Feliz Navidad!

 Whattup fam! 

To be honest I was going to use this email to rant about things going on right now then I remembered its CHRISTMAS THIS WEEK!!! And ranting probably isnt the way to spread christmas cheer lol, So instead of sharing the negativity (theres enough of that in the world) Im going to share something Im eternally grateful for!

Id like to say how grateful I am for Jesus Christ. This week I have been reading a lot of the New Testament and Im so grateful that Jesus Christ came to this earth, in very meek circumstances, to not only die for us, but to show us how to LIVE so we can live with our families, him, and Heavenly Father forever! Jesus wasnt forced to do this, but he said here am I send me because of how much he loves us. He also invites us to follow him, never forcing us, asking us to come as we are but learn how to be more like him. I absolutely love this! I know he thinks about us every time he sees the scars on his hands and really all the time. Our father in heaven and Jesus Christ are perfectly aware of us, and I hope this week especially we will take the time to remember them! This week when i was feeling down and not really knowing what to do w my comp, I turned to the scriptures to help me. I ended up studying a little bit about Jesus Christ in the guide to studying the scriptures (in the spanish bom) and i ended up reading about how Jesus Christ is the living water. Everyone needs water to survive physically, and we all need Jesus Christ to survive spiritually. For those of you who know me Im dehydrated 90% of the time from not drinking water. This made me think about when i get dehydrated sometimes it takes a while for me to not drink water to actually realize that im dehydrated. Isnt that the same when were dehydrated from the Living Water too? Sometimes we go way too long without thinking of Jesus Christ, reading our scriptures and praying because we dont see the importance and effects right away always... but there always are effects and we need to catch ourselves bdfore we end up "hospitalized spiritually" haha. Anyways this week I decided to make a goal to drink more water, physically, and try to remember the Living Water (Christ) every time I drink. Already its made me happier this week! Just after having this thought i was reading in John, when Jesus said to the woman at the well

                        13 Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life

I invite you guys this week to not only hydrate by drinking water haha, but really start drinking from the Living Water. If its been a while, dont worry. God always has his arms open to us! Anyways these are some of my thoughts this morning. Jesus came to the earth for you. He died for you. He lives again for you. He is love and everything we should strive to be! Have the best week and go get hydrated lol! Love you all! 

-hna stone 

Ps please go watch spiderman for me and enjoy christmas w your families!! 

Pics

-we finally got rain yesterday (its been a while) and it was cool enough to wear a jacket yay

- 3 ward christmas parties! One was our wards and we crashed 2 others and helped the other missionaries w musical numbers! I miss singing especially for christmas so it was fun! And i mean free food I'll never be sad ab;) 

-the best fresh fruit icecream for 20 pesos 

-my best friend street dog that followed me for like 20 min 

-our christmas tree!! Look at the decor we made... sacrament cups can be recycled lol

- our neighborhood cat Michi that somehow gets over our gate and is always in someones house or chilling on our road. The other day at our neighbors house it was in their house too... its like hudini lol. But I can oficially say that michi is one cat i actually like- and im nottt a cat person

If you want to send me pics or a voice recording or email this week for christmas Id love it!! sstone@missionary.org 

 Love you all!!

ReplyForward

Save the Drama for the Telenovas please

  20211209_184243.mp4

 Interesting week to say the least... 

Well folks I'll be real with you, living with girls who are having drama with each other is difficult... yes missionaries still have drama sadly. To spare the details it was a rough week haha and all the girls in our house had problems with each other (not me which is good BUT that meant they all ranted to me about each other and it was hard when I was trying to stay out of it and be a peacemaker and just encourage them not to hate each other haha) sooo this week I learned that 1- the spirit can not be in a house with contention and you can't have success without the spirit. Dont have contention in your homes guys. Its so easy to get worked up and angry over dumb stuff but choose to love and serve instead! If you have hard feelings towards someone I encourage you this week to forget about yourself and think about what Christ would do. Serve and love and try to make this christmas season a little more merry! 2- people are imperfect (including myself) so we need to have patience and turn to the lord for advice and to help us fix our weaknesses 3- don't participate in gossip and drama. I've always known this but this week I can testify that the spirit and contention (which comes fr gossip and drama) can not be in the same place at the same time. With so much drama working was difficult this week and I know it's the reason we had a lot less success this week. Even trying to prepare for lessons this week with the spirit, if your comp doesn't have the spirit and desire to work it makes things tough. anyways, word of advice stay out of drama and gossip for real! Trust me I know that it can be fun sometimes in the moment but talking bad about one of God's precious children will never bring you or anyone happiness! 

Good news this weekend after a (ppppp) pj, pizza, playing games, painting nails, piji y platicar (sleepover and talk) party the tension in our house has gone down a lot... Miracles really can happen 

Don't worry there were still good things about this week because God is good. (More details in the picture descriptions) We had some good lessons (with Hector and Mario), I had divisions with refugio again which went good, we had some fun activities, Diego had AND PASSED his baptismal interview (he gets baptized the 18, and I got a package from my fammm! 

Hope you guys are doing good and send me an email or fb message if you have a min I'd love to see pictures and hear about your lives! Love you all!

-hna stone

Pics-

-Mario's bday (we made his day and brought him a little cake, then had an awesome lesson on the best gift- Jesus Christ and the atonement, and it was cool! He was like "I thought that Jesus was some guy that died but not that he is the son of God who died and suffered for ME. He said its kinda hard to believe bc suffering, death, and resurrection and all that is hard to believe but that he thinks we speak the truth and he said hell pray about it so hopefully that goes well! Please keep him in your prayers!!) 

 -service organizing books with Refugio. We're helping a lady move into her house and she asked if we could organize books by genre... I was like oh yeah for sure and when we got to the books they were all in spanish which idk what I was expecting but it was tough lol but fun! She had some weirddd books and it was an adventure trying to figure out what books were about and organize them. They probably were NOT in the right places haha but it was fun!

- We crashed another ward's Christmas party. They saw we were missionaries and of course offered the free food and to stay for a while and enjoy their christmas program! It was nice! I love christmas!

-our ZLs picked up my package and when we got it they had pizza for us too. Package + pizza = extra blessed

-got a mystery mark 

- pic from a couple weeks ago w 2 zones of our mission

- fresh fruit popsicles are my favorite 

- my ugly (fav) pjs and the new start of tan lines yayy

-a taste of what being on the bus is like (less crowded version)

It's December Already?!?

 Hola mi querido amigos y familia :D This week was seriously SO GOOD so lets get to it! Im going to write about the week backwards (keew eht tuoba) now that thats out of the way (hopefully someone gets the dad joke) my week was great! To start, Sunday was so good! 

 Sun- was probably one of the most spiritual sundays of my life! We had 3 people come to church and testimony meeting was sooo rad!! Right when the bishop turned the time over to the congregation to bear their testimonies like 15 people automatically stood up and walked to the pulpit! The whole meeting people were waiting to bear their testimonies and the meeting went 20 min over because so many people were waiting, eager to share their testimonies. It was one of those meetings where the spirit was so strong you could literally feeel it in the air if that makes sense haha. It was awesome! It takes courage to share your testimony, but it brings so much light to other people. I invite you to share your testimony this week whether its on Instagram with light the world, or to a random person who at work or school! I promise you the more you share your testimony, the better you will understand Gods love for you and want to share that love and light with others! Anyways church was great and I felt spiritually filled this fast sunday  

To make sunday even better, the christmas devotional from the first presidency was SO good! If you didnt get the chance to watch it (alone or with your fam) I invite you to watch it! I watched it alone in English (bless up) and it really put the christmas spirit into motion for me, and made me feel so extremely grateful for my savior Jesus Christ. He came down from a throne, the right hand of God, to the most humble circumstances (in a legit manger) to be rejected, scourged, and crucified FOR YOU because he loves YOU! He KNOWS you. He wants whats BEST for you. He knows exactly what you need in this moment to make you a little bit more of what HE knows you can BECOME. He is a GIFT for all of us and I hope this christmas season (and always) you guys can feel of his love for you, and recognize He is the most important gift, in this season and our lives!

The rest of this week was also SO good- one of my fav weeks of my mission. This week my goal was to just live in the present and enjoy every second. I struggle sometimes looking forward (maybe a little too much to pday) wishing away my time or looking back about things in the past that I wish I had done different... WELL this week I changed my mindset and wanted to just look for the little good things in every day and stay in the moment no matter how things went. Im happy to report that this week looking back on the days I can only see good things, the week flew by, and I had so many cool experiences! A few good things this week-

We had a bunch of great lessons, got to know a bunch of ward members, had tonss of service opportunities, I got to help people with english (thats been a great door for finding people to teach actually), had exchanges w hna refugio and learned a lot, laughed the hardest I think I've ever laughed on the phone w my mom, listened to english christmas music in the stores wahoo, grew my relationships w my district, the hermanas we live w and my comp this week (I have the coolest friends and comp here haha) and idk this week was just SO good! A bunch of days this week at the end of the day I felt exausted from hard work and I felt overwhelmed with peace and emotion bc I felt Gods love so strong! Gods work is moving along and I'm glad to be a part of it! 

Also I forgot to mention, Diego's on date for baptism Mario and Hector are reading and praying ab the BoM (so please keep them in your prayers) and GODS SO GOOD if youve forgotten :)) 

Love and miss you all! Its kinda wierd I thought Id miss home more this holiday season, but I'm SO happy where I'm at!! If you want to enjoy something for me heres some selfish things I miss a little, please enjoy doing these things and dont take them for granteddd

-walk bare feet on carpet (miss that stuff)

-give your family a biggg hug and just chill with them (friends are cool but c'mon family is better) 

-take your dog on a walk and give them a treat

-enjoy a jazz game with your gma 

-eat chick fil a w lotsss of sauce (or barrys for the real ones)

-listen to christmas music in your car and sing as loud as you can

-watch the cheesy christmas movies (theyre good even if you deny it)

-freeze (enjoy snow and the cold) and cuddle up w a warm sweater or hoodie and burn your tongue on some coco

-go to the arc and grind watching the snow fall outside 

-enjoy the laughter of friends and family

Anyways love you all and I hope you are having the best time of the year! This is probably a stressful week for a lot of you with finals or a busy work schedule before christmas, but take the time to enjoy yourself, your family and friends and most importantly remember christ- the real meaning of christmas- and show your gratitude through service and prayer!!

-hna Stone

Pics 

-exchanges w refugio (we helped organize old records for a member and found some beatles:) 

-the best call of my life w my mom 

-squishing in a car w the hermanas 

-got the mexican version of a ding dong for my dad :)

-the sun is bright and shining allll the time 

- we found a hugeee tiangues and it was a bomb sunset (x2 blessed)

-pizza night

-burgers for estradas bday w the APs, ZL, DL y my comp!

Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving week everyone! I hope you all enjoyed a fun week of getting stuffed and laughing w your family! I thought I'd miss the holidays more but I'm just feeling way grateful for everything i have in the states and here in Mexico this week and I'm doing really good:) 

    Heres why this week was rad-

Tues- I laughed a lotttt and almost peed my pants (dress) on a super bumpy half hour bus ride haha. To set the scene we had a lunch w the funniest members I've ever met at their house and ate and talked for a long time. They stuffed us full and kept bringing us more food and drinks and when i literally couldnt eat more they brought out a second meal of enchiladas which were terrible lol (which is saying something bc i love enchiladas) and a bunch of colerful jello. I was SO full and laughing so hard and once they found out i was a gringo w a sense of humor the jokes came even more. Also can i just say I LOVE how everyone laughs here ok anyways after this meal i had to pee SO bad but we were almost out the door and they were talkers so i just toughed it out. We caught  the bus, and for those of you who dont know, drivers here in mexico are "great" especially bus drivers, busses are crowwwdeddd, and the streets are awful... so you can imagine my pain every bump of the bus Ive never had so much fear to actually pee my pants, but no worries I made it back!

     Wed- we had some solid visits and the weather was literally perfect and I got to soak up the sunshine! And to make things better we had another "comp" for like an hour bc this cute street dog was following us! 

     Thurs-  first the morning was good bc i got to talk and laugh w my family before they went to their thanksgiving "dinner" at 3, and it was great I love my fam!! I laughed super hard and and it felt like i was home :) Then we had a zone conference with our zone and the zone from Celaya with Elder Montoya from the area 70. It was super fun because we got to hangout with our zone (super rad people), a whole other area that weve never met, our pres, and an area 70! I felt super spiritually uplifted and just emotionally uplifted for getting to be social w so many people!! To make this day even better WE HAD THANKSGIVINGG!! I know youre probs thinking "Thanksgivings not a thing in mexico..." well youre right, but with enough americans in our district (the 4 of us gringos haha) we made everyone do it! We all made different dishes and I made french silk pies and had a feast! We ate, talked, laughed, and WOW I seriously love my district more than anything right now in the mission! Theyre all like my best friends and family here! It felt nice to have a thanksgiving w food and family even though it was different food and family! 

     Fri, Sat, Sun- this weekend was a normally working missionary life weekend, BUT highlight of that, we ate a meal every single day with our fav member neighbors. Dinner friday, breakfast saturday, and lunch sunday. Not a ton of members are signed up for food so they just kept offering to feed us lol. They all have super cool stories about their lives so its fun to just talk! They were asking me more about utah and i pulled up my neighborhood to show them on google maps and they were like "are your parents drug dealers?" It was funny! Everyone has it way nice in the ststes so appreciate it! Thid fam is definitely my favorite members and it was a blast! We also had an adventure buying chicken from a sketchy little shop to contribute to the worlds best flautas. Dont worry i learned how to make them so ill be a chefff when i get back  Im also learning to trust more sketchy food which idk if thats a good thing or a bad thing lol

Thats all i got everyone. This week was good and it was even better thinking about all the things im thankful for including all of you! If you have a second to send me an email or voice recording id love to hear from you! Ya know who also would love to hear from you..? God! Haha fr tho. I invite you all to offer a sincere prayer of gratitude today and make an effort to pray more if youre not praying, and have more sincere prayers if youre just praying to pray! Love you all and have the best week! 

-hna stoneee

Pics

- sooo many trees here are super green w bright flowers all the time and i love it

- making the pies and the results 

-ft w the fam

-lots of pics w my friends in the mish and pres from thursday

-thanksgivinggg

-walking around w sketchy chickenn (i didnt get sick no worries)

- we love sunsets and bridges

-our fav members