An Act of Service

Hi!!
So this week has been a blast! On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we were serving two sister who are less active. They have a little store called a papeleria and we were helping them to organize it and helped them with painting their walls! We had a lot of fun and I got covered in paint! Especially because on wednesday we were serving them pretty much all day! I love serving people so much! I love see the look of their joy on their face, and I love the feeling that I get after I serve. But what I love the most is that it is an opportunity for me to show my love to my Heavenly Father!! My Heavenly Father has done so much for me and I love to take every opportunity that I have to show my appreciation for him!

On Friday I had my first Zone conference! It was a lot of fun! All though about half way through I was really frustrated because I was not understanding a whole lot, and I wanted to be able to know what was being said so that i could apply to my missionary work. Well after talking to my companion, I realized that i understood almost all of what was being said and that I just needed to stop doubting my self. That happens a lot where i will second quess myself and if I am actually understanding what is being said, only to find out that I understood it perfectly. I have also been getting a whole lot better with speaking spanish! My sentences actually make sense, and people understand what I am saying!!!!

Other than that we did not do much! We did not really have any apopintments this week because they all cancelled on us! Although yesterday at the begining of Sacrament Meeting our Bishop started to say that we did not have a pianist, so I rose my hand and volunteered to play the piano! So that was a lot of fun for me!!!!

So for my spiritual thought this week I have a quote from my personal study this morning!

“Excercising faith in Christ is trusting and placing our confidence in him as our Savior, on His name, and in His promises” – David A. Bednar ( Gather Together in One All things in Christ Liahona November 2018) I love this quote so much! I love the entire talk!! Jesus Christ is our Savior and he loves us!! He loved us so much that he suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and then died for us in Calvery!! Trust him! Trust in him as your Savior, Brother, and Friend! He understands you perfectly! Put you trust in him and excise your Faith in him! I testify that HE LIVES!!!! He loves us so dearly and is always their to help us! He is just waiting for us to excersise our faith and to ask him for the help that we need! I promise that as you excersise your faith in your Savior Jesus Christ, that you will be able to feel your relationship with him strengthen and that you will notice more of the wonderful blessings that you are recieving, and the blessings that you have and will recieve! I testify of these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I love you all so dearly and I am so grateful for th influence that all of you have had in my life!! Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Wagner

Here are pictures of the service activity, and of some of the streets in mexico! I also have more plant picturs (of course!!!!!!!!!!!) as well as a cute little store that reminded me of a board game! I also have pictures of the rain storm yesterday! there was a rever in the middle of the streets! I also have a video of the cup song! We were at the very end of our service activity and we had been singing different songs the entire time so we decided to have fun!

Tender Mercies

Hola!!!!! This week has been so good!! Although my email might be kind of short, this week!

To start off I am so sorry! I forgot to add pictures last week so I will send another email with pictures of last week!!

We met with Vicencio three times this week! We have his bautismal date set for the 31st of August!!! He has a desire to change and I believe that he will be able to turn his life around.

On friday I had my 3 week evaluation (even though it was week 5). It was fun to be able to see Elder Smith and Elder Hua’kau who came with me from the MTC. It was nice to be able to get more tips on how to teach better. The first lesson was really bad and I did not talk much, but during the second lesson I talked more than my companion did!

On saturday I was feeling pretty sad and frustrated with multiple things, so we decided to grab a broom and to walk around the city to contact people and find someone to serve. We were not able to serve anyone but we both got a pretty good laugh and we were able to share the gospel with some people. It helped me to forget about myself and to feel the love that my Heavenly Father has for all of his children!

Also this week I went to the hospital because I have had a cyst in my wrist for a little bit and it had been really bother me and so Hermana Casilla (the wife of my mission president) wanted me to get it looked at. While at the hospital the doctor decided that we were going to get it taken care of right then and there. The 1st way is to puncture the Cyst. So he got a pretty big needle and slowly stabbed my wrist. It hurt so bad! My companion said that I turned as red as a tomato and although I did not cry it took all my self control not to kick the doctor. It hurt so bad and as my companion and I were walking to the bus stop, I accidentally hit my wrist on something and got a few tears in my eyes. I silently said a prayer asking my Heavenly Father to please take away some of the pain or help me to find relief. Right after I finished the prayer I turned my head and saw a manikin with clothes on with the head of a dog! Although it is stupid it was what I needed to make me laugh and forget about the pain. My companion also had me laughing the entire bus ride home (about 1 hour).
There have also been a few times where I need peace and I opend my scriptures to a scripture that really helped me! I know that the lord is mindful of us and that he loves us all so much. He is mindful of what we want but also of what we need and he is always providing little tender mercies. This week I invite you guys to write down 5 blessing or tender mercies that you see everyday. They can be big or small. I promise you that as you do this you will feel more of the love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for you!

I love you all so much!! byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Hermana Wagner

 

Chubby Bunny!!!!

Hola Hola Hola!!!!!!!! This week has been absolutely amazing!! We had Renata´s baptism on saturday and that was amazing!! She was so happy and she was bursting with happiness and with light! My companion and I performed a musical number for her baptism. Honestly I did not do great with the piano part, I had issues with the sheet music and had to move it while I was playing, and there were a few times where I did not play or lost my spot because of how bad my wrist hurt. But despite all of that the spirit was strong. It does not matter how well we do all that matters is that we provide and atmosphere for the spirit to be there, and as long as we do that we will be able to touch the lives of many people. Oddly enough the same goes with spanish! I felt pretty useless this week because I could not teach much and I wanted to do more than testify. But after my experience with the musical number on saturday I realized that it does not matter how well I speak or understand (at this point in time. I do need to work and get better) as long as we create an atmosphere that the spirit can be present in, I will still be able to help and to touch the lives of those that I teach.

Frida has decided to change her baptismal date. So right now she does have a baptismal date because she feels that it is too soon and that she needs more time. But we have a lesson with her today and we are pretty sure that she is going to reschedule her baptism today!!

Oh and yesterday my companion and I were in the final hour of church and we got pulled out of class because there was a lady who was sitting by herself in the chapel because she wanted to know more about the church. We talked to her about a lot of principles and explained how the church was run and how it is the same wherever you go. She was so surprised that we are all over the world and we asked her if she would like to meet with us to learn more and she said no, but that she would like to come to church on sundays. She is in our area and we are hoping that sooner or later she will want to meet with us!! We also had a man walk up to us on saturday and start asking us questions about the church. We talked to him about how the gospel could help him to change his life for the better. Which he was really excited about because he smokes and drinks a lot and wants to change that. So we talked to him about the atonement and about how through christ we can repent and we can be able to change and that through baptism we can be made clean again. We then gave him a plan of salvation pamphlet and scheduled an appointment with him and we meet with him tomorrow!

So the reason for the title is because my companion had been making fun of me for how much I have been eating. While I have been here I finally got my appetite back especially because they feed us os much here. So at one point I was 1 piece shy of eating and entire pizza by myself! (I have started eating the much all the time now) My companion was teasing me, so of course we decided to play Chubby Bunny!!!!  Also she was teasing me in a nice way, just in case any of you were worried about that. We got a really good laugh out of it! If you would like to see the videos of Chubby Bunny as well as the video of our musical number, you can find them on my moms blog  goofyj.wordpress.com

My companion and I also got chased by a stray dog! So that was a lot of fun! I think besides the baptism that was the funnest part of this week! I love you all and hope that everything is going good for all of you! I would love to hear from you all about how things are going for you guys! Byeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also this week I would like you guys to read 2 Nephi 31 and 32

These are two of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon because it reminds me of how important it is to rely on the lord, pray, study (not just read) the scriptures, and endure to the end.

I know that my savior lives!! He loves us all so much that he was willing to give his life for us so that he might be able to understand us perfectly and be able to help us! I know that as you pray and read the scriptures that you will be able to feel the love that he has for you! I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it is another testament of Jesus Christ. I testify that through the Book of Mormon you will be able to feel the love that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father have for you, and you will be able to develop a closer relationship with them both! I testify of these things in the sacred name of our Savior Jesus Christ Amen.

Hermana Wagner

 

7/29 – My titles are not very creative

Hola!!!  This week has been pretty slow. We have been preparing for the baptism this saturday!! Renata is so excited and we are excited for her. We have a new investigator!! We started teaching her on monday and we plan on inviting her to baptism today! So my 3 day english fast was so hard!! In reality I didnt make it the whole 3 days but I found that when I was fasting from English, I was able to understand spanish so much better and I was able to speak a lot better too.

This week my companion made me call someone on the phone, but I had no idea what to say and did not understand what was being said. So she spoon fed me words as she and the lady on the other end of the phone both laughed at me!! It was a really interesting experience that is for sure. A few random things! We had street tacos!! They were really good and we did not die!! We had interviews with our mission president and we all had to sit and wait a while so we all (my district) bought pizza!! Also we made a friend!! although we lade him to rest. RIP fred the spider.

So I forgot to write about this last week. But during sacrament meeting my first sunday in the field. I did what I did everysunday, I got out my notebook to take notes. As I took out my notebook, I had a prayer in my heart that I would be able to understand the language and what was being said. Well about half way through sacrament meeting I had one full page of notes but they were all pretty random and about different topics. By the end of church (1st and 2nd hour) I had 3 pages worth of notes. I have no idea if any of them have anything to do with what had been said. But I do know that my prayer was answerd just not in the way that I expected. I was able to understand the language of the Spirit and what it was trying to tell me. I have always had a difficult time understanding how the spirit speaks to me, but that sunday I was able to understand it better and I began to realize that it does not matter if you cannot hear what is being said or if you do not understand what is being said. All that matters is if you have a desire to learn and have personal revelation. I promise you that if you have a desire to have personal revelation and to learn that you will be able to hear what you need to. All of the notes that I took on that sunday helped me so much during this week, with a lot of different things. I also learned that sometimes we need experiences like this to help us to put our faith in our Heavenly Father an din our Savior Jesus Christ.

So on thursday we had a meeting with frida but she cancelled it because of some devestating news that she recieved. We talked with her mother and she asked us to come by and surprise Frida on saturday because she really needed an extra boost. So we mad a plan for what we wanted to share with her. We decided that we were not going to teach a lesson and that we were going to share a video called the will of God and a scripture to go along with it to help her. When saturday came around we realized that we did not have the video that we needed on my companions thumb drive. we were already running late and were not sure what we should do. After talking with my companion I told her that we should pray to know if we should download the video and being late or if we should just head over to her house and be on time. She thought this was a silly idea, but I then explained how we really have no idea what Frida needs, we have guesses but we dont really know. But our DSavior knows her perfectly and knows what she needs right at this moment. We then prayed and my companion wanted to say what we felt at the same time. That way she could be sure that it really was the spirit. We both felt that we should download the video. When we showed Frida the video, you could see a difference in her countance and she felt peace.

Our savior knows us perfectly and he knows what we need when we need it. More often than not, what we need is not what we want. But in the end it is always better for us if we allow it to be. I invite all of you to watch the Video called “The Will of God” you can find it in mormon.org or search “the will of god mormon messages” in youtube. I promise that the lord loves you and that he truly cares about you. I love you all dearly!! Byeeeeeeeeeee

Love,

           Hermana Wagner