9/17/13

hello family!

so this was a busy, long week. Last monday we had family home evening with some members and we invited a less active family and then another family came and brought their sister thats from the DR.  She's only going to be here for a little bit but we are teaching her for now.  Tuesday we had a training meeting in Ponce on the south side of the island.  we drove past some wind turbines, i thought id mention that for dads sake.  Wednesday we went on splits with the sisters in Humacao.  Thats not too far from our area. I worked with a new sister from Honduras for the day.  It was really nice.  We visited one of her investigators 

so I learned that I  need to invite everyone that we teach to be baptized to give them the opportunity to choose.  

so we are visiting her.  we left her a pamphlet to read and she told her cousin she liked it a lot so we are visiting her and sharing more and then we will refer them to the sisters in St. Thomas.  This week we also visited a member that has been inactive for a few years.  She was really into family history work and had done a ton.  We talked to her and invited her to the temple night where the members do family history work and she came!  She said that she felt the spirit as soon as she entered the chapel again.  We went to help her the next day at her house with an older lady that is living in the back part of her house.  And when we were moving the stuff we started talking to the lady.  We mentioned that she could look for her ancestors and she told us that she has been looking for a way to trace her ancestors for decades.  It really is amazing how Heavenly Father is preparing the hearts of the people around us.  And puts the right people in your path.  On Tuesday night we are going to take both of them to family history night.  We also have a baptismal date on the 28th that we are working for.  She's been going to church for years we just have to help her with a few trials before.  Yesterday was stake conference and everyone got a preach my gospel. The church is really focusing on getting members to do missionary work and finding people to teach.  So my suggestion is that you guys get a preach my gospel too and start studying a little section for family home evening and pray about someone you can invite the missionaries to teach!  Well thats all for this week.  But thank you for the birthday packages i can't wait!  Crazy that im turning 20!  Love to all!

Hermana Cole

*took out personal details concerning investigators

9/9/13 (6 month mark!)

Dear Family,

So this week I will hit my 6 month mark crazy!  I can't believe I've already been out here a third of my mission.  Its going by so fast!  So I don't think I told you guys yet but I'm serving as the sister trainer right now.  So this week I went on splits in Bayamon.  That was fun.  I really like working with all of the sisters.  Our mission has about a little less than 40 sisters in it I think.  Anyways this week we've just been working with our investigators lots.  They've been progressing, but its hard sometimes.  Lots of people know the Bible really well and interpret it in so many ways.  I just have to remember the promise that as long as I have the spirit with me, I will not be confounded by men.  You really have to have a lot of faith in lessons like that so that's what my companion and I are working on.  We met with the bishop and the ward council this week and  talked about the ward mission plan.  Its really awesome to see how all the callings in the ward are revolved around mission work and how if we all do our part we can help the work grow.  So we are really focusing this week in helping the Bishop put the ward mission plan into action.  Does our ward have a mission plan?

Anyways thanks for all the pictures of the 4 wheeling.  Looks like it was super fun.  Everyone is just so busy with everything.  crazy about the storm in costco.  thats weird for utah.  normal for puerto rico haha.  anyways, this week ive been thinking about the law of consecration and what that means to us as latter day saints.  Elder Anderson spoke a lot about it and how we really promise to give everything to the church when asked.  Even a calling or a simple assignment in the church is part of the law of consecreation.   The ym/ yw activity sounded like lots of fun!  Im glad that you were able to use all of our fun stuff.  And tell Mallory congratulations on her call.  Thats so exciting!  

Well I have to go but I love you all :)  

hermana Cole

9/2/13

Hello family! How is everyone this week?

So this has been a busy week!  Tuesday was transfers and now im here in Caguas!  I like it so far, the ward is awesome.  I am excited to work with them.  Its far from the beach so its a lot hotter, but its still really pretty.  My companion is Sister Stevens.  She's from Chandler, Az.  We talk about bahama bucks.  Her parents are serving up at the girls camp right now cool huh?  So you guys are just a few miles apart!  Anyways its weird not knowing the area yet so im excited to start establishing everything and get the work going!  We have a few people that we are going to try to have a baptism date for soon.  So we will be really focusing on that this next week.  We had a zone conference on thursday and Elder Anderson and his wife came and talked to us.  He is the carribean area authority.  That was really good.  They focused a lot about sacrifice.  Thats something that I think we are going to focus more on with our investigators.  In order to recieve the Lord's blessings we need to sacrifice something, whether it be our time, our possessions or our sins.  

So it sounds like everyone is doing well with school and work and everything.  Im glad you're all getting settled into your new lives and jobs.  I hope you are all enjoying your labor day and swiss days!  crazy that in two weeks i will be out for 6 months! time is going by way to fast!  And there is just so much work to do! well i hope you all enjoy your week and ponder about something that you can sacrifice for the Lord!  

hermana cole

8/26/13

Dear Family

I am just so happy because we had a baptism on Saturday! yay it was so great. it was orginally for sunday but theres always a bunch of trials before baptism and so on saturday we had to change it to that day so it was happen.  But they were able to be baptized! And our other investigator is going to wait about another month until her mom feels more comfortable. And we have another baptismal date for the end of september with an investigator we've been working with since i got here.  And right when you start to have success you're called somewhere else haha. so tomorrow i will be headed to caguas, which is like overflow of san juan.  so it will be really different than campo here in manati.  Im sad to leave all my investigators and this area but im excited to go to caguas.  

OH i was going to tell you to check lds.org because apparently my picture is in the carribean missioary work part haha. also i will try to send photos for real this week. oh also i got lice again. or i guess i never got rid of it the first time so im still working with that.. but i found out that jasmine got it too haha so we are both struggling there.  i can't believe ally comes home on wednesday crazy!!! that went by so fast! and im already almost a third of the way done too.  its going by too fast! well i am going to try to send more pictures but i love you all.  i will give you more updates next week about my new area and everything! 

From church website

8/19/13

Hello family!  

How is everyone doing?  Sounds like the graduation went well, congratulations to Lauren and Spencer!  So exciting that you're finally graduated! I loved all the pictures of the graduation.  Loved all the outfits! Im glad that zack could go to the party, sounds like it was fun.  So jealous that everyone went camping before school starts.  It's been raining a lot here too.  

Anyways mainly on p days we just clean and wash the car and do our emails.  Sometimes we end up teaching lessons if mondays are the only days that the investigators can do.  Last week we went to the outlets though that are in the outskirts of our area so that was fun to look at all the stores.  I am healthy and safe haha don't worry.  Except this week I did burn myself on a grill, cooking for a member haha.  Its ok now though I put some aloe vera plant stuff on it and its healing fast.  

Yesterday was stake conference.  The temple president from the DR and his wife spoke and so did our mission president and his wife and some other people from the stake.  It was really good.  We even had two investigators come.  Which was impressive considering that it was about 20 miles away.  So that was really good!  And one of our investigators told us that she received her answer and wants to be baptized on Sunday!  So we are super excited.  It will be a busy week preparing everyone for their baptism!  Tonight we have a family home evening at a less active members house.  She wanted to invite lots of people to come so we are hoping that we can find new investigators and invite more less active members.  We are going to do a little activity and role play with the tree of life!  Oh and I got the package this week .  Thank you so much!  I've been using everything haha.  The picture book really helped this week.  Its good to be able to visualize the stories sometimes.  And my companion was really excited about all the stuff so thank you!  

Anyways I hope everyone is doing well and is getting ready for school to start!  This week I've been studying about the gift of agency and just how much control we really do have over our lives.  It really is a blessing that we have the ability to make our own choices and determine our own path.  So keep in mind that every action has a consequence, whether it be good or bad.  And that Satan will provide temptations to entice us to make poor decisions but Heavenly Father will provide blessings to help us do good.  Read 2 Nephi 2!

Well I hope you are all well.  I love you all and you are in my prayers! 

Hermana Cole 

8/12/13

hello family! 

wow i can't believe its been another week already!  crazy!  and tomorrow is my 5 month mark.  this week was really good!  we had a lot of member present lessons and we had 5 of our investigators come to church!  which is good because its hard for people to get rides.  i think we've finally figured out some legal stuff with one of the families we are teaching so we should be baptizing the little girl in two weeks!  ahhh its so frustrating that satan always puts obstacles right before a baptism.  but it just makes us work harder!  this week we had a fun family home evening with the kids that we baptized a while ago.  we made name tags for everyone in the family and they were the missionaries for the night.  we invited the bishop and his wife to come over and they were the investigators and they taught the first lesson!  The kids really liked getting dressed up like the missionaries and even memorized their parts!  

this week the front grate of our car was stolen haha. so that was weird. doesn't effect the car at all it just looks weird.  today i found a lice still living in a towell from two weeks ago.  ahhh i think they are out of my hair but apparently they can live for more than 2 weeks without blood so we are still cleaning that up haha.  

i hope that mom enjoyed her birthday!  sounds like st george is a nice little trip before school starts. and congrats to lauren and spencer for graduating yay!  send the puppies my love.  one of the members dogs had puppies and so i played with them for a little bit.. haha but dont' worry they were clean.  its been raining a little bit more this week.  we had a nice break from the rain but i think it will start up again.  the temperature is still perfect though!  i tell everyone im coming back for christmas with all the fam so better start planning for that ;) haha anyways.. so fun that stuarts family came to visit!  i bet that the twins loveedddd the puppy.  and i can't believe that joey is even taller!  he's going to me twice the height of me when i come back!  and logan is so close to leaving on his mission too!  crazy!  i am so excited for him!  this is the best time for missionary work, everything is changing!  

well you are all in my prayers!  my scripture for this week is alma 37: 44- 25!  Following Christ is the easy way to live life!  

love to all xoxo

hermana cole