Monday, May 20, 2013

Hello! 
What a roller coaster of a week! Sorry that I don't have a ton of time to explain too much (I was typing out stories for an hour and then my computer lost connection to the server and therefore connection to the internet and then my time ran out and so I lost everything I typed :( eso es la vida a veces) 
But one of the exciting things that happened this week is that from Tuesday to Thursday last week we spoke pretty much only Spanish to each other! Yah! It was super hard especially during the weekly planning session on Thursday. But this week we were able to finish that even in Spanish all on Thursday (as opposed to going clear onto Saturday like last week). It was exciting and honestly the thing that broke that habit was the exchange we went on. Even though the two exchange sisters are nativas, they didn't have motivation to talk in Spanish like we did, so it broke the habit and that was really hard to get back into. Hopefully we'll be able to get back into that again tomorrow, though.

Speaking of the exchange... I learned a lot and am excited to apply a lot of new things I learned to our proselyting. We already are seeing many good things coming from applying the stuff to our finding and teaching. We did see miracles and I especially loved the comp study we had together. 

But I did not have a good experience from the exchanges. I felt isolated, victimized, and came home very depressed. I had been crying most of the exchange it felt like and I didn't sleep well the night of the exchange because I was also crying. Luckily for me, that provided Hermana Hardy with an opportunity to comfort me. Her only complaint about me was that I haven't let her help me that much with personal things inside me that make me sad or bug me or anything and so when I came home and started crying after the exchange, she got an opportunity to be able to comfort me which meant the world to her. Our companionship was amazing before, but it is better than ever. She also has been so great... like she has made me breakfast the last two days (holy cow... yesterday she made me these muffins that were so good... they were like snickerdoodles in muffin form) and made my bed today. I love her so much!!!

I was also able to comfort her yesterday when absolutely no one came to church even though the day before, 12 people told us they would be there. And again in the night when we had to drop many investigators who we love very dearly. 
But man, I am so excited by the new investigator we found yesterday! She was a referral from other elders in our ward who kind of talked to the daughter when they were in our area helping a member of the obispado. (I was going to say bishopbrick, but I don't think that is spelled correctly, so I'll just use the spanish word, that is easier). But we did a great establishing expectations lesson that felt like it came straight from Preach My Gospel. Even just meeting her was a miracle because our timing was perfect. We had knocked on her door and no one was there so we knocked on a few more doors nearby and then were going to be heading on our way out when a lady and some kids were walking down a path that didn't fit all of us. So we stood at the other end and waited and asked if she happened to know "Paula." She ended up being the mom of Paula and she let us right in. She seems so prepared and when we promised her the blessings that come from listening to our message and acting according to it, her face just lit up and she said that she wants those blessings. I am so excited to continue to teach her. I think we'll be working on finding even more and dropping more quickly the people who aren't progressing so that we can find those who will. 
I really feel like we are climbing a mountain right now. The mountain is that others aren't progressing. It hurts a lot. But I have faith and hope in the promises I was given when I was set apart. I feel like when we get over this mountain and from the muscles and skills we've developed having to climb it that much success will follow. 
Oh! One cool thought that I had yesterday. I've decided that something I want to do in my life is to write out goals my bigger goals (maybe not daily, but some weekly, some monthly, or other big goals I want to accomplish in my life) on a piece of paper and take a picture of myself holding that goal and then that picture gets hung up in a place where I see it often until I accomplish it. Then I want to create a special book or scrapbook where I can put the pictures of the goals that I've accomplished. (maybe just the picture itself or maybe do a scrapbook of the original goal paper and the picture of me with the goal and then a picture of the goal being achieved.) I feel like that would be so great to be able to flip through a special scrapbook or photo journal of all these goals that I've made in my life that I've achieved. It could be things like "I will go to the Grand Canyon before the end of the year" and have a picture of you there or it could be "I will run in a half marathon" (or a marathon... or even a mile straight) and have a picture of you running it or it could be "I will master charity" and have mini pictures of charitable things you did. I feel very inspired by this and I think I definitely want to apply it throughout my life! I mean even being able to add the achieved goal to the special book makes me want to achieve more of my goals!

That's about all the time I have for now, but I hope you have a wonderful week!!! Tenga el espiritu consigo para siempre! 
~Hermana Whetten 
ps- I think I'll try to not think too hard about my hitting my one year mark this week or I might start freaking out a little bit. ahhh