Tuesday, May 16, 2017

"Lessons Learned"

Hello everyone! I hope you guys are all doing amazing, this week has been pretty good :). Yesterday I was able to talk with my family which was AWESOME!!! It made me so happy to be able to see how much they have changed and grown since I have been gone. It was great to also answer some of their many questions about my mission life. I wanted to share a few experiences that happened this week that really touched my heart and helped me recognize the importance of every little thing we do.

Lesson 1: God puts people in our path as long as we are doing our part:

This week we had a member dinner with a cute lady and her 3 little girls who just moved into our ward. We have talked with this lady a few times and we were excited to get to know her over dinner. We went to her house and started talking, one thing lead to another and we found out that her nine-year-old daughter had not been baptized. We started to talk to her about baptism and she got really excited. Then the next day we came back and did a Noche de Hogar (Family Night) and invited her to be baptized! She said yes and we are now preparing her to be baptized for June 17th! 

Lesson 2: Don't ever underestimate the power of fasting:

To preface this story, I need explain that last week we went over to visit Rafael and his mom Lorena. She then expressed to us a few struggles she is going through and how she had decided to fast for 3 days. Yes, I said 3 Days and did I mention she works as a cook at a restaurant! Part of her fast was to be able to get her work to let her come to church on Sundays.

Fast forward to this week and we were having a kind of hard day where we doing Knock Out (in our mission everyone knocks on doors everyday from 4-6 to find people ready for the gospel). We knocked into quite a few grumpy people. We kept pushing through because we knew that whenever we had hard days it is because something good was around the corner. That night we went over to Rafael’s house to find out that that day Lorena had talked with her boss again and her boss said that she can get a few hours off on Sundays to come to church!!!! It was some of the best news we have received because we knew how much she wanted to be able to go to church herself and with her son Rafael. We could see the Lord helping her! Fasting works!

It has been an awesome week full of adventure and spiritual growth! I have loved it so much. I am so grateful to have this chance to serve a mission! The gospel really does change lives and I am so blessed to see it first hand in the people that I teach! I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,
Hermana Hadley




Mother's Day Skype with my Familia!

Mom Note: One of the best moments with Hermana Hadley was to surprise her with the whole family singing "Called to Serve" in Spanish. She joined in and we all sang with great enthusiasm! 
After she said we all sang like a bunch of Latino's!

Another humorous moment, I asked her if she felt safe and protected as a missionary and she said of course because she is set apart as a full time missionary. Just then we heard sirens in the background. We all had a good laugh and then heard them 3 more times in 45 mins.

Loved my Missionary Mother's Day!  <3



Hermano and Hermana Escobar were so kind to let us Skype at their home!  
My family was able to speak Spanish with them. Love them so much!



Our Ward Mission Leader Hermano Najara, who has not even been baptized for a year 
and is amazing, bought us a cake for Mother's Day. It was so good! 
Here is an attempted selfie with everyone else but me Haha!



A cute care package I got from Hermana Johnson, 
one of my companions when I was in Valencia! So cute!



Hermana Nelson decided she wanted to try to balance on her bike 
in the elevator of our apartment! I was impressed!



Hot day on bike, we have been rockin' those helmets for sure!




Hermana Nelson and I after Knock Out!  
The temperature is rising here in San Fernando!