No Sales Tax in Oregon. (June 23, 2014)

Familia y Amigos! 

Yep, that's right. I got transferred. I'm in Ontario, Oregon!! I'm staying with Hermana Poblete and we are taking over some elders' area. We're the first Spanish sisters ever to be serving in Ontario. They've always had elders. So we're making history!! It's kinda nerve-wracking, but also exciting.

As for this last week, 2 of the days Hermana Poblete was sick, so I spent a lot of time at home, studying and other things. One of the days, we needed to get out of the house, so we went for a drive. We went and checked out the address of where I used to live in Nampa!! I'm pretty sure I found the right house! It was weird. Some things about the neighborhood I remember, but it's a little different, which is understandable after almost 20 years. But we didn't actually knock on the house or anything like that, sadly. If/when I get transferred back to Nampa, I'll go and convert them to the gospel!! (I took a picture like a stalker, but I have to unpack my camera chord to be able to send it. Next week.)

Also this week, we went to the house of a lady we're teaching and sewed clothes. She taught us how to make skirts and dresses without a pattern! That was pretty cool. So I made a dress (you'll see next week) and H. Poblete made a skirt. I also made a tie out of our leftover fabric. It was really fun and I loved being able to spend time with them.

But we had a really cool experience this week. So H. Poblete was sick with flu/fever type symptoms. She just needed to sleep and get better. Then late at night, she started having sharp side pains. She wasn't able to sleep and was worried about what it was. We live with a nurse and even with her help, we still didn't get any comfort for her. She wanted a blessing but it was so late. Past midnight. But we called our zone leaders and they answered. They were worthy and willing to get up and come to give her a blessing. I was really impressed and grateful for them and for the power they had. The priesthood.

Which is, conveniently, what we taught a lesson in Young Womens about this last Sunday. When I was studying for it, I learned a lot. The coolest thing I learned was the difference between the priesthood, the keys of the priesthood, and then the authority of the priesthood. I read Elder Oaks(?) talk from this last general conference in the priesthood session. The keys and authority of the priesthood. The priesthood is the power of God. Then the keys are the ability to use and direct the priesthood. And then the authority is the strength and help from God. We all have access to the authority of the priesthood. That's pretty awesome!

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

Con amor,

Hermana Shirley

I'm Back!!

Hola everyone!!
This is Hermana Shirley here, or Kelsey now! I arrived home last week, on May 26th, 2015. It has been weird and awesome coming back, but I'll post about that later. For now, I'm going to update the blog on all of my emails since June 2014. Classic Shirley girls, get backed up on updating and getting stuff done. But I'll just put it all up now. Prepare yourself! ;)
Kelsey

Dia Del Padre!

Familia y Amigos!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY (yesterday)!! Our ward had an activity on Saturday to celebrate fathers. Us missionaries did skits for the entertainment. The elders all acted out the story of Nephi and his brothers and us hermanas did one where we dressed up as fathers. It was pretty funny. And then the primary children turned off all the lights and put glow sticks on their bodies and then danced to gangham style. It was SO cute! I think it went well. Also, I forgot to mention that last week for church, Hna Poblete and I and another sister in the ward sang a musical number! We weren't amazing, but we did pretty good. We were joking about it and realized that Hispanics don't really focus on singing and musical things, sooo we'd be alright.

We're trying really hard for people to progress and doing what we can. We have a lot of work to do. We met a man named Marc for the first time this last week and he said to us right off the bat that he wanted to come to our church. AND HE CAME! It was so exciting. He's really interested and we're going to go back and teach him more. It was a total blessing to meet him!

I especially learned a lot about the Plan of Salvation this week. We had an investigator ask about why Satan was cast out, why Heavenly Father didn't give him another chance. I had never thought about it that way, so I studied that a lot. It wasn't because Heavenly Father didn't love him, but because of Satan's own choice. He rebelled and wanted to do everything against Heavenly Father. Whatever was contrary to Heavenly Father is what Satan did. He didn't tempt Adam and Eve to eat the fruit because it was what we needed to progress, but he did it because it was what Heavenly Father had commanded them not to do. He fights against Heavenly Father and the right every moment of the day and THAT is why he was cast out and why we teach to avoid sin. Because Heavenly Father loves us, He gave us agency and the opportunity to choose for ourselves, even though He knows we're going to make mistakes. When we DO sin and rebel against Heavenly Father, we leave His presence. It's hard, but we go through it to grow and learn in this life. And Heavenly Father knew we would fall, so he gave us a way to return back. Pretty cool.

Yo les quiero saber que se que este iglesia es solamente la verdad en el mundo. El evangelio, que Jesucristo enseno cuando fue en la tierra, es restaurado otra vez. Y lo tenemos. Tenemos la autoridad para ensenarle. Se que nuestro padre celestial nos ama muchisimo. Por eso, nos da una plan para que podemos ser felizes y podemos regresar a vivir con El. Se que el Libro de Mormon es verdadero y que recibimos respuestas de oraciones por este libro. Con sinceridad, siento el espiritu y el amor de Dios cuando lo leo. Cada vez. Testifico que por medio de la expiacion y Jesucristo podemos ser y sentir limpos. El nos entiende. Porque sufrio todo que pasamos en esta vida. TODO! Que incredible! Lo quiero compartir con ustedes porque he lo visto en mi vida y YO SE que es verdad.

1) Sara the turtle. I like taking pictures with animals.

2) The skit

3) The primary kids, if you can see them.

Peaching and Preaching

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Another week here in Nampa! This week we were threwn for a loop and found out that the mission was changing how we were counting numbers. Sooo we had to start focusing on teaching a certain type of lesson and it meant that a lot of what we were doing doesn't count in our numbers. Long story short, we did a lot of things this week and were really hard a work, but when we told our leaders the numbers of what we did, it was pretty low. So that was disheartening. Buuuut, we're doing well and we know we were doing good things, so we're happy with our week.

As for exciting news for the week, we got permission and were able to go to the church orchards in Marsing this week! Our ward has their own row of peach trees (and probably more produce that I didn't hear about) that they have to take care of. So we went as a ward and us missionaries got to go too! It was really fun and really cool to see the view and everything. But the fruit isn't that big yet, it's just starting to grow. What we were doing was lightening the branches. We go through and take off a lot of the peaches to leave space between them. This will lighten the branches so that they grow bigger and better. And it'll decrease the chance that the branches will break off from weight. So we waste fruit to save the rest of the crop. Sound like a parable or something?

Other exciting news, we have this brand new investigator whose name is Nancy. She's 14. We met her family a few weeks ago, but we didn't get to teach her anything because she was out the door. But we went back and got to know her a little better and invited her to a ton of activities. And she actually came to sports night and had a good time. And then she was going to come to mutual but then they were just doing stuff for girls camp, so she didn't go. We went back later that night and told her all about girls camp and invited her to come. She wants to come and was really serious about it! And she told us about how she has a lot of friends who are members and is really interested in what we believe and going to activities. It was a really cool blessing to meet her and she has a really big desire to learn.

Speaking of activities, we also had a ward fireside/bonfire activity. We had a literal FIREside. It was really fun and us missionaries shared a message of Jesus Christ. Each companionship talked about a different aspect of the Atonement. The Atonement is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It includes His bleeding and suffering in the garden of Gethsemane, the crucifixion, and Resurrection. Those 3 parts. What Hna. Poblete and I talked about was how the Atonement lifts our burdens. The talk in General Conference by Elder Bednar about burdens helped a lot. In this life, we have to have some burdens and stresses and experiences to be able to grow and learn. We would be stagnant if we didn't go through hard things. We would never learn anything if we didn't have to test it out and try different things and stretch ourselves. With that said, the Atonement is there to help us in our burdens. Jesus Christ will make our burdens feel lighter. We will still have them, but they will be lighter because of the strength we receive from the Atonement and Heavenly Father's love for us. And through that divine help, we can make it through ANY trial or burden or experience we face on earth. That's pretty comforting to me.

Hope you all have a great week and I love you!

Con amor,

Hermana Shirley

1) The bonfire

2) Sometimes you just need a ice-cream-truck-treat. TMNT anyone?

3) Tried a new angle. Flattering, I know.

4) Nancy

5) Us all working on the last tree.

6) The view over the valley.

To be spicy or not to be spicy?

Familias y Amigos!

This was a reallllly good week! We got a TON done! We met our goal for lessons and some of the people we've been working with came to an activity we had this week.

On Tuesday, we contacted a referral and it was this little couple. They're Mexican and they were making spicy food. Coincidentally, I started coughing and they started laughing at me. It wasn't actually because of the spice, but I just went with it and they invited us back to eat dinner on Saturday! Then when we went back, the husband was completely drunk. He pulled out and drank 5 beers while we were there... And his friend, Jack, came over. They started ranting back and forth about the problems in the world and about the government. We just sat back and watched. SO ENTERTAINING. Then the wife came back and started talking about how she found a girlfriend for her son--my companion! There was lots of eye communication with my companion and stifling laughs. The food we ended up eating wasn't even that spicy! But Hermana Poblete is from Argentina and their food is really not spicy. So she couldn't even handle it. It was really seasoned Mole (I'm not sure how to spell it). I really liked it and we ended up eating a lot.

But as for this week, I studied and learned a lot more about the gospel. Faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. I realized that I knew what it was, but not well enough to teach it or respond to questions. So I studied the importance of specifically baptism. We get baptized to make a covenant with Heavenly Father that if we keep the commandments and always remember him and try to be like him, he will bless us with the Holy Ghost to guide us and comfort us. So we are baptized as a representation of the covenant we make, but also because we want to follow the example of Christ. And one of the amazing blessings is that we get to be clean from our sins and have the gift of the Holy Ghost. That's amazing. And it takes all that guilt off our shoulders. All because of the Atonement.

Hope you all have an amazing week!

Con amor,

Hermanita Shirley

1) I got some new sunglasses. Classic me.

2) PUPPY! (We went to the YSA Bishop's house and he had a bunch of lab puppies. I'm not sure if I sent this picture before...)

Happy Week!

Familia y Amigos!

Another very interesting week in Nampa. We did a lot of work and found 7 new investigators!! We actually met a man yesterday who when we walked up, he told us he had wanted to come to our church to learn what we believe. It helps that a lot of the people who own land and farms and dairies are members. It sparks interest. But we invited him and we'll see if he comes! A lot of times people start describing what they believe and it's exactly the same as us. We have just been trying to emphasize that our church is centered in Jesus Christ. That's the impression we want to make.

It was Hermana Poblete's birthday on Friday, so I made zebra cupcakes for her. She loves Zebra. We have a mutual love for animal print. We had sports night for our ward that night and they brought a cake and sang to her. They sang this other birthday song in Spanish that I had never heard before. She also wanted to celebrate by making milanesas. It's basically breaded beef. It was really good.

I also did exchanges that night and went with one of my favorite sisters from Kuna who got changed to Caldwell. English missionary work is very different. It made me very grateful for Spanish. Even though it's harder to know how to teach and what to say, the people are so nice and welcoming all the time. They are very open and respectful with us. I love my area and my mission!

One really cool thing I learned this week is about progression. This gospel is about progression. It's hard not to judge people for where they're at right now, but if we were able to see where people were and THEN where they're at right now, we would be a lot more understanding. But we need to remember that. We have no idea what's going on in people's lives or what they've been through, but that's what makes them who they are. Everyone has a different perspective and something to add to the world and the church. And that's my favorite thing about the church, that it's for everyone. It focuses on being better. Progressing. It doesn't matter where we're at right now. And that is one of the really cool things about the gospel. There's something for everyone. Studying the doctrine of the church will help us progress and be better in some way! And Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will help us with that.

I hope you all have an amazing week!

Con amor,

Hermana Shirley

1) Sunset in Nampa

2) We both wore stripes on Sunday and I had to get a last-minute picture before I changed for the night.

3) The Milanesa

4) Our matching colors at Zone Conference this week.

Viva Las Nampa!

Hola familia y amigos!

So I'm here in Nampa!! First week. We cover the whole Nampa South Stake in Spanish. There are 8 or 9 wards in the English south then we go to our Spanish ward. It's been very different than Kuna, but really good. My companion is Hna. Poblete. She's from Argentina but moved to Texas when she was 6. So Spanish and English are both her native language. It's really great. She likes to talk, but we actually teach together really well. And we're having a lot of fun.

Nampa Spanish is a lot bigger than Kuna. The ward is about 5 times bigger! We fill up a chapel. A LOTTT bigger than our little Kuna branch. Already I've met a lot of people and am starting to get the hang of how things run around here. I get to drive, so I'm learning the area pretty fast.

We had our first district meeting with our new English district on Friday. It was really different. Our district is bigger and there are now more elders than sisters. But they seem really great. It'll be fun to get to know the English missionaries in the area and work with them.

We had a really cool experience yesterday. We went to contact this referral we actually had from when I was in Kuna/Melba. I had found this family in Melba only to find out after that it was in the South Stake (where I am now). So I got to go back with H. Poblete. Their names are Maria and Carlos. They weren't there, but we had driven all the way out there, so we decided to just knock on the neighbors' doors. It's a good thing that we did, because we met this really nice guy named Miguel. When we first asked, he said he was atheist and I got kinda nervous, but he was just kidding and was really willing to listen to us. We're going to come back again next week. Then we realized that they actually lived close to other investigators who we hadn't been able to visit because they were so far out there. So we went and visited them all and had really good visits. There's a whole group of open people out there and we can just take a day and visit them all out there at the same time. It's really convenient. The Lord blesses us in little ways like that. I love being here and being able to recognize stuff like that. Heavenly Father is in this work and willing to help us out if we reach out and show Him we're willing to act.

Have an amazing week, everyone!

Con amor,

Hermanita Shirley

1) Hermana Poblete. She likes to take selfies.

2) Selfies with all the girls in our ward.