but that we should just drop by on fridays because they were always there and never busy. So perfect that they were there when we came!!!!

On thursday I was on exchanges with Sis Adams and we were in my area. We taught Blanca and brought Lupita with us. It was a great lesson. We read the talk "Your happily ever after" by pres uchtdorf with them. If you haven't read it and you are a girl, you should read it. It talks about how adversity is necessary for every princess to get her happily ever after. We asked blanca if she had been through something hard and she said yes. We asked if she had overcome it and she said no. We asked what it was and she said when her mom died. Now I knew her mom had died bcause her dad had told me, but I had never heard BLanca talk about it, so it was good to hear her open up. She said that she thought that she would overcome it when she was a mom and had kids, which is her dream. She is so awesome. It was a great lesson.

Later that night we saw Norgia. Now Sis. Adams was the one who was with me when we had that hilarious experience with Norgia and William trying to hook up the dvd player. This time when we went William was passed out on the bed with his shirt off and the kids were running wild. We sat with norgia and tried to teach her, but the kids wanted to play with us. So sis adams tried to entertain the kids while I tried to teach noriga, but it was pretty much a fail. We read parts of 2 nefi 31, but it wasn't a very good atmosphere for teaching. haha.

On Friday I gave a tour to John Bytheway. Yup. That really happened. I sent a picture to mom - the one of me with another sister and a guy, well the guy is John Bytheway. It was a good tour. I guess that he had been speaking on a cruise and they were now just headed back home. I chatted with him and his wife after the tour for a bit and they were super nice. Also, I was glad to see that he laughed out loud at my joke about their shoes being worn out at the end. I felt very accomplished.

Later that night I gave another tour to a bunch of people and then as an old couple was leaving they waved good bye over the the wall to teh parking lot and I went over to say goodbye and they ended up giving me a refferral while I stood on a bench and talked to them over the wall. It was a good night at the mormon battalion. haha.

Saturday was GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! We were at the battalion during the first session, but I managed to catch it all except Pres Eyring. I really liked elder perry's talk about the sabbath. We ran to the stake center to watch the next session and ended up watching it in spanish with hno sapon and martha and pricila. I'll admit, it is not as fun to watch in spanish. The voices just are not the same. But it was still a good session. I liked the talk about finding gold - since I spend a large portion of my day panning for gold at the battalion. haha.

That afternoon we dropped by Adam's. It's been awhile since we have seen him. They let us in (Martha was there) and we chatted for a bit, but then their friends came over, so we invited them to conference and left.

We saw beatriz and found out that she finally found a job! (She has been looking for several months now). But it's also sad becuase now she can't come to church. I took a photo with her daughter, Orosetmy, so I will send it in a minute. She is adorable and we are good buds.

On our way out from seeing beatriz (who lives in the same complex as norgia) we witnessed a very funny scene. All of noriga's kids came running in to the complex and just behind them, William came walking quickly in carrying Norgia like a baby. It was clear that they had just offically gotten remarried and he was carrying his bride over the threshold. I wish I had a picture of them - but just picture william - who is about matthew's build, very skinny and talk, carrying someone who is more like my build, not fat, but definitely weighs more than wiliam. haha. He looked like he was going to collapse any second. It was really funny.

That night we taught los sapon with los morales. Now, Hno and Hna morales are probably 2 of my favorite people I have met on the mission. THey are hilarious. Hno morales is just like a really big kid sometimes. He is our ward mission leader by the way. He is hilarious though. And his wife is the sweetest little thing, but she is funny too. Anyways, so they came to the lesson with us, and it was really good. We were trying to teach the word of wisdom, but they all kep getting off topic, but that was fine, they are just becoming buds with los sapon. The funniest thing was that at least 6 times during the lesson, hno morales' phone went off really loudly. He acted like he was trying ignore it and then subtly turn it off, but it was so loud. By the 6th time or so we were all just bursting out laughing when it went off. Then Hna D helped him to put it on silent. haha. It was hilarious. By the end hno and hna sapon both agreed to live the word of wisdom.

Sunday we got to watch all of general conference in english. I loved both of the sunday sessions. It was all just great. Hno Sapon watched all 5 sessions of conference - that was more than anyone else in our ward! haha. Hna sapon just watched the sunday ones since she worked on saturday. They are so awesome. SOme elders had a baptism between the two sessions and hna sapon saw it and was so excited for her own baptism. We also had a lunch for all the spanish speakers between the sessions, so that was fun.

After conference we saw Norgia and we brought a board game about prayer to play with the kids. It went pretty well except that Lily was soooooo upset that she didn't win. haha. That night we went to see jonathan to see why he didn't come. When we showed up his family was having a party with all their cousins, so he invited us in and gave us some carne asada and cake, so that was pretty fun. Jonathan said that he would definitely come next sunday. ANd his mom said she would make sure he came.

Monday we saw hna veracruz and discussed conference. SHe watched all the sessions and enjoyed them and said that she believes that pres monson is a prophet. She really is ready to get baptized, she just needs to realize that.

We saw jonathan again and talked about the book of mormon and read the beginning with him. In the intro it talks about christ coming to the americas and he stopped and said that he wishes he had been here. He is such an awesome kid.

Well, that's pretty much it for the week. Things are coming along well here in San Diego. I hope you all have a great day!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTHEW!!!!

I love you all

love

hna livingston

March 29th

Well, another week is gone I guess. Actually, 10 months gone.

So last tuesday I went to the temple with Hna D and Hna Lee and Adams, so that was fun. The San Diego temple sure is beautiful.

Wednesday was both of the Sapon daughters' birthdays - Matha and Pricila. Crazy, they are three years apart but born on the same day. What are the odds? Well, we were at the battalion on Wed, so Tuesday night we brought them a birthday cake that we made. It was chocolate with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. We drove to their house at about 6:20 and we happened to see pricila walking home about 2 blocks from her house, so we parked and walked the rest of the way with her. She was excited about the cake and so was Martha and the rest of the family when they saw it. It was funny, Hno Sapon said that he didn't like chocolate, but then he ate a piece and said he loved it and ate another piece. haha. I have some photos I will send of them. After we ate the cake we watched a mormon message on gratitude, which they all liked a lot.

From there we went to see cleo. We made her cookies and went over with the intent of re-explaining why we couldn't hold her baby. We showed up and Daniel wasn't back from institute yet, but she let us in and we chatted for a bit. SHe is making a doll house for Stephanie out of boxes and things so she showed us the little bed and couch she had made for her. Super cute. Then she asked us if she thought the paint she had would work for painting easter eggs and we said we thought it would. Then Daniel came home and we gave them the cookies and said sorry we couldn't hold her baby and we loved their whole family and Cleo said it was ok, that she was mad at first but she thought about it and said it wasn't a big deal anymore. So that's good. She still seems to like us and seems ok with Daniel's decision to get baptized and everything.

On Thursday we served at the temple. We got in the car to drive up and the dashboard said the tires were low on air, so we went to the gas station to add some air. We discovered that one of the tires was nearly flat, so we added air and then went back to the battalion where Elder Ricks discovered a nail in the tire. Then we drove to the car shop and left the car there and sis. ricks gave us a ride to the temple. It was a pretty eventful day at the temple. Well, at first it was really slow, but then in the last 2 hours tons of people came and we were way busy.

One mane came out of the temple and he had pretty long straggly hair, but he was a member. He came over and said hi and asked where we were from and everything. THen he left, but 2 minutes later he came back with some flowers for us. Then he left and then 2 minutes later he came back and said that he wanted to hear the first lesson. We thought that was a little strange, but we told him we don't do memorized lessons anymore but we would be happy to teach him something. We talked about prophets and stuff and then told him to go to the mormon battalion, he said he had gone and the last time he went he had watched the John Tanner movie (which is amazing if you all haven't seen it yet - it's on those new D&C movies). I had just read a scripture that went along perfectly with that about rich is he who has eternal life. We shared that and he liked it and then he asked if we could close with a prayer and he said it. It was a pretty interesting experience. There are just all kinds of people in this world.

We talked to several more people, including an angry man from Mexico who really wanted to take pictures of the inside. We gave him a picture of Christ and then he seemed ok and came back and gave us his business card - he is a photographer, so if greg and melissa still need one....JK. haha.

After that we saw a man walk onto the grounds, who to be honest I was pegging as homeless. he looked super run down. He headed toward teh doors, so we quickly got up and speed walked to intercept him, but at the last second he turned to the wal and just touched it. We said hello to him and asked what had brought him to the temple and he said he had read a talk in the ensign about "touch the temple and let it touch your heart" or something like that, so that's why he was there. Then he told us how he used to be a member but then he was excommunicated and he ended up in jail and now he is on parole and is excited to take the lessons in a couple months when he can and then get baptized. He said his goal is to be sealed in the temple to his family. We have a little dvd player with a mormon message about blessings from the temple, so we showed it to him and he nearly started to cry. It was a pretty amazing moment. There was something about his eyes - you could see that the atonement was working within him. The spirit was really strong. After the little movie he turned to us and said that if he didn't see us again, he would look for us on the other side. Then as he walked away he told us to feel free to share his story if it would help others. Pretty amazing.

Then the Ricks came and picked us up and took us back to our car with a fixed tire.

We had an appointment that night with Jonathan (who we found last week) we brought a YW with us, Lupita, and it was pretty good. We watched a mormon message; come what may and love it. It was good. From talking with Jonathan I get the impression that a lot of people ahve told him that he is a bad person and that he has started to believe it. I also get the impression that even though he has made some bad decisions he is good at heart. He's kind of hard to teach though because he is pretty shy and seems uncomfortable around us. We are seeing him again tonight though.

Los Sapon came to the battalion this week - but just the parents. It was good though, we gave them a tour and they seemed to really like it. After the tour we went into a little room we have for teaching and we watched a mormon message and then talked about baptism. Hna Sapon basically said that she wants to get baptized, but she knows they have to get married first, so she needs to think about that - Hno Sapon drinks a lot and that is hard for her. BUt she came to church on sunday and seems to really love everything about it, so I think she will get baptized soon still.

We saw Norgia the other day. Somehow William got her to break the restraining order, so now he is back living with her. He called us yesterday to say that they had just gotten their marriage licence (they were married and then divorced and then back together then separated then back together now). He said they were looking for a witness (I think he was hinting at us). So they may have gotten married yesterday, which in my mind was not a good idea, but who knows. At least the law of chastity won't be an issue if they are married. I responded to his phonecall with asking if he was going to bring norgia to church this sunday (he didn't last sunday) and he said he thought so if it fit in with his work schedule.

We had another awesome dinner appointment with the garcia family (with 3 young women). They are awesome. We ate with kelsey, mitzy, and lupita. They are all such fun girls and they want to serve missions and are always willing to come out with us, so that was fun.

We started working with another less active, Hna Garduno, she is in the elder's area but requested sisters, so that's us. She has 4 kids with another on the way and she is super nice. We watched a mormon message on gratitude and then talked about what she was grateful for. She said that she was going to come to church on sunday, but then ended up not being able to. But they are a cool family. One of their kids is 8 and they want him to get baptized before he turns 9, so maybe that will help them come back.

On Saturday I was on exchanges with Sis. Smith (who is from college station texas, so that's funny. She knows Hilary Gray). It was a good day. We were at the battalion in the morning and during that we had a cleaning check by one of the senior couples. It was pretty funny. They were horrified (not by a mess) but by our minimalistic life style - that we just do without a lot of things. haha. They asked if we had enough dishes and I said yes, but we really just needed two bowls and two spoons because we only really eat breakfast at home. haha.

In the evening we saw the Torres family, who once again said they would come to church, but then when we went on sunday they were getting ready to go to their cousin's quincenera. We brought cupcakes for LInda's birthday and she seemed to like that. Then we visited a few other people before going to the Ameneyro's for dinner - it was a birthday party for Hno Ameneyro and Elizabeth Morales, so that was fun. It was just the two families and the missionaries, but it was great food.

After that we went to see a less active family, Los Navarro. They are hilarious. Last time we went they asked why we hadn't brought cookies, so this time we brought some ingredients and made a graham cracker, chocolate dessert with the different ingredients representing different parts of the gospel. They really enjoyed it. haha. They came to church the next day too. Yay.

Sunday was a pretty good day. Hna Sapon and Hna Veracruz both came to church. But after church we had a double baptism for some other people in the district, which was great. We have had baptisms in the ward every week for the past 3 or 4 weeks, so hopefully that will help the ward get excited about missionary work.

Speaking of excitement ... Conference is this weekend! So hopefully you are all planning on watching it. I only ahve to work at the Battalion during one session, so I should be able to catch most of it and hopefully some investigators will come.

I think that's about it for the week! I hope that you are all doing well and that things are warming up for you in your respective locations. The weather is still nice here in san diego. haha.

Love you all!!!
love

hna livingston

March 22nd

Well, it was another busy week here in barrio 20. It was the relief society's birthday this week I believe, so we had an awesome relief society activity for that. The women had been busy for weeks before sewing bonetts and aprons for everyone. Hna Hernandez made one for each of the missionaries too, well at least a bonett. She ran out of time to make us an apron, but now I at least I have a bonett I can bring home with me. It is purple. I will send a photo.

At the mormon battalion a group of women came in one night and wanted to watch a movie called "an elect lady" after the tour. It's about Emma Smith. It took me awhile to find it, but it is part of the new D&C dvds. I don't know if you all have seen or heard about them, I know I mentioned them before though. But I ended up just watching the clip with them, since it was only 5 minutes and they wanted to watch another right after so it was easier than leaving and then coming back. But it was awesome. Emma Smith was an amazing woman. You should find it and watch it.

Daniel has been doing well since his baptism. We taught him wednesday night at the church and hno Tadeo sat in on the lesson. We just talked about callings and service in the church. He had a question about sunday school, the teacher had said something that confused him so he had spent several days searching the scriptures to figure it out. He was confused why she had said that joseph smith profesied of the signs of the second coming, when Christ had already told the signs in the bible. He felt that should have been mentioned, but we explained more about it and he seemed fine with it.

Wed night is activity night at the church and the YW have been fundraising for their girls' camp by making food and selling it wed nights. Tonight they made "tostilocos" which is basically a bag of tostito chips with chamoi and hot sauce poured in it and peanuts and jicama and cucumbers added to it. Interesting, huh? Well, Hna De La Cruz loves them, so we went to get some and the YW made us each one and then refused to let us pay. They just said we should pray for them instead. haha. THey are such great girls. So I tried them and was surprised to find that I would eat them again if given the chance. haha. They were actually quite good. I don't think I would have liked them 9 months ago, but now that I am accustomed to hot sauce, I found them rather tasty. Hna D was thrilled. haha.

On Saturday Daniel wanted to bring his whole family to the temple, so we met them there. It was really good at first. We walked around and Cleo really liked it. We showed her the pictures and explained about why we have temples and everything was going great. Then Cleo wanted me to hold her baby, but as missionaries we can't hold children, so I just kind of avoided it and then she tried to give the baby to Hna D. We didn't really know what to do because we ddin't want her to think that we didn't WANT to hold the baby, so we just said that we couldn't. She got super sad and avoided us for the rest of the time we were there.

On Sunday Daniel was confirmed, which was great. His blessing mentioned that he would become a leader in teh church of jesus christ of latter day saints and that through his example his family would be baptized. So that was awesome. But afterward he told us he had a quesiton for someone. Later, Hno Hernandez, the high priest group leader, came up to us and said taht Daniel had told him that his wife had been planning on coming today to see him confirmed, but then something happened at the temple where we wouldn't hold her baby and she was upset by it, so she didn't come today. Of course that made us feel terrible. We called daniel that night and he seems to understand it ok because Hno Hernandez explained it to him, but he wants us to come and explain it again to Cleo, so we are going over tonight with some cookies to apologize/re-explain. We are hoping that this is just God's way for us to have to go over and talk to cleo and her to just get out how she feels about everything. So hopefully things will go well with that.

Norgia came to church again and her kids were a little better. Hna Werner (another missionary in the ward) sat wtih us and entertained kevin during sacrament meeting since her companion plays the piano. That was helpful; and then I just entertained Lily, the 7 year old by playing hangman and tic tac toe and fox and geese while Norgia kept geroge under control and Isa, the 2 year old just sat there nicely. Hna D. had to translate since the stake relief society president was speaking. So that went well.

Eric came to church! He came part way through sacrament meeting and sat by me. He mentioned that he got a new dog. I don't know if I"ve mentioned his dog before, but his name is coco and he is a spaniel and he hates us and I don't really like him either. He is rather slobbery and barks a lot at us. But anyways eric said they got him a girlfriend, a little cocker spaniel named Lady. She is a puppy so he said that we should come over soon so that she can meet us while she's young and hopefully will like us more. haha. He's such a funny guy. He said that he talked to the bishop about serving a mission and that the stake president told the bishop that he is too old. so that's kind of sad. But now he can just help us!!!

Blanca came to church too! She called us in the morning and said she was getting ready but needed a ride, so los Morales picked her up and she ended up having to stay for a baptism since he is the ward mission leader, so that was awesome.

We had a cool thing happen this week. We went to contact a referral from some elders, and we have tried to find him before, but he didn't live there anymore, so we called him and got his new address. We went and knocked on the door and a woman answered and we asked for Noe and she said just a minute and then a young guy came to the door (17) and we were like, hey are you noe, and he said no. Then his mom came back and said she wanted us to talk to him. His name is jonathan and she is natalia and she has another son, Yahir, who is like 7 and loves to play mario games. Anyways, so we went in and started talking to them and it turns out that Jonathan just got out of juvi and so his mom wanted us to talk to him and get him to go to church. we chatted for a bit and mostly he just asked some questions about the world ending. we didn't have a ton of time, so we said we would come back another day. We went back yesterday and watched teh restoration with them and they seemed to like it ok. Jonathan doesn't seem that excited to talk to us, but he listens just fine. We invited him to pray and he said he would and he even said the prayer at the end of the lesson, so that was cool. But it was basically just a random miracle that we found them, so we'll see what happens.

We had two amazing lessons with Los Sapon this week. (the less active dad with the mom and daughters who want to learn more). The first one was early last week. We went over to teach the restoration and brought Hna Morales with us. We started talking about how the gospel blesses families and then we asked if that was true for sis morales and she started crying and told the whole story about how her husband used to be an alcoholic and it got so bad that she took the girls and left and told him he had a year to decide if he wanted to drink or if he wanted his family. He started to change then and got baptized and then so did each of the daughters over a few years and not they are a strong family and the oldest daughter is serving a mission. YOu would never guess from meeting them that they weren't always that way. It was perfect for los Sapon. Hna sapon was crying too because she is going through basically the same thing - her husband drinks and they fight a lot (he was sitting there the whole time). He says he wants to change, but hasn't done anything to actually change, except come to church, which is a good first step.

Last night we had a family home evening with them at the Morales' house. We watched the restoration and then talked about the book of mormon. Hna sapon is already in ch. 8 of first nefi. she says she just can't stop reading it. That whenever her husband drinks now she just starts reading it and it calms her down. Both hna and hno morales talked more about their experience with alcohol and changing. Hno morales said that he used to drink every day and was never around his family and never went to church. He said that he used to be so skinny and miserable and now he is so happy and more gordito. haha. Hna morales said that the other day he was sitting on the couch relaxing and he just sat there with his eyes closed and said, look at me and how happy I am. haha. They are a great family. They are perfect fellowshippers for los Sapon.

Well, that's about it for this week. I hope that all is well at home and at school. I love you all!!

love

hna livingston

March 15th

Well, I guess you are all wondering if Daniel got baptized. I could keep you in suspense, but I will just tell you right of......YES!!!!! He got baptized on sunday at 2:30 and it was amazing. More details to come.

So last wednesday we had an appointment with Sis. Veracruz and it went really well. We were hoping that she would get baptized on friday or saturday, but we knew she wasn't planning on it, but we wanted to try our best anyways (because her son was in town and she has said that she wants to be baptized by her son one day). So we went over and we watched the mormon message You Know Enough by elder Anderson. It was perfect. It just talks about how you don't have to know everything to know enough to be willing to follow God's commandments. We talked for a bit afterwards and then her son came in and joined us. We talked about baptism and she said she wasn't ready still. Then right as we were about to leave her son just whipped out his testimony and told her everythign he knew to be true and how he came to know it. She sat there and listened and then said that she does believe that joseph smith is a prophet, but she was already baptized. SO we explained about authority again, but she said she still wants to wait and maybe in november she will be baptized. Her son was like, mom, you never know if you are going to live tomorrow. Don't Wait! But still, she didn't want to get baptized this weekend. It was a good lesson nonetheless.

That afternoon I gave an awesome tour at teh battalion - aka the people in the tour were awesome, I didn't do anything special. There was a couple with a 2 year old and these two guys who wandered in just after we had done the intro room. I was doing the tour with sis. Sherman. I figured the two guys were friends from here in san diego who had just stumbled in, but it turned out that they had just met last night in a hostil they were both staying at. One was from Denmark and the other is from I don't remember where but is in between deployments and thus staying at a hostil until he heads off to italy in a few weeks. It was cool though, because they had just met and decided to tour san diego together. They were walking up to the park near us and the one in the army said he felt "drawn" to the building. He said he is a big believer in fate, so he left his email address since he doens't have an address right now. I sent him an email the other day, so hopefully something good will become of this. It was a neat tour though since he espeically related really well to the mormon battalion being in the army and everything.

Wednesday night Daniel had his interview and passed and everything. he asked to talk to me and Hna D aftwards, and I was way nervous that he was going to say he didn't want to get baptized anymore or somthing. But he just said that his wife, Cleo, has asked that we dont come over anymore to teach there, but that we can still teach him other places and she said we can still come over for dinner and as friends, just not to teach because she thinks it is a waste of time. he said that he knew it wasn't and he still wanted to get baptized and she respected that decision. I"m sure she will come around one day. This happened before a few months ago when he dropped us back with sis. Mortensen.

On Thursday Gaby Morales came with us again and we went to see yesenia - that girl who she had told us about and we had searched for her house down some allies. Well, we found the address and we went to see her and she let us right in and said she had been thinking of coming to church on sunday. She is 19 and has a 2 year old son, miguel, who is adorable. We chatted with her and found out that she is about to move the first of april, so this was perfect timing that we found her just before she moved so we can send her records to the next ward. We went by on sunday to walk her to church, but she wasnt there. We went again on monday and it turns out she had gone to stay with her parents for the weekend, so that's why she wasn't there. We helped her pack some on monday, which involved my climbing on a chair to wash her cupboards, which were full of roaches. So fun. haha.

One day (I don't remember when) we were weekly planning at the church after district meeting, and a woman came into the church with a man from a nearby ward who was doing the catering for a wedding at our buildint. She asked if she could make a donation. She said she was catholic, but she didn't want to pay the catholic church since she knew where that money went. He explained the tithing slip and she decided to make her donation to the missionary fund. She lives just down the street from the chapel, so we made sure she wrote her return address on the envelope and we are going to have the bishop watch for it and try to get the elders to visit her since she is in their area.

Just after that we got a phone call from william zimmer - you may remember him as the one who was crawling under the desk to hook up the vcr. Norgia's husband. Well, he had called us to say that they got in a huge fight last night and norgia called the police and now she has disappeared and didn't got to get the kids from school. I'm still not sure why he called us, but he said he just wanted us to pray. he's called us about 3 times a day since then. I think he just doesn't have anyone to talk to. We saw norgia the enxt day, and she had mananged to get a restraining order against him and said things were fine now. We invited her to church on sunday and she said she would come. More on that in a second.

Friday night we had an activity at the church where we watched some of the PMG training videos of the missionaries who were filmed in Texas (we don't have the san diego ones in spanish get). We had had an appointment with a family who was a referral at 6, but we called to confirm and they said they wouldn't be home, so we invited them to the activity and they said they would come. Of course, I was thinking they probably wouldn't because everyone says that and then no one comes. But we got to the activity and the Zapon family was tehre!!! The husband is less active, but he wants to come back. The mom and 2 daughters (14 and 12) are not members, but they are all interested. The parents ahve some marital problems that they are hopeing the gospel will help them solve. Guess what...it will!!!! haha. SO they are awesome. We taught the parents on saturday night (the daughters weren't home) and the lesson was amazing. We taught them how to pray and they were so excited about everything. The daughters are super cool too.

Saturday we were at the temple in the morning, sitting outside to talk to people. We had invited daniel to come to an appointment there at 3, but he didn't come till about 4, because he got confused and thought we had said the chapel. But he did come. Just before he came we saw Maria Rivas coming out of the temple.SHe had been there since 7:30 in the morning and just kept doing sessions. She didn't have a ride home, so she was planing on taking the bus, but we told her daniel was coming and if she wanted she could stay for the lesson and then we could give her a ride (cause we can drive members to and from lessons), so she said ok and stayed. It turned out to be PERFECT. It was a great lesson on temples. Daniel loved everything and even told us how last night he had had a dream type thing where he woke up and saw a girl sitting on his bed and asked her why she was there. She told him her parents had left her there and she was waiting for someone to help her or something like that. So sis rivas told him it was probably because his ancestors wanted him to help them to get baptized. So that was awesome.

So sunday rolled around and I am just going to have to copy a few pages from my journal so you can get the whole story. But basically, Norgia and her 4 kids came to church and so did los Zapon and Daniel. Sacrament meeting was crazy because we were helping norgia with her kids. They stayed the whole three hours, which was great. At 2:30 we had Daniel's baptism, so we rushed around to get everything ready. It went perfectly. I played How Great Thou Art on the violin, which went well. Then he was baptized. He shared his testimony after and talked about how he used to have tons of doubts, but the sisters came and helped him understand the book of mormon, and now he knows this is the only true church. AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's so cool that I was able to be here this whole time. I think this is one reason I have stayed here in barrio 20 for so long. But I got to see him change clear from the beginning, and it was and is amazing!!! The ward was sooo supportive. Cleo and the kids didn't come, but they were all saying how they were going to help them realize that this was a good change, so that they one day will want it too.

Basically it was an excellent week. To top it off, we had a great dinner appointment last night with los aragon, who fed us delicious tacos and then "churritos" which are NOT little churros. haha. It's basically corn chip sticks covered in hot sauce. haha. Who would have thought I would ever eat something like that, but it wasn't so bad. haha.

Well, I hope you all had a great week. Congratulations Greg and Melissa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am very excited for you.

love

hna livingston