May 23, 2016

No time, but a picture's worth a thousand words, right? Here you have 3000 words. (Plus a few more) Love you all, have a great week!

-Hna. Bird

Here's the pic of my stud brother and his beautiful bride that I may or may not have forgotten to include last week.

2 Guatemalans, 2 Californians, a Mexican, and a Texan, eating burgers from a pirate place and Blizzards from Dairy Queen in Mexico on a Monday.

That one time my comp and I decided it would be a good idea to play basketball all morning and she started talking when the member took the picture hahahaha.

May 16, 2016 7 Months and Many Celebrations

First things first: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM & DAD!!! Happy wedding to Austin & Hali!!! Congrats on your mission calls Nick (California Anaheim-Spanish speaking) & Morgan (Italy Rome!)! So many reasons to celebrate this week!

Everyone this picture of my stud brother and beautiful new sister-in-law!

Also, today my comp and I tried McDonald's in Mexico for the first time wohoo! (For all those who are wondering, it takes pretty much the same, but lacks salt.)

This week I have learned a lot about faith and diligence. This morning I was studying a chapter in Predicad Mi Evangelio that describes faith in Jesus Christ as "trusting in Him and being certain that He loves you" and talks about the many ways we can strengthen our faith--keeping the commandments, studying the scriptures, praying, and serving others. We talk to so many people in the streets that tell us that they believe in Jesus Christ and have faith in Him, but they don't know why. It's just tradition. I invite you all the study faith in Preach My Gospel, True to the Faith, the Bible Dictionary, wherever it may be this week, decide why you have faith in Jesus Christ, and write it down in your journals!

At church yesterday, this 96-year-old member named Mario who can crack better jokes than anyone I've ever met in my life, decided to bring his chick to church so it wouldn't run away during the services, LOOK HOW CUTE:

I have truly seen that God puts specific people in our lives in the perfect moments for His purposes. This week we had lots of doors slammed in our faces, lots of cancelled appointments, and were feeling a little down, but the moment that someone opened their doors, every single person shared with us something we needed to hear. Something beautiful about the mission is that we really don't come here to teach. We come here to learn from God's children. 

Saludos de mi compañera y yo!

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Bird

May 9, 2016 Feliz Dia De La Madre!

Hola familia y amigos!

Fun fact: the only people who celebrate Cinco de Mayo are those who live in the state of Puebla, so while all of you were celebrating in the states, it was a normal day here. 

Here in Mexico we celebrate Mother's Day on May 10th, but I got to talk to the fam yesterday! It was so fun to hear from everyone and get some life updates. But the funniest part of it all was the fact that when I called, a mariachi band began to play right outside the window and there were like five chihuahas in the room with us. Classic Mexico. The only thing that was missing were the tacos haha.

On Saturday the elders had a baptism y after it ended and we were gonna lock up the building we took this sweet pic with our ward mission leader, his son, a counselor in the bishopric, and one of the sisters in the ward. Love these people!

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Last night we received transfer calls and Hermana Franco & I are staying here together in Retornos to finish her training. Wohoo!

I hope that this week all of you have remembered all of the mothers, mother figures, and other important women in your lives. Yesterday I was reading all the talks I could find in the General Conference Liahonas that talked about women and mothers, and the conclusion I reached is that motherhood is such a sacred calling. Mothers emanate the pure love of our Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you to a handful of the wonderful women in my life--mom, Lori, Lisa, Stevie, Nicole, Amy, Michelle, Cortney. Larissa, Ally, Ashley, Lindsay, Erin, and Grandma just to name a few..love you all and hope you were able to enjoy your special day! 

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Bird

April 25, 2016

Hello one and all! As always, it has been an exciting few weeks here in Mexico!

Highlights:

-Last Monday we went to visit a reference from the zone leaders, but the man we were looking for didn't live there. Instead, his sister with her husband and her son live there and they are SUPER interested in the gospel! They came to church yesterday and loved it! They have already been way good about keeping their commitments and they're preparing to be baptized May 28th. Such a blessing!

-This week we also had interviews with President and it's always good to hear from him and get new insight on how to help our investigators.

-The elders in our ward had two baptisms this weekend and the service was beautiful! And we got the elders to perform a special musical number so that was exciting!

-On Saturday the sister training leaders in our zone decided to do a big activity for the "día del niño" (why don't we have a Kid's Daya a.k.a. birthday round 2 in America?) to find new investigators and it was way fun! Here we are after it ended:

-Yesterday we ate with our ward mision leader and his family (tacos--YUM) and his sons play cello and violin so we had a sweet hymn jam sesh with them. They're seriously the best family ever.

-Also yesterday the stake president visited our ward and well...this stake struggles a little bit when it comes to helping the missionaries, so he had us stand in front of the whole ward, then had all the return missionaries stand, then had everyone who had ever received a lesson from the missionaries stand, until everyone was standing. Then he spoke about how all of us have felt the influence of missionary work in our own lives so now it's time to do our part. Super powerful and we've already seen the effects of his talk. Puro poder.

-This morning my comp and I were looking through some things in our house and found HUNDREDS of Liahona magazines and I realized that I LOVE reading the Liahona. If you don't already have a subscription to the Ensign/New Era/Friend or the Liahona, DO IT THIS WEEK! The messages are so uplifting and just the best!

Espero que todos tengan una semana excelente y tomen el tiempo para compartir el evangelio. Les amo mucho!!

Love, 

Hermana Bird

P.S. MORE PICS

1-I'm always photo ready...

2-Our neighbor surprised us with tacos Satuday night. >:) Featuring sunburn round two from the one day I forgot to use sunscreen and my creepy happy face.

April 11, 2016

What a week, what a week! Some pretty exciting things happened this week:

-We found a bunch of less actives and investigators that we've been looking for for a while and had some sweet lessons!

-I lost my voice because of a cold and I still sound like a man so that's been interesting haha. My comp always makes fun of me so now we've got some sweet jokes.

-We had a zone meeting and I got to see all my friends! (aka Hermana Nicholas who is from my generation and was in my first district, my 10-day companion Hermana Carmona Y, and one of my old district leaders) Also we talked a ton about how to recognize the Spirit and it was BOMB. All of you who have access to a Preach My Gospel (aka all of you because technology rocks) should read chapter 4 and the accompanying scriptures. Prepare to be uplifted and edified!

-My comp and I spent 6 hours cleaning our house today because my other comp and her companions for the last 9 months here didn't believe in cleaning, so when I arrived there were no cleaning supplies, but now we have cleaning supplies and A CLEAN HOUSE!! You all know how I am about having my things clean and organized...

-We found an investigator this week who we met last Saturday, came to conference on Sunday without us even having had the first lesson with him, came to church yesterday, and is keeping all of his commitments and preparing to be baptized the 7th of May WOHOO!!!

I think those are the most important highlights of this week...but I'm loving life here and am learning so much from my companions and the investigators and members and everyone. It's amazing how much one can learn if we just decide to listen and humble ourselves. Thank you all for being the best friends and fam a girl could ask for! Love you lots!

Con muchísimo amor,

Hermana Bird

April 4, 2016 He Lives!

Hola friends and family! 

It has been a crazy and eventful few weeks here in Retornos! Last week we had cambios, so my companion (who had 9 months in this area and was praying and pleading to leave) finally got transferred and they sent me to train a new missionary! I went to Aguascalientes Sunday night, picked her up on Monday morning, and we got back to our area Monday night. Enjoy the only picture we have together as of yet featuring my sweet and unfortunately uneven sunburn (thanks to my bag):

Her name is Hermana Franco and she's from Guatemala wohoo!

Conference this weekend (and the women's session last weekend) were INCREDIBLE. I was overwhelmed by the reminder of how much the Savior loves us. We have all received the blessing of the Atonement and just need to apply it in our lives! He didn't die without a purpose; He died to help us return to our Father in Heaven. We just need to do our part. Jesus LIVES! My testimony of Joseph Smith and living prophets was also strengthened. What a blessing it is to have the knowledge we have!

This week we also had a Noche de Hogar (FHE) with members and investigators where my companion and I taught about the attributes of Christ. I invite you all to choose an attribute of Christ to study and work on developing this week, or choose a talk from conference to study and apply to your life. Or both if you're ambitious! 

Love you all lots and I always have you in my thoughts and prayers. Have a great week!

Love, 

Hermana Bird

March 21, 2016

Hola friends and fam! 

I'm running short on time...(what else is new?) so I'll just share briefly my favorite moments!

-We had some AWESOME lessons with our investigator named Fernanda this week. She has so many questions and really wants to learn! But she's going out of town for Semana Santa so we won't be able to visit her for two weeks...lame.

-My comp is from Guatemala and hit her year mark in the mission last week, so she had to renew her visa..which meant I got to go with her to Aguascalientes for a day WOHOO! We left at 5 in the morning to take a bus to Aguas. There were only 6 people on the bus, and when we had almost arrived, the police stopped the bus and boarded and start asking questions to literally everyone but us. It was funny because we were the only foreigners on the bus and they didn't even blink an eye. They simply questioned the other people and left then we were on our way again. Mexico is loco. We arrived and went to do the visa stuff and got to chat with the senior missionary, Elder Jasso, who works in the offices and he's such a fun old man! When we finished, he made the elders in the offices order us a pizza, so we ate Domino's and headed back to San Luis. Here's a picture of my comp and I bien felices en las oficinas:

This is all I have time for today but I hope you all have a fabulous week! Love you lots!

Love,

Hermana Bird