Tuesday, April 25, 2017

"Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming"

What a week! So much crazy stuff has happened but, first off the amazing news... RAFAEL GOT BAPTIZED!!! It was so amazing! He was so happy to be baptized and it was so special to see how excited he and his mom were! Now I am going to share with you the craziness of all that happened in order for him to get baptized! 

It was one peaceful Tuesday night, we were sitting at our weekly meeting with our ward mission leader talking about all of the wonderful miracles and things that had happened that last week. Hermano Najara (our ward mission leader) then told us, "Oh by the way, I called to reserve the baptismal font for Rafael for 3:00 p.m. on Saturday but they told me we had to do it at 5:00 pm, so I told them that was fine".

That conversation was all in Spanish so I quickly turned to my companion to make sure I understood and we looked at each other in a panic. We couldn't change the time at all! Rafael's mom had already been trying to get work off for that time and we had a ward Relief Society party at 5:30 that would conflict with many wanting to attend the baptism! It was not going to work. The stake lady who was over the scheduling would not budge. She told us that we had to do it at that time to save water because there was another baptism happening that night, which was understandable... but THIS IS SOMEONE’S SALVATION!!! We can save water another day!

Mom Note: Our family got a HUGE kick out of this letter from McKay. Because of my current calling as the Stake Primary President and trying to schedule 200 children in our stake to get baptized this year with a font that takes 3 hours to fill, I realized while reading I am THAT Stake Lady! We are a little more forgiving in these situations. :)

Back to Hermana Hadley:
Ok anyways, bless her heart but she wouldn't budge, so we came up with a plan. We did everything in our power until we took this problem up with the big man, President Henrie. Before we called him, we decided to have a backup to present to him. So, we called a member in the ward and asked for a favor. At first, they thought we were joking but after we explained they agreed. We had a secret backup plan that was all ready to go. We called President and the conversation went a little like this... 

President: "Hello Hermanas, how can I help you?"

Us: "Well President we have a little problem, the stake won't let us baptize our investigator at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday (we then explained the whole situation)"

President: "Alright Hermanas, well what can I do to help."

Us: "Well we have 2 plans, one of them is having you make some calls to the stake to let us baptize Rafael at that time and the other is....... (cue the drum roll) we have it all arranged for him to get baptized in a member’s swimming pool." 

President: "Well Hermanas I am impressed. Good job at using your resources. I will make some calls and then we will see, but good job!"

Very long story short, we were pretty dang close to baptizing Rafael in a swimming pool. But after pulling some strings we are happy to announce that Rafael was baptized in a font, at 3:00 on Saturday! :) He has been such a great kid and he has such a great future ahead of him. We know because Satan was throwing a little tizzy fit all week, but we kept swimming, almost literally, and saw all the blessings of it!

I am so glad that I have been blessed enough to teach Rafael. My favorite quote from him this week was, "Wait, you don't watch TV as a missionary? Even the Elders??? Well, I guess I have all this time before I am 18 to watch TV so I can probably last 2 years without it"! Look at him already planning for a mission!!!

Thanks for all your prayers I have truly felt them so much this week! Love you guys and keep swimming and going strong! The gospel is true!!

Love,
Hermana H



THE BIG DAY!!!



My New District!



This awesome dog we played with during Knockout!



Hermana Nelson looking diligently at our map 
because you can't use a GPS when you are on bike....new life skill.




PICTURE OF A CAKE COMING SOON  :)




The Cake at our Relief Society activity! It looked and tasted amazing!!!



Rafael got Baptized! :)



Rafael and his certificate that he had finsished reading the whole Book of Mormon!!! He bore his testimony about it this Sunday in Relief Society after he was confirmed!





Monday, April 17, 2017

"Locked Out & Ready to Run"

I literally don't know where to start. This week has been a crazy one filled with a ton of adventures! Let me just start with telling you all that I hope you had an wonderful Easter! I loved having such a great day to celebrate the Resurrection and Life of our Savior. One thing that was shared in church yesterday was that the reason why our religion doesn't have the cross displayed everywhere is because we KNOW that our Savior lives. We recognize his death but glorify in his Resurrection! 

Last Monday our Zone got together at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch some of the Elders do the "Blazin Hot Challenge". The Elders had to eat 10 really hot wings in 6 minutes. It was an adventure and they must sign a waiver and everything. I signed as a witness for one of the Elders. It was so funny to watch and most of them finished then ran to the bathroom crying...... don't worry I got pictures.

So, our next big adventure happened Thursday morning. To preface this story, I need to tell you that Wednesday morning Hermana Nelson and I thought it would be a good idea to do this really hard work out that an Elder gave us. Well we did it and when we woke up on Thursday morning I was not able to move. So, we decided to just go on a little 10-minute run to loosen up so we weren't so sore.

We left the house and right when we closed the door we looked at each other and paused. We realized that we had just locked our keys and phone in our apartment. We quickly ran to a member’s house who lived close to us and knocked on her door. She answered and we were soooo thankful she was awake. We used her phone to call the Elders in our ward.... and they didn't answer.

We tried calling a few times and we got no answer so the best thing to do was to then run to their apartment… 4 MILES later! We got to their apartment and felt like dying. The Elder’s thankfully were home and got in their car to go break into our house. Because mission rules are that we all can’t ride in the same car (double date with Elder’s) we used their bikes and then biked the 4 MILES back to our apartment to find them chilling in our apartment eating breakfast (our food) and listening to music. We ran and biked 8 miles total for the day, so much for a light work out to loosen muscles. Lesson learned we will NEVER forget our keys and our phone again. And we have now learned how to card a door. My body had a hard time moving for a few days.

Some more highlights of our week, on Friday we went to go help out Hermana Serrano, the Primary President, with a Book of Mormon Read-A-Thon that she was organizing for the kids during Spring Break! It was great and our 10-year-old investigator Rafael finished the Book of Mormon!!!  How cool is that?! We are so excited that Rafael has chosen to be baptized this Saturday so please keep him in your prayers.

We walked into the church for the Read-A-Thon and a ton of kids where eating food and listening to the Book of Mormon. It was a party and they had forts and everything! We helped Hermana Serrano then she gave us SOOO much food to take home... like 40 sandwiches! What are we going to do with 40 sandwiches? It was so awesome though to see all these young kids reading and finishing the Book of Mormon!

My last experience that I will share from this week was on Saturday! We were able to take an awesome trip to the LA Temple! It was wonderful to take Rafael and his Mom to the LA Visitor Center! Hermana Serrano took us up in her Jeep where we crammed 2 of her kids in the back-cargo area, then us, Rafael, and his mom in the seats. It was a crazy experience with 7 people with 5 seatbelts. We got there and had such an awesome time!

The missionaries at the Temple were great at helping Rafael and his mom realize the importance of progressing together as a family! After the tour, we were walking around the Temple and Rafael was telling us how different it felt every time he took a step closer to the Temple! It was incredible and I loved having that experience with him!

Many things happened this week but that was some of the big awesome moments that we had! I am so grateful for this time I have to be a missionary and servant of my Heavenly Father!!! Love you all!

-Hermana Hadley 



The Elders praying before the "Blazin Challenge"



The contest begins and they eat through the pain!



The Book of Mormon Read-A-Thon



Rafael and Jethro in their Fort :)



The LA Temple Visitor Center with all of us and in the center is 
Rafael who is getting baptized on Saturday!



The Serrano Boys who rode in the back of the Jeep to the Temple.  
Their mother is the Primary President. 



Hermana Nelson and I thank you for our Easter Buckets!!!



Elder Maynes, Elder Yeck, Hermana Nelson & Hermana Hadley



Easter Selfie with the Spanish Missionaries!