09/26/16 Group Email

Hey fam! 

Tons of miracles that we saw this week!!

First off, I don't know if remember the story of the less active member that Hermana ALlphin and I stopped by.. I had a random prompting to stop by her and when we did, we found that she'd been in bed for 15 days and was really depressed and I just held her and cried.. well I saw her for the first time since then yesterday at church! She got up out of her seat and literally RAN to me and grabbed me and held me and just started sobbing... It was the most tender moment ever.  She kept saying she was so happy to see me and she just held me for a solid minute as she cried.  It really struck me because you never know who's lives you are touching.  I went to say hi to her husband and he just took my hand and held it and said "gracias" and man it was amazing.  I love these people.  Another awesome thing that happened at church, was we were walking out and Obispo called us over and brought us into his office and three of us sat down and he just started crying. And he looked at us and sooo sincerely he said "hermanas, I am so proud of you" those words right there, make every hard moment WORTH IT! He told us that he has seen how pure we are and as we go about doing the work, our words are so powerful.  He said a lot of things but man it was incredible.  Hermana Ratliff and I walked out and we just wanted to cry, it made our day! I love Obispo Gonzalez! 

We were finishing up eating dinner with a less active and start sharing our message about the Book of Mormon when out of nowhere the words "diezmo" cross my mind... I was like oh man, here we go.  So I tell her "you know what, we gotta be paying our tithing" my comp was pretty shocked when I dropped that haha but she backed me up and we taught her tithing and she ended up telling us that she hadn't been paying it and that she is going to start.  I left the lesson feeling so good! It was scary to get that prompting, because it's tough to talk about tithing with people, but it ended up so good and I know that that was really what she needed to hear in that moment! 

As we were walking along the riverside last week, we were about to get into our car but we decided to go chat with this man sitting on the bench.  We invited ourselves to sit by him (you can basically do anything as a missionary haha) and we slowly started talking. He was nice, not too much into the convo.  But we slowly started opening up and he told us that he was down in that part of town because his wife was in a cancer support group. She had been diagnosed with cancer 9 years ago and things were starting to go down. They'd been married for 50 years. So we testified of Christ and gave him a plan of salvation pamphlet a book of mormon. But it was really cool, we had no idea that he was struggling with that, but you could tell he really listened to what we had to say.  Another thing with cancer... we were eating lunch with a member in our ward that we don't know too well. As we finished the message, i asked if there was anything she needed and she just started weeping and told us how her daughter had just been diagnosed with cancer, along with her grandson.  She told us how her father was killed and her mom died of cancer as well, and how she was so scared to lose a child with cancer. It was heartbreaking! It made me cry! I didn't really know what to tell her, or how to comfort her, but I really felt the Savior there with us as I held her hand and just let her cry.  It's tough being a missionary, you get a looooot of sad stories and you have to hold up a lot of people, and sometimes I think "how the heck am I suppose to hold up all of these people? I'm not strong enough!" but lately, I really have felt the Savior with me, lifting me up as I lift others up.

Our Family Reyes,, they are doing SO GOOD! They are loving life and more importantly, loving the gospel! They are the most incredible people I've ever met.  Seriously, they are soooo amazing.  We had a loong chat with Lorena yesterday as we were at a party, and she is just in love with the gospel.  She is so excited to have her children live with the morals that we live with.  The ward is being so supportive and everyone wants to talk to them at church.  The baptism, if everything goes well, will be on Sunday after the last general conference session, so keep them in your prayers!

Everything is going so good! We have seen soooo many miracles lately.  Love you all!

Amor,

Hermana Dean

09/26/16 Pictures

Everyone in the zone

 

One of the busiest weeks ever!

  Elder's Sanchez last LTMs.. he was always my soccer pday buddy 

It was the best thing ever to see Hermana Amaller!!!!!!!!!!  

 The Spanish Hermanas

Beautiful fall in Calgary

 

 

 

 

downtown street contacting, alongisde the river  

 Elaina - she's a member and the funniest person I  have ever met

Elaina, Elaina's friend who just told us last night "oh yeah I wanna get baptized" hahaha so hopefullly things work out with her and Bryan our recent convert. 

sister rowberry, i went on exchanges with her this week

 

09/19/16 Group Email

FAMILY - THIS WAS THE BEST WEEK EVER! Our amazing family that we are teaching, la familia reyes, accepted the baptismal date of October 2nd, right after the general conference session!! We met with them three times this week and every lesson was incredible.. words can't even begin to describe how amazing everything was. It all just fell into place. God really is doing His work out here! We ate dinner with them last night and it was so fun! They really are my family up here and I love them so much. They are so excited to join the church, so keep on praying that everything works out perfectly!
We had zone conference this week which was wonderful! Got up and bore my testimony, of course I bawled through the whole thing, but there's something so special in bearing your testimony in front of other missionaries (and in English). The spirit was so strong and we all came out so rejuvanted and full of the spirit.
On Saturday we helped out all day at the food drive.. It was amazing! there were soooo many people who brought food! It was really touching. We filled up three semi trucks of food, and that was only at our stake! They did the drive all throughout the city. It was really cool to see the whole community come together and help out. My shoulders are soooo sore from moving the food though, but it was worth it :)


Well everything is going good! Life is sooo busy between la familia reyes and all of our exchanges, but it's good! Hard work is the best, even though we're running on fumes by the end of the week. But I'm so happy to be here! I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I feel so at home, i love these people and I love the work that we are doing. Have an awesome week!! Love you!


Hermana Dean

09/19/16 Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

so happy because i found a rubbix cube!!!!!!

  exchanges with sister barlow 

 the family we are teaching!

 

working at the food drive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The investigators of the other Hermanas 

The view is soooooo beautiful, it's all yellow!

 

 

 
Caglgary North Zone

09/12/16 Group Email

Wow this was such an amazing week! We saw so many miracles!
-So for starters, last Monday we visited with a sweet old lady from the ward and we taught her the Restauracion. As I was reciting the first vision, she just started sobbing. I was so shocked because it came out of nowhere, but I looked into her tear filled eyes and testified of Joseph Smith and wow it was an incredible experience. As missionaries, we share the restauracion so many times that it starts to become a habit.. and then we share it with people who don't always appreciate the words. But it really hit me as I testified that night to her, that that vision is so true! It really did happen and if we take time to truly think about it, the spirit will testifiy to us that it's the truth.

-Another miracle! We were out walking around this part of town where there are a lot of Latinos.. which we ended up meeting a couple of muchachos who were about our age and were very impressed that we could speak Spanish haha.. we ended up doing everything we needed in the area, but as we we were driving out this man in his garage started smiling and waving to us (which doesn't happen hahah) so we went and repakred and walked over and he was a member! He's from Tonga! and was sooooo nice. we were talking and asked him if he new anybody who spoke Spanish and he said "yeah my neighbor! you should go knock her door!" so we turned to go knock it, but I turned back around and asked him if he could come with us. he said oh yeah of course! so we walked us over there and we were able to contact his refence (she wasn't interested, dang it!) but it was the sweetest thing. Seriously, if every member was like that, we would be teaching people off the walls!

-We got a referral from some Sisters in our zone, so we went over and contacted him. Yeah, he was this man from El Salvador who just wanted to bible bash and tell us that our church is wrong. But we stayed calm and collected. We finally were able to cut him off and we were about to leave but I thought, "you know what, no I'm gonna testify to him!" so I told him 'Is it okay if we leave you with our tesitimonies?" and he kind of stepped back and looked at me, really confused hahah but said that we could. So he crossed his arms and looked right at me.. and I was able to testify that we have a loving Heavenly Father, we have a Savior Jesus Christ, and we have the Holy Ghost. and man, it felt SO good to testify of those things! To go from listening to the crazy things he was telling us, to being able to testify of our truths. And he said "so the mormon church believes that they are all three separate beings?" and I said yes and he said "okay you answered my question, I've been wondering about that for awhile now" hahaha what the! It was crazy! Talk about Let the holy spirit guide!

-The best miracle of the week... WE ARE TEACHING A FAMILY and they are perfect! He is from Republica Dominicana and she's from Colombia and they have four kids (10, 8, 6, and 4) Hermano Fernando works with him and introduced us two weeks ago. On Tuesday we taught them the Restauracion, which they absolutely loved. They were holding on to every word. Then Hermano Fernando and his kids went over the following night and gave her a blessing, because she had surgery last week, which we heard was really special. Then on Saturday we taught them the Plan of Salvation with the Family Fernando and it was soooo special. The spirit was sooo strong. Their house is beautfiul and super clean.. so the spirit is always there with us. At the end of the lesson they told us that they will make it to church once she starts feeling better from the surgery. So we weren't planning on them coming.. WELL during sacrment meeting, right as they started doing the annoucements, IN WALKS IN THE FAMILY REYES and everyone watched them walk in and sit down with the family fernando.. seriously, the face of the Obispo and his counselers was priceless! they were just glowing and smiling from ear to ear! And the talks during sacrament were perfect.. they talked about obedience and the importance of the family and wow it couldn't have been better. the kids all went to primary and we went to principios del evangelio and of course that was a perfect class too! about the sacrament and the spirit was SO strong! after the class as we waited for Relief society to start, Lorena (the mom) turned to us and just started crying and said she feels so happy here and all that they've talked about has helped her so much and a ton of other stuff. But WOW it was the miracle of the transfer, for sure! They are so golden!

This week was incredible. Soooo many miracles. It is the most amazing feeling being an instrument in the Lord's hands! I know that I'm doing is work and I know that He lives! The miracles we see every day out here are indescribable. I love being able to testify! Love you all have a good weeeeeek

Hermana Dean

09/12/16 Pictures

so we were visiting a sweet old lady from the ward and she was asking us how to say "elderly folks home" and oh man she could not say folks. she was just swearing over and over and over and finally I just lost it and then my comp lost it and then she lost it! so i explained to her she was saying a bad word and she just laughed.  So Ratliff and I snapped a pic of the funny moment

 We ate dinner with Jennie and Jamil - still my favorite couple ever - and she read me what you (mom) wrote her 5 months after she messaged you.. hahah

 exchanges with Sister Jakobi (LOVE HER)

 The leaves are looking pretty as everr!

Exchanges with Sister mcdonald and sis Jakobi

We walked outside and our neighbors had two comfy chairs with a big "FREE" sign on them... so we took them and put them as our study chairs