1 AÑO 🤯🥳😁

 Whattup family and friends. If you're still reading these emails good for you bc Ive been a missionary for A YEAR!! Thats so wild! 

   This week was actually SO GOOD and I'm so grateful to be a missionary! I have done a lot of reflecting about my mission this year and wow I have learned so much and met so many amazing people that have changed my life forever!

   This week I went on divisions with literally my best hermana friend (hna fredrick) and it was SO FUN! Getting to just work hard and talk in our time together was rad and I would love the chance to be her comp... but it's probs very unlikely  oh well I enjoyed it while it lasted! 

   This week hermana Butler and I found some new solid people and had some cool experience on the street. One day we were walking down a road that we weren't planning on walking down to get to a different colonia when someone says "hey... hermana Stone?" And I look around and this guy starts talking to us and was like, "I was talking w you guys a few months ago but lost contact, I'd love to keep learned w you guys!" (Apparently when we got our phone stolen we lost contact w the guy) and he recognized me from our picture on WhatsApp and now were teaching him again! There was also another guy right next to him on the street that asked us what type of messages we shared, and after explaining he said we could also stop and share a message w him and his wife! It was awesome. We actually had a lot of little contacts like that this week which was really special. We were visiting "gray dots" or people who at one point had interest, but aren't in teaching anymore, and we were having NO luck w them, but we found a lot of people on the way, through little "coincidences" who we needed to meet in that moment. God is so good and it was cool to see him blessing us from our efforts to find people.

   A funny experience with a call this week- we received a reference from the system (which is when people see an ad on facebook or YouTube and want to learn more so they fill out their info) and anyways we call this guy and he answers and says he remembers filling out the form to learn and asked if we were christians, and we were like were from the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, and he was like "ah ok, never heard of that religion. I already have a religión but I like hearing about God". And we asked "what religión do you practice" and he was like "soy mormona" (I'm a mormón) and my comp and I laughed so hard. The dude thought being a mormón and a latter day saint were way different lol. I guess that's why it's important to know and share the real name of the church w people! 

I hit my one year mark which we didn't do too much to celebrate but it was cool thinking I've been a missionary for A YEAR! We ate a french silk pie and got dorielotes, and had some bomb lessons! It was actually way fun! We also had a ward party and had 5 investigators there which was great! It ended up being a super good week and it's crazy to think julys almost over! We get transfer news Friday and I'm basically 100% sure I'll be leaving this area! I'm super nervous but excited to see what these next months bring!! 

Tierra Prometida

Hello fam! 

I fr don't know where this week went because it FLEW by! We had a very productive week which was good. We had a lot of good lessons, visits w my fav converts, super yummy food (some of the best I've ever eaten), divisions (I had a diff comp for a day) and idk nothing super special as in out of the ordinary happened this week,  but I just felt very content and happy being here and being a missionary. guys the mission is awesome but weird haha. Sometimes it's so easy being content in the mission and you think "wow this is the best time of my life, I'm so happy" but other times there's for sure the opposition where you have the moments of "why am I here lol". this week was mostly the happy content feelings but on one day in specific we got rejected many times, things fell through, I was tired and things just weren't going good. It kinda put me out, and I just said a little prayer in my heart to feel peace and feel like here is where I'm supposed to be. I needed help bc we still had a long way to walk and more calls back at the house, and sometimes you just need an extra little boost from Heavenly Father to get through ya know? And after saying that little prayer I looked up and the first street I see was called "tierra prometida" (or "the promise land") w a bunch of grafitti haha to make it even better, and idk it was something so simple but it made me know heavenly father was aware of me and cared. It made me smile as a reminder that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be, my promised land, and that Heavenly Father even heres our little prayers in the everyday moments. 

 We really do have an all powerful Heavenly Father who created us, loves us, looks out for us, and always wants us to reach out to him and follow him so he can bless and help us. Isn't that SO COOL? I invite all of you to grow your relationship with him a little more this week- reach out to him and just talk. He WANTS to hear from you even if its been a while or you dont feel like youre worthy. His arms are reaching out! also i want to invite you all to study more about his son Jesus christ and his life. By doing this you will realize how much love Heavenly Father and Jesus really have for us! If you guys need something awesome to study besides the scriptures, I would recommend "the infinite atonement" it's SO GOOD! 

Anyways I love you all and hope you're all doing SO awesome! 

New Mission President!

 This week was kinda crazy but super good!! It started off heading to Querétaro pday in the afternoon (bc we had to travel the night before for the leadership conference Tuesday) so I got to see a ton of my old friends in Queretaro and play some soccer and spikeball with the ogs. It was fun! That night I also got to see one of my favorite families from my first area in the mission and just talk to them and it was so fun to have someone see me from the beginning of my mission (w no Spanish or confidence lol) to who I am now which is hopefully a bit better ;) That night I did a LOT of reflecting of how far I've come and how far I'd still like to grow on my mission. I stayed with the hermanas who are in my first area and in my first house of the mission and it was crazy thinking about my time there and how fast the time has gone by! 

The next morning we traveled to the mission leadership conference and I got to meet my new mission president and his wife and wow can I just say I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THEM, and wow I feel sooo much love from them. I got to talk to them for quite a bit and it was cool being with all the other leaders. Not gonna lie I felt very incapable and a little stressed to be in that meeting, especially with a new president and everything, but our president talked a lot about how each of us were there because God needs us for something specific right now and it really touched my heart. I'm not perfect and that's ok because christ can help make more out of me than I can make of myself. I can offer my best and he can make miracles! (More on that later:) The conference was really cool and it was fun being in queretaro for a minute... but I missed León- I loveee it here and I think it'll be hard to leave when the time comes! 

This week we set an awesome lady named ines on date for baptism and when we taught her about the restauración it was such a cool experience. We shared shared first vision and the spirit was SO strong. through tears she said that she knew that God loved her and was telling her that he cared about her by restoring the church and giving us the book of mormón. She said she admired Jose Smith and that she was excited to read and learn more. That was AWESOME to hear bc sometimes people don't accept stuff like that very quick and say it's crazy we believe that haha, but her faith is so strong and I'm so excited for her! We also got to hold her new 5 day old puppies which was also super awesome! 

   This week we also had our zone conference and it was super fun and spiritual! I love my zone and the new pres and his wife! The messages were awesome and I feel like we all got to know our president a little bit better. In my interviews w pres after the conference he gave me a blessing and gave me a lot of words of comfort that I know we're directly from my Heavenly Father. Blessing are so cool and it's awesome that God calls leaders that we need!

   This week we saw a lot of little tender mercies and I feel so grateful to be a missionary. Literally every day writing in my journal I had the biggest smile thinking about the days and just feeling so much love for all the random people I get to talk to and wowww you can feel God's love so strong helping others feel God's love. 

Sorry this is a little longer today but I want to share a little spiritual thought. This week I read the talk Divine Discontent by Sister Craig and I really liked it. In it she talked about how we have a lot of room in between who we are and our divine potential and sometimes that feels really overwhelming but it doesn't have to be. If we give what we have and ask the savior to perform a miracle with what we have, he can. She talked about how the apostles brought the savior a couple fish and loaves of bread to feed the 5 thousand and it was their ALL but with the savior he was able to make that fish and bread enough WITH leftovers. Sometimes when I see my little stale breads and small fish tbh I have a little bit of fear to ask God to make a miracle out of them, but why do we do that?? Don't we know that God has ALL power and he WANTS TO HELP US?? Our all IS enough. I challenge you all this week to identify your fish and bread that you can offer the lord and then with humility take it to him and see what he can make of it. We can offer more than we think and he can make more out of it than he can imagine. I know that's true and I testify that we are God's children and our potential is so much greater than we know. Trust in what God sees in us and do the things to become who he wants us to be!

Love you all and hope you know how much I love and appreciate you and your prayers! 

Super Interesting Subject line :)

 Hey everyone, this week was really really good! Thank you for all of the prayers always:) 

This week we had some really solid lessons and found new people! We said goodbye to our mission president :') and met our new pres (just over zoom) and wowza in the first 2 seconds meeting them w the whole mission connected, peace washed over me and I got kinda hit with emotion bc I felt like wow they are totally meant for me in this time. It was kinda weird bc it wasnt a personal meeting or anything special but the spirit confirmed to me in that these people are supposed to be my new presidents and I'm sooo excited to get to know them and get to grow with them these next months! I get to meet them in person on Tuesday at the leadership conference in Queretaro so I'm excited! 

Highlight of the week was Armando got baptized and wow it was such a cool experience!! First off armando is literally so amazing and it was so special seeing how God perfectly prepared him to meet us! Second it was awesome because juanjo my convert baptized Armando and then a few minutes later my other convert Regina told me shes thinking about serving a mission and wowowowow I just felt so overwhelmed with love  and gratitude again!! The bap of Armando was super awesome and he was a good sport when he literally had to be baptized 7 TIMES because it was Juanjos first time baptizing haha and he was struggling, but armando just cracked jokes like "oh I must just have a lot of sins or something" and it all was super good!

Spiritual thought- 

This week I was thinking a lot about how God blesses each one of us with unique special qualities that he wants us to use, recognize and grow. Thinking a little bit about that then reading in 1 Corinthians it caught my attention when it talks about the body of christ and how we are ALL part of this body so we need to be the part he wants us to be. We are all NEEDED although we are all soo different and that is one of the most important parts. I love when people say we are the instruments or tools in the Lord's hands for this reason because the lord doesn't need us all to be a hammer or a screw driver, but he needs some of us to be the other random tools that no one even knows what they do lol. He needs his tools in all shapes and sizes with different capabilities. The Master knows his tools perfectly and he needs us to know our purpose too and be willing to grow our strengths (and strengthen our weaknesses) so we can be that specific little tool that none of the other tools can replace. That tool might be forgotten by others. It might be a little dusty in the garage, or feel out of place with its strengths or purpose... but if it knows it's purpose and can perform that purpose when the lord needs, that is what matters. Anyways idk if that makes sense or not to you guys but it does to me so I'm going to try my best to the tool he needs me to be in the "body of christ" and I challenge you all to do the same:) 

Love you all and have the best week!