August 2

Another week come and gone.

On wednesday afternoon Hna Stevens and I went to see Norgia first. We had an appointment with her, but she must have forgotten even though I had confirmed with her just a few hours ago. We walked into the building and there was music BLASTING from the hallway where they live. We rounded the corner and found Norgia sitting in a ball on the floor in the hallway with the music playing from the neighbors house. Norgia was sitting there smoking a cigarette looking like an add for not smoking. It was pretty sad. Definitely not how you want to find one of your investigators. She invited us in and we quickly changed our lesson plan. She had clearly been drinking too and she doesn't handle alcohol very well. We still sat and read with her for about half an hour. We read in alma 34. I don't know how much she comprehended, but we couldn't just leave her like that. I don't think her neighbor is a great influence on her. He always reminds us loudly that he is an athiest when we come by.

After that we taught Alicia about the word of wisdom. She said that she is already living it, but we aren't sure if that is true. SHe is always super funny to teach. From there we went to see Jessica (Blanca's sister). We taught her about the gospel using an object lesson with water, cinnamon, and soap. She liked it. We just need to get her to come to church, but sometimes she goes to stay with her aunt for the weekends.

After that we went to pick up Lupita for a lesson. So earlier in the day I had called Zeus - a little background on him first though. I first met Zeus last august when we found adam; they were roommates. We always wanted to teach zeus, but never had the chance. One day he told us he was moving back to mexico for 7 years or so, so I figured I would never see him again. About a month or so ago Hna S and I went by Adam's randomly and Zeus opened the door! I was shocked! Things hadn't worked out in mexico, so he came back. We told him we'd love to come by sometime and teach him and he said that would be "muy padre" - way cool. We later got his number from Adam because we could never find him, so I called him wed morning. He said that he would love it if we came over that night, so we said we would. We picked up Lupita and went to see him. It was the greatest lesson ever!!!!! We sat down and he said that he wanted us to explain what we did as missionaries - perfect. So we explained and then explained about the book of mormon. After I explained about it I turned to Lupita and asked how it had blessed her life. Lupita is awesome. She just threw down her testimony of how the BoM is true and changed her whole family's life and he could know for himself. Then I shared a scripture from 1 nefi about christ to show that it really does testify of Christ. THen Zeus turned to sis stevens and said he wanted to hear from her too. She then read from the intro of teh BoM and told him to read it and pray about it and he said he would. He had lots of good questions throughout our discussion and it was just a really good lesson. Zeus is also just a super cool man. He is always way excited and super happy and says things like "sale vale" and "que suave/que padre." He's like 32 or something.

To top off the evening, we took Lupita to the church to meet up with her family and Los Ameneyro gave us helotes - corn on the cop covered in mayonaise and cheese and chile. sounds nasty, but it's soooo delicious. Also, Hna Stevens and I were very pleased taht we had met every single goal we set that night. So excellent.

Thursday morning we added a new investigator named Olga. SHe is like 76 years old. Her grandson just got off his missiona and called to come teach her. She seems really sweet, but just a little old and set in her ways. Her only son died 5 years ago and her grandson has told her that the only way to see him again is to get baptized, so she told us maybe one day she will.

After that we ate lunch with Maggie and Hna Zarate. I shared a scripture from alma 5 - the last 2 verses and then they on their own suggested taht they should start visiting less active people to help them come back. So awesome.

That night at the battalion I took a neat tour with sis adams. It was just one man who is in the navy and is thus here away from his family. He related super well to the story and it was just cool to talk to him about that during the tour.

Friday morning I took a tour of YM who were on their high adventure trip from AZ. Later on Elder Stallings brought me a card from them with a gift card to a nearby mexican restaurant called miguel's. They had been asking me where they should eat and I said I hadn't eaten anywhere around here....isn't that just the nicest thing ever?? I thought it was very precious of them.

That night in our area we helped Hna Garcia (Lupita's mom) write her talk for sunday. She asked us to give her some ideas - it was on a house of order. We came up with some good stuff - particularly from this month's ensign. After that we tried to see eric, but he was in the shower and said he did not have time to see us because he was going straight to TJ - or so his brother said.

After that we brought los morales some cookies/talked to hno morales about some of our investigators who need fellowshippers. Then we had dinner with Las Valladarez. She fed us meatballs that were very spicy. I have gotten used to having my nose run while I eat with members. haha. After that our appointment canceled, so we went by los sapon (who still haven't come to church - hna stevens has never met hna sapon). We shouted for a good 5 minutes before priscilla finally came out. She was home alone and said she didn't have a key to open the gate. We talked to her for a few minutes, but it was mostly just awkward. For some reason the girls don't seem to like us anymore, but we will win them back. Hna Stevens and I are good with the YW.

From there we went to see Ana Torres, and good thing we did. We found out she is moving this week, so we are going over to help clean her apartment tomorrow.

Saturday was an excellent day. We had a mission conference with Elder Ballard (because he is Sis Clayton's dad). IT was so good. He talked a lot about working with the ward counsel. We had a question and answer session about the work and that was his response to most questions - "well, have you taken it to your ward counsel?". He also talked a lot about calling down the powers of heaven to help us and to soften the hearts of those we encounter. I will send some notes from it maybe - I have over 10 pages of notes from it.

We were at the battalion in the evening and it was way busy the whole night.

On Sunday we discovered after we got to the church that ward counsel was changed to next week, so we went to see las sapon. Once again Priscilla was home alone. I worry about that girl. We are bringing some YW over tonight to visit them. Hopefully we can get inside.

After that we went to see Norgia to try and get her to come to church. We found her laying in bed eating doritos with the kids (at 10:20 am) and her neighbors were over and he was drinking. It turns out William was fired recently, so I think that explains this behavior (but doesn't excuse it). She said she would come to church and sure enough she did!!!! And I think she had a good experience. She even commented in class.

After church the elders had a baptism and had asked me to play the violin while elder clipp played piano. It went mostly well. We did a medley of 3 songs. While I was playing a little girl came up and was walking very close to me/climbing on teh table where I had put my music. hahaha. It was pretty funny, but I managed ok.

At the battalion that evening I took a fmaily from el salvador through and in the second room they were all laughing soooo hard when I dressed teh grandpa up as the soldier and the grandma up as a laundress. They were laughing so loud apparently you could hear it on the other tours. ahha. They referred at the end though, so Im glad they enjoyed it. The last tour I took that night had one family with 10 children all under 10 years old who ALL wanted to be the soldier. There was one other family and one homeless man also on the tour.

Monday afternoon we had a few miracles. First we managed to catch eric between his shower and leaving for TJ. He is doing the same. He still wants to marry his girlfriend in the temple, so we discussed again what he needs to do to accomplish that. AFter that we were trying to go visit Hna Telles, but I wasn't paying attention for a few minutes and forgot to tell Hna S to turn, so we passed it by several streets, so we tried to see linda first, but she wasn't home, so we went back to hna telles. We asked her about her new neighbor that moved in and she told us to knock on their door, so we said we would. AFter that we got in the car and had a message from hna sevilla. The message said "are you still coming for the FHE right now with samuel? Because he is on his way over." Luckily the Lord worked things out for us because hna telles and hna sevilla live one block apart, so we called her and said yes, we were almost there. We got there and had an amazing lesson with her friend Samuel, who we met a few weeks ago because she invited him to church. He told us he is searching for the truth - for something to make his life better. We said that's what we helped people do - get closer to christ. We taught the whole restoration and even watched the dvd. He loved it all and seems excited to read the BoM. It was pretty incredible. (I had called him a few days ago and he said he couldn't come, but I guess Hna sevilla called him and he said he would, but we didn't know that until right before the lesson, so we weren't prepared at all,but it went perfectly).

After that we were walking back to our car and Hna Telles was outside and so was her neighbor, so she told us to talk to him. We did and it turns out he is a christian preacher who is NOT INTERESTED in learning about mormons. haha. Then as we kept walking to the car a man came out of teh next house (where there is a huge virgin mary on the porch). I didn't really want to talk to him after being rejected, but we did, and he was SO NICE and told us to come over on wednesday and he would have his daughters there too to listen. WHAT? such a miracles. God just worked all of teh timing and locations out for us. haha.

After that we went to see daniel and Cleo. They haven't come to church in over a month. I called daniel that mrning to see why they didn't come and he said "because we didn't feel like it, we were just lazy". UNACCEPTABLE. So we went over and daniel wasn't there yet. We talked to cleo and she said that she didn't feel good yesterday but she told daniel to go and he said he felt lazy, so he didn't. We were sitting there when daniel came in. He walked in and we noticed that he was wearing a diamond earring in one ear. Hna S and I both looked at each other with horrified expressions. THen cleo noticed and said, what is that? And he was like, what? You don't like it? I was pretty horrified that daniel had changed or something, but then he started laughing and pulled it oof his ear - it was just a sticker or something. few. haha. We ate with them and then read from elder perry's talk on sabbath day and teh sacrament. Daniel said he knew he needed to come to church and would come next week. Hna Stevens and I will make sure of that though. haha.

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

hna livingston

ps happy birthday next week dad!!!!!!

July 26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

love

hna livingston

July 19

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you enjoy the gift I sent you and find it useful for Spain. : )

Well, you are probably wondering where I am serving now since we had transfers last week. Barrio 20. Yup. I stayed. haha. This transfer I will complete a calendar year in the ward. So excellent. It's a good thing I really like the ward. haha. Hopefully I just never leave.

We had a pretty great week. On tuesday night we had a good lesson with Alicia. We taught the plan of salvation and afterward she said that se really appreciated our listening to her, so that was good. She at least likes us. Now we just need her to progress in the gospel. After that we taught Amelia and her kids. We focused mostly on the kids. We played a board game about prayer that sis. Mortensen made forever ago. They really enjoyed it. The older son is 8 and we are hoping he will want to get baptized and that will soften Amelia's heart.

Wednesday mornind we had transfers. Sis Stevens and I were asked to give the tour to the new missionaries during transfer meeting - aka we were not transferred. I didn't think we would be because we train new missionaries for 2 transfers now with the pilot program. After that we were at the temple most of the day. I talked to an awesome woman from India, who was hindu. She told me more about hinduism and I told her about mormons. By the end of our discussion she asked if she could have a copy of the book of mormon, so I am sending her one. Later on we had a cute asian couple visiting from China come to visit. We talked to them for a while and they were way excited about learning about the church. We gave them the address for the church and hopefully they will go. After we talked to them they left to walk around the temple and then came back and asked to take a picture with us, so I got one on my camera too. SO cute.

After that we had a lesson with Ivan. It went really well. He showed us the notes he had taken at church and then we taught the plan of salvation and invited him to be baptized and he accepted for the 24th. Unfortunately he may not be able to get baptized that day because we have since discovered that he has an order for his arrest because of domestic violence....so we will see how that goes. He's a really nice guy and he seems to have changed a lot ever since his wife left him, so hopefully he will still be able to get baptized soon.

After that we went by norgia's, but she asked us to come back the next day because she was just making dinner. We tried a couple other people who weren't home and then went to a meeting to plan standards night for the youth. It sounds like it is going to be way cool. It is tomorrow night and we are doing it on modesty and language - "keep it modest, keep it clean" is the theme. We are going to have the YW do a fashion show, which will even involve them modeling a wedding dress. Way intense. Should be fun.

Thursday morning we had our interviews with Pres. Clayton. It was more just get to know you than anything else. After that we weekly planned some and then went to teach Norgia. When we got there we were nearly blown away because her apartment was clean. Maybe not as clean as mom likes the house, but just about. For her standards we were shocked. There was nothing on the floor, no food left out, the table was clear and had been cleaned off and she had all of the kids toys in a bag. Isa and George were sitting quietly at the table eating yogurt and when they finished Norgia made them throw the trash away. It was amazing. The best part was she had carefully hung the picture of Christ we had given her on the center of the wall. So amazing.

We had a nice discussion of the proclamation to the world about the family. We talked about church too. She really enjoyed church on sunday and said she would come again. I feel confident that she will want to be baptized soon, but we don't want to push her.

After that we taught sis. Veracruz. It was a good lesson overall. We were pretty bold. It was very directed by the spirit because sis. stevens and I learned a lot from what we were teaching. Hopefully sis veracruz learned some things too. We talked about abraham sacrificin Isaac. He had to take isaac all the way of the mountain and have him laying on the altar before God stopped him and provided a way. The abrahamic covenant is a covenant of willingness and action. God made sure that Abraham was willing before he stopped him. It's the same with us. We are baptized to show that we are willing to follow Jesus Christ. Then God provides a way for us to do that - he gives us the holy ghost. It was a good lesson. Then we asked her what she understood about the importance of authority and obviously she didn't undertsand it, so we explained again - very clearly. We told her that there is no way for anyone to progress beyond faith and repentance without the pristhood and that is only found in one church and she can know that for herself through prayer and the book of mormon. We think we have figured out her issue. Her admitting that this chruch has the priesthood admits that every other church doesn't and she doesn't seem to want to do that for some reason. Anyways it was a good lesson still.

We had dinner with the Valladarez family that night and Hna Valladarez said that next time she would teach us how to make enchiladas, so that is great news for everyone in this family. haha. If you are nice to me maybe I will share the knowledge when I get home. Maybe. haha.

After that we had a lesson with a potential named Carlos. I'm not sure how long he is going to last. If you ask me he is much more interested in the sister missionaries than the gospel. But we are willing to give him a chance. We are going to bring sis rivas with us next time so she can just really be frank with him. We had a little miracle when we went to teach him though. He is hna german's neighbor, that's how we found him (at the carne asada on the 4th of july). When we went over a bunch of the neighbors were outside including Jeffrey, hna german's son. We had a run in with him recently in which we told him if he ever watned to know if God was really there for him he could pray and God would answer (he goes to a church called the rock and believes God doesn't speak anymore). Well, he told us that he was reading in the bible and came across the story of Saul's conversion in which he had a vision. Then he said that that story proved him wrong and he would read one book from the book of mormon that each of us could pick. I pickd 1 nefi and hna S picked Alma. Hopefully he actually reads it because it will blow his mind.

Then we went to see Blanca and Jessica. Blanca was feeling under the weather, so we just shared a quick quote from the ensign about how Christ felt all of our pains and sufferings. I love Blanca and Jessica so much. They are both just the greatest. I am positive that they will eventually be baptized, but it may not be for a few years.

Friday we just had district meeting and then tried to see Olivia, but she wasn't there, so we went to see Cleo. She gave us a referral for her friend Monica and told us more about her, so we are going to see her next week hopefully. She also invited us to a baby shower she was going to have the next day. That evening we were at the battalion.

I gave one hilarious tour for some elders who came in and their investigator. Their investigator was maybe slightly off his rocker - so during the tour he started trying on all of the boots we have in the outfitting room until he found some that fit and then he paced around the room saying how much he loved them. These boots are maybe made of wood and plastic - not very comfortable. Anyways, I was laughing so hard I could hardly give the tour. haha.

Saturday we were at the battalion in the morning and right afterward we went to Cleo's babyshower. We met several of her neighbors there and they were all asking her questions about her religion, which was the point of us going, so that was great. They also gave us these cute passifyer necklaces to wear.

After that we went to teach alicia , but she was just on her way out to fix her cell phone, so we set up another time to come. Then we had coordination. I talked to los morales for a bit about how to help hna sapon. You may have noticed that she has disappeared from my emails -that is because she has disappeared all together pretty much. No one can get ahold of her. Apparently she has been taking her daughters to the catholic church because they dohn't want to come. I think they associate their father's being deported with their mom joining the church because they happened at the same time. But we keep trying to find them, so hopefully we will eventually.

Sunday none of our investigators came to church except sis. Veracruz, so that was sad. After church the other sisters had a baptism, which we helped out wtih. Then we were at the battalion for the evening. Things have been pretty crowded at teh battalion ever since summer started, so it was busy yet again.

Well, once again I hope that megan has a great birthday!!!! Also, I would like to hear some more details on Harry Potter 7.5....the big question is has daniel radcliffe finally figured out this whole acting thing??? haha jk. He is great.

Anyways, I hope that you all have an excellent week. I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love

hna livingston

July 12

Well, another day another A as dad would say.

Wednesday morning at the battalion there was a group of polynesian scouts taht came through. Sis Seguin and I convinced them to do the Haka (spelling?) in the courtyard. It was excellent. haha.

We had a gread dinner appointment with a less active that actually wants to come back...that's something new for me. We have started teaching her and she has lots of questions. She was baptized when she was 11 and is now 32 and didn't ever know a lot about the church, so we started with the basics and taught about the book of mormon. I love teaching about the book of mormon.

After that we tried to contact several referrals who weren't there, but we had a little miracle in that we found 3 super nice hispanic men who were remodeling one of the houses we were at and we got their information, so hopefully we can start teaching them. Their names are santiago, santiago jr, and arturo.

That evening we had a nice lesson with Blanca and Jessica, who we have finally found again. Their cousin got baptized not too long ago and Jessica really admires her, so we are hoping that will help her want to get baptized too.

That night we ran by the church and the ameneyros gave us each a mango on a stick covered with lime and chile powder. not bad. haha

On thursday we had district meeting, but before that we tried to see a few people who weren't home. As we were driving along we saw norgia walking down the sidewalk, so we pulled over and walked with her for 45 minutes back to her house and then back to the car (45 minutes all together). It was SO HOT outside that day. I think I heard it was 09 degrees...like the band...haha. We stopped at mcdonalds for some ice cream right after that.

Friday we visited Linda in her new apartment. We brought her a picture of Christ to hang up. She really liked that. AFter that we had a good lesson with Norgia on prophets. She was not ready to get baptized though. But she is going to read and pray and hopefully will be ready soon. After that we didnt' have an appointment so we went to drop by someone, but as we were walking we got a call from norgia saying they had run out of gas. So we went to the gas station where luis works and he hooked us up with a gas container thing and we brought them some gas. Unfortunately the van was parked on a hill, so the gas didn't register and Norgia,Hna Stevens, and I had to try to push the van up the hill so that william could turn the tire and get away from the curb that was blocking them from moving down. Luckily an asian man came and helped us out. Then a black man stopped and helped too. We pretty much ahd all the races working together. haha. We eventually made it so he could make a u-turn and zoom down the hill. I just wish I had a picture from the experience. IT was pretty funny. William was very appreciative though.

Saturday wasn't too eventful, but Hna Rivas and Hna Zarate came to the battalion so I got to give them a tour, which was fun. In the evening we just weekly planned, had coordination and group meeting.

Sunday was SUPER eventful. So on saturday I randomly called Ivan and he said he would come to church. Amelia and Norgial had also said they would come. Sure enough...they all actually came!!!! It was amazing. Ivan got their first, then Amelia came right after teh sacrament. She was just planning on dropping of her kids, but we convinced her to stay and she loved it. Then norgia showed up with all her kids right after sacrament meeting and loved it. RS was on raising children, so she related to all of the women's stories. It was excellent.

Straight after church we met up with Luis and took him to the singles ward that starts at 2. He still hasn't gotten teh priesthood because he can't come at 11 because he works, so we found this alternative ward for him and he was excited about it...but let me just say I do not look forward to being in a singles ward ever again. haha.

At the battalion that night I gave a tour in spanish and afterwards had a great discussion with one man who wasn't a member. He had tons of questions...about the urim and thumim, the 116 pages, and lots of random things. Obviously he has been investigating for too long. I read to him from the intro to the BOM and told him that it all came down to his praying to know if the book was true or not, so hopefully that helped him.

Yesterday was a pretty great day. We taught Maggie again and it went really well. Then we had a lesson with Jose. We brought Hna Ameneyro with us and she was super helpful. Jose started to tell us that he already had a church, but we just kept testifying about the authority and the book of mormon and prayer and by the end he said that he would come to church on sunday (after his church) to see how it was because he was curious. So hopefully he actually does.

After that we went to Hno Morales' birthday party, which involved a carne asada and a pinata. It was super fun. I even took a whack at teh pinata and got some candy to fly out. I have some pictures, but may have to send them next week. By the way dad - the memory card arrived with perfect timing. My card was full and it got there yesterday, so thank you!!!!!

Well, I love you all!! Sorry this email is a tad short, I am pressed for time. I'm glad to hear that dad is doing well though.

love

hna livingston

July 5th

Well, it was another good week here in San Diego...a little hot though, but still good.

Last tuesday we had a good lesson with Amelia. I had commented on her last supper tapestry and so during the week she had researched the significance and symbols in the painting and took the first 15 minutes or so of the lesson to explain that to us. It was interesting, but mostly a little too much speculation in my opinion. She was really excited about it though. Then we talked about the sacrament and how Christ instituted it in the americas also. It was a pretty good lesson. She told us she wants us to teach her kids, so that will be fun.

On Wednesday we went to see Linda, but she was just on her way out and so we set up a time to come back on monday. That fact will be significant in a moment. We tried to see several other people, including Norgia (who did not get baptized on sunday, but has a date for this sunday - pray for her). No one was home. As we were walking down the street I randomly thought of trying to see Olivia again. She is a potential we found knocking on her door looking for someone else, but when we went back a kid told us she wasn't there, but we were pretty sure she was. We went ahead and knocked on her door and she was there and let us in! She is way nice. She is probably 29 or so and she told us right away that she is having problems in her marriage. They were separated, but just got back together. We talked about how the gospel can help her and her family. We taught about prayer and she even prayed at the end of the lesson. We have an appointment to teach her this week, so hopefully it goes well.

After that we tried to see Hna German, but she wasn't there, but we ran into her neighbor doing laundry and she invited us over for this coming week, so that was exciting. We tried Melissa Garcia next and she was home, so we went in to talk with her. She asked if we had eaten and we said no, so she made her son go get us a pizza at a place down the street. SHe is so nice! She is a single mother who doesn't have a lot, but she is so giving. ALso, we learned from her that there is a cars 2 movie. She is taking her little boy to see it for his birthday.

That afternoon Hna Johnson was at the battalion visiting with her parents!!!!!! (She's the one who had my opposite dresses and we switched dresses one time and took a ton of pictures). I got to give her and her parents the tour, which was fun. I had discovered a coon skin cap in the outfitting room earlier that day, so when she dressed up as the soldier I made her wear it, but I started laughing really hard when she put it on. There were other people on the tour too, so I'm sure they thought that was strange. haha. It was fun to catch up with her though.

On Thursday morning we got to meet the new mission president, Pres. Clayton and his wife and two of his daughters. It seems like he is going to be a great mission president. I really liked him. He said he is not changing any rules or anything, just to stay the course, but do better.

Later that day we taught Norgia. Her kids were out of control as always, but Norgia was dong her best to discipline them. She is taking parenting classes, which hopefully will help. We taught her pretty much all the rest of the commandments so that she could get baptized on Sunday. She accepted all of them just fine, but then afterwards said she wasn't ready to get baptized and wanted to wait. We discussed it and eventually agreed to change the date for the 10th of july (sunday).

After that we were at the temple for the evening, but hardly anyone came, but we got a couple good pictures with the temple.

On Friday Hna De La Cruz came to visit at the battalion, so we went over to say hi to her in the morning. It was fun to see her in jeans. haha. She says she is enjoying life at home and everything.

At the battalion that afternoon we had a need for tons of spanish tours. I gave a tour to a bunch of people from my ward who came in, so that was fun. Right after that I came into teh front and there was a family from spain waiting for the tour, so I took that one too. They were the coolest family. They are catholic, but they LOVED the tour. After the tour we talked about the book of mormon and they asked what the difference was between the catholic church and the mormon church, so I explained about prophets. They were way excited about the bom. The son asked for a copy right then, so I got him one and then his mom wanted one too, so I gave them two copies. They gave me their phone number and told me to call if I ever went back to spain so I could visit them! haha. They were just awesome.

Saturday was a busy day at teh battalion with lots of spanish tours again. THere was a fun group from colombia who really liked the tour. That afternoon we dropped by the birthday party for the Tadeo kids: cesar and andrea. We ate dinner there and then headed off to an appointment. Unfortunately we had to miss the pinata. The appointment was with Alicia. We taught the restoration using some jenga blocks to show how Christ's church was restored. She seemed to mostly undersatnd. We invited her to be baptized and she kept going off about how bitter she is about her being fired and things like that. We kept inviting her and finally she said yes, which was surprising, so we thought maybe she didn't understand, so we invitd her for the 30 of July and she said yes, so she has a date. We'll see how things go with that though.

We had coordination that night. Hno Morales is still the best. He told us about his birthday party coming up and asked waht our schedule was with the battalion so that we could be there. So precious.

After that we went to find zeus, but he wasn't there, but we an into Cleo outside, so it was fun to see her again! She enjoyed her time in Tijuana, but is glad to be back she said. We tried to see a couple more people with no luck and then decided to just go by linda's to invite her to church. Good thing we did. We ran into Jazmine outside and she told us that linda and luis had MOVED! WHAT????? Remember how I mentioned before that we set up a time to see them on monday?? And they just didn't mention that they were moving. You may remember this same exact thing happened back in september. Luckily we were able to track down their address much more quickly this time.

Sunday wasn't super eventful. A lady in our area did bring a nonmember friend to church, which was way exciting. She also brought him to the battalion after church and I did their tour, so hopefully we will be able to teach him soon. It was fast sunday and for some reason (probably the heat) it was way hard at the end. We got to teh battalion at 4 and it was so crowded...4th of july weekend. So we were just giving tour after tour and had to just run back and eat a little bit and then give a tour. Not the greatest experience.

Monday...happy 4th of july!!!! Hna Stevens and I luckily were not working at the battalion. We heard it was way busy though. We started the morning with a ward breakfast at the battalion - not our ward, but one of the senior couple's wards so they invited us. Then we studied and headed out to our area. We had a lunch appointment with hna Tadeo, but she had to go somewhere so she just picked us up hamburgers and sent them with us, which was great. Then we went to see Norgia, but it turns out that she went to TJ for the weekend and wasn't back still. We tried going by Linda's and caught them as they were moving out the last of their things. We gave them elder oaks' talk about desire to read and invited them to come to church on sunday.

AFter that we taught Sis Veracruz. The lesson was ok, but not great. Hopefully she is inching her way to baptism, but she is just going so slowly!

Next we dropped by hna german's. We had a pretty hilarious time with her. IT turns out she was having a bbq with some friends/neigbors, but she invited us to eat some, so we did, hoping we could talk to her while we ate. All the people were eating outside, but she put us inside her living room to eat. Most of the people were drunk, and one younger guy kept popping in to ask if he could come to church with us. We actually ended up getting his number and address and will go by sometime when he is sober and see if he is still interested. The funniest part was when Hna German was dancing in the living room with one of her friends. I wish I had a video of it. Hilarious. I sometimes wonder if other missionaries have experiences like these. It was seriously hilarious. We finished our food quickly and headed out of there - but hey, no all her friends know that she is studying with the mormons.

As we were walking down he ally away from her apartment I heard "HERMANAS" in a low semi-creepy voice, which I quickly recognized as Luis Torres' voice. Sure enough they were at their new apartment, which is next door to hna german. Talk about a coincidence. haha.

After that we taught Alicia and we brought a member so that she would have to speak spanish. It went well for the most part until Alicia started talking about the virgin mary and hna zarate tried to explain why we dont worship the virgin mary. Overall it was good though. We read teh first chapter of the bom with her.

We had to be in by 6 that night, so we spent the evening updating our area book until 9 when we went over to the battalion to watch teh fireworks from teh tower. We also ate smores in the campfire room. IT was pretty excellent. All in all it was a good 4th of July. Hopefully yours was fun too!!!!

Well, I love you all!!!!!!! I hope you are having a fun summer!

love,

hna livingston

June 21st

First of all, Happy Father's Day. I hope you got my picture dad...I couldn't remember your email, so I think that some other father got the picture. oops. But I sent it to mom and megan also, so I hope they showed it to you.

Second, congratulations to Mr and Mrs Greg and Melissa Livingston!!!!! Looks like it was a great wedding. Might have been a little better with a cardboard cut out of me in the pictures, but oh well. It might have been too perfect then right? Well, I am very happy for the both of you.

Well, I had a good week this week. Last tuesday we had an incredible lesson with Amelia. We taught about the gospel. SHe's the one who had a horrible experience with a different church and is thus skeptical of attending church or anything, but she just hit 2 Nefi in the book or mormon and she loves it. She told us she wasn't enjoying 2 nefi as much as she did 1 nefi, but I told her not to worry, most people felt that way. haha. We talked a lot about the atonement and we read in Alma 7 with her and she was crying as I read it. It was pretty amazing. We talked about baptism and basically it came down to a maybe, but not yet. It was a pretty amazing lesson though. I could just feel the spirit working through me. It's such a rush. I love teaching people.

After we taught her I told her how much I love the tapestry she has hanging in her house. It's a pretty big tapestry of the last supper and it is so beautiful. She got really excited about it and told me her husband bought it for her at the swap meet and she would find out exactly where so that I could get one. I'm just going to have to find someone to go get one for me since the swap meet is not on tuesdays. Then she started explaining all of the symbolism in the painting, which of course I loved.

On Wednesday we had a ton of appointments set up, but of course all of them canceled. It worked out though, we managed to meet with a new less active in the area. One of the elders in our district accidentally called her by mistake trying to call a different Sis Mendoza and it turned out that her baby was in the hospital having surgery, so she asked them to come give her a blessing. She is in our area, so we went with them, and it was pretty cool. Her baby, named Romeo, is 9 months old and has lots of issues - some heart problems and a cleft pallet or something like that, so he has already been through 5 surgeries and is on oxygen now. He was a super cute baby though, and the blessing was good. We stayed and got to know her afterward. She says she wants to come back to church so that her baby can grow up with the gospel. Her boyfriend isn't a member, so we are going to try to start working with him soon. She can't come to church quite yet though because of all of the baby's special needs, but it was cool that we were able to discover her just when she needed help.

Because our appointment canceled we decided to go by Eric's to see if we could find him. We haven't found him in nearly 2 months now. His family said that he has pretty much moved to TJ and they hardly see him anymore. Well, we went by and he was there!!! Perfect timing. We chatted with him for a bit. Mostly I was just excited that Hna Stevens finally got to meet him. It was a classic meeting with Eric where he told us all about the drama with his girlfriend. They are going to therapy now or something. He hadn't drank for 2 weeks now, so that was good. Also, he said he was going to come to church on sunday.

After that we had a dinner appointment with Hna Valladarez, Mitzy's mom. It was a good dinner, but a little spicy. The sister forgot we were white when she added the chile. oh well. They gave us some milk afterwards.

On Thursday we were at the battalion in the morning. We have been having a lot of struggles lately at the MB with the technology. This morning charlie, one of the characters in the frames at the beginning, was missing! Well, his screen had just gone multicolored, like when your computer has problems. It was pretty funny though. They got it all fixed within half an hour or so.

That night we had a lesson with sis Veracruz that went really well. We talked about the atonement. I think she is getting closer to baptism. It's just a matter of her making the decision now. She came across a quote in the word of wisdom pamphlet about keep applying the atonement and don't give up even if your progress is slow. She felt that was an answer to her prayers and that she is progressing, just slowly. I tried to emphasize after that that the only way to really progress is to have faith, repent, and get baptized, so hopefully soon she will decide.

That night we also had choir practice. I will try to send you a sound clip that Hna Stevens and I snuck with her recorder. It is pretty hilarious. Hispanics just seem to be mostly tone deaf.

After that we dropped by Adriana's. her cousin has moved in with them, so we talked with him a little bit about the book of mormon. He's kind of an interesting guy, so we will see if anything happens with that.

Friday afternoon was pretty hilarious. We had an appointment with our new investigator Alicia. Her daughter, Kenia, was there. She is 11 and she is hilarious. Somehow it came up that she is learning the violin, so we convinced her to play us a song, which she did. I told her I played and so she wanted me to play a song, so I played devil's dream, which she liked so much she looked up the song on the internet. As we were talking with Alicia and kenia was on teh computer a little boy came in and told us that he loved Justin Beiber. This led to Kenia looking up videos of Justin Beiber and playing them until we finally asked her to stop. haha. We managed to give them each a copy of the book of mormon and talk about it a little bit before we left. Alicia is just so funny because she only wants to speak to us in english, but she doesn't speak or understand super well, so that makes it very difficult and funny to teach her.

From there we went to the father's day party with our ward. It was a hula theme. I will send some pictures. Hna German and her son came and also NORIGA CAME! And that means that I finally have a picture of her and more importantly of William, so I will send that along for you all to enjoy. The party was super great. The Relief society performed several hula numbers and the YW danced again. Also a bunch of elders performed the haka, which everyone liked. It was great entertainment. Why aren't our ward parties in oakton more like that??? I want to see the RS hula when I get home.

Saturday morning we were at the temple and there were probably a hundred weddings. We enjoyed seeing the various brides and grooms getting their photos taken. A group of black women from south carolina came and wanted to tour the temple, so we had a good time talking with them. They had thick accents and I felt like they should have been in the secret life of bees. They didn't refer, but they are going to visit the temple in south carolina, so hopefully there are missionaries there too.

In the evening we had an appointment with Manuel and Jose. We brought hna zarate with us again. Manuel was asleep, so we just taught Jose and his son was there listening too. Unfortunately there was a soccer game on though, so that made it a little hard to teach. Finally they turned it down and we talked about the book of mormon. Jose said that he thought he would be saved just by accepting Christ and that he could do whatever he wanted as long as right before he died he repented. I brought up covenants and he got all sassy saying that we don't make covenants with God, we make pacts. I was not happy with his sass, so I just whipped out the scripture in 3 nefi about the small door and then the one in 2 nefi that says the door is baptism and if you don't enter it things will not work out well for you. Then I invited him to be baptized. I figured he would say no, but to my great surprise he said yes. haha. So he now has a date for the 24 of June. I'm not sure how serious he is because he is hard to read, but hey, we will work with what we've got. haha.

We managed to find Blanca again!!!!! She goes to a boarding school now, but we went by and she was there. She is loving the school, so that was good to hear. She will be out in a few weeks and then we can visit her again and she can come to church and hopefully she will want to get baptized now.

Sunday - happy father's day again. Before church I went to the BYC meeting. They are now letting one missionary from each companionship go to the meetings. It was good. They had a big discussion about modesty, which is a huge problem in the ward. After that we had church and Eric came! So that was exciting. Everyone was glad to see him. None of our investigators came though. In relief society the bishop's wife was teaching and she broke down crying saying that she is going through a hard time and doesn't know how to talk to her husband because he is the bishop. It turned into just a big counseling session with her where everyone wanted to give their opinion, most of which involved the changes that women go through at a certain age. I was kind of glad no women investigators had come.

That evening we were at the battalion and the Sliva family came! Hno Silva is the 1st counselor in the bishopric - he's the one from cuba and he is hilarious. He had told me that his brother was visiting from spain and isn't a member, so I told him to bring him to the battalion, and he did. So he came with his family and his brother from spain and his other brother from san diego (who also isn't a member). Both of teh brothers referred at the end of the tour. It was awesome. Mostly they were just so funny all three of them becuase they all talk exactly the same with their cuban accents. I talked with the brother from spain about las fallas (he lives in valencia) and Hno Silva told me he would give me his address if I went to spain again so I could visit him. haha.

Monday - happy wedding day greg and melissa! I was at the battalion in the morning. I gave a spanish tour to 38 people that morning - the biggest spanish group I have ever seen! It was a spanish immersion school that wanted the tour in spanish, so that was fun to do. They tour is way more fun in spanish.

In the afternoon we had one of the lesser productive days of my mission. We did manage to visit Jazmine again. We used to teach her back in December. Her mom has since had her baby, so we went with the pretext of meeting the baby and said that we would be happy to come by sometime and read the book of mormon with her again, so she said that would be fine. The baby is way cute too.

I was sad because we had a sweet FHE planned with the torres family and los morales were going to come, but linda canceled that morning. I had even made no bake cookies!!! How dare she. Oh well. So we had a dinner appiontment with sis Galvas. She is usually running late, so we got there at like 6:15 and sure enough she was just starting to cook, so we talked with her about her new calling as primary president. Eventually she said that the sanchez family was coming for dinne too, which we didn't know about, but was fine. She is her counselor and he is the elder's quorun president. We ate together and while we were eating Hno Sanchez started telling us stories about his mission and he just would not stop. It didn't help that his wife kept encouraging him reminding him of other stories. He literally didn't stop talking for 40 minutes. Finally I just interrupted him and said that we had to go. haha. He is a funny guy. He LOVED his mission though and LOVES to talk about it. Some of the stories were pretty funny at least.

After that we went by los sapon and just yelled at the window until priscilla came, but her mom was asleep. They are going through a hard time with the dad still in jail waiting to be deported, and so they haven't come to church in at least 3 weeks! But we will keep trying with them.

Well, I love you all!!!!!! Congrats on the wedding again!!!!!! I want to see some more pics when you get a chance!

love

hna livingston

June 14th

Ok, well to start things off I will tell you about my first and only haircut experience on the mission. Last p-day we went to this lady's house in one of the sister's wards at the mormon battalion. She has cut the hair of a bunch of the sisters at the mormon battalion and has always done a good job. Sis. Stevens went first and her hair looked great after. Then I went, and I don't know what happened but it looked like she had maybe used a lawn mower to cut my hair. I just got it trimmed, so it was fixable, don't worry. But I will send a photo of what it looked like. I had asked for just a trim with long blended layers like I had. That is not what happened. Luckily, Hna Stevens went to hair cutting school and was able to fix it, so now it looks excellent. You just need to see the photo to understand though.

Tuesday night none of the people we had planned to see were there, but it all worked out. We met a nice man walking his dog and had a good 20 minute conversation. He wouldn't give us his address though, but he gave us a phone number, so I was thinking it was probably not really his phone number, but we called it and it is, so hopefully we will be able to start teaching him. We also managed to see Beatriz, who I haven't seen in quite a while since she is working again, and Amelia. Amelia is still chatty as ever, but we managed to at least introduce the gospel to her and will be going back tonight to teach it in more detail.

On Wednesday we had district meeting and then went to see Hna Garduno, who was just leaving, so we just invited her to the fireside. We tried seeing Melissa Garcia next (the less active who recently moved into our area). She was in a huge scramble when we got there. She was trying to get her kids all ready so that she could take them to day care and then head off to work. She is a single mom with 4 kids. We helped her get them ready and then walked with her and her kids to day care and then to the bus stop so that she could head off for work. It was good to get to know her a little better. She is a pretty strong woman - raising these kids on her own. She wants to come to church, but she works the night shift on fri, sat, and sunday, so that makes it hard. Hopefully her schedule will change soon.

Wednesday evening I was at the battalion and got to give a tour to Hna Werner (who I am good buds with - she was in my district for 6 transfers and we came out together and were in the same singles ward at byu when we got our calls), so that was fun to see her again. They had a way awesome investigator there who got baptized just two days later. I was talking to him before they got there and he said he was super nervous, so I shoed him the mormon message "you know enough" and he really liked that.

Thursday morning we had our usual devotional at the battalion which included a chastizement from elder evans because several sisters keep cooking broccoli in the back, which makes the whole place smell like "a poopy diaper" were his words. haha. It was mostly just funny to hear him rant about it. We were at the temple after that and met the first couple to be married in the san diego temple. At least they think they are. They were the only couple to ever come out the front doors because once they did the workers quickly realized that wouldn't work because their pictures were blocking the entrance for people to come in, so they sent all the other couples out the back like they do now. haha. So that was funny to talk to them.

There were two girls about my age that came and asked a bunch of questions. At first I thought it was almost a joke they has so many questions about the conversion process to mormonism, but we explained all about the restoration and the gospel and they were super interested and referred! So hopefully things go well with that. They had heard that we believed that Chrsit didn't go to jerusalem but only to the americas, so i'm glad we could clear that up for them.

Right after that we went to a dinner appointment with the Valladarez family (I have written about Mitzy before - she is the daughter, a young woman, and her mom asked us to come over for dinner). They had just moved and so we went to the new address and no one answered. Then I realized that I had written down 2 different addresses for them, so we tried the other one, just down the street, but it didn't exist, so we went back to the first one and I called Mitzy's mom and it turns out she had forgotten and was just getting home from the store. She got home right then and whipped us up something quickly. It worked out perfectly because we were able to talk with just her for a while (her sister lives with her, but she had taken mitzy somewhere for a bit). She told us the reason she wants us to come over every week is to help her less active sister come back to the church, so we are going to do our best with that. Hna Valladarez is a super awesome woman. She raised Mitzy as a single mom and then got married when she was liek 14 and now she has another daughter, but is separated from her husband because things just weren't working, but she is hoping to one day be sealed in the temple. She is way cool. After that we tried a few people who weren't home and managed to contact a potential family, so it was a good night.

Friday was a funny day. We weekly planned some and then headed off to visit a potential, Alicia, who is Hna German's friend. She came to the mother's day activity, so that's how we met her. We knocked on her door and there was super loud music playing inside. Eventually she answered and we sat down with her and for some reason she spoke to us in english (which made her super hard to understand, but we didn't want to offend her, so we spoke english to her too). We asked how she was doing and she said she was super mad because her older daughter is not going to be able to move on to highschool because she failed her classes. We talked about that for a bit and then we also discovered that she was recently fired and is now trying to get her GED so that she can go to cosmopology school eventually. We watched the mormon message about hope with her and talked more about Jesus Christ. It was an ok lesson, but not great, because she was so hard to understand in english. haha. But we added her as an investigator and she said she wants us to talk to her daughters.

After that we went to see Melissa again. We had set an appointment, but she forgot and we got there just as she was going to leave for the store, so we walked with her and her kids there. After that we tried to see several people who mostly weren't home, but we managed to invite a few to the fireside that was happening on sunday. Eventually at 6 we went to a dinner appointment with Hna Bolden. Hna Bolden is an interesting lady. She is pretty old and a little bit unusual and she is not technically in our ward. She lives in our ward boundaries, but attends a different ward because she likes to go at 9, but when she is running late she comes to ours. One week she told us she REALLY wanted us to come over for dinner. I tried canceling (because we didn't think it was the most effective use of our time) but she would not have it and set up a different time for us to come, so we went. Now we went at 6 and we had an appointment set for 7:30, but before that we had promised some young women that we would go by their fundraiser activity they were having, so we needed to go there at 7. We got there and Hna Bolden was just starting to cook, so the food wasn't ready until about 6:45. We ate as fast as we could while she talked. She was telling us her conversion story with a lot of grandiose details, so it was hard to interrupt. Also she hardly ever stopped talking to breathe, so there was nothing we could do to get out of there. Finally at about 7:35 I just jumped in while she was taking a breath and told her that we had to go because we had an appointment. She continued talking as we made our way out the door. But we made it.

We ran from there over to the church becuase I called Adam and he said he wasn't home, so we went to go see the YW's thing. We got there and Mitzy let us in. They were having a dinner/party/show for a fundraiser for camp. They charged $6 for tickets (but they let us in free because they love us) and then they were selling stuff inside too. It was way intense. They served dinner and then they did like 15 different dances. We were only there for the first 3 and then we had to leave, but it was super fun and there were TONS of people there and lots of nonmembers it seems. I'll send a picture from it.

Saturday morning we were at the battalion. Unfortunately one of the rooms was not working correctly (there is a lot of technology involved on the tour), so the outfitting room we just had to talk through without any videos, which makes it a lot more boring, but it was fine. None of my tours were too exciting that morning.

That afternoon we went first to see Daniel and Cleo because they said we could borrow their DVD player to show Manuel the restoration. We picked it up and then picked up Hna Zarate for the appointment. Manuel wasn't home, but his uncle was, so we showed him and 2 of his sons the restoration. Right after it finished I asked Jose what he thought of it and he responded by telling me about a friend he had who was mormon who celebrated halloween and he thought that was satanic. I told him that wasn't part of our religion and anyways, what did he think of the movie. He said he believed that could happen. Then we talked more about the book of mormon. He is also hard to interrupt and goes on lots of tangents, but somehow he stayed quiet the whole time I was testifying of teh book of mormon. He has started reading it, so hopefully that will soften his heart. He is hung up on thinking that no religion can save him, just Christ, so we talked a lot about the ordinances Chrsit asks us to do. It was actually a really good lesson.

Just a funny cultural note I have noticed a lot lately. People often offer us "orange juice" and when we accept they give us sunny delight. One time though a woman gave us fresh squeezed orange juice, but said it wasn't orange juice, it was "orange water" "agua de naranja". haha. I just remember that mom would hardly ever buy us sunny D because it's so sugary, but here are people drinking it as if it were orange juice. So funny.

After the lesson with Jose we went to coordination. Basically Hno and Hna Morales are just the funniest couple and I love them so much. After the meeting they gave us some soup and cookies. Just adorable.

On Sunday no one came to church, again, not even Daniel and Cleo. Right after church we went to see why they hadn't come. It turns out that they had been getting ready to come, but then Daniel felt sick and threw up, so he went back to sleep and they didn't come. A valid excuse. Daniel woke up while we were there and we watched finding faith in Christ with them and made sure that they were still coming to the fireside (because daniel was speaking at it).

On our way out from their complex we ran into a woman named maria, who we have seen a bunch of times. We stopped and talked with her and she had some questions about the book of mormon. We gave her a copy right then and explained all about it. it was pretty sweet; I hope she reads it.

From there we went to eat with Hna Flores. She wanted to have us over in hopes that her less active son would be home while we were there. He got home while we were eating. I have talked with him a bunch of times and he is super sarcastic and not serious about anything and doesn't feel that he needs God right now, but maybe when he is in his 30's he will come back. He came home to get his stuff because he is moving in with his girlfriend, which his mom is not super happy about, but he is 26, so she can't really stop him. As he came in and out we kept talking to him and convinced him to read us his favorite scripture in the BOM, which I had helped him find the last time I talked to him. I only gave him hints as to where it was, so he had to read several verses to find it (it's in 2 nephi 2 about adam and eve). His mom was very impressed that he read at all, so that was good. Also we got his new address so we can stop by every once in a while.

After that we made a million phone calls inviting people to the fireside. Manuel and Jose said they would come, and Elia said that she might come. We went to the fireside and Manuel and Jose came and Elia and two of her daughters did come. Luis Sanchez, a less active, also came. The fireside was so good. The best part of course was when daniel bore his testimony. This was a mission fireside, so all of teh spanish speakers in san diego were invited. He did such a good job. He thanked me and Hna DLC and Hna Mortensen for knocking on his door and talked about how he came to know the BOM was true and how he knew that prayer worked. He shared one brief experience about praying and then finding a job and then bore his testimony that this was the only true church. He also mentioned how happy he was that he coule baptize his wife, and that he had now filled a huge void he had had before. It was amazing. I love Daniel and Cleo.

Monday we went to see Hna German, but she was on her way out to her exercise class. After that we went to contact a referral, but he doesn't live there anymore, so we talked to a woman named marisela. She talked to us for over an hour. She is a tiny bit crazy, but also awesome. She has met with missionaries before and believes that any church is a good church. She was telling us about when she was in jail beceause she witnessed a murder and how she taught all the women in jail to pray. She was pretty dramatic.

After that we went to Daniel and Cleo's and ate carnitas with them. Then we read the proclamation to the world on the family and talked about what they can do to keep their family strong and happy. It was a good lesson. Then we went by to see Adam. I was so surprised and so happy to see that Zeus answered the door. I can't remember if I ever wrote about him before, but he was adam's roommate a long time ago. He is the nicest guy and we wanted to teach him, but just as we were getting to know him he said he was heading back to mexico probably for like 7 years and then he left, so I thought I would never see him again, but he is back! He went back to mexico and it turned out that his sister had swindled him out of the company he had been sending money to buy, so he had nothing there and came back!!!!!!!!! He said he wanted us to come by and chat with him some time. He is the coolest. Adam was just on his way out, so we will go back some other time.

After that we saw Ana Torres and her new baby, who is so cute. We gave her one of those kids book of mormons to read with her kids and she was really excited aobut that.

Well, that's about it for this week...except that I think that I can hear wedding bells tingling pretty soon. Good luck with the wedding on monday!!!!! I love you!!!!!!! I'll try to have a baptism or something.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

love,

hna livingston