Hola mi familia y amigos :) 

That might be wrong.. who knows.  There are so many hispanic people here so we get to practice our limited spanish a lot, it is always interesting but we have found the spanish elders a couple new investigators from it! Ok so this was the coolest week ever.  We saw sooo many miracles!  So I am just going to tell you some stories.

On Monday, we were walking down a street and we saw a man who was baptized about a year ago and has gone less active riding his bike across the street, when he saw us he immediately came over to talk.  He told us he has been going through a super tough time and just barely had broken his sobriety for the last 8 months and drunken (no clue what the right word is here) 2 beers. WE talked to him a little bit and testified of the atonement.  We asked if we could say a prayer for him and afterwards when we looked up he was sitting there bawling like a little baby as he said "Sisters, I know Heavenly Father knows and loves me because he placed you in my path when I needed it most."  Might I add that hes a big tough guy with a lot of tattoos, so this was probably one of the most tender moments on my mission.

We have been going through our ward list lately and we knocked on this door the other day.. This shirtless man with tattoos all over answered and I saw "God" on one of his tattoos and so we started talking about that... little did I know, after talking for a second and focusing that tattoo said "God hates us all".  This man was a member but with many experiences has turned away from the church and God completely.  We talked a bit and noticed that his little son was sitting in the front room and so I asked if he believed in God.  He called him out and we talked for a little bit to him (we could just feel the dads heart softening), he told us he believed in God and why.  After a little bit longer the wife came up and we asked her, she said that she was not allowed to bring up religion in her home growing up so she didnt really know.  Her and her son took a pamphlet and said they would read it together to see what they think.  They agreed to have us back over and even invited us over for dinner this Sunday!  As we were getting ready to go, the husband asked if he could have a pamphlet!!!  He said that we shouldnt expect anything out of it but that he would take a look and think about it. SSooooosososo cool.  It is amazing how the spirit can soften hearts.  I love them. 

We do a scripture study every week and this last week we talked about faith.  An investigator made a comment that really stood out to me so I wanted to share- she talked about a man who has riden across a single string across the grand canyon on a motorcycle.  She said that he asked a man if he believed he could do it again after witnessing it once, the man agreed without hesitation.  The guy then said, "well, how bout you hop on the back then".  She related this to faith and how we can say we believe in God and in his power, but that means nothing if were not willing to act and take those leaps of faith.  My explanation may have not made sense.. but it was cool!  I want to be better at taking leaps of faith.  

The other morning I was eating oatmeal with grandpa and grandma walked in to join us, grandpa had made her a bowl and she asked him is he had put sugar in it already and he said "no, I thought you were already sweet enough" hahaha sly dog. 

I hope that all is going well with all of you.  You are wonderful and I hope that you have a great week!

Love,

Sister Paul xoxo

Hello. :)

First off- there are fires out the wazoo here.  Some mornings we cant even see the mountains because there is smoke everywhere and then yesterday there were 2 here in Carson!  There were airplanes dropping this red stuff on them and there gone now but the mountains are black.. its nutso.

Cool story-  we shared this movie about John Tanner with 2 of our investigators.  I didn't know who John Tanner was before my mission but he is awesome and gave up everything to serve the Lord.  One of my favorite quotes from the movie that basically sums it all up is by Neal A Maxwell- "Consecration is the only surrender which is also a victory."  I love it.   So we shared this with 2 different investigators and then asked them what are some sacrifices they can make to show their love for the Lord.  One of them- Stana said I think I need to stop drinking coffee and make it a priority to go to at least one hour of church.  The other- Billy, said that he needs to start putting th gospel first and be baptized.  You wont be able to tell through these words on the screen but both of those things are like a huuuggee deal for them!  It was way cool.  They committed themselves to do exactly what they need to do :)

One our investigators who is preparing to be baptized in a couple weeks told us that she already has plans to bring all of her grandchildren to church and she wants all her family and friends to experience the blessings and changes that she has seen. :') i love her.

My companion is so tiny she will eat one oreo for lunch.. ONE. that is all, no sides.  I don't understand.  I love her so much, though.  We had a luau for our relief society activity and she danced! She is waaayy good and it was a lot of fun!

Elder Todd Larkin and Kevin W Pearson from the seventy came and trained us at MLC.. oh my goodness.  It changed my life, to say the least.  They talked about giving our all and always striving to align our will with the Saviors.  Its crazy how easy it is to get distracted by the world and to have desires that mean nothing in the eternal perspective, but I am very grateful for the gospel to help us stay on track.  Give up everything that you think you want for what Heavenly Father wants for you, my friends, because it will always be better.  I hope you have a wonderful week!  Let me know if theres anything I can do for you :)

Love,

Sister Paul

These are my two "daughters" in the mission- the 2 sisters I trained- Sister Landgrave and Sister Latu :)

Hello family!

     OK- so first of all,  I want to tell you about the people we live with.  They are cute and old and tell us to call them grandma and grandpa.  So the other night I was having some extra strong sugar cravings and I remembered we had ice cream so I went to the fridge to get some and Im walking back to our room with a bowl of it and grandpa goes, "ya know, that will make you fat!" hahah i laughed and agreed and went back to our room.  So then like 10 minutes later I go back to the kitchen to clean the bowl and Grandpa is eating ice cream!!! What a stinker.  I think that if we were both born in the same period we would have been best friends in high school.

     Anyways- let me tell you 2 experiences and reasons why the spirit is so cool.  We planned to teach one of our investigators, Teena, about tithing and fast offering.  So the first thing she says when we go to teach her is that she decided that every time she used the Lords name in vain she was going to put a dollar in a jar, and then when she finally got out of the habit she would find a way to give it to the church aka fast offering!!  The next day we had planned to teach an investigator Ashley about the word of wisdom and when we got there she said that that morning she woke up and decided that she needed to stop smoking and so she was wearing a nicotine patch and everything when we were teaching her and she had no idea about the word of wisdom beforehand!! It was the coolest thing.

     We started talking to this girl on the street and she had the cutest little girl.  The little girls name was Kylie but it was short for a longer Samoan name and then her boyfriend was a Samoan guy named Paul.. weird or what?

     I was so so sad one day this week.  A lady had stopped the elders and said that she needed to meet with missionaries because all of her friends were members, she had 25 students who gave her a Book of Mormon as a graduation present, she recently had lost 2 sons and she knew Heavenly Father was leading her to the mormon church.  So, we go to teach her and she is SO awesome. holy cow.  She had so many questions and the spirit was so strong and she was just eating everything that we shared all up.  Before we left she asked what we wanted her to read and she was so excited to read out of the Book of Mormon.  So we're basically on a spiritual high the rest of the night and then around 9 o clock we get a text from her saying that she was grateful for us but didnt want to meet again because she did some research and she had enough.  It was heartbreaking.  We prayed and prayed and tried to figure out what to do and how to reply and we have had no success since.  So i was super bummed and I usually read the Book of Mormon before I go to sleep but I was just laying on the floor staring at the ceiling feeling sad and then I realized ok what am i doing how is this going to help the situation so I opened up the Book of Mormon and it opened up to Mosiah 14 where it talks all about Christ and all that he went through with the atonement.  As I was reading it I was thinking about how Heavenly Father must have felt seeing his son go through that, and then I thought of how he must feel seeing thousands of his sons and daughters around the world get rejected and heartbroken while sharing his gospel, and THEN I thought of the fact that it is our Heavenly Fathers other sons and daughters who are the ones doing the rejecting and how hard that would be to watch that happen and to know that there was a better path for them of peace and happiness.  At that moment,  I was very grateful for the knowledge of our Savior and the wonderful opportunity it is to get a little taste of what He went through as He shared the gospel.  Being a missionary has been the best thing I have ever done in my life.  I am so grateful to be here and I LOVE this gospel.  Have a wonderful week and let me know if theres anything I can do for you :)

Love,

Sister Paul