It Snowed!!!

So I think this is the 1st real snow of the year for us here in Russellville. It has fallen before but hasnt actually stuck. But there is snow on the ground. Not much but still snow. Probably more ice than snow though. It is super chilly!

This week was good. We got to go out with an awesome member from the quitman ward that is preparing to go on a mission. I really shouldve done that more before I went on a mission. If any of you reading this are going on a mission, go out with the missionaries! It will prepare you so much! 

We met this real cool guy this week. We went to go see a less active and she wasnt home but we could hear that the neighbors were so my comp. was like, lets knock that door. So we did and this guy said, come on in! He said it was real  neat that we came at that time because just 2 days ago he had hit rock bottom and decided he needed to come unto Christ. He said if we wouldve come 2 days ago, he wouldnt have answered the door. He is at a point in his life right now where he wants to change. He was real excited about the message we shared. We read with him about Alma the youngers experience with repentance and how when he did repent, he felt joy! We told him thats what we do as missionaries, help them to repent and come unto Christ to feel more joy in their life. He loved the scripture and said that thats what he feels like and he wants to repent. So we told him that once we have faith, make those changes in our lives and repent, we can be baptized and with that baptism, we are washed clean! He was super excited and wanted to be baptized. So we set a date with him and  he said he was super excited to come to church. We are excited to keep teaching him! It is such a testimony to me when we meet people like that, because it shows that God really is preparing his people to receive the message of the restoration. I am so grateful to be a missionary at this time and help find those people :)

And sis. dube and I got some EXCITING NEWS!!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE TRAINING!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHOO!!!!!! we are both getting new missionaries, and the AP's told us that one of us will be getting transferred. I think it will be me because I have been here since June, but who knows! We will find out next week. If I do get transferred, I think I will go to little rock to train a new missionary and follow up train the hermana that is there that has only been in the mission 6 weeks. So that would be lots of fun :) trio! I will be so sad to leave this place. But it will be really cool to end the mission where I started out too. ah!!!!!!! I cant wait to find out. 

I dont know if yall knew this but if you boil sweet and condensed milk in a pot for about an hour and a half, it makes caramel! Bro. Plumb told us that so sis. dube and I had to try it out while we were weekly planning! And I dont know if I have mentioned this before but I know what my all time favorite food is that I have had on my mission. TINGA!!!!!!!!!! So dang good. hna. barrera says she is going to give me her recipe. I am in heaven when I eat it :)

Sis. Plumb got asked to speak in sacrament meeting and I guess when bishop asked her to, the song "walk tall youre a daughter" came into her head so she asked pam and sidney stokes, samantha smith and I to sing it. It went well :) reminded me of camping. I miss camping! Ben also got the priesthood this sunday. He is doing so good! And you know you have been in an area for a long time when you have a high council men come up to you and notice that you have been there for a long time. We went over to have dinner last night with Marcy and her sons prayers was hilarious! "Heavenly Father, as you know I will not be eating my green beans, if it be thy will" and then he ended the prayer. Isnt that so silly? He ended up eating the green beans! I guess it was Heavenly Fathers will for him to eat them. What humility ;)

Well... I love yall :) Keep reading your scriptures every day! Remember, just like our body needs food every day or it will get weak, our spirits will get weak if we dont read the scriptures daily! 

Hermana Goudie

We were on our way to the Mccabes for dinner to have deer tacos and we found this on the side of the road. We called to see if they wanted more but they said they dont eat roadkill ;)

someone thought they were silly

teaching Ben outside the church in his truck! 

TWINNERS :)

Happy Valentines!! Love ya'll! :)

Ah!!!!!!! The weeks are just going to fast!!!!!!!! It was a great week though :) We had some real neat experiences this week. Here are a few of them:

1. It was our last night of bike week and we didnt know what to do and my companion said, lets go to Conny and Emilio's house (spanish investigators) because they live close and we can just walk there. Well when we got there there was someone else there that was making decorations for her baby shower. She was due in a week. We started talking to her and come to find out she is A MEMBER!!!!!!!!! Her mom served a mission, and her parents were married in the temple, her brother served a mission, shes been to the temple to do baptisms for the dead, and she used to go to the Clarksville ward like 5 years ago with her mom. But her mom passed away and she hasnt been back since. She is going through a tough time right now and it is just so cool seeing how God leads us to the people that are ready to come back. The Spirit was SO strong in there and I really could feel the prayers of her family wanting for her to come back so badly. It is the best when you find lost members! :) As in I mean, we dont have their records. We are excited to start working with her. She just had a baby but after that she should be coming back to church with us! Right place at the right time! 

2.We have been working out real hard and eating healthy :) Got to be looking good when I come home ;) We are doing the 30 day challenge so by the end of it we will do 230 squats, 100 leg lifts, and 40 push ups. We are on day 12 and did 110 squats, 80 leg raises, and 12 push ups. We are getting there! 

3. We found another less active this week! Its moments like these that really make your week! Our car was way behind on getting an oil change when we got it from the zone leaders (so it wasnt our fault) but we took it in and they didnt have any openings right then so we made an appointment for the next day at 11 to bring it in and guess who we found sitting in there? 2 hispanics so of course we had to talk to them! One of them was named Patricia and she kept telling her friend all about what missionaries do. She knew a lot. All of a sudden the Spirit was like "This is Gloria Patricia" and I was reminded of a few months ago when we were planning for the next day and I had this Gloria Patricia written down in my planner but I didnt know who it was and I didnt remember writing it down but I told my comp. that we need to find out who this is and try this lady. So we asked the missionaries if they knew who it was and then we found her name in the roster. We got her address and had been trying to contact her ever since. Well, here she was in the Goodyear getting an oil change the same day and same time we were. I asked her if she was a member and if she was Gloria Patricia and she was like, ah you caught me! Haha it was funny and really neat how the Spirit can tell us things. She told me that she knows its not a coincidence that we were there at the same time and that she knew it was a sign from God that He was telling her that she needs to come back to church and she promised us she would :) It was real neat. Right place at the right time again :) I love when I can see that I am being an instrument in the Lords hands. 

4. We read What is the Blue Print of Christ's church this week because the last time we were with Jaime and Daniela that popped in my head and wanted to share it with them. If you havent read it, YOU NEED TO!!!!!!!! It is the best talk ever! :) It is by Tad. R. Callister. I love it. We went over and read it with them (most of it, its like 18 pages of amazing) and it was answering so many questions that they had. Afterwards Hna. Dube was explaining that when they get baptized in the church, they will become members of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. he started getting all offensive and was like, no I already told stevens and goudie that I wont be baptized in the church. I thought we had lost him, and then I figured it out when he started talking about the dream he had about being baptized outside in a river. he was thinking that when sis. dube said in the church, she literally IN the church, like inside of it. We got that one cleared up! Haha ;) 

The rest of the week was busy getting everything ready for Tommanieshas baptism. Here are some of my favorite quotes of the week: 

1. "and the deskroying angel will pass by you"-teaching Laporsia and the fam the word of wisdom. notice the k. yes, thats how they say it! 

2. walked by a guy at Subway and he suddenly turned around real fast and stared at us and said, oh my gosh. I think I just ripped my pants. sis. dube just goes, "well we didnt notice, but now its like I really want to look!" I love  her! 

3. we were teaching Laporsias family getting Tommaniesha all ready for her baptism and in the middle of the lesson the 14 year old looks up at the cielieng and goes, "Is that Rosy?" Sis. Dube starts screaming because there was a spider coming down from the cieling right in front of her! I guess Laraneisha (the 14 year old) loves spiders, names them, and keeps them ;) I love this family!

Love yall! Happy Valentines. I am so grateful for all the love, support, and prayers. Dont forget to show lots of love this week. I will be. But dont worry, its not that kind of love. Charity-the pure love of Christ ;)

Got to drive the truck for like an hour and felt really special :) It was in our car share but it kept getting hit when the Elders had it so E. Cahoon decided to take it out of our car share and give it to the ZL's in Conway :(

went bowling with the Elders this week! I got a 93... not bad for not bowling in over 16 months ;) the elders all call this the "Goudie" face.

Our lovely little district. This district used to be  huge! There used to be 12 missionaries. Now it is down to 6 :(

Doing our language study in the car :)

SUBWAY!!!!!!!! Italian BMT is where its at. 

At Tommanieshas baptism. Eldrick wasnt there though.

I love this girl! She was so excited to be baptized :) I am grateful for all the members that helped us out too :)

this is sis. murphy. She is 95 years old! Love her :) She just kept telling us, you girls are 21 and its time to get married ;)

oh goodness... dont mind us crazies :0

 Isabel Salcedo got married :) these are all the hermanas from the branch that went

Look how beautiful this girl is on her wedding day. love her! I totally made the wedding video ;)

just being a little crazy! 

Familia!!!

Well... guess who came this week??????? SISTER WARNER!!!!!!!!! I guess thats not really her name anymore... But I just have a hard time calling her Ashleigh. She is just as beautiful as ever. She came for Keriannes wedding but was in Russellville for a few days. It was weird having her over, it was like I was living in 2 complete different worlds. Mission world, and real world. Not sure if I am ready for the real world yet... Sis. Warner said the weirdest thing about it is not having someone with you for 24/7. That is going to be a skruggle. But it was so good seeing her! Haha and she sat by me during Spanish sacrament meeting and went to bear her testimony and she totally set her gum on my skirt! Haha I love that girl ;) I love being able to bear my testimony twice each fast and testimony meeting. The blessings of serving in English and Spanish. It was funny because sis. Dube got emotional when she shared her testimony in English and I was fine but in Spanish it totally flip flopped. Haha I totally lost it up there ;) I just am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to come here and I know the the Lord knows me and knows that I needed to be HERE to know these amazing people and have their testimonies touch me. I have learned so much that I would never have been able to learn anywhere else. My perspective on life has completely changed! A members testimony really touched me this week when she said, "Just look at the big picture!" We need to remember why we are here, to prepare to meet God. And how do we do that? The simple things like reading the scriptures daily, praying, going to church. Sometimes they seem so simple that we make them more complicated than they need to be ;) Yes we are here to enjoy and have fun too but we need to remember the bigger picture always and strive to be like Christ in all times, all things, and all places :) And the best thing about being a missionary is we get to represent Him and strive each and every day to be better and help others come unto Him. 

So some interesting experiences this week. We were on bike week and we always seem to meet the most interesting people on bike week, probably because we talk to everyone. We met a guy that invited us to his birthday bbq on the weekend and then had us put our hands up against his and said, "do you feel that? I used to have 6 fingers." Awkward! And then he started talking about human trafficking and how sis. Dube would go for 50 but I would go for 70 because of my long hair. Even more awkward!!!! not even sure what that's supposed to mean ;) Oh the people we meet on our missions ;) We also talked to some guy that didn't speak any English at all! I think he was like Japanese or something. Sis. Dube was just trying her best to communicate with this man. she just kept pointing to her tag and saying MISSIONARIES and pointing to the picture of Christ in the Book of Mormon and saying JESUS. It was hilarious. I wish I could have been recording. We gave him a card with a website on it though so I hope he checks it out and can actually understand ;) I am so grateful that I can at least speak Spanish ;) Right before we went on bike week we took the car to one of our investigators house Carolyn and lees and dropped off a talk for them in the mailbox, His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox. We didn't want to take it to the door because it was early in the morning (for them, they are an older couple) so we just left it in the mailbox. Well we called her a few days later and she said, "Don't you know that's against the law?" oops... missionaries accidentally breaking the law here ;) We had a good lesson with them at the Plumbs. I am so grateful for all the members help :)

We made our own homemade salsa this week! We taught the D&C class for the Spanish branch Saturday night, we had sports night and Chino came! I scored 2 goals, I am getting pro ;) and we had some awesome lessons at Laporsias house! Tamaneesha is getting baptized on Saturday. She is 8 and super excited :) 

Quote of the week: "The capacity of Christ is to serve others a midst our own trials" - sis. Watts

Well... I love yall! Have a great day! :)

Look at the cute puppy we found while we were biking and sharing the gospel :)

Just riding over the tracks!

There are so many trains in Russellville, so we had to get a few pics to remind us of them. ;)

Self-timer... I promise we were being safe. ;)

Our homemade Mexican meal ;) Okay it doesn't look that good but it tasted great! Thanks Sis. Dube! :)

Earl received flowers and he shared them with Sis. Dube and I :) Love that old man!

All the Ninos at sports night for Cesars birthday party. He turned 2!

Pro-Mexican soccer players ;)

SISTER WARNER!!!! Aka Ashleigh and SAMANTAH! :) Love them!