January 11, 2016 Insanity

Hola hola everyone! 

It's been another great week here in Jardin! (Oh yeah that's the name of my area) But before I talk more about this week I just want to send a HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT to my favorite older brother Austin! He turns 22 on Wednesday so be sure to send some love his way!

Title: This week my companion and I decided we want to be a little more healthy...soooo we have started doing Insanity workouts during our exercise time and they have been killer, but we think they're working! Also, now that our area is 4 times bigger it has been an insane week trying to learn the new area and travel from place to place but it's been great!

This week we had a zone meeting and our mission president visited! This is rare because he lives 3 hours from here and it wasn't a special conference or anything, but it was so good to see him and his wife and learn from them! They're awesome! They announced that on the 30th of this month Elder Rendlund (I think that's how you spell his last name...one of the new apostles) is going to visit Leon (a part of Mexico outside of my mission and about 2 hours from where I'm currently serving) and invited our whole mission to come to a conference with him! So for a whole day, none of the missionaries in the Mexico Aguascalientes mission will be within mission boundaries haha but we're so pumped! It is such a privilege to have been invited!

I'm not sure if it's like this in all of Mexico, but here in San Luis, they have little stores called papelerías on almost every corner and they're THE BEST. America needs to have them. They're just little stores where you can buy paper, ribbon, wrapping paper, pens, post-its, etc and I LOVE OFFICE SUPPLIES and my companion is really crafty so we spend a lot of time...and money...in these stores haha.

This week we found a family of gooooold. It's a family of a mom, dad, and three kids. The dad and two sons accepted baptismal dates and they want to be baptized as a family and read the Book of Mormon and keep the Sabbath day holy and all sorts of good things so we're really hoping for a baptism this transfer! We're also working with another family that has loooooots of problems but they have such faith that the gospel will help them face their problems! Inspirational.

I always feel like my emails are super scatterbrained, but just know that I absolutely LOVE IT here. Deciding to serve a mission is easily the best choice I have made in my life up to this point. Of course there are hard times and all but it really is so rewarding. I hope you all have a great week and spread the gospel! Help out the missionaries in your ward! Members are ESSENCIAL to missionary work. Sending lots of love your way! :)

Love,

Hermana Bird

January 4, 2016 Where Has the Time Gone?

Hola friends and family! 

How is it already 2016? And how the heck did I already finish my first transfer here in the mission??

I hope you all had the a great week last week and found fun ways to celebrate the New Year and set some goals! Things get crazy here for the New Year. On New Year's Eve there were fireworks out the wazoo until the wee hours of the morning, parties, and lots of music, then in order to recover from their partying, everyone shuts down for the rest of the week. The streets were pretty abandoned so it was way odd.

Today we had cambios and I get to stay in this area with my trainer Hna. Muñoz! The elders who shared our ward were transferred to different areas, so we now cover the entirety of our ward boundaries, which made our area four times bigger. We have a lotttttttt of work ahead of us but we're way excited! They have been teaching some awesome investigators so we're really excited for the opportunity to continue their teaching!

I hope that in this New Year you can all take the time to share the gospel with those around you! Here in the mission I have realized how critical members are in the work. If you feel so inclined, make it a goal to accompany the missionaries or give someone a Book of Mormon or invite them to church. This gospel really blesses the lives of all people! Have a great week getting back into school and work and the normal swing of things!

Love,

Hermana Bird

Pics:

1-They like to do funny things with trees here in San Luis Potosí. Enjoy.

2-Me & my comp with Hna. Jessica on a lookout point at the zoo!

3-Majestic. And very loud. Seriously. It was roaring the majority of the time we were at the zoo up until we actually went over to see it then it stopped.

December 28, 2015 Prospero Año y Felicidad

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy New Year everyone! I hope you all had the best Christmas to date and enjoyed every precious moment with family and friends!

This week was a blast!

-Wednesday: We had intercambios with the sister training leaders so I got to go to a new area for a day and it was so fun. It's interesting how different the work is in different areas. The people in her area are a looooot nicer than the people in my are so it was a little difficult to transition back haha.

-Thursday: We were invited to Christmas dinner with a family in our ward...pictures to come next week.

-Friday: We got together with our zone and another zone and watched Inside Out and had food then ate dinner with another member and got to Skype our families! Ahhh it was such a special day!

-Today: For Christmas, the elders talked a member into taking us to the zoo so that's where we spent our whole day today! Because of that..I'm completely out of time, soooo pictures will come next week.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all enjoy your last week of break and make some great New Year's resolutions! Love you all!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Bird

December 22, 2015 Feliz Navidad!

Hola friends and fam! We are emailing today because myldsmail wasn't working for anyone in our zone yesterday which was weird...but here I am! And what a week it's been!

Tuesday: We had our Cena Navideña with the mission president and all of the missionaries here in San Luís and it was a BLAST! But the best part of it all was that I got to see some of my really good friends from the CCM! Here we are. :)

Wednesday: District meeting featuring Christmas photos...

Saturday: We had a ward Christmas party this night, and about 2 hours before the party started the bishop asked us four missionaries to prepare a musical number. It was interesting because well...let's just say the people here in Mexico could benefit from some voice lessons haha, but we did it and everyone seemed to enjoy it! Here's a picture of the Jardín crew at the "photobooth." I was supposed to be Rudolph but my antlers fell down and I don't know why I put my nose over my mouth...

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Sunday: WE HAD A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. A few weeks ago, Hna. Muñoz and I contacted this guy named Ezekiel in the street. Seriously the most perfect contact ever. He was interested in learning more about the Church, knew he needed to dedicate more attention to God, and described the stake center as a "castle." Then he thanked us for taking the time to invite him to learn more...this literally never happens. Anyways, most perfect contact BUT he doesn't live in our area. Literally two streets outside of our area..so that was a bummer but we passed along the reference and made the missionaries promise to contact him ASAP. Fast forward to Sunday night when Hna. Muñoz and I are walking into the parking lot of the stake center (not our chapel) and we hear "Hermanas!" so we turn around and it's Ezekiel. He just happened to be walking in the neighborhood looking for a new apartment when he saw us. He asked if we remembered him and we said yes and invited him to the devotional. He had about an hour until he had to be somewhere, so he came! We gave him a tour of the chapel and he stayed for half of the devotional and talked to the missionaries in his area. He has an appointment with them on Thursday and committed to go to church on Sunday! We originally hadn't planned on going to this devotional, but decided to go in the end and what a blessing it was that we went! I have a very good feeling that he's going to accept the gospel!

It really was suuuuuuuch a great week! I'm so happy to be here! I hope you all have a fantabulous Christmas on Friday and enjoy the time with family and break from school! I know that my Redeemer lives and He is the reason for the season. Let us not forget. Hugs and kisses and lots of love sent your way from Mexico! :)

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Bird

Also we have been pestering our zone leaders for weeks to get us a Christmas tree because we have no decorations...and on Saturday they brought this to us!
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Also also, #crew. We made t-shirts for these two elders with this picture on it for Christmas haha...pictures to come next week!