Transferred to Arecibo

Hey Everyone,


So p-day was wednesday it looks like President Alvarado won't be changing p-days on transfer week like we used to do which makes this p-day extremely busy, including packing, moving and unpacking because they are sending us both to Arecibo which is about an hour west of Toa Baja. Hermana Rodriguez and I are staying together and we are going to open up an area which is has been closed for a transfer and there were Elders there. It is a small branch so it will be the first time serving in a branch. Apparantly the members are amazing and President told us that he is confident that we are going to have a lot of success there.

I'm sorry to here that Rach and Erin haven't been feeling well. That's awesome mom that they voted you president. It will be really fun. Hope you are having fun with school. It's so weird to think that another year of BYU has started sometimes I feel so far away. I really have no idea what is going on in the world right now. haha it's pretty weird. Tell everyone hi for me and tell Ashley congratulations I can't wait to see pictures of her new baby. Tell Grandma and Grandpa hi, I got there letter. I'll try and write them when I get a chance.

This weekend has been great. We taught Nicole on Friday and she invited her Mom so that her mom could hear a little bit becuase her parents aren't too excited about her getting baptized. Well talk about being nervous! Her mom just sat there observing us teach not saying anything. We had no idea if she thought we were crazy, she had one doubt that we were able to resolve but we left the lesson not knowing if that made it better or worse for Nicole. Well she called us that night and told us that her parents both gave permission for her to get baptized. She doesn't need it becuase she turned 18 this week but they both said that it would be okay. Apparantly her mom was able to feel the spirit and see that this was something good for her daughter. Well Nicole told us that she wants to be baptized right away. She doesn't want to wait for anything. But its a little hard becuase she lives in Arecibo during the week and we can't teach her much. She said it doesn't matter, I'll come home early friday and you can teach me friday and saturday and every day off I have i'll come home. So we said okay we'll move the baptism up. Her dad came to church on Sunday and the priesthood received him very well.

It was a little crazy becuase we had interviews with President and he asked us about Nicole and he basically asked why we were waiting to baptize her so long he was like "what are you waiting for?" Then he told us "well you are going to teach her quickly because I am moving you to Arecibo and I want you to keep teaching her there doing the week and I will give you special permission so you can go to her baptism". Wow, you can't imagine our suprise. We were really sad becuase we pretty much knew that they were going to close our area or at least move me because I've been here so long and I wouldn't be able to see her baptism. But look at that, we are going to keep teaching her in Arecibo where she goes to school! President told us that he has been thinking all transfer what he is going to do with Arecibo and he still didn't know what to do with that area until we came into his office and he just knew that that is where he needed to send us. We are extremely excited, a little nervous but we are excited to go to work in a place that is city and there haven't been missionaries for awhile and the branch is ready and excited to work. It's really sad to leave Toa Baja becuase I love the members there so much but it's been a hard few transfers there because there just aren't enough people to teach. But at the same time I know that our efforts aren't wasted. We may not see the fruits of our work when it comes to numbers but we've seen some small miracles that I know that we needed to be there and there is a reason that they kept me there for 6 months. So I'll let you know how it goes. We have to run off now and find our new apartment and go to work. Love you all. I think of you all the time. Sorry I don't have hours and hours to write our I would tell you everything.

Oh by the way, President wanted me to give you a heads up. Hermana Rodriguez and I both hit 18 months on May 4. He told us monday that he would like us to extend an extra month. It's still really far away. I will have to see when summer term starts at byu because I have to take a few classes. Rach or Ab, could you find out for me? Anyway that is really far away but he wanted us to give you a heads up that he might send us home in the beginning of June. It's crazy to think that far out I still feel like I just got here and I don't want to think about going home yet.

Anyways, love you all.

The Spirit Teaches

Hey Everyone,


Thanks for all the emails. I'm sorry you've been so sick Erin, that's rough. I hope that school is going well for all of you. Thanks for everyone who is praying for me, haha and Rach tell Karen hi for me and thanks for standing up for me, I'm sure the extra prayers have helped. Ab, I hope school is going well for you, haha, I know how it feels to be in the dorms, the food gets old that's why its so great to finally get your own apartment, hope you get my letter soon, I gave you some ideas of how to mix it up a little bit. Tell everyone hi for me. This is a shout out to Katie Matthews and Steph Brinton, thanks for your letters. Sorry I can't write back too fast but I love getting your emails, letters are coming soon. Katie your email made me laugh, I would suggest making a list to pass around to make sure that none of your students are allergic to anything else. Good luck with school, I'm sure the kids love you.

Well things are pretty good here. It's been extremely rainy as you can imagine. But no other hurricanes which is really good. We have been having a sort of rough week because we don't have tons of people to teach but we were able to find a few new people this week and we are starting to work more with less active members. We have so many amazing less active members and I know that maybe the reason we don't have investigators is so that we can focus on trying to find them and help them come back to church. The one investigator we do have is amazing! Nicole is the golden investigator of golden investigators. As she requested we talked about baptism on Saturday. The sister in our ward that met nicole at the church offices came with us. Wow, such an amazing lesson. Nicole told us that when she was at the baptism she felt the spirit so strong and when she heard the words in the confirmation "confirm you a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" she knew that that was her answer, she told us that she knew that "this is where I need to be". Nicole accepted a baptism date for October 30 its about two months away but we have to have time to teach her because she is only here on weekends because she goes to school during the week in an area where there are no missions right now. The most interesting and humbling thing happened. We prepared very well for the lesson but that day I don't know what was up but I was not teaching well. Every word that came out of my mouth came out wrong, I asked confusing questions, it was really weird. I was like wow, what is wrong with me today? When I got to that point I asked Hermana Colon to share her testimony or to share some experience. It's amazing how the spirit works. Because that day, nicole didn't need to hear my teach she needed to hear Hermana Colon. Hermana Colon shared the most amazing testimony and explained things that Nicole needed, and Hermana Colon didn't know but the spirit really guided her. It was a very humbling experience for me. The worst lesson I have probably taught on my mission, ended up being so amazing because the spirit was so strong, because we had a member there and because Nicole is truly prepared and had already decided that she wants to be baptized.

The next day we went to visit a member, and her son who is our age was baptized but is visiting another church right now. He was sort of argueing with his mom about doctrine when we came. He had a lot of doubts and he was in the mood to argue. But we ended up having an really amazing discussion in which we explained several basic doctrines. I know that the spirit was putting words in my mouth because I was saying things that I hadn't planned to say, in complete contrast to the day before my mind was clear and the words just came out. The spirit was really strong and he really stopped argueing and listened and I know that he felt the spirit. It really goes to show that we as missionaries really don't do that much. It isn't us that does the teaching its the spirit. There was a reason that I felt like everything came out all wrong when I opened my mouth on saturday and on sunday it all came out right. It was a very humbling experience.

Its awesome because Nicole called us Saturday afternoon a few hours after we left her house she was worried because she was looking at the calendar and saw that the 30th was a saturday and since the baptism she saw was on a sunday she wanted to call and double check to make sure it was on sunday. She's so awesome. Well her mom doesn't really like the idea that she is getting baptized since nicole has only been to church three times but Nicole is determined that she is going to do it. I've never seen anyone so excited to get baptized before. It's awesome. Sometimes the mission is hard. a lot of times the mission is hard. Even though we don't have a lot of people that we are teaching but thats okay. it really goes to show that there really are people that are prepared that are ready to hear the gospel.

Well just so you know, next week is transfers, who knows what will happen but there is a chance that p-day will be moved to monday or tuesday, just so you know.

Love you all. Have a great week!

Hurricane Not Too Bad.

Hey Everyone,
Thanks for your emails. No worries; I am fine the hurricanes haven't hit hard in Puerto Rico.  We had to be inside at 6:30 but it didn't hit as hard as we thought it would. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous, having never been in a hurricane before and not being able to watch tv and see the details of the storm, but it was actually pretty tame. We stayed the night at a member's house and we were actually surprised becuase even though we got a lot of rain it wasn't as much as we thought and the winds weren't that strong. We lost power for about an hour or two but that's all. The most damage that we saw was a lot of branches from trees that were in the street but I'm not sure about other parts of Puerto Rico or the Carribean its pretty weird being completely cut off from the world we don't hear anything that is going on. So hopefully there isn't too much damage from the hurricanes. No worries, they make sure that we are inside and we have a really good supply of food and water. and the members and our leaders keep us updated on what's going on so we will know that there is a hurricane coming. Hopefully there won't be too many more it's hard to work and to find people when we have to cancel our appointments and the people aren't in the mood to talk when they are rushing to prep for the hurricane.

I'm sorry to hear that you aren't feeling well Erin. That's rough. Hopefully you get better soon. Tell Liz congratulations for me and you'll have to send me pictures for sure. Thanks for sending me Katie's address. Sounds like things are going well with school for everyone.  Rach, write me and let me know how school is going.

Things have been pretty good here. We are still teaching Nicole. She is amazing. It's hard because she is studying an hour away and we can only teach her on weekends but she is reading the Book of Mormon and she loves it. We asked her if she had read the Book of Mormon and she said yes but I haven't finished so we asked her how far she had gotten thinking that she didn't have time to finish the chapter that we had left, but really she meant the she hadn't finished the BOOK yet. She had read up until part way through 2 Nephi! That's a lot considering she is studying full time in the university and commuting. She came to church and brought her little sister and they stayed for a baptism afterwards of an 8 year old boy. She called us later that afternoon and asked if we had already planned what we were going to teach her on saturday. We asked why and she said that she wanted to know if we could teach her about baptism because she felt something really special at the baptism and she wanted to know why. So of course we said that there would be no problem in talking about baptism on saturday. She's really great.

Other than her we don't have a lot of appointments which has been hard but we are going to be really busy this week because the bishop has given us a new assignment to go find every single member on the ward list. We have ten names each week that we need to report back on becuase there are about 400 individuals. That doesn't sound like a lot but most of them don't have addresses or phone numbers that work because most people in Toa Alta only have PO box numbers or a highway with kilometer numbers but no house numbers. But we are on the search trying to use what little info we have and asking members and we are certain that this will help not only with reactivation but also to find other people to teach because many of these people have family members that aren't members.

Well anyway hope everything is going well at home and that work and school aren't too stressful.
 Love you all a ton!

Rear-ended by another car...but we're OK

Hey,
Thanks for the emails. Sounds like its going to be an exciting week. Good luck at BYU, AB. You are going to love it! Write me and tell me all about orientation and your first week. Rach, where are you living this year and with who? Erin, that's so awesome to hear about the story for LDS Living. I'm glad you got the offer and you were able to have time enough to prepare for the article. It's crazy to think that another school year is starting. So weird, I would be starting year number 5 and would have already done an internship probably. Wow, I can't believe how different my life would be right now if I wasn't on a mission. No regrets. The mission is awesome.

Well sorry I wasn't able to write last week barely at all. No worries, after the car accident we are doing okay. Still a little sore in the neck and in my back but i'm good. It could have been much worse so I'm glad we are okay. I'm not going to lie it's been a few rough weeks. There have definately been some highs and lows. But I have learned a lot and have had some really amazing experiences. Last weekend we had the amazing experience to have Elder Vinas who the area 70 over the carribean visit Puerto Rico. He was present for our stake conference and a zone conference that we had on monday. Wow, amazing! The spirit was really strong and I learned a lot. It was a hard weekend for me. I was feeling really down because we haven't seen progress with some of our investigators and we have lost contact with some of them as well. I was feeling down because Jose hasn't been coming to church and madeline moved to the states with her uncle and we've lost contact with her. I have no idea where she lives and I don't think she knows where the church is we've been trying to find out but with no luck yet. I was feeling really down but it was an amazing experience to see members from the Bayamon ward on sunday. I was able to see Emma! Wow, it was so great to see her. She looks so happy. She's going through some really hard things right now but it's amazing to see the difference in her countenance. She is already planning to go to the temple when she passes the year mark of her baptism. Her daughter is not a member but came to Salt Lake on a business trip and visited temple square. They are planning on going next summer, when I'll be home! I also saw another family who got baptized a year ago in June. They are moved to Tampa Florida next week and are going to be sealed in the temple. The wife gave me this huge hug and wouldn't let go. She was so happy. Her story is amazing and after all the trials she has gone through she deserves to have the blessing of being sealed in the temple with her family. Monday came and during our zone conference President shared with us that he had been in the recent convert meeting that they had with all the recent converts in the last two years. They had this meeting with Elder Vinas sunday morning. He shared with us, and looked right at me, and told us how Emma had born her testimony of how she has changed since she came in contact with the missionaries and how she felt that as a woman she had no value but how coming to know the gospel her life has changed completely. I lost it, I was crying really hard. It's really hard sometimes as a missionary, to see so many people not accept the gospel and to see the things that so many people struggle with. But it makes it all worth it when you hear about the difference that is made in the life of even just one person. Anyway, I just thought I would share that with you. Even though being on a mission is really hard sometimes, there is nothing better in the world.

We've had a few hard weeks but heavenly father has really blessed us and we have been able to come in contact with a few amazing people. One is named Nicole, she is 17 and she found out about the church through a friend on facebook. This friend talked about the church with her through facebook, sent her videos and she has been looking at the church website and mormon.org trying to find out more about it. She looked up the address of the church and showed up on friday to the mission office and talked with a member of our ward that works in the seminary and institute office. She referred Nicole to us and we taught her the first lesson saturday morning. She is amazing! She has a lot of good questions and she is excited to learn. She came to church sunday and loved it. She had some really good questions too.

We found another really amazing family whose names are Josue and Charlene, they have two little boys. We had a really great first lesson with them and they were going to come to church on sunday we called them afterwards to find out what happened and Josue said that his wife didn't feel comfortable because she didn't have a shirt with sleeves. We are really excited about them.

Anyway good luck this week with starting school, and with your story Erin, and I'm excited that you are working in the temple, Mom and Dad. I know you will have some amazing experiences there. Tell everyone hi for me!

Hermana Barker

Car Accident

Hey I won't be able to write very much today. I'm sorry this keeps happening. But this is why. Last night as we were driving we were stopped in some traffic and a girl ran into us from behind. We called the police and they came and we called the people in the office who were supposed to call and at first we just felt a little whiplash It didn't seem that bad the airbags didn't come out or anything and the car was dented from behind and in front from the car that she pushed us into. The Alvarados were in St. Kits and weren't reachable until late. They told us to go the next morning to this place called ACAA where they would check us from head to toe and work with the insurance and everything. But this morning I woke up and felt much worse my back hurt and Hermana Rodriguez has some neck and shoulder pain from the whiplash. Well the doctor they sent us to is closed all day until now. So we are going to leave and go right and have everything checked out. I am fine don't worry. I'm sure its just whiplash. But please pray for me so that we can feel better. I didn't want to worry you but I figured that I should tell you so that you would know. I love you all I'll write more later. But this day has been crazy and we don't have time. I'm sure if you have questions you can call the mission office and they'll be able to explain how i'm feeling. I'm sorry to scare you. But I knew that I should let you know.


Love you all! I'll write a big long letter next week I promise!!!

Summertime in Puerto Rico-9 months in

Hey Everyone,

Well, it is officially summertime in Puerto Rico.  Haha, I don't think I have ever sweated so much in my life. Well, that's life.  I can't even imagine what 50 degrees in foggy San Francisco would feel like.  It's weird to even think about putting a jacket on.  Sounds like you had a lot of fun on your trip.  I'm jealous you went to see Wicked; I've always wanted to see it.  That's awesome.  Wow, it's crazy to think how fast time flies. Abby will be a college student in two weeks.  Weird but I'm so excited for you.  Erin, I'm praying for you so that you will be able to get everything done that you need to and that it will turn out well.  I know it will.

So I am still here in Toa Baja. Transfer #4!  Wow, I've been here in the Toa Baja Stake all 9 months.  But that's okay because I love my companion and I am really excited for another transfer with her.  She is amazing and we have a lot of fun together.  Well this week has been pretty great.  I don't know if I told you about Maria.  If I did sorry I'll repeat myself.  So we have to go back to the beginning of my mission to explain this story.  When I got here my first day and we opened the area of Bayamon the Elders told us we had several investigators with baptism dates one of them was named Maria Colon.  She lived in Naranjito and a member showed us where her house was the first week but she only pointed it out quickly as we drove by.  We tried to call her and get a hold of her for weeks.  We called, left messages, we went by where we thought her house was but it turned out it wasn't her house.  We searched every house that was white with two levels along that entire highway and we could never find where she lived or if she lived there she was never home.  Eventually after weeks we decided that she must not be interested or she would have returned our calls.  But I remember being so determined, we have to find her.  Let's just check this one more house. My trainer humored me and we looked for a long time but I just felt like we really needed to find her.  We worked a lot in that area, until we found out that it was actually part of Toa Baja ward and not our area, the elders had gotten confused with the boundaries and told us wrong that's what happens in areas that are pretty rural.

Well you can imagine my surprise when we received a phone call from another set of sister missionaries and they told us that they had received a call from a woman named Maria Colon that lived in Naranjito and we had an appointment saturday.  Well it turns out that it was her.  She had had a whole bunch of family problems and that's when she lost contact with the missionaries but she ran into some elders that had taught her earlier that were serving in another part of the island and that's when she decided to call the old phone number she had and got in touch with the other sisters.  Well it turns out that she had known elders for a long time when she lived in the Caparra ward.  Her nephew that used to live with her was baptized a little more than a year ago.  She loves the missionaries, loves the Book of Mormon has read it all the way through.  She has a really strong testimony of Joseph Smith.  She has gone through a lot of really hard things these last 9 months but she found a way to bring the gospel back in her life and she is now preparing to be baptized on September 4th.  It's so crazy to think that I am now teaching this woman that we spent so much time looking for 9 months ago.   Anyway, I am still in shock that she was able to reconnect with us.  Tturns out she lives about four houses away from an investigator we taught many times.  Either we didn't see it because it is hidden or if we did go by in the many times we looked for her she wasn't home.  Anyway she's amazing and we are excited.

Well other news...we are looking for new ways to find people other than just knocking doors.  Becuase knocking isn't that effective.  Especially since so many other religions here do the same.  People get tired of people going door to door.   As a district we are trying to get more creative and after thinking for awhile we have come up with some ideas.  For example, we have a million Liahona magazines that have been gathered from over the years.  Somehow we have some months that we have 2 or 3 copies of the same so we are going to take them to doctor's offices nearby and ask if we can leave them in the waiting room for people to read and we put little notes that have the address of the church and mormon.org.  We are asking members that have their own businesses to place pamphlets and cards for people to take and we are asking members, especially the youth, to go look online at mormon.org and youtube.com/mormonmessages and find videos that they like and then use facebook to share those videos with their friends.  So this is a shout out to any friends or family especially those that have served missions.  Any other cool ideas would be appreciated. Send them to me and we'll try them out.  Anyway, I have to go but I love you all.  Thanks for your emails and for the pics.  Erin, that pic made my day.  Send me more I love having them.

Anyway, hope you have a great week.                                                             Great tropical fruit here.  It
                                                                                                                        makes great juice.

Halfway through my mission!

Hey Everyone,
PDay was changed again. Becuase it is transfer week. Transfers are tommorrow but we still haven't heard if either one of us is going. We are waiting for the phone call so if they call I guess I'll have to run home and pack pretty fast. So I just remembered that you are probably all in San Francisco. I hope you have fun.

Well this week has been pretty crazy. We've been having a hard time getting set appointments with our investigators, lots of cancelling or some of our investigators lost interest. We have a few awesome youth that are still coming but their parents aren't too thrilled about it and we haven't been able to teach them on a regular basis but we are praying hard for them becuase they are amazing. But after a pretty hard week, we started our fast saturday afternoon. We were praying hard that we would be able to find a more people to teach because we hadn't found very many people knocking doors lately. Before going to knock we prayed to know where we should go to knock doors. Hermana Rodriguez thought of place that she had been thinking about for a few days but we were never close by but she felt that we should go there. Well, the very first house that we called at a young girl named Lisa came out and after I started talking to her, I'm not kidding after only saying about 5 words, I could see her face and I just knew that she would let us in and I don't know how to describe it but I also knew that I she would accept a baptism invitation. We had been practicing this week to teach more with the spirit and focusing on teaching the doctrine of Christ as President has asked us to do. The difference was amazing. The spirit was very strong, it was one of the best first lessons I have had on my mission. Well her twin sister Gina joined us in the lesson and at the end they both accepted baptism dates. Their older brother was listening to the missionaries 5 years ago. We are so excited to keep working with this family. The next day sunday we found another really amazing family that we have an appointment with tonight. I know that Heavenly Father helps us find those people that are prepared to receive the gospel. I am really thankful for the spirit that comes with fasting and prayer. The mission is amazing!

Well it's hard to believe but tomorrow is my 9 month mark! So weird. It is going by really fast and I can't believe that I've been here that long. I still feel like there is so much to learn and I don't want it to go by too fast. Anyway let me know how everything is going over there. Sorry once again I won't be able to read your emails this week. Soon things will get back to normal and p-days will be on wednesday. Anyway I love you all. Have a great week.