Hi family and friends!! (Email 11-3-14
So
good to hear from all of you! I am glad you all enjoyed Your Halloween!
We had a great week over here, pretty normal, but I am happy.
Life is great. The people here are so wonderful. I really love them.
I am in a great area.
Today Hna Brons and I went walking down main
street to the little shops (but most of them were closed haha) and it was
really fun. The weather is finally normal again, but since we are so
used to the heat, it is feeling rather cold to us haha. It's like
65-75 the past few days.
This
week I didn't have much time in my area because I had two exchanges. I went to Valencia with Hna Embley for one night, and
that exchange went well. Then I had one with Hna Greene but it was kind
of funny since we are roommates and work in the same ward, it didn't
really feel too different. I am so blessed that I have a great companion
though because whenever I go on exchanges she covers the area
really well. She had some great lessons with Linda, Marcos, and Ricardo while I was gone and I was really excited to hear about them. We just
are trying to meet with them more often. Especially Linda, and Marcos can be kind of hard to set return appointments with. Ricardo is slowly
starting to understand the restoration better and opening up a little
more to it.
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| Me and Hna. Greene |
President
felt inspired this week to let all of the missionaries go to the
phoenix temple open house as many times as they could before it ended
with their investigators, so we were finally able to go to the temple
with the Valdezes! It was SUCH a great experience. It was so sweet. On the car ride down (about an hour drive) we sang hymns and primary
songs with the kids and they just loved it. They all just fell in
love with the temple and loved what they saw and what they felt. Ellen and Jose were both really excited about the sealing room. And on
the way home, Ellen told us how blessed she has felt and how
happy she has been since learning about the gospel. She is so ready
to be baptized. And we found out super exciting news! It is very possible
that they can get married sooner than we thought!! We have been
praying hard for a miracle everyday that Ellen will be able to
reach her goal of getting baptized on November 29th. We are thinking
of fasting with them next week for it. We just have to figure out
the legal things, and have a lot of faith. We have seen so many changes
in her, and she is just so much happier. You can tell God is working
in her heart. She is openly talking and working with her boss to
make sure she will not be working on Sundays during church, and she is trying
really hard to keep her commitments. And so are Jose and the kids.
Such a sweet family. Poor little Jenny got lice so badly that she
had to shave her head.... Broke my heart for her. But good thing she
looks so cute in little hats. Ahhh that little girl just melts my heart
haha.
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| Phoenix Temple |
So the temple open house took all Wednesday night, so that was another day not really in the area, and then Halloween we couldn't go out
either, so it was a bit of a weird week.
Halloween
was good though! We had a normal weekly planning session during
the day, then we went to Hna Gonzalez's for dinner, and it was so
fun. She made pozole and sonoran hot dogs, and then Hna Escobar made
all these cute little Halloween treats like apples and marshmallows
to make teeth and oranges and celery to make pumpkins. Cute
things like that.
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| Halloween treats! |
While I was in there
I was just thinking about how cool it was how so many of us 18-25
year olds were choosing to spend our Halloween night vs how so many
ways the world would tell people our age to spend it. Just that right
there is a little testimony that this gospel is true!
Saturday
night and Sunday morning was stake conference. We had a state-wide
one broadcasted from Salt Lake. It was really good. Elder Christofferson
and President Uchtdorf spoke, and their messages were exactly
what I needed. It was so special to hear President Uchtdorf speak
about his days in Arizona when he was doing his fighter pilot training
and how he would always go to the Mesa temple and how much he loved
that temple. And Sis McConkie talked about how she met her husband
at ASU and got sealed in Mesa and they lived in a little apartment
right by the temple so the temple light would light there house
at night. It reminded me of my days in L3 when we literally lived
right there at the temple.
Mesa is such a special place. Such a rich
church history here. I never knew that before my mission. This place
is always going to hold a special place in my heart. I know that my
call here was so inspired. God knows His children so well. I have been
thinking a lot about what it means to be pure in heart and having good
desires of heart. Pres Uchtdorf said that being pure in heart means
to see and treat people for who they really are - like seeing everyone
with their true worth as a child of God. Christ was always concerned about the individual. He could see past the skin and saw who they truly were and what they truly needed from Him to be strengthened.
I want to be better at that. I want to feel sincere compassion
and understanding for every person that I encounter. To look
more outside myself and have a pure heart and pure desires to do good
and serve and love my brothers and sisters. I know the gospel is what each of us need. It has all the answers to any question or problem
we may have. I feel so blessed to have this in my life.
I love
you all so much! I hope you have a great week! Thanks for all of
your love and prayers.
Con
amor,
Hermana
Haynes
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| Playing with Halloween treats from home! |
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