Hola!Buenas Tardes! Well, every week I think the mission can't get any better and then the Lord surprises me by blessing me with amazing experiences. This week I honesty don't even know where to start. I learned so much this week. The biggest lesson I learned this week was following the spirit. Letting it be your constant companion. No matter where you are, or what you are doing. And especially in the opportunities you have to teach or share something with someone. This week I really focused on following the spirit and praying for it. It's something I've always done my whole mission but this week it was somehow different. I was able to really feel the spirit and just be so lead and guided by it. The best example was in a lesson with Silvia, Angel and Vianeth. We've been teaching Silvia for awhile now, she is the one a few weeks back who had the impression that she needed to go and see what the Mormons do when she passed a church in the bus. And then that same day we ran into her and started visiting her. She actually came that week and went to a session of General Conference but she was so tired that she basically slept through the whole thing. After that she kept telling us she wanted to be really prepared before going back to church and she kept talking about how she wanted some huge spiritual experience. We went to visit her one day this week after about a week of not being able to pass by and she calls her daughter to come over and meet us. About 15 minutes later her daughter and son show up ready to hear the word of God from two white girls from Utah. They are hard core christians who don't go to any church because they know that none of them are right. Angel even talked to us about how the true church needs to have the 70. The thing that they just really lack is the ability to understand and recognize that the spirit comes in a still small voice. And that it's through feelings of peace, and tranquility. Saturday we were talking with them and they started to go off about the gift of tongues and talking in other languages and I started to bare my testimony and we started teaching the Restauracion. We had already taught them all the Restauracion but this time it was just different. The spirit was so, so strong. Not like a huge firework show, but just a peace and feeling that there really just aren't words to describe. And the next day at church when Silvia and her husband along with Vianeth walked in I just was so happy to see that they actually felt it. Yesterday was the primary program here in Orizaba - and I'm sure in a bunch of other wards all over the world. It was honestly such an amazing day. The spirit was so strong and to hear the songs and testimony of those children - just a perfect sunday. And honestly it was such a great day too because we had a lot of investigators that came. Lazaro, Silvia and her family. Enoc and his brother Quirino, a new family that we just met this week and started teaching (More great stories of them coming soon!) There were a lot of people and it was so great because the spirit was so strong. The best part was at the end when everyone stood and sang Familys Can Be Together Forever! I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have that families really CAN be together forever. And like the phrase says - A missionary is someone who leaves their family for 18 months (or 2 years) so that others can be with theirs for eternity. Well I know it's true. And even though sometimes it's hard to be away from family - The feeling I get teaching families and people the gospel of Jesus Christ just blows me away. Well I hope everyone has an amazing week! I wish I had time to write everything that happened this week... But until next week! - Hermana Terry Something else that I learned this week is that sometimes the best way to serve someone is to let them serve you. pics: One of the other amaing blessings in the mission is having the opportunity to see or hear about people you taught in the past get baptized! This picture is of me and Olivia - She is an old investigator that just got baptized on Sunday! It was such a beautiful, spiritual baptism and it was such a great moment to be a tiny part of it. Another amazing experience this week was when we went to go visit Selena - a recent convert, we started teaching and in runs ten young men from the ward. We somehow turned it into a mini fireside with everyone sharing their testimony of Jesus Christ. The spirit was so strong. Sunday night sleep-overs! Every sunday we have a Zone meeting for the district leaders, zone leaders and us. It's always in Nogales and so every so often when it goes late we have to gave sleep overs with the Hermanas in Nogales. :)
Hello from rainy OrizabaThis week was amazing! I'm pretty sure I say that just about every week but it's because in the mission, every week is amazing. This week I really was able to love and enjoy the Sabbath day. I can't even tell you how hard it is sometimes to enjoy this day because as a missionary it is always the most stressful day of the week. But this week it was just a day full of the spirit! We've been really focusing on teaching and helping our investigators understand the importance of the Sabbath day and that we need to keep it holy. Something that I think even us as lifelong members sometimes just don't understand. The importance of this one day in the week that we have to go to church and take the sacrament. And then to remember to really make this day special. A day different than the other days in the week. A day dedicated to the Lord. I am really gaining a testimony of church attendance and the importance of the sacrament. And especially seeing how much of a difference this one day makes in the conversion process of our investigators.
For example, we've been teaching Enoc now for a little more than a month. He is progressing so well! Reading the Book of Mormon, praying, he quit drinking coffee and he's been working really hard to receive an answer whether the Book of Mormon is true. The only thing he really lacked was church attendance! The first time he came he was late and missed the sacrament, then later he came again to the afternoon session of Conference. After he didn't come to church last week and told us he wasn't going to be able to come the next week we deceided he needed a serious lesson on the Sabbath. So we met him in the church and taught him about the sacrament and how we can keep the Sabbath day holy. It was such a powerful lesson! Later when we asked how his prayers were going he told us he had a dream. That he came to church and he was there on time and he sat with us. I asked him, And what do you think that means? And he answered simple - Well...I need to go to church, don't I? The problem was that he had a work trip and there was no way he could get out of it...But fast forwarding a to sunday morning we received a text, "Hermanas! It's me Enoc - What time does the sacrament start?!" When we got there to church yesterday Enoc pulled up on his motorcycle. It was so awesome! I'm still not even sure what he did to get out of his work assignment but it was just a great answer to our prayers that he could come to church to be able to receive that revelation that he needed and keep the Sabbath day holy! Feel the spirit that we can only feel at church. I've told you all that Hermana Johnson was also a great choir nerd in Highschool? Well yesterday was the ward mission day so they asked us to sing a song. We immediatly put together an arrangement of Savior Redeemer of My Soul - only because the some doesn't exist in Spanish we sang it with the words of I Know that My Reedemer Lives. We called the ward pianist - who is a professional classical piano player and in just ten minutes time we had just the most amazing musical number. The spirit was so strong. Afterwords they booked us to sing musical numbers every week. haha But it really was just an amazing moment and a heart changing experience. The next best thing that happened yesterday was the baptism of one of the ward girls that just turned 8. After sacrament meeting she ran up to us and proudly gave us an invitation to her baptism. Begging us to come. Obviously we've got to support those future missionaries! She was so cute though, and so excited to be getting baptized. I ended up directing the music and she was super cute and happy to have the sister missionaries in her baptism. I really remembered a lot about my baptismal day. And the part that hit me most was just how proud and absolutely happy her parents were. I can't even imagine what joy it must bring parents to see the baptism of their first child. And for the father to be able to baptize his daughter. I am so grateful for my goodly parents who taught me gospel principles in my youth. And helped me turn into the person I am today. And for a father with that sacred priesthood power and the authority he had to be the one to baptize me. It's something I wouldn't change for anything. It was just an amazing spiritual moment. And later we ended up able to contact a few of their family and friends who aren't members that came to the baptism! And then we topped the day off with a Family Home Evening with the Stake President, his family and one of our investigators, Lazaro. Lazaro has so many questions and doubts, but he's so willing to do anything. He dropped coffee the minute we taught the Word of Wisdom. And he's come to church now three weeks in a row. Despite all his crazy questions and doubts - he truly just has a desire to find the truth. It was so funny to see him and Presidente Canaan talking back and forth. He would start with a question and President was ready with the answer. But the ultimate answer is always prayer. It doesn't matter the knowledge that we have, or the evidence that there is to back it up. It all comes down to the spiritual confirmation that we can recieve through sincere prayer. It's like they said in general conference. Spiritual questions deserve spiritual answers. I invite all of you, that if you have a question or a doubt - that you pray and ask your Father in Heaven because He does and He WILL answer your prayers. Every time. Thank you all for your love and support. I am so grateful for loving family and friends. People I know are always sending love and prayers my way. It makes all the difference in the world to us as missionaries. Keep supporting the missionary work and remember that the best missionary support you can give is through being an example and teaching your friends, family, and people you know who aren't members. Remember that everyone is a child of God and everyone deserves the chance to accept or reject our invitation to come unto Christ. And as baptized members of the true church of Jesus Christ and representatives of Him - we have the duty and responsibilty to share our faith with everyone. Out of love for our Heavenly Father and love for our brothers and sisters here on the Earth. Anways..! Love you all! Have a great week! Don't forget to write! ;) Hermana Terry If you haven't ever eaten a cheese quesadilla that looks like this - You haven't lived. The baptism of Hasibi Paloma :) Well I started writing my email and somehow it got deleted... So really quick I just want to share a couple things! This week we got to go to Veracruz! Nothing like a visit to Veracruz to make you grateful for Orizaba! Even though we get rained on every day and it gets cool sometimes...It's still so much better than the heat and humidity of Veracruz! I got to see Hna Ledek! It was so great! This week I also had divisions with Hna Jensen! It was so amazing being companions with her again! We had such an amazing day together! This day just about every appointment fell through but we made the best of it! We contacted more than 20 people and contacted just about every reference that we had. It was a great day and we worked so hard! And the miracle was finding new people to teach despite a lot of other things falling through.
Well that's all I have time to re-write. The computer is literally going to log me out. But I love you all! Hope you have an amazing week! Hermana Terry Hola!This week was absolutely amazing! Sometimes transfers are just was you need for a new and fresh start! My companion is Hermana Johnson. She's from Kerns Utah and has 11 months in the mission. I'm pretty sure we were meant to be companions. She also was choir president in her highschool, so we are always singing and harmonizing in the house and having so much fun. It's also so fun working with her, we have so much fun contacting and teaching.
Conference this week was AMAZING! I got to listen to most of it in English (Just Sunday morning session in Spanish) And of course the talks in native spanish we listened to in Spanish. I loved this! Especially for the members. They felt so special and amazed at listening to a general authority talking in their native tongue. I hope that they continue doing this - it is just such an amazing demonstration that this church is a global church. This conference I had the goal to really pray and fast for my investigators to receive revelation. Sunday my prayers were really answered. I loved the talk by President Monson and then later that day by Elder Bednar. It was such an answer to my prayers - and I know that it helped our investigators that we had there at conference. This week we were truely guided by the spirit. On wednesday we were running a little late to district class so we took a taxi - the Taxi was a man named Genaro who had his little 2 year old son driving taxi with him. We talked to him a bit and got his address and an appointment to go and visit him and his family. Later that same day when we were leaving a house of someone I noticed a women sitting in this little park playing with her son. I felt the spirit so strong - Go talk to her! and immediately followed the prompting. As we walked up we started to present with her when her son came running up and took Hermana Johnson by the hand to go and play. It was then that we realized it was the same 2 year old boy! We had somehow managed to run into Cindy - Genaro's wife! We talked to her a little bit and set up an appointment to go and visit her as well because she wasn't going to be able to be there with her husband. And she told us that we could also visit her dad Lazaro. Later in the week when we went to visit Genaro we met him and Lazaro. Lazaro talks more than just about any other person I've ever met. He slammed us with question after question but never really gave us the chance to try and respond. Finally he let us talk a little and we had to leave. But later that day we went back to visit Cindy. When we came into the house Lazaro was sitting in the kitchen finishing his lunch, and he just stayed there. I know that he was listening. And especially when Cindy started talking about how much of a struggle it's been in her life since her mom died and how many questions and doubts she has about it. We left her with a Book of Mormon and invited her to pray. Then Sunday - as we were waiting for investigators to come to conference in the morning. . . In walks Lazaro! I got to sit with him in the first session and the whole time I was praying that they would speak for his needs. And when President Monson started first thing on the Plan of Salvacion I felt the spirit so strongly. Lazaro was in awh of the conference - so much that he came to the next session and he beat us all too it! Ready to hear more. He told me after the first session, "I'm reading your book!" He stole his daughters Book of Mormon and started to read it. I just know that we were guided by the spirit to teach him and his family. Another person we started teaching this week was Silvia Castro! We were looking for a reference when we contacted this woman with a bunch of dogs. Silvia told us - "How about you come teach me in my house?" Of course we responded with a huge Yes! and went back to her house. She told us that earlier in the morning she was in a bus and pássed a church that is in a different area. When she passed it she thought to herself, "Someday I'm going to go to this church and see what goes on here..." And in that same day God placed us in her path. She knew that we were sent by God and that it was no coincidence that we met her. She also came with us to conference and is praying and preparing for baptism! Missionary work is just such an amazing thing! I feel so blessed to be a part of it and have the wonderful opportunity to share blessings of eternity with people who are searching for the truth but don't know where to find it. I hope you all have a fantastic week! Hermana Terry Me and Hna Johnson after conferencia. |
My name is McKenna Terry and I have been called to the Mexico Veracruz Mission. These are my stories. Hermana McKenna Terry
[email protected] Hermana McKenna Terry
Mexico Veracruz Mission Calle Altamirano #27 Entre 1 de Mayo y Carranza Col. Flores Magon Veracruz, Ver 91700 Mexico Archives
July 2015
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