President Monson's Challenge: The ABC's Quest

If any of you are up to date on our beloved Prophet's Facebook (yes, he is cool enough to have a Facebook!) then you know about the challenge that he has given to us--to seek more abundance in life. Abundance in things that will do us good. He has shared his 3 ABC's with us:

A=Attitude; B=Believe; C=Courage

Also, he has encouraged us to come up with our own ABC's and to work on them this coming 2015 year. Thus, I have created my own ABCs and have shared them on my other blog. Believe me, I had a fun time figuring out what to work on for letters X-Z! Please see my other blog to learn more about my commitment to the Prophets alphabet challenge and how I plan on achieving such abundance. Hopefully, it will encourage you to create your own abundance alphabet to work on this coming year. Our prophet loves us and he wants the best for us! This is an amazing challenge! I have faith that if we take ourselves on this quest that President Monson has challenged us to do that we can only receive great blessings.

The Easy Way of Getting Active Again

It's an awesome time of year. We are all about to enter into a whole new year with many possibilities. For everyone who is striving to gain something more spiritual in their lives or who is looking towards becoming more active in the church, please see my other blog.

On this blog, I have come up with a month-by-month plan of how to do that. It is not a "cold turkey" or a fast track way. It is the "easy way" or the "slow way". Because sometimes when you run too fast at first, you crash. I am not saying that you shouldn't give it all you can, but for some people that I know and have come across it's a bit much to just be expected to do all the things that "life Mormons" have done all their lives all at once.

Also, in the end (month December) I talk about a Christmas tradition of my family's which is to do a nativity reenactment. However, I will post the picture exclusively right here:

(Christmas Eve 2014)

I have really long hair and thus my littlest sister enjoys pulling it together to form a beard. My dad called it my Duck Dynasty beard!

Final Quarter: Norman x2

The last round of a mission is always the saddest and the most fun. It's sad because you begin to realize that that you're about to leave the life that you've known for over a year or so. In my last area, I found myself thrown to the wolves. I got sent back to Norman and given a bike area (as a sister!). I was opening that area for sisters and training as well.

After wondering whether or not I would end up killing my future trainee, I got pretty excited about the opportunity and went into preperation mode. I made cheat sheets for my would be "baby". Training was a great learning experience! I learned patience, how to be continuously happy, and how to stay positive despite my circumstances (for example: I learned to loving biking hills in the 105 degree weather with 90% humidity).

We had some of the coolest Zone Leaders ever to work with! We shared the ward with them and, of course, I had my "I hate elders" days (but honestly what sister doesn't?) but they were always giving us laughs. That really helped out my companion whenever things were rough for her.

My companion was pretty dang awesome! I really admire her ability to just be happy, to laugh things off, and to get along with everybody. She was my greatest asset when it came to working with the youth. She became the best friend of the young women and of the primary kids.

My favorite part of working this area was working with our Zone Leaders and our District Leader. Well, we never really saw much of our DL because he was in a different ward than the ZLs and us. However, they were all awesome. Shaving cream slip-n-slide Zone P-days. Doorstep conversations. Stopping at the Asian market on the way home from the doctors. And acting childish in any and every way possible. Gotta love elders!

I had the opportunity to go back up to Stillwater for a baptism. Five of my previous companions were there. It was awesome getting caught up with everybody from the Spanish group and my old district and everybody. The kids were excited to see me, but they were upset that they hadn't grown taller than me in the mere weeks that I had been gone.

Saying goodbye to Norman was tough. It was my home for half my mission. I learned to love the color red (a huge feat for a BYU gal like me). I made so many friends and there was just an awesome feeling to the town. The moment that I arrived back there, I could feel it. It is my home away from home. I love the OU stadium, the OU insignia being everywhere, biking or driving up and down Lindsey street (the main street), and seeing the Oklahoma sky above me. I think that I will always consider that town my second home.

I loved working with the people there. Work-wise, we were in a drought but it gave us the opportunity to really concentrate on those that we were there to work with. This is one of the main families that we were able to work with. They were recent converts and we were able to see the youngest of them baptized as well. It was amazing getting to see them progress and to start coming to church again. 

 One of the really cool privileges that I had was going on exchanges in the Noble Ward. I did that plenty while I had a Sister Training Leader companion during my last round in Norman. This time, though, I was able to go to Lexington (Noble Ward area) and see my best friend's grandparents several times. That was legit! It really meant a lot to me that I was able to do that!

I will never forget the many people that I came in contact with in this town. I will never forget the love that was showed to us missionaries. I will never forget the hospitality and the lessons that members taught us. In this picture, I am arm wrestling Brother Swaim or, as I call him, "Grandpa Swaim". I swear he fed us 3-4 times during my last week. That man sure took care of us as did many others. The Norman 1st Ward was an amazing ward to serve in!

So that is that. That is my last moments in the mission. I loved it so darn much that I cried my first 3 weeks back. Going to Oklahoma, I felt like I was going to a strange land. I had never been east of the Wasatch Front of Utah. I had never been so restricted and so limited in terms of rules. However, it had to be one of the most liberating experiences of my life. It allowed me to forgive my past entirely. It allowed me to open up my heart and to love strangers. It allowed me to see life in a way that I had always limited myself from being able to. Thank you, Oklahoma. Thank you for all that you gave me. So, yes, I went into a land of strangers and I learned to love it. However, coming back home I felt the same way as I did going to Oklahoma. My heart denied that I was going home. I felt like I was going to a strange land. Oklahoma will always have a piece of my heart, but I am sure that any missionary would say that about where they are going.

Stilly (Part 2)

In this post, I will simply post Part 2 of Stilly. Please see Part 1 for any additional information about my time as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka the Mormons) in Stillwater, Oklahoma--home of the OSU Cowboys.

At transfers, I got switched to the other side of the city. We opened up an English area that had zero people to teach at first and zero trailer parks and many people of more wealth than I had encountered during the previous parts of my mission. We did a lot of walking and contacting.

When I talk about wealth, I mean people who lived at a higher quality than the trailer people that had zero heating in my previous few months. Someone even had their own pond with a swan! After weeks of dealing with the literal "3rd world" parts of Stilly, I was floored by it. I am not saying that I am against it, but it was a culture shock.

We lived in a house and got many perks that no other missionaries in our mission got to have. We lived with "grandma" who had her granddaughter and her husband and their baby living with her. There was a dog and a cat (got to break the "no pets" rule!) and a library perfect for studying.

During this time, I got introduced to one of my favorite meals: Stacked Enchiladas. The grandmother who we stayed with's son made them for us a few times when we would go over to his family's house. It is a family tradition of theirs that came from his father's brother who had gone on a baptist mission trip to Honduras. I have not been able to find this variation on the internet, but here is a good variation that I am dying to try.

Like I said, we walked a lot.

Once, we ate duck! So good!

Another time we ate turkey fresh from the kill. Hunted down by "grandma's" grandson-in-law.

On Easter, I got to spend dinner with someone we were teaching, this little girl, and her family. We had a blast making things out of the eggs!

Gotta love the Bible Belt!

An advantage to staying in the same ward as before but in a different area is that I got to see some of the members who I had previously gotten close to.

I also got to see some of the recent converts who I had taught beforehand.

Here is one of the many families that I had the opportunity to work with.

Gotta love Jesus! And I got to see my old companion a lot as well!

In the end, it was time to go, but I had a blast here. Here is my last meal with one of the families that I became close to

It's really hard to say goodbye, but I loved and was loved and good memories made it an awesome experience!

Goodbye, for now :)

Stilly Time (Part 1)

Warning: Prepare for a picture fest!

Stillwater Oklahoma is the home of the OSU Cowboys: a ride into town and you think that they celebrate Halloween all year round. However, don't be fooled. They are very proud of their orange and black colors. If you haven't figured it out yet, Oklahoma is about football and Stillwater is home to another great football team. I had the privilege to serve there for a period of 3 transfers (19 weeks): One ward, two areas, and two languages. At first, I struggled. My companion was from Puerto Rico and I hated taking driving directions in Spanish. It took me about a week to figure out that "derecho" meant "forward" and that "derecha" meant "right". It was a difficult start and somewhat a slap to the face at first. I mean, my first area there (Spanish) we had 40 people to teach and 13 of them committed to baptism when I got there. There was so much to do and nothing was organized (at least by my OCD standards). Eventually we dropped a ton to focus more on the "golden" investigators. Often we would drop 8 one day and pick up a bunch the next day. It was the only area that I ever had where people would pray for us to find and I would dread the stress that that answered prayer would give. We were thankful for the work. It kept us from tracting and if we ever really wanted to tract we would have to schedule that two weeks ahead of time but we would normally have to cancel on that plan to fit in emergency appointments and such.

Pictures from part 1 in "Stilly"

This was my first view of Stillwater pretty much. The area had a ton of trailer parks there and this happened to be in one of them.

My companion was thrilled when we ran into some people from her beloved home of Puerto Rico. They let us talk to them and gave us some of Puerto Rico's version of tamales. My companion called them "pasteles" which is completely different from Mexican "pasteles". It is basically a meat thing rapped in banana leaf. It was new to me and pretty good.

As missionaries, we don't get to go home for holidays. There is no such thing as a weekend or a vacation. It's a 24/7 job. It is what we eat, drink, and breathe. We only call home twice a year, but we do get to write home once a week. Often, members and nonmembers would take pity and reach out to us. They wanted to make sure that we had some holiday tradition to make the time easier. In this case, a couple in the ward invited us over for Christmas Eve. We sang songs, ate food, and played a Christmas game. We really enjoyed that!

On New Years Eve a family that we were teaching knew that I have a deep love for Mexican pozole and so they made it for us. That has to be one of my favorite meals of all time and I had the opportunity to eat it multiple times. It is a very time-consuming dish to make and when made authentically it takes hours to prepare and to cook. The love and the sacrifice that our friends in Oklahoma gave us to feed us (not just talking about this meal but all meals in general) is something that I will always be thankful for.

The best New Years present ever! My second trainer who had gone home months previously came back to visit! I got to spend a short time with her and she came to sports on New Years day.

This is a meal from a restaurant. It is my least favorite meal of all Hispanic foods. I did not know that beforehand, however. It is called "7 Mares". It is basically 7 types of seafood in a soup. It has squid, crab, shrimp, baby octopus, and tons of other stuff. Either I am not really into seafood (before this I thought I was) or it was just not a good dish.

Yes, that is our house that we lived in. Yes, that is me holding a puppy that my Sister Training Leaders (the sisters who shared the house with us) let into the place. Yes, that is me holding the white handbook (rule book for missionaries) to page 46 where it says "Do not keep pets of any kind". 

A big part of being a missionary is eating. A big part of being a missionary in Oklahoma is eating out. Here, our district and the Assistants to the President are eating at Bad Brads. Most of us got what is called "Dirty Fries" which is basically cheesey fries with a type of meat (I got mine with hot links) and a special barbecue sauce. 

My favorite restaurant in Oklahoma is Fuzzy's Tacos. I got introduced to it in Norman and once I found out that Stilly had one too, I had to convince my fellow missionaries to go. On this occasion, my companion and I went on a day that one of the people we were teaching was working. I ordered one of their specialty nachos and it came out to me tripple-sized. He really appreciated that we came to support him. I really enjoyed eating this but I definitely could not eat it all at one sitting.

Oklahoma is the fast food capitol in the world and Sonic is a big thing there. There is one on nearly every corner. Oklahoma invented the place. Sonic is pretty much the thing for missionaries in the summer--half-price shakes after 8 and slushies of a zillion flavors with discounts during "Happy Hour". The best! (It is also the cure to heat exhaustion which you will face if you ride your bike during the 105 degree weather and 90% humidity).

The members were amazing to me. Here, I am sitting with one of the members who I got to see often. She always fed me something. She knew my second favorite Mexican dish--chicken mole (Mole-lay) and I had it often at her place. She also knew that I really enjoyed caffeine (yes, Mormons can drink caffeine--don't talk religious politics to me). They made a game of making sure they had "coka" for me every time I was around. There would be a giant red box of "coka" by the fridge or they would bring a huge cooler of it to church events. 

"Pan Dulce" is a Mexican bread with frosting on it. This type of "pan dulce" was different. It was huge and covered with a thick layer of butter and sugar. It was quite good!

Everybody has to try on a sombrero at some time in their lives!!!

Ciao!

(Wait! There is a Part 2!)

Stormin' Norman

Right after OKC, I found myself being taken to my next area: Norman--the home of the Sooners! I had the opportunity to work with people my own age in the Young Single Adults ward. We knocked on hundreds of doors, taught many lessons, and prayed with most everyone we came in contact with (Have you ever prayed with someone from China who has never ever prayed before and let alone didn't know who Christ was? Or what the Bible was? I have!). People always told me that the people in Oklahoma would not be receptive to our message (after all it is apart of the Bible Belt). I found Oklahoma to be very faith-based, but at the University of Oklahoma I found there to be much faith and yet less faith. It is a school well-known for its engineering programs and so we came across many who were scientific-minded, who didn't know how to feel the spirit, or who succumb to the peer pressure of their social cliques. I spent 17 weeks in this place. There were many laughs and many tears and, in the end, it left me a pure-crimson-blooded Sooner fan.

I got a new and really fun companionship

 I got indoctrinated pretty quickly in becoming a Sooner fan

 The football stadium is the center of the town,

just as football is at the center of their lives.

(My first day at church, one of the leaders got up and said:

"Here in Oklahoma we have two religions: God and football.

Right now, it's football"

Maybe not so much for the LDS culture, but football is life there)

 The symbol of OU is everwhere, even on this Sonic burger.

(Note: Sonic was invented in Oklahoma)

Life in Oklahoma is all about 3 things:

America

OU

and, of course, Braum's Ice Cream

(as this picture depicts)

The campus was the most beautiful campus I had ever seen!

This place really became home.

Here we are making Thanksgiving dinner.

Walking to District Meeting in the dead of winter

Some days were really tough.

Then we'd make it harder by having to choose which flavor ice cream to eat.

Thanks to the elders, though, they often made that choice for us.

The best thing about Norman, though, was the friendships that were made.

And the knowledge that every picture you take is going to be photo-bombed.

Norman taught me so much! It took me places mentally and spiritually that I had never imagined that I would go. It became home! We saw a lot of success and I truly learned what it meant to love others. We experienced fear, love, death, and life. It was truly "the best of times", even though some of it was "the worst of times" (to be talked about in a later post). I am so glad that I got to serve here! Also, I am so glad that I had the opportunity to return (so keep reading future posts!!!).