Pedro's baptism

Email - March 3

   I am in Gilbert, AZ!!! From border of mission to other border of the mission! I am in a Spanish ward with my very very cute companion (Hermana Segura) and two Elders, Elder Vorkink (served with him in Yuma, so I know him pretty well and he is my district leader now) and Elder Whitted. Sister Segura is from Colombia, but has lived in Mesa, AZ since she has been 6. She is a native Spanish speaker and the cutest little thing ever!! Our ward is way cool! It is called Ray 5th Barrio(ward).Do I miss Yuma? Not so much but I do miss the people there a ton!! It is nice to be able to see them on facebook and stuff! I serve in both Gilbert and Chandler with the Spanish work. I don't have any English work anymore, just Spanish :) It is awesome... except the food. blah.. I don't really like Mexican food. Some things are good and it depends who cooks, but it is a lot of fat and grease. And they feed you more than you can ever imagine! And you can't say no or they get offended! My first two dinners here were actually pasta haha and then I had Venezuelan food. It was really good and not fatty or anything. But I swear I gained like 5 pounds that night because they just kept feeding me and I couldn't say no especially because they are our investigators!! Instead of tortillas they have arepas and  you put beans and meat in it. TASTY!! but I was going to die because I ate too much!! Then I had pazole. It is a type of soup and the meat in it is pig spine. They leave the bones in it and fat up the wazoo, yuck! It is good minus all the fatty meat and bones. I couldn't finish it and then she gave me more!! I told her my stomach just isn't prepared for eating so much, yet. Then she gave us rice pudding. She was nice about it and didn't seem too offended. We had dinner at the bishop's last night. He is so cool!! He is from Spain and speaks perfect English. His wife is American and went on a mission to Texas Spanish speaking. We had homemade Cafe Rio it was so delicious!! That is my kind of mexican food!! haha

    So the Gilbert Temple Culture Celebration was on Saturday. It was AMAZING!! A little cheesy but so GREAT!! It was so neat to see so many youth together and unified. There are a lot of members here!! I love it here, it is so nice and looks a lot like St. George! It is very different than Yuma haha I am glad I went to Yuma first because if I went here then Yuma it would be a lot more depressing haha. I am actually in Sister Funke's old area and she told me tons of stories about the people here so I am trying to remember everything. But she told me a lot, so I forget! I would live here, it is nice! But anyway on Saturday it was RAINING like POURING! It never rains here and of course, the day of the OUTSIDE Culture Celebration, it rains!! It was really cold! I don't know how those youth did it!! It was at 7 pm when it started! WOW! It was so neat though! They had such good attitudes and everything! The Prophet I guess was looking a little sick, so that isn't good! President Eyring came with him and he is so cute, cheering on the youth! I watched the dedication yesterday in Spanish haha. Ask me what I understood... nada!! Haha jk well I understood it if I was paying full attention, using all brain power in the world! haha But that got me exhausted so sometimes I started dozing off, but I tried really hard! It was really cool to see it in Spanish though! President Eyring mentioned the Draper Temple, I don't know what about it, but he mentioned it haha! With the Tucson and Phoenix Temples coming soon, there will be 6 temples in AZ. There are 400,000 members in AZ. It is cool to think that I have been a part of helping bring some of those 400,000 to the gospel. 

   The main investigator we have is Pedro. He is getting baptized this Saturday and married this Friday. Yeah, take that friends! I get to go to a wedding, too! And I get to plan it a little, so that is cool! I will send pics! And the Venezualian Family, they are super chevre! 

Email - February 24

Living with the waxed old and stricken in years...
   So this week has been pretty slow and all but a few things that stand out.

First of all, Ever since I have been here I have been teaching a family. The Rodriguez family. The are an English-speaking family. The mom is a less active member and she is wayyyyyyyy cool!! She is on border patrol and she is way fit! It is fun to talk to her! Her husband is not a member and she has two kids (Esteban 14 or 15 and large in stature. And Sylvia who I always call Sophia...embarrasing and she just turned 12). And missionaries in the past have always been trying to teach their family but they are super busy with their weird schedules and the kids play lots of sports.  Anyway, the miracle... The last week I am in the ward they all of a sudden show up to church, not the dad but the mom and three kids!! So that was so cool! I was so happy! :) I guess Sylvia woke up and said "I want to go to young women's today!" So they came.

    One of the Relief Society Presidents here (Sister Zinn) gave us a vinyl saying that says "Nothing is impossible, the word it self says I'M POSSIBLE" I thought that was clever :) She is so cute! I am going to miss her!

   I guess Sister White (Sadie) is coming to Yuma for Stake conference at the end of March. Everyone is excited about that!

   Yesterday, in the Mesa Del Sol ward we had a Break the Fast after church, I felt like it was my farewell dinner, again. I feel like I am leaving home, again haha. I am going to miss a lot of people! Thank goodness for facebook!

   And... I am leaving, Sister Funke is staying. This is weird. I am excited though! I will see where I am going on Wednesday though :) New beginnings...

Email - February 18

    Lou got baptized on Friday morning, Valentines day. The spirit was felt by every single person in the room. I wish we had an investigator or less active there to feel that strong spirit but all the members even said how beautiful the baptism was and said that everyone in the ward should of been there. Lou cried and cried during the opening song "How Great Thou Art" it was the cutest thing ever! I was leading the music and that song is so hard to lead, it gets me confused every time. But life goes on. Haha. Lou took us out to Applebees Monday night (yesterday) he is so funny! At church on Sunday he came up to us and said "Sister Funke, thank you for singing at my baptism, now I will serenade you both at Applebees tomorrow night because I only fear God" haha good thing he didn't sing too much at Applebees, that would have been embarrassing, well for him haha but he did sing a little bit, it was funny. 

    I found a new word for old people in 1st Nephi and that is "stricken in years" so now I call all our neighbors my friends that are stricken in years. haha :) 

   Uhm... yesterday we went to San Luis and played sports and ate Carne Asada. That was fun. I am really bad at naturally every sport, so that is cool. Except I am alright at basketball (thanks Pops for teaching me well). There was one elder who is way nice and was teaching me how to hit a baseball because I gave up. I think it has to do a lot with my messed up eye balls and my depth perception. But he was impressed with how much I knew about baseball. I can watch it but playing it is another story. 

   I went on an exchange with Sister Rawlings, from California. I like her, she's really cool. We went out to Wellton and contacted this former investigator that Sister Arellano and I taught. He came to church twice while we were teaching him. But he has been so busy and it was hard for us to come out to Wellton, but it was really cool because his family is still way interested. Sister Rawlings prayed and the mom said she felt the spirit so strongly and had tears in her eyes. This was all in Spanish. Yeah, it was good.

   We taught mission prep on Sunday and that was fun. There was like 6 people there. It was for  the whole stake haha. I wish I was more prepared before my mission. Remember how I only went to like 4 classes of mission prep and 2 temple prep classes. Oops.

Email - February 10

  On Wednesday. we had Zone Meeting. We trained the missionaries in our zone and so did the Zone Leaders. Our new goal, as a mission is to read the Book of Mormon, again. About 8 pages a day, so we will end by the end of next transfer. Which is I think is Shay's birthday, April 2nd. I am only in 1 Nephi 16. But I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!! Hopefully I can keep up with the group this time. It takes me like an hour to read 8 pages. I like to search, study, and mark.

   This morning we went on a hike with our district and zone leaders, Telegraph Pass again. Oh I am sick with a cold, but my comp couldn't make it all the way up so we waited for the rest of the elders to get back and we walked back down with them. We almost made it to the top, but not quite. My comp almost threw up. When we visit Yuma together, we will definitely hike this as a family, it is awesome!! So steep! I started getting sick on Saturday night, I was letting go too much of my germaphobia. This is only the third time I have been sick on my mission... AMAZING! Heavenly Father has blessed me! Oh, but this morning on the hike I fell! It was so funny! I fell on my butt, sliding down the rocks and it is so weird because in normal life, everyone would laugh, but all the missionaries are just like "are you okay?" and then move on. It was way funny, but me and my comp were the only ones laughing. I guess they are afraid to hurt feelings, but whateves. 

   Lou, our Filipino investigator is getting baptized on Valentines Day. It will be exciting! He is so funny! He is 70 and he likes to sing songs to us and calls us his 'angels'. He is funny! He went to the open house on Friday and he called us after and said "I am ready to be baptized and am proud to be a LDS. " It is funny the way he says it. He is a cute little old man!! 

Me on the hike to Telegraph Pass

Email - February 3

   So. this week we went up to MLC (missionary leadership council). It was good. It is amazing how much our mission is changing and continuing to change so much!! But it is apparently good changes because our numbers are going up more and more. Highlight of the week, Wednesday I was standing on a rolly, spinny chair, checking out my outfit. I was stepping down and I totally ate it. It was so funny but, I was the only one to see it because my companion was in the shower. She told me that she heard it and that I shook the whole house haha! It was one of the funnest things I have done! It got me in a really good mood the rest of the day. 

   Last week I forgot to tell you this but these little kids asked me if I could sleep over at there house. I told them I couldn't because I didn't have my pajamas. They said "Just call your mom and have her bring them, And ask your mom if you can sleepover" haha it was funny!

Email - January 27

  Don't worry, I am not returning home early. I may suffer haha, but I will not go home until I have accomplished the 18 months. It may be the hardest thing I have ever done, but it also contains the happiest moments of my life. There is a quote from Elder Holland, one sentence of this quote says "All the hardships, all the tears, all the hard work will be looked back upon as the best thing you've ever done, not because you baptized everyone, but because you gave it everything you had, even when you didn't think you could, and especially when you didn't want to." The rest of the quote is amazing too but, it is so true!! I am out here and I am exhausted and worn out, and drained, but I am giving it all I've got. I will not let myself go home, thinking about times where I could of tried harder, times where I was selfish with the Lord's time, times where I could of been more obedient. I will work harder than I ever have before, just because I can, and just because the Lord has commanded me to give my life up for 18 months. I may whine and mumble, but in the end it is the Lord's work and it will be done. I am human, I am weak, I am imperfect, I am a missionary, I am a representative of Christ, and I am a daughter of God. 

   Let's see, this week we did a church tour with some older couples, it was cool. One of them was a chiropractor and at the end of the tour he said to me "You are a very pretty girl, you just need to fix your posture, straighten your back and suck in your stomach." I told him that I haven't heard that since I have been home with my mom correcting me. He was a funny guy. Yesterday, at church we were learning about agency and how if we would have followed Satan's plan then we would have been unhappy with no emotion or care or anything. I had a thought that I need to study about agency more today, so I did. My knowledge of agency has definitely grown throughout my mission, which is a weird thing to say but it is true. I realized that throughout my life and definitely on my mission I have taken away my own agency. I don't decide for myself, I don't even know how to make most decisions. I want to make others happy, so I choose to do what they want or let them get what they want. And I live my life the way that others want me to. I guess that is me using my agency to adapt to others choices, but I have lost MY agency. I am scared of doing wrong, hurting others, doing something that they don't like. I am scared of my decisions affecting others, so I don't decide. I do what they want, so they are happy. When others are happy it makes me happy, but now I am not happy. I realized that this is the reason for my depression because I let my agency be taken from me. I don't know how to decide for myself, even with the smallest things, it is so hard for me to decide on choices that don't affect my eternity. Heavenly Father has given us agency to learn and choose for ourselves, but I forgot how. This is something I will be working on. 

   Anyway, we had a really cool activity for the youth this past Saturday. We spoke to them about missionary work and then Laura (recent Convert) told her conversion story and her testimony, (well pretty much talked mostly about me), even though it wasn't me that changed her, it was the spirit and the Lord. Then the youth went out knocking on doors and we had them fill out a 5 question survey about their relationship with God. Some had success, a lot didn't, but they got to experience what it is like to do missionary work and they loved it! And we got referrals so wahoo!! It was cool. Even an investigator came to this activity and loved it! I love you and I miss you so much! Also my friends, wholly molly how I miss them more than anything! When I get back they will all be married and it will be weird! But good for them.

Email 2 - January 20

   So this week has been kind of crazy! On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I stayed with the sisters in Yuma, Sister Rawlings and Sister Rich. It was fun, but I love being in a trailer. I didn't know I would ever say that in my life. I think I am just going to live in the foothills of Yuma forever, if that is okay. K not really, but it is pretty great here. I have so many best friends here. I am glad to be working with Sister Funke again. It is fun to catch up with each other and since we already know each other we can just get right to work. She is still better than me at Spanish, of course. Because she has only worked in Spanish almost her whole mission in Gilbert and Tempe. But not too much better where I feel inadequate. She will help me a lot. 

   Now in our zone there are only 2 other sister companionships and they are rockin! So, that makes it a whole lot easier for us as sister training leaders. An elder from my high school just got transferred to my zone, Elder Spencer Richards. We didn't know each other really too much before, but I knew who he was and one of my friends married his brother, recently. 

   We have like no investigators right now! Only like 4 or 5 because all of them were baptized. So, we have been working a lot with the recent converts. We saw the Cabrera's, he was the one that told me that I am the "Big OG" here haha which means like "old gangsta god" or something like that. I love their family! They promised to come to church this past Sunday and I thought for sure they would... but no :(  But, when we went over there they were saying how much they love me and how they know I am here for them. I totally believe that too, that I am here for them. 

   I have been doing a lot better, not as depressed and longing for home. I am a lot happier, but still it will take some time to be fully healed, I guess. I just wish I could rejuvenate my body, mind, and spirit for a few days. I definitely know I am suppose to be here right now. I don't exactly know why but I am and I love it! 

   I have been thinking a lot about how people say that Heavenly Father won't give us more than we can handle. I read something that said this isn't true. That he does give us more than we can handle. I thought more about it and realized Heavenly Father gives us more than we can handle because if He didn't than we would not rely on Christ or Him at all. He gives us enough that we let down our pride and put our faith in Him, that we may ask Him for help. If He didn't give us more than we could handle as human beings than we wouldn't learn, it is our souls, our spirits that remember who our Father and Savior is when our human bodies can't handle anymore.

Email - January 20

"Guess who's back, back again, Funke is back, tell a friend" 

Entonces mi companera es Hermana Funke otra vez check check

I'm the big OG in los foothills de Yuma hollaaaa! 

yeah boi.