Esperanza Rising

- March 25, 2019

Hello and good morning!

I got to go on an awesome exchange this week with Hermana Sears, from San Fernando! She is super awesome and way funny. It was really fun to reminisce about San Fernando with her. She's also just a tad trunky, despite the fact that she has two more transfers left after I go home, so she used me being in my last transfer as an excuse to say some pretty funny trunky thinks. ; ) We had a lot of fun though, worked hard, and saw some cool miracles! It brought me a lot of hope. We also had interviews this week. I can testify that our leaders really are called of God. It is so cool to be able to recognize that.

Spraking of which, conference is coming up! I'm so excited! I hope that everyone takes the time to prepare themselves to listen to the prophet and apostles speak.

Favorite Spiritual Thought:

In Helaman 7, Nephi had come to a pretty tough spot. His people were so wicked, and he was doing everything he possibly could to help them to repent, and yet, they got worse and worse. Sometimes, we are placed in situations that are harder - spiritually or temporally - than we wish they were. Sometimes we wish that those circumstances were different. But we have to recognize that the Lord needs us to work in those situations for a reason. He has a purpose for us, and He's not going to waste time or efforts. We have to trust Him and seek His direction, because that's what gives us the hope to keep going.

Favorite Spiritual Moment:

On the exchange with Hna Sears, we were looking for someone who lived in this random trailer park. The number system didn't make any sense at all, so we kept asking people where number 10 was and everyone kept giving us really weird directions. We finally figure it all out though and found the right one. We met this lady named Esperanza, which means "hope" in Spanish. We talked to her about who we are and got a return appointment, but as we were about to go, I felt like there was something we still needed to talk about, so in my broken Spanish, I pushed the conversation a little further and did my best to testify of how the gospel blesses families. Hermana Sears jumped in to help me, and it was so cool to feel the change in the Spirit that happened. For whatever reason, we needed to talk about families. She seemed to pay so much more attention after that, and it made such a greater impact.

Favorite Miracle:

We had a mini lesson with Sister Buss after church yesterday where we reviewed the ten commandments. It was a super simple lesson and it honestly was really short too. We just sat on the grass outside. It was just a little tender mercy to me though because she wants to much to understand these commandments so she can live them. And it was amazing how, even with such a short, simple lesson, the Spirit was there so pleasantly. I love the Spirit. It's so great to be able to recognize the things of God in such a wonderful way.

Favorite Funny Thing:

We walk in on Hermana Despain and Sister Tonga doing weird things all the time, haha. A couple of days ago, we came in and they were playing Concentration 64, a hand game a lot of sixth grade girls like to play, for language study. We heard them start on vegetables, which was funny in itself to hear what they named, but then Hermana Despain named "commandments" as the next category. She then immediately named off "Don't kill," and it caught Sister Tonga off guard so bad that she fell over on the floor laughing.

Until we meet again, love you all!

Love,

Sister Garfield