Weekly Email!

It´s been a week already?! WOW! I can not believe it! It feels like I just emailed you guys seven days ago... Oh how the time flies!

But the work is very interesting here! I never knew it would be so hard to get people to come to church! We try so hard to motivate our investigators to come with us but most of them work on Sundays and live day to day so they are very iffy about missing a day of work. But we are patient and we know that The Lord has a plan for each one of our investigators and we just need to work as hard as we can to help them understand what a great blessing the church is in our lives.

 

They don´t call it missionary work for nothing! I never knew how stressful caring for someone was. When people don´t keep their commitments or when they don´t want to listen to us anymore it´s really hard to not take it personal and blame our teaching skills or that we didn´t do enough but I always remember Eric´s advice to not take things personally. People have their agency and I can´t control how they act.

 

We had entrecambios (splits) this week. Where I went with one of the Hermana Lideres in her area and the other Hermana went with Hermana Mora. But I went to the other area and spent the night in the other Hermanas´ house. It was the saddest day of my mission. Seriously, I felt pathetic. I missed Hermana Mora so much. I feel like a married couple but with none of the benefits of being in an actual relationship. Through out the day I found myself thinking, I wonder what Hermana Mora is doing right now? I really hope she misses me as much as I miss her. But we had a good day! I went with Hermana Trujillo who is a native and she was very impressed with my Spanish and my teaching skills. Really it was just a really lucky day for me. Heavenly Father loved me a lot that day :)

 

Anyway, we got back to my apartment and Hermana Mora and I ran to each other and hugged for a good 10 seconds. Turns out she missed me a lot. She had the same experiences that I did, she thought about what I was doing. We´re so cute :) She told me she didn´t sleep very well while I was gone. 

 

We had a new missionary meeting with the President and his wife on Friday and it was really interesting to see all the new missionaries in our zone and their companions. Hermana Mora and I are definitely the most united. We stayed together the whole day and laughed and the others were with other missionaries or sitting silently. After the meeting we went to a buffet to eat and Hermana Mora was in love with this place. She had never eaten at a buffet before so she had to try everything. We ate so much food that we weren´t hungry until comida the next day. But we´re trying really hard to not get fat. Sometimes we just have no self control when we see the tacos on the street or fruit. Guys, you don´t understand the tacos and tortillas here are sooooo good. I just cross my fingers every time I eat a tacos that I won´t get sick and so far it has worked! 

 

We had an missionary actividad with our ward and we did Lehi´s dream where we set up yarn and have the voice of the spirit and the bad voices and the members have to discern which to follow. It was so fun! There is a young man named Daniel who is 12 and he actually reminds me of Daniel! He was going and I was like Daniel, "what are you doing? You need to rest, have a seat." So he was like "okay" and he sat down for like 20 minutes and then I came back and I was like Daniel, "what are you doing? The tree is over here" and then led him to a random tree and told him to hug the tree really tight, he made it. So he hugged this tree for another 5 minutes until the Spirit came and he eventually made it to the right place. He was pretty mad at me afterward but I had a great laugh!

 

Well family, I love you lots and I am having a great time! My Spanish is getting better and so is my teaching skills! I love the power of the spirit that comes when I bear my testimony or share an experience. I love this gospel and I love the people of Mexico! 

 

Love,

Hermana Huff

This is me leaving for entrecambios

and returning home!!

Juice in a bag!

And the circus is in town. They drive cars around with lions and monkeys and all sorts of crazy things.

My house. or apartment.

Oh mom, by the way, my address is 202 Republica de Cuba El Dorado Aguascalientes. I hope you can find my house...

It rains like crazy here and the streets turn into rivers!!

Our district!

These are the Hermanas in our district :)

President, esposa y yo!

 

I made it! (Sarah's first e-mail from Mexico)

Hola Familia!

So, I made it to Aguascalientes and I met my new companion yesterday. Her name is Hermana Mora. She is from Ecuador and she only speaks Spanish so looks like I´ll be learning Spanish super fast! Mexico is SUPER different than America but it is super fun here already! I teach my first lessons tonight so I´ll tell you how those go on my next Pday. I only have a couple minutes to write but I love you and I´m safe ... well as safe as you can be in Mexico :)

I already had my first street contact and all because of my eyes, and I also ran into something on the street and then this guy started talking to us and trying to speak English. It was super fun and everyone seems so nice here! I got in at 2:30 pm yesterday and met the Mission President and his wife. They only speak Spanish which was super frustrating at first and super overwhelming but I´m adjusting and I´m going to know Spanish in 2 months! Well, hopefully! I´m so glad that I got to talk to you guys yesterday, thanks for waking up so early!

Our apartment is SUPER small and we have 4 hermanas that are sharing it. But I felt a lot better about it after I got all my clothes out of my suitcase and once I got to sleep. This morning we woke up at 6am so that we could do excercises and those helped a lot with the stress also! But seriously my companion is fantastic and she is so helpful and she is trying to learn a little bit of English. She is very patient with me and helps me correct my mistakes. I´m so glad that I got a Spanish speaking companion because I have barely said a word in English! Sometimes it´s frustrating but I know it is a gift from Heavenly Father so I can get more comfortable with Spanish!

My companion told me that she had inspiration about me before I was her companion. She was walking down the street and she heard a voice that said she was going to train Hermana Huff and she was like What? and then she saw my name on the bulletin and then when she saw my name she was super excited because she wanted a North American because she likes helping people. Ella es lo mejor! (She is the best!)

I can´t believe I´m actually here. It felt like this day would never come! I´m going to make the best of it :) I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Huff

Meet Sarah's Mission President and his lovely wife ....

Ernestina and Juan Villarreal

Juan Manuel Villarreal Moran, 54, and Luz Ernestina Garza Lizardi de Villarreal, six children, Aeropuerto Ward, San Luis Rio Colorado Mexico Stake. Brother Villarreal is a counselor in the Mexico Tijuana Mission and former counselor in a stake presidency, high councilor, district president, branch president and counselor in a branch presidency. Customs agent, Mexico Federal Government. Born in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico, to Gamez Ricardo Villarreal and Estela Moran Gomez.

Sister Villarreal is a stake public affairs director and former district Young Women president, counselor in a ward Young Women presidency, branch Relief Society president and institute teacher. Born in La Paz, Baha California, Mexico, to Antonio Garza Flores and Aida Lizardi Agramont.