"One Year & One Baptism"

Holy Cow, has this been a week! There has been so many things happen it feels like it has been 2 weeks in one! I am sending a ton of pictures for this week because a lot of stuff happened, and I can't even write about all of it!

The most exciting news is...ROBERTO GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!! It was such an awesome day! Our Mission President came and he talked with Roberto and told us that he was one of the most converted people he had seen in a long time! I am so grateful for him! Roberto has really grown and has come out of his shell. When he got in his white jump suit he kept kicking around and saying he felt like a ninja! :) 

His baptism was going to be on Saturday, but he had to work until 8:30 that night, so Sunday during Sunday School Hna Starke and I started filling up the font and he got baptized right after church. A fun fact is that he got baptized on the same day that I was baptized just 12 years earlier!

We sang a musical number with some people in our Branch that talked about Christ’s Hands and all the miracles he did for us! It was impressive that we could get some of the Latino boys to sing on pitch! My favorite part was when Roberto bore his testimony at the end. He told us about how he was so happy to be baptized and how he felt like he was a little kid who experienced peace for the first time. He also gave thanks to Luis, his cousin who introduced him to the church! Luis just got baptized a few months ago and is already an awesome missionary.

Also, this week I hit ONE YEAR in the mission! It has been so crazy to think that I have been doing this for a whole year! We had an awesome surprise for our dinner, my mom ordered Domino’s Pizza for us. It was such a fun little pizza party we had to celebrate both me and Hermana Starke’s 1 year in the mission!

This week we found City Walk (an area by Universal Studios with shopping and restaurants) and had lunch there! It was a little crazy adventure and it was fun to leave little pass along cards in some of the stores we went into. haha. We were sneaky about it!

I love being a missionary and I am so happy that I have been able to help with the baptism of Roberto!! I hope you all have an awesome week! The Gospel is TRUE!!!!

Love,

Hermana Hadley 

The Hermana's and our Rama!!!

(Rama means Branch)

Sister Henrie posted "They're celebrating in the YSA Branch"

Roberto's Baptism!!!

This is one of Roberto's really good friends, Melvin who baptized him.

Roberto and his Cousin Luis who was baptized just a few months ago. 

Luis introduced the Gospel to Roberto and also performed the confirmation. 

Our musical number at Roberto's Baptism

Hna Starke and I found Universal Studios and then had lunch at City Walk!!!  

This is as close as missionaries can get to the Theme Parks in our Mission.

Big Mama's and Papa's Pizzeria! The pizza was huge!!!

ET Phone Home!

Me and Hermana Starke on our little Adventure

"Bubba Gump Shrimp Co." 

Elder Yeck got a fortune cookie without a fortune

Very hot hot hot knock out in the middle of nowhere. 

110 Degress and 75% Humidity

Our 1 Year Pizza Party!!!

Mom Note: Both Hermanas and Hermana Vasquez (Branch President's Wife) agreed that this was the cutest Pizza Delivery Man they had seen. I thought it was going to be some creepy man at their apartment and would scare the girls so I arranged to have it deliveried to the Vasquez Family.  Thank you for helping with our surprise Pres. and Sister Vasquez!

A Fun Fact: McKay purposely chose the outfit she wore on August 2, 2016 to the airport 

to wear again on August 2, 2017 :) She is so cute!

Facebook post:

One year ago today we left for the airport at 3:00 am to put Hermana McKay Hadley on a plane to Mexico City to begin her journey. She is loving every second of her mission in San Fernando and this is a quote from her letter this week.

"Being a missionary is the best! Seriously, I feel so lucky that everyday I get to wake up and realize that I get to spend the whole day serving my Heavenly Father!"

We are so blessed by her service and sure do love our cute missionary!!! <3

"You Cannot Fail"

Hello everyone!!! This week was awesome as usual :) being a missionary is the best! Seriously, I feel so lucky that every day I get to wake up and realize that I get to spend the whole day serving my Heavenly Father! This week we had some fun little experiences that have really strengthened my testimony!

This week Hermana Starke and I gave a training at District Meeting and we had a surprise... President Henrie came to our District Meeting. When we saw he was there our whole district turned to each other and panicked a little because when he comes it is a little stressful. We had an awesome District Meeting and our training made President laugh:). At the end of our meeting after President laughed, one of our District Leaders said, "Well good job guys, we were on our best behavior!!!" 

This week we have really been buckling down with finishing the lessons with Roberto:). He is progressing really well and is going to be getting baptized this Saturday! Wahoo!!! This Sunday we went to church and Hna Starke and I gave talks and did a musical number with our Ward Mission Leader! It was crazy because it has been exactly a year today since my farewell talk. I gave a talk on how we can be more like Ammon from the Book of Mormon and how we are all part of the Lord’s Fold. I gave them ways that they can help to bring back the sheep that are missing from the YSA fold. 

We had an amazing 3rd hour lesson that our Branch President and his wife gave about putting on the Whole Armor of God. The lesson really hit home for me. We really need to be spiritually ready to go and keep going even when we fall. I attached a link from the lesson that I want you to watch. Maybe some of you have seen it before but watch it again. I love that in this video you can see that WE CANNOT FAIL. We have the Lord on our side and he can never let us fail. Here is the link: You Cannot Fail

Mom Note: You can access the link through the blog, but may not be able to through the automatic email that gets sent out. It can be found on You Tube under the title: "Father's Day Video Derek Redmond You Raise Me Up"

We go through trials to make us stronger and when the falls come, we have someone right there to pick us up! I have a huge testimony that I know we have a Loving Heavenly Father who really cares for us and wants us to be happy! I hope you have an amazing week! Love you and Keep on Keepin on!

-Hermana Hadley 

These two pictures were posted on the CASF Mission Facebook Page

Sister Henrie wrote:

Hermanas teaching at District Meeting today

These Pictures were sent to our family through another surprise text this week :)

Monday Night Dinner with the YSA Spanish Branch President's Family

Hermana Starke, Branch Presidents wife Hermana Vasquez and Hermana Hadley

When people bike lock their ladder to a pole... gotta lock everything up around here.

Cute little Tea Cup Puppies!!!

Hna Starke spilt her water bottle all over herself. 

Our Branch President putting on the Whole Armor Of God, 

we thought he looked like Elmer Fudd. :)

Mom Note: This week we were able to attend a Pioneer Trek with our son Parker.  We were asked to come prepared with the name of a person we were going to trek for.  I chose our cute missionary Hermana McKay Hadley.  I experienced a wonderful moment as I participated in the "Women's Pull".

The Women's Pull is where the men walk to the top of the trail and only the women bring the loaded handcarts up. This represents the many men who died along the trail and the strong women who continued to bring their families by themselves.  This is usually the hardest climb of the entire Trek.  Our Women's Pull was 2 miles long with many hills at a 11% grade and took us 2 hours.

As I began the climb I looked up and noticed that the Women's Pull Trail was called,
"McKay Ridge". This was a sweet tender mercy from our Heavenly Father during my Trek experience seeing the name of who I was trekking for. <3

On Monday we were able to have a little conversation with McKay by emailing back and forth.  This week our conversation was of course about our Trek experience. We wanted to share part of the email  conversation that we had with McKay.

Stanford: Who is your Trail Boss?

McKay: Heavenly Father

Stanford: What is your handcart?

McKay: THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!!!

Stanford: When is your Women's Pull?

McKay:  TODAY!!!!!