Monday, March 27, 2017

Castellano

Hey everybody!

(Maren answered some questions people had asked her)...
Do you cook your own meals mostly or do you go to other people's homes?
-We usually eat lunch with someone each day but a lot of the time they fall through.
What foods or drinks do you miss that they don't have there? 
-To be honest I miss healthy food. They eat meat, bread and pasta for every meal, so don´t be surprised if I come back way fatter hahaha. 
What did you do on your p-day today? 
-We went to a bunch of museums here in Concordia which were super sick! It was way cool to see all the old artifacts like swords and guns and stuff. So cool!
Is the weather cooling off yet?
-The weather cooled off a bit at the beginning of the week and we had a lot of rain one day. But now it is way hotter like it used to be ðŸ˜¥
Any visits this week? 
-We have been visiting Angelica and really she is so amazing. Her testimony is growing and growing each week and you can tell she is making a huge change in her life. She is soo happy!!
     The only news this week is that my Castellano is so much better! I don't get scared to speak anymore! The members have been telling me it is way better. I can understand most of what people are saying too which is way cool! I never really thought I would improve at all. I know that my prayers are being answered and I feel so blessed to be out here serving my mission!! 
     This past week I finished reading the Book of Mormon again. It really is so powerful and gives specific answers to questions I have in my life. I know I definitely wasted my time and took them for granted before the mission. But I hope I can keep reading and studying them! If you haven't yet, I invite you all to read and pray to know if it is true. I know you will receive your answer! Love you guys!!
-Hermana Stewart
     ~Oh something funny that happened this week. I was spraying spiders with Raid and it got in my mouth and my tongue and lips were numb for the rest of the day but I am fine jaja!! Love you guys and don't worry about my health I am just clumsy lol. 

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

No transfer, staying in Concordia



Hello everyone!!

This week was soooooo good! At first it was honestly pretty dang hard with my ankle and with all the rejection we were getting. We lost all our investigators. It was a rough time for me and my companion. There was a LOT of walking around with nothing this week. We both got sick and I ended up messing up both my ankles! I also had some weird allergic reaction on my leg haha. We kept praying and working hard but no one wanted to listen to us. But as the week went on we saw some real miracles!! 

We were walking down the main street of our area on one of the days that we had been rejected a ton. We decided it was late and time to start walking back to our apartment. We were walking and I looked down a little dirt street where our old investigator Claudia lives. I turned and looked at her street 3 times. I did not know why. I felt like we should go see her, which was weird because she dropped us last time. We got to her house and she said the same öh come by a different day¨excuse. We walked away not knowing why we felt we needed to go there. As we were walking home, 2 guys on 4 wheelers rode really really fast past us. They were on the other side of the street where we had been previously before we went to Claudia´s. A few minutes later, we saw a huge gathering of people at the part of the street where we would have been if we didn´t go to Claudia´s. The body of one of the guys that had been riding the 4 wheeler was face down on the ground. The 4 wheeler was flipped. We know that if we had not received the impression to go to Claudia´s, we would have been hit. It is crazy to see how blessed we are as missionaries. We know we are protected as we are doing God´s work. 

Another miracle is that we found a new investigator! Angelica! She is 10/10! She is the grandma of our convert Valentin and the mom of the family Raponi in our ward. Her daughter has been a member for many years now but she wasn´t interested before. Now, she truly wants a change for her life. She started coming to church after Valentin´s baptism. She loves it. She has smoked for 41 years. But as of today, she hasn´t smoked for a month!! We taught her the first lesson and when I asked her to be baptized, I said the first word to the question, her eyes lit up so big and she said YES!!!! She is so amazing and you can see the change she is making in her life every day. She says Hermana Degolyer and I are part of her family. She is literally the cutest!! 

Something I have learned recently is the power of prayer. I have learned it is important to ask for things specifically in your prayers. God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us. Because of this, he wants to hear from us and help us in our lives. I have received a lot of answers to my prayers this past week and it has been a powerful experience for me. I know that if you guys will kneel down and have a sincere conversation with your Heavenly Father, he will help you. 

Thank you all for all your support! I love and miss you tons! Also just to let you all know, my Spanish is getting better finally!! Woo!! Anyways see you all next week!! 

Hermana Stewart











Monday, March 13, 2017

HOT WATER!!!!




Hey everyone!

This week we got HOT WATER WOOO!!! 
Now we won´t scream every time we get in the shower haha. I don´t have much today about this week. I hurt my ankle badly somehow and we couldn´t leave the pench for 2 days. It was sad. But here is a funny thing of the week! 

If you have seen The Other Side of Heaven you know who Kolipoki is. The branch president and his family had us watch part of it with them. Kolipoki gets attacked by mosquitos and can´t speak the language very well and Presidente Quiros said ¨Hey that´s Hermana Stewart!!!¨ It was really funny. Also that movie is dead on with missionary work so you should all watch it! Also The Joseph Smith movie is amazing and really is powerful and testifies to the truthfulness of the gospel! 
I love you guys a lot! 

I will answer some questions my mom sent... 

How is your Spanish coming?

-Not very well. I can understand a lot but not speak a ton. It is improving a little bit every day. 

Are you eating a lot of meat?

-We eat meat and bread with every meal 

Does someone do your laundry?

-No we hand wash everything.

Do you have hot water? 

-Now we do and it is glorious!!

Love everyone lots!!

-Hermana Stewart










Monday, March 6, 2017

2 Months as a Missionary!

Hey everyone!
This week was good! It was super hot, like extremely hot. Carnaval happened which was really wild and actually quite scary. Especially when we had to walk through the huge parade that was outside our apartment building. It was a really cool but pretty sketchy experience. 
I had tramites this week(visa stuff to live here) so I got to travel to Santa Fe with Hermana Wright! It was really fun! Mission HQ is 5 hours from here by bus so that´s how long the journey was there and back. We stayed there overnight. The best part was, WE GOT MCDONALDS. It was incredibly delicious. Which is slightly disturbing but hey it was way good. 
We got home to Concordia about midnight on Friday. It was a super long trip but it was really really fun. It was cool that Hermana Wright and I don´t really know Spanish at all but we were able to make the trip and make it back!
A cool experience we had this week was that we were walking in the more dangerous, dirt roads part of our area. This really sketchy guy came up to us and I was a bit scared I´m not gonna lie. There was that guy, his wife and daughter and another guy. They did not look like people that anyone would want to go up and talk to. They talked to us about the church. We gave them The Restoration pamphlets and the Book of Mormon. You could see the joy in their eyes as we talked with them. The main guy quizzed us a bit about a page of the pamphlet. We were able to answer all his questions. He said ¨Because you 2 girls gave me these things, I am not going to ask you for money or anything. People in Jesus´ time did not ask him for anything. I know you 2 are from Jesus.¨ It was so awesome! Then we taught them how to pray and I said the prayer with them. It was so cool to see how grateful and happy they were. 
I hope you guys are doing really well! I miss you a lot! But also Concordia feels like home now! I love it here soo much! Love you and miss you all! Have a great week!
Hermana Stewart

Mcdonalds with Hermana Wright, Elder Brown and Elder Garaza!!