The Daily News

MONDAY:

- new companion, hermana tipton 

- Maria's birthday cake dropoff

TUESDAY:

- getting used to new companions

- ran a little with sister ah kuoi and did a good workout!

- made German pancakes for everyone! 

- had my first lesson with hermana tipton it went well I think...

- WE FINISHED THE RICARDI LETTERRRR (spirit, crying, the works)

- had my second lesson with hermana tipton it 

- sister suman made homemade reese's!!!!!!!!!! I can't adequately express how good those were!!!!! 10/10

- we sat outside and it was actually a really nice night :)

WEDNESDAY:

- we went to in and out with esther Jordan (told us a story about her sister having a gun and almost killing her husband)

- met the Bell family who loves missionaries and had us sign their missionary guest book

THURDAY:

- we have a quadpanionship again with hermana suman!

- we got to visit maria in her house!! AND she read her book of mormon all the way to 2 nephi 7!!!!! so proud of herrrr!

- sister cardoza gave us her SUPER good tea and she talked to us about her healing tuning forks like tara haha

- WE ATE SOME BOMB HOMEMADE HAMBURGERS

- psych. we also were given dinner from carmina (a member) sooooo I pounded two dinners..... :) they were super good tacos though

FRIDAY

-district council

-drives

-haha I actually love hermana tipton

SATURDAY 

- had a lesson with brittany

- we went for a nice long walk

- we had to drop our friend hilda :/

SUNDAY

- waffle bar breakfast at the Bagleys ranch, one of their sheep totally biffed it on their slip and slide. lol

- fun Facebook finding time

QUOTES from hna Tipton 

- "it's like sad boy hours for missionaries"

- "I dont want to condem anyone, I'll let them do that themselves"

- "that dress looks like my grandmas curtains but I kinda like it"

They Call Me Ranch Cuz I Be Dressin'

hola hola todos! cómo están!

this week was a bit of a roller coaster... we still have the STLs with us because of the fires so 9 people are staying at our house right now, it's a bit stressful. on monday I had to say goodbye to my trainer hermana miranda, and sister dribnak, (that was super sad I definitely bawled) but I got to meet my new companion hermana tipton (like the hotel ;))! so it has been a weird mix of sad, stressful, busy, and happy all at the same time

fun facts about hermana tipton:

- she's 8 inches taller than me

- she was a swimmer too!

- she is from arizona by snowflake

- she is one of the funniest people ever haha!

- she's at about 13 months in the mission

- her dad got shot 7 times (and he lived)

- she has met the guy who plays Jesus in the bible videos

mom says that when I email the top two things I write about are food and lessons... which is pretty accurate. but this week my food highlight was that we made homemade burgers! sister suman is the best at making food!! woahhh they were soooo good and by the end of dinner I was so full. like SO FULL.

now for one of my lesson highlights. actually right after our burger dinner we went to a lesson at carmina (a member)'s house. we walked in and saw her in an apron with a kitchen full of food for tacos al pastor. we totally forgot that she was planning on making dinner for us! long story short my companions and I also ate four tacos each (think the cake scene in matilda) and i about went into a food coma on her couch during our lesson, but she's the best and her food was worth it.

also funny story. yesterday at our member dinner (which was actually a waffle bar brunch with icecream. be jealous.) we were watching the sheep running around on the hillside. they started stampeding down the hill by an old plastic slip-n-slide and one of the sheep slipped on the plastic and toTALLY biffed it!!!!!! HAHAHA that was hilarious I wish I had a video.

these past few days I've been thinking a lot about prayer. I wanted to share some miracles I've seen with our friend maria, someone we've been teaching since I got here. a couple weeks ago we were kinda bummed about her. we hadn't had contact for 2 weeks and there were a bunch of roadblocks. i was nervous that when we did get contact maria wouldn't want to continue meeting with us. that p-day I told my family to help and to pray that we could meet with her, which seemed unlikely at the time. it was amazing! within in a few days we were able to have contact and she accepted an inviation to be baptized! during that lesson we also invited her to read the book of mormon everyday. we had read the first chapter of the book of mormon with her in a lesson but in the past this has been hard for her because she nannys at her house. but this week when we went to her house she had already read to 2 nephi!! I'm so proud of her!! she is doing awesome!! I know that prayer is powerful and that God still performs miracles among his children, we just need to have faith and work to see those miracles in our lives. 

y'all are the best! les amo mucho! paz fuera! 

xoxo

hermana wagssss 

pictures: weekly planning, hermana tipton, the gang

Surely Not Everyone Was Kung Fu Fighting

MONDAY

- we made apple crisp!

- we went to schat's bakery and I got a berry personal pie

- it was pouring rain today!

- we went all around downtown ukiah and went to a book store

- my feet peeled 

- we did face masks with everyone :)

TUESDAY

- district council over zoooom

- sloooooow day. we only left the house once to go for a walk around the house. really sad honestly. 

- I had a yummy popsicle though!

WEDNESDAY 

- I had a really good omelet with a pepper from the garden in it

- we got some super yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! soooooooo heavenly!

- the sisters in lakeport got evacuated because of the fire and had to come to the red house!! they packed up all their stuff and they slept here. we had some really yummy breakfast burritos with them

- spent 2 hours cleaning a NASTY house. VERY nasty. this lady had a stroke and was in the hospital. I cleaned the bathroom and mopped the kitchen floor. you would be so proud. 

- we saw ESTHER JORDAN she is the cutest old lady I love her! she's moving next week so we want to see her before, we're gunna teach her on Saturday 

- WE WENT TO THE JONES AGAIN AND WE GOT A PICTURE 

THURSDAY 

- it's so weird to have 9 sisters in our house!

- maria didn't answer our calls again today :/ hopefully we can get a lesson with her soon!

- we got to visit sister cardoza again and we had the most amazing kiwi cherry coconut tea and chocolate chip cookies. we talked about faith and belief and unbelief fun stuff!

- we let some of the elders in our zone into the church to sleep, they got evacuated today

FRIDAY

- we dropped off food for the 6 elders staying at the church 

- we played chair soccer at the church

- one of ukiah b's investigators gave them red lingerie BAHAHAHAHAHANANA

- we visited ESTHER !!! she offered to take us out to lunch at in and out next week!

- we got drinks at happy donuts!

- we called maria and SHE ANSWERED! we taught her about the gospel of jesus christ; faith, repentance, baptism, and the sacrament. she said she wants to be baptized!!! she's not married to her husband and is illegal sooo we need to figure that out but yes. :)

- we called joel and I got to share a spiritual experience about receiving answers to questions in the scriptures 

- after our lesson one of the members in Hopland showed us their beautiful garden! so pretty! I have pictures of her pumpkins

SATURDAY 

- we played chair soccer with the elders at the church! there were about 12 of us haha! way fun!

- WE GOT TO CALL MARIA AGAIN AND WE READ THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE BOOK OF MORMON!

- we had dinner with sister wagner at the church and DANG that lady can cook

- hermana miranda is going to be an STL in woodland and hermana morgan and i will be getting sister tipton here in ukiah!

SUNDAY

- we had sacrament with ALL the missionaries almost a half our zone lol

- hermana miranda leaves tomorrow! whatttt 

QUOTE: 

"the creation required the fall. the fall required the Atonement. the Atonement enabled the purpose of the creation to ge accomplished. eternal life, made possible by the Atonement, is the supreme purpose of the creation" -president nelson (Oct. 1996 G.C.)

Only YOU Can Prevent Wildfires

hola hola amigos! qué pasa? 

so apparently YOU didn't do your job very well because california is on fire... but it's all good we're all safe. a handful of missionaries have had to leave their areas and be evacuated to my area (ukiah). we've been having our STLs stay with us in the red house, and 6 elders are staying at our stake center down the street....soooo.... THE BEST NEWS is that with all the new people our chair soccer tournaments are really taking off ;)

haha just kidding, chair soccer has been fun but it's been a busy week! we had a lot of really good lessons, and we finally got in contact with our friend maria! we had a great lesson with her and we read the first chapter of the book of mormon with her! she's awesome! I'm so excited for her to read more :)

some other exciting news: I'm staying in ukiah for another transfer with hermana morgan!! sister ah kuoi, and moala will be here too!! my other companion hermana miranda is going to woodland :'/ (but good news! she's training and she'll be a sister training leader too! she'll be awesome!!)

one spiritual thing I loved this week was reading come follow me! one of my all time fav scriptures out there (its probably one of your favs too) was in this week's reading. its helaman 5:12. it says,

"and now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

this time, it reminded me of a quote by Elder Holland, he said, "in spite of everything else this [church] may offer us, it will mean little or nothing unless we find Jesus at the center of it all". Christ is the center of the gospel and should be the center of our testimonies too. if we build our foundation on Him we cannot fall. 

sorry that was a long one haha and if you read these all the way through thanks you're the realest haha have a great week! les amo mucho! 

paz fuera!

xoxo

hermana wags

pictures: red house fam <3, GOOBI STREET

Updates ;)

- the young family lesson was so powerful! the spirit definitely guided that lesson and I was able to lead it out!

- a mom did a handstand in our fhe lesson! (lady used to be a gymnast and went to nationals back in the day)

- I made some random pesto cheese and ham quesadillas dipped in salsa and they were pretty good

- I did this weird foot mask to make my feet baby soft (I'll update you if it worked) also hna. morgan says I might have a type of wart that grows in........

- we did phone call contacting and we got FOUR lessons out of it! that's a new record!!

- listen to "at the table" by josh garrels

- I got mistaken for a jehovah's witness hahaha

- a lady in our ward has a huge sailboat in her backyard that her husband built haha

- the sisters were given an ORIGINAL STAR WARS POSTERRRRR super cool

- dad! I've seen so many jack in the boxes restaurants haha I just think of you for some reason... didn't we talk about those one time?

- my companions force me to talk in our phone call lessons lol it's really hard to understand over the phone so that's the worst but also its good for me haha I just feel dumb sometimes haha

- we had tea and pie at a members home up in the hills (she rich rich) i felt quite british ;)

- we got lost in this farm town part of our area called potter valley (what's new?) and we saw a bunch of cows and a literal herd of elk (probably 30 no joke)

- we met this family who is literally the weasley family from Harry Potter haha! they are so so awesome! I love them!

- hermana miranda burps super loud and its hilarious 

- we helped our neighbors move in! it took like two days but they bought us a bunch of food hehe we unloaded two huge moving trucks and packed one of them haha!

- we had a really good lesson with this couple who has a dog that 17% wolf or something like that

- ZUCCHINI BREAD WITH NUTS. case closed. 

- sister ah kuoi straightened my hair! 

Missionaries By Day, Movers... Also By Day

¡hola hola! ¿cómo están todos?

not trying to bragg.... but we got to go to fort bragg last monday and we went to the beach! that was like the nicest day ever and it was perfect weather! aka cold enough for a sweatshirt and warm enough for chacos ;)

this week has been busy busy and, HIGHLIGHT, we got to help the king family move into the ward on friday and saturday! we unloaded a huge truck, then reloaded it with stuff at a storage unit, and finally unloaded it again at their house. all the red house sisters (6 of us) were helping haul their stuff around. basically we are professional movers now. also we were working outside in about 108 degree heat and I was sweating buckets haha but for some reason looking back it was kinda fun haha!

these past few days I've really been thinking about faith and spiritual experiences. yesterday I read this amazing talk by president uchtdorf called "be not afraid, only believe" it's from the priesthood session from a couple years ago. there was a quote in there that I really liked. he said, 

"I wish I could help everyone to understand this one simple fact: we believe in God because of things we know with our heart and mind, not because of things we do not know.  Our spiritual experiences are sometimes too sacred to explain in worldly terms, but that doesn’t mean they are not real... just because we cannot see something with our physical eyes does not mean it doesn’t exist"

it's so important to hold on to our spiritual experiences! God gives us those experiences not just to have wisdom for a day but to draw on that light and knowledge throughout our lives. I invite you all to think about your spiritual keystones in your life and reflect on the tender mercies God has given you. I promise you that as you search for those things you will see an increase in the blessings you recognize and the frequency of the spiritual experiences you have. 

love you all so much, sending virtual hugs :)

paz fuera!

xoxo

hermana wags

pics: red house sisters, happys!, the hills, fort bragg, and jesus way!