First Baptism

GREAT WEEK!! - first baptism - Happy New Year!

HEY FAM!!!

I LOVED seeing and hearing you guys on skype!!!!! It was the greatest present ever! I have like zero time today, all of you guys wrote emails!! Good job :) But now I don't have time to write an epic letter!! THIS WEEK WAS A MIRACLE WEEK! Merry Christmas to us! Seriously. We had a baptism! MIRACLE! K, super quick back story, this super nice lady- Juanita- is like 60 years old and her husband is a new member and she has been taking foreeeeever to decide to be baptized. She is super golden and pretty much preaches the gospel to her friends but she never would commit to being baptized. We fasted and prayed for her every second and we got nothing. She has had the date for this last saturday and we knew she would cancel again last second. BUT GET THIS! The DAY OF her baptism she calls us at like 10am: "Hermanitas, I don't want to be baptized, I'm not sure...I can't do it, blablablabla...." Sanchez and I are like, greeeeaaaat, now we have to call everyone and cancel it. Two hours later she calls again, "I want to baptized!! My husband doesn't really know how to baptize me though. Can you come over and teach him?" haha we felt stupid that he didn't know but we were on cloud nine!! SO COOL!! We were just in shock and the baptism was amaaaaazing. The members in our branch ROCK!!! Like 70% came and we called them 3 hrs before the baptism was starting. They all brought super good nacho toppings and we had a good old fasion Hispanic baptism haha it was super fun and Juanita is just awesome. LOVE HER! We have pictures on Sanchy's camera (Hna Sanchez lol). I hope I can get those to you today...if not, then next week. I swear I will buy a camera today and I will take tonnns of pics for next week!

Another crazy story, I gave my first talk out the mission field!!!! I had zero time to prepare and we were like 30 mins late to sacrament meeting because we were dragging some less actives to Church with us and they actually came!!! So we showed up like during the sacrament and we were babysitting all of the less active family's CRAZY KIDS! OH MY GOSH! They were devil children I swear. I was freaking out because I had no idea what my talk would be like and I couldn't prepare or even say a prayer because we were trying to tackle the kids down but we couldn't because we are missionaries so we have to somehow "use the force" to make them sit down without touching them. I hate being a missionary when it comes to kids because I just want to grab them and sit them down. Sheeesh they are psycho. It was super funny, I was in the middle of speaking "children Spanish" to one of the kids while the President of the Branch was telling me to come up and give my talk...I was like "Oh...si si, lo siento, Im coming" haha the members were just laughing. I got up there and smiled and just tried my best. I tried not to read the whole talk that I had prepared but I mostly did...oops lol but I think it went well! No one laughed so that means I didn't say anything super stupid. The members were way nice to me after the talk and liked my spanish so that's good! It was about the new program for the youth that is coming out next year. Soooo yeahhh that's that :)

Ooooo one more super super super suuuuuper awesome story!! AH I LOVE THIS STORY! Be ready. ok. So I just went to a fun party with all of the sisters from the VC and it was glorious. We had cookie dough and biscuits and painting nails party this morning. So fun. We sisters know how to party! Anways, so I saw my old awesome frenchy comp Hna Sordes!!! Love her :) She runs and jumps into my arms and says, "Daily Contact, Daily Contact!!" (she calls me that a lot...lol) "Guess what! Deshaun that we talked to on the streets is getting baptized!!!!!"

K rewind...back story on the awesome Deshaun (he's black and super cool) We saw him just chilling at one of the apt complexes we cover and we just went to say hi to him and he was so hilarious. He was all, "Hey, I'm Deshauuun, I'm from Chicaaago and I hate it here, There is NO SHNOW!" We were like, what? what the heck is shnow? He had the funniest accent I have ever heard and it took us forever to understand that he was saying SNOW. Anyways, long story short, we asked if he wanted to have the English Elders teach him and he was like, yeah sure why not. So we sent his info to the other Elders and they were really really excited to finally have a referral. Then I guess Hna Sordes saw him at the Christmas lights one night and he was like, "HEY! I was hoping I would run into you sisters again! I am getting baptized in February!! Thank you so much for everything" MIRACLE! I was screaming and crying I was so excited when she told me that story. YEAH DESHAUN!

LESSON LEARNED: It's so interesting how you never know who you will have an impact on. We talk to so many people in passing every day and most of them just hate us and don't want to hear. But, sometimes we end up changing people's lives even if they hated us or didn't want to listen in the beginning. That was the first time I actually got to see this in action. SO COOL! Now I want to know how many others actually listened to what we had to say! So you never know who is watching and what kind of an impact you're having on people :) Be a good example and talk to everyone about the Gospel!

Other cool stuff: Sanchy and I are the best bikers ever. I have finally mastered the one wheely and the grind and riding without no hands. Next trick is the 360 spin thingy. I'll get some videos up on youtube for ya ;) lol yeahhh not really but I CAN ride without hands! YEAH! I know that's like the easiest thing in the world but I was pretty proud of myself. I am now a legit biker. Pics are coming next week I hope!

Thank you for all the emails!! I love you guys! I have the greatest friends and family in the world. I always feel so supported and loved. It really helps :) THANK YOU! HAPPY NEW YEARS! We get to play sports with 3 other zones for like 4 hrs tmrw :) And we probably won't proselyte tonight because it's new years eve. We have permission to just stay inside if we need to and just write in our journals and be obedient...and not party. I will try super hard to not go crazy tonight haha it's hard though with 4 sisters in one house. We have some serious fun. I love those girls. But I swear we are 90...I mean 100% obedient! We work hard! haha love you guys!

Love,

Hna Daly

FELIZ NAVIDAD FAMILIA! - Christmas Eve

FELIZ NAVIDAD FAMILIA!

Hey guys!! I am soooo happy that I had my Pday right before Christmas :) I am super excited to skype you guys tomorrow!! Things have been super great in my new area!!!! I LOVE MY COMPANION! She is so freaking awesome. Super hard working and has the funniest/cutest Spain accent in the world, and is just so happy about life. She has only been in the mish like 3 months and she seems like she has been in the mish for 10 years. She is incredible. I am so dang lucky. We get along way good. Her English is super good...I'm jealous. She is always saying how we can help each other our with the languages and I'm just like...you already know English, lucky!! She talks a million miles an hour in her lispy Spanish and I just never have a clue what she is saying. It kinda scares me because I'm like, "woah woah woah, sloooowwww down, MAS DESPACIO!" and she's like, "are you kidding me? I am not speaking fast at all." haha yeahhh I have a lot of work to do. She is so dang funny. Love her. We live in a cute house with 2 other sisters that is totally ours..well, it belongs to the members lol BUT we are the only ones that live in it. It's so cute and homey :) I love it. I LOVE the other two sisters we are with too. They freakin rock. Hna Noble and Mendoza. They are way cute and super funny. We have a lot of fun!

Our branch is the Mesa Grande Branch in the Papago Zone...however you spell that. The Branch is awesome. Smallest and most united branch ever, I love it. The people don't live in shacks and there aren't bed bugs on their couches so things are wayyy nicer than my last super ghetto area. We don't have too many progressing investigators...kinda sad. We have a lot of less actives who think they are way too cool for Church, they kinda crack me up. These people REFUSE to go to Church. They act like we are ripping their teeth out when we visit them right before Church. It's too funny :) Hna Sanchez is pretty good at getting them to Church though. She has such a good connection with the people. We still have a lot of work to do though.

We had to work in the VC a few nights this past week still but we have been working outside of the VC. Our job is to just teach people that are looking at the lights and invite them into the VC. It's actually super fun. Hna Sanchez and I are just the funniest sisters ever so everyone enjoyed talking to us. It's been way fun!! We get to talk to a lot of Spanish families and I am slowly getting better at just saying dumb things in Spanish. The Mexi's think I'm funny now so that's good :) Our Ward Mission Leader is super super intimidating and he makes me speak in Spanish allll the time. He calls on me during our Gospel Priniciples lesson during Church and just tortures me. Ugghhh, he is so mean to me haha but he is way good. Such a strong leader. HE COMPLIMENTED MY SPANISH! I think he did it out of pity because he saw how frustrated I was with my Spanish. He just said that I have a super good accent...It kinda made my week :) Spanish will be the death of me I swear.

Hna Sanchez thinks that I will stay in this area for like 3 more transfers before going to Spain. She is scaring me. I want to get to Spain by the end of this transfer soooo bad! As long as I stay with her though, I'm good :) They better not take her away from me before I go to Spain!!

Cool/Funny stories:

-Hna Sanchez biffed it on her bike...she was on the phone while biking...tsk tsk. Super funny. She lives

-The Mexi's here are super bad at singing. Singing hymns is like torture for them. Their musical numbers are the highlight of my Sundays. Oh man I am so mean. I just love them though. They can't sing to save their lives and it's adorable :)

-The food here is SOO GOOD! I am in love with tamales...is that how you spell it?? No idea, but yeah, SO GOOD!

-I love biking. It is the greatest thing in the world and I am finally getting exercise in!! We get so many crazy looks. I guess it is pretty funny seeing two sisters in skirts trying to ride their pink barbie bikes with their pink helmets AND my bike has a basket. What now. We are pimpin.

What I learned this week: Everything is on the Lord's time. He will never let us stay in bondage if we have faith and patience. I have seen this with the people we teach. Some of them have been suffering for so long and we can finally see that the Lord has decided it's time for them to get out of the hard trial they are in. I have learned this with myself too. The Lord will not let me suffer in Spanish my entire mission if I stay obedient and faithful. I know that one day...ONE DAY I will get out of this horrible trial. It is really hard for me and I am not sure why. I honestly didn't think it would be but it's been difficult for me. Languages are just not my thing. BUT, the lord will always visit us in our afflictions :) Check out Mosiah 24?? Somethin like that. It's super good.

Love you family!! I am so grateful to be a missionary especially right now. My favorite part of the day is biking back to our house in the dark after having one last awesome lesson and just thinking about all of the miracles we have had. Hna Sanchez and I just sing Christmas songs and play around with our bikes while saying hi to every single person we pass by. We are loved by so many people here. I love it. Just biking on the streets and we get like 10 people saying, "Merry Christmas sisters!! We love you!" so awesome :) Talk to you tomorrow! Here is my new address!!! Write to this one!

Hermana Alaena the coolest missionary ever Daly

c/o Kellis Family

813 W. 10th Street

Mesa, AZ 85201

My camera is broken...pictures will come in a couple weeks ish

Looooooove,

Hna Daly!

Alaena with Hermana from Kenya

with Comp - Hermana Sordes from France

 First District

with Hmn Sordes at the VC

Sisters in the District

First Transfer!!

HEY FAM!

My FIRST TRANSFER! So exciting!! We were all in the VC the night when they call you and tell you if you are getting transferred or not, so like all 20 of us in the VC were freeeaaaking out! We wanted the night to end so badly so we could finally find out where we were going. It was funny because our District Leaders had to stay up till 11 in order to call us and tell us what was going on. They are so nice :) HERE'S THE NEWS: I am GETTING TRANSFERRED! AND GUESS WHAT?! My new companion is from Malaga, Spain..no joke. I freaking love her!! She is only one transfer older than me haha So I hope she isn't freaking out too much that she is the senior companion. She is super excited to teach me real Spanish and prep me for Spain. There truly is a reason why I am here in Mesa. I am now a FULL FIELD SISTER!!! I am no longer in the VC AND we are on BIKES! YES!!!! I am actually super excited about that. I haven't exercised at all since I've been here because the VC is the most exhausting thing ever so we pretty much just sleep while doing "crunches" every morning. It is impossible. I cannot live on a college student sleep schedule as a missionary. Ain't gonna work. I am suuuuper sad to leave my comp, Hna Sordes :( We have had such a blast these last few weeks and have been great together. She has taught me so much and I love her to death. I am super excited to get out of the VC though haha I am going to miss the sisters there SO MUCH though. There are like 24 sisters there and I have become best friends with every one of them. I am so grateful that I was able to work there and make 24 new best friends :) They are so great.

News on our area: all baptisms fell through BUT our investigators are still pretty dang solid AND we found 2 new investigators who are so gonna get baptized in two seconds. They are awesome. We had 4 ish investigators at church yesterday...score! I am going to miss my branch so much. I love them. Even though I barely had conversations with them, I am going to miss all of them so much. They were so kind and gave me hugs and were super sad that I was leaving. That made me so happy :) My first area was super awesome now that I look back at all of it. I have learned SOOO MUCH is just 5 weeks. Crazy crazy.

News from VC fun: Sean Daly, guess what! I ran into a guy FROM POLAND! I was just dying and was wishing that you were there to speak Polish with him. He was SUPER COOL! I was just lovin him. He was like in his 50's and had the thickest accent ever haha I loved it! He has been in the U.S. for the past 15 years though so his English is pretty dang good. I was telling him all about you, Sean! He was a member and he read some of the Book of Mormon in Polish to me haha and I told him the only thing I could say was, "Gindobre"...however you spelled that. He was very impressed ;) ....not haha. He was funny because I asked him if he misses Poland at all...his answer, "Heck no!!" hahaha crazy old man. I can totally see that those Polish people are totally your people, bro :) I also ran into an 18yr old guy that was leaving this Wednesday for the MTC for Poland!! I continued to give him the best advice I could about Poland and I passed on him that he should learn funny jokes in Polish so that the people will like him. I tried to think what you would say to him, Sean. lol He was super cool and I can tell that he'll be an awesome missionary. So, there are some fun Polish stories for ya! I have ran into soooo many Europeans at the VC that barely speak English. I have seen people from Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Romania. All of them were like the coolest people I have ever met. I cannot wait to get to Europe. They are my favorite people!!

New from the Mansion :)...So, get this...the people we live with, The Bauden's, are like famous. I had no freakin idea...Mom, you may know him- Clyde Bauden. He is a freaking genius with the piano. Holy crap. He is number 4 on iTunes, says Sis. Bauden. His Christmas album is AMAZING! They gave us some of their songs that are mission appropriate...promise haha and I have been listening to them non-stop. Clyde Bauden performed at the VC with his two vocalists, Michelle Boyer and Freddy somethin...I think haha. They were outstanding. So there ya go, I live with freaking billionaires that are beating Justin Bieber on iTunes. He was just below Ceilo-Green. CRAZY! I finally got to see into their house last night when we went to congratulate them on being so awesome. Wow, I felt like I was walking into Bill Gates house or somethin haha so much fun.

I am sad to say goodbye to the mansion house and the Bauden's and Hna Sordes...and the VC (just the sisters lol). But, I am SO EXCITED to be on bike, being full field, WITH my fellow Malaga native :) She is freaking awesome- Hna Sanchez is her name. She is the funniest girl in the world and I love her Spanish so much. I can't wait to learn it :) No more of this Mexi Spanish ;)

What I learned this week: Be bold when teaching the Gospel. Don't whisper it or be hesitant, DECLARE IT! My fav scripture - 3 Ne 5:13...I hope...We are all desciples of Jesus Christ and that means we ALL have to declare his word...not just the missionaries :)

Only 8 more days till skyping!! I will email you more about that. THANK YOU for the Christmas letters, Uncle Bob, Kristen, and mom :) and lysh (if she did the shutterfly). I LOVED THEM! They made my life. Thank you so much. I love you all and miss you very very much! Serve others! Especially, during this Christmas time.

Love,

Hna Daly

Christmas Lights, cards & investigators!!

Hello Hello!!

I LOOOOOVED the Putnam Family Calendar!!! Thank you so much for sending it to me!! Everyone at the VC was absolutely loving it :) I also enjoyed the Carr family and the Ellersick fam Christmas cards! I miss you all so much! We have such a dang good looking family. Seriously. Those cards are gorgeous!! I hope it isn't snowing too much in ID and UT ;) We have actually dropped down to the 40's at night...kill me. Seriously, what is this weather? I want my 80 degrees back haha I had to be outside for like 3 hrs at night during our VC shift and it was windy and blowing my little skirt up. I was dying. I shouldn't even complain haha AZ has the greatest winter weather ever. I have seen quite a few friends from BYU!!! It's been way fun seeing everyone. If you ever come down you better say hi to me!!!!

This week was a super bipolar week as a mission usually is. It started off normal-ish and then Hna Sordes and I found out that we were needed at the VC for the Christmas lights every single night until December is over. That is not normal. We usually have like 3 nights off a week. We are the only companionship that was asked to do this and we were totally willing to because we are awesome like that. So we now work every single night 5-11pm and some days 2-11pm. CRAZY! This means that we only have like 1-2 hrs in our area every day. So freaking sad, especially because we have more progressing and potential investigators. We knew that the Lord would bless our area while we were gone and HE TOTALLY DID!

On Tuesday we had exactly an hour and a half in our area before we went to the VC. This is what happened: 2 baptismal dates (kinda...Ramon&Jose), three lessons with a member present, and two new investigators. That's what I'm talking about. I have no idea how in the world we did that but it totally happened. We are supposed to have our baptism with Ethan this Wednesday...but it may get pushed back because of dumb reasons...we'll see. It'll happen though. Then cute little Ramon...except he's freaking huge/beefy Ramon haha....we all had a fast this last fast sunday together so that he would get his answer for being baptism and HE DID! He told us that he definitely knows this Church is true and wants to be baptized. The problem is is that he still has a hard time letting drinking go altogether. He drinks like a bottle a day or less just by himself. So, not too bad. We will keep working with him and officially set a baptism date soon.

This week was also super hard because our appointments kept falling through and we were just not getting anything done in our area with the little time that we had. However, all is well! The VC is chaotic as always. I enjoy it ...sometimes...and other times I feel like I'm not even doing anything. I just talk to people and don't really get a chance to bring the Gospel into conversation. It's such a hard balance. I had the chance to announce our huge concert thing that we have every night outside IN SPANISH! It was super awful and their retarded microphone kept shutting off while we were talking into it. I felt really stupid but whatevs. Everyone pretty much speaks in English in Mesa anyways lol. I just speak in Spanish for their entertainment :) Good times. It was pretty funny because I announced it with my companion for the night- Sis. Mackenzie, who is from Kenya (I live with her) and she has a thick accent when she speaks English. I bet people were just lovin us haha.

This Thursday is our TEMPLE DAY! We get to go once every transfer and this temple day is like extra special because it's Christmas time or something...I have no idea what that means but we will be doing temple stuff like alllll day :) YES! I am way excited. I miss the temple so so much. We got to go hiking last Pday up to these retarded Wind Caves. Mesa is kinda lame in the hiking dept. We basically walked up a little slope for an hour and didn't even make it up that high and these caves were like tiny in-dents in the mountain. Wowwww Mesa. haha, I forgot my camera on the hike, but my comp took pictures. It's not even that great, so don't worry about lol. For today's Pday we got to chill at a member's home with our zone and have a delish meal and watch 17 MIRACLES! I LOVE THAT MOVIE! I have seen it like 80 times and I just love it. We had delicious hot chocolate and popcorn and comfy couches. I forgot I was on a mission for that hour or so...it was great...I mean...never mind. Love the mish haha

LESSON LEARNED this week: The Gospel is just so simple. I have seen so many issues with the people that we teach. I don't understand how people live without the Gospel. I sometimes get super stressed because I don't know how to teach to all of these crazy needs that these people have. Then I remember...the Gospel is so simple. Just do what you're supposed to do and God will bless you. Just teaching about prayer, scriptures, charity, going to Church, etc and I already see these people changing their lives. Anyone can live the Gospel. Sometimes I judge too quickly when I see these Mexi's married to someone in Mexico but they have 3 boyfriends and 12 kids somewhere in the U.S. and I'm just like, "you are never going to get baptized in a million years." What a terrible attitude!! Seriously. So, I continue to repent and keep working and try to see these people in clean church clothes :) It's always possible

OHHH! GUESS WHAT! I met Tyler Haw's cousin last night at the VC (Tyler Haws is the freaking man of BYU basketball...next to Jimmer of course). Anyways, so his cousin's name is Taylor Haws and he promised me wicked awesome Bball tickets when I get back. YES!!! Love being on a mission haha. I promise there was no flirting involved while this went on. Come on now, I know better than that ;)

I CANT WAIT TO TALK TO YOU OVER SKYPE! Yes, it will be skype :) I get to use a member's laptop or something I guess. I'll update you next week!! MERRY CHRISTMAS..almost. Remember the Savior. He loves you so much :) Love you guys. Thank you for the letters and packages :)

Love love love,

Hermana Daly

It's December!

Hey everyone!!!

I cannot believe it is already December and I have been out almost 3 months on the mish!! CRAZY! Seriously, I feel like I've done like nothing haha. It sounds like you guys are having an awesome holiday season so far :) I love hearing about what you're all up to. I bet the lights on the house look freaking awesome as always. I'm glad Cameron hasn't died yet on the roof haha, he seems to survive it every year somehow ;) Winter time in AZ is the greatest thing in the world. It is sooooo warm every day all day. The Visitor's Center is crazy as always. We just started having our concert shows that happen every night of December. Choirs from different churches and different high schools come and perform. They are AMAZING! I love Christmas. I have been able to talk to A LOT of interesting people from all around Mesa and around the U.S. I really do love the VC. I love being able to talk to people and see how their life is. It's super fun :) Yet, it's also hard because I should just be testifying and inviting them to do something to come closer to Christ....and all I ever do is talk to them about their families and see what's goin on in their lives....oops haha I'm working on it!! I've only been out three weeks, give me a break lol. I did have this super awesome experience though...

So, there is this Mexi family that came into the VC and they weren't too interested in the Church but they wanted to look around and see what was in the VC. One of the sisters immediately ran to get me and made me take them into this movie called "God's Plan for families." It's a super awesome movie and you like go through this cool tunnel room thing and watch the whole movie at different parts of the room. It's way fun. But, as usual, I immediately started to have a panic attack because I had no idea how to introduce this movie in Spanish and then testify specifically about families...yeah I was about to pass out. So they come to me and I just say "Hola, Como estan?" like 10 times because that's all I can say haha oh goodness....SO, I was super bad at introducing the movie that the mom was like trying to finish my sentences for me because she felt bad haha too funny. I take them through the movie and then I just said like the simplest testimony in the entire world about families and how we can be together forever and they were just sooooo nice to me. They kept saying, "muy bonita, gracias," and I could tell they were a little emotional. I felt a little bit better about the experience. Then later that night my frenchy comp, Hna Sordes, was telling me about a Mexi family that decided they wanted to have missionaries teach them right after they saw the God's Plan for Families movie and I was like "WOAH!!! I was the one that took them through that!" Then we were both jumping up and down and screaming with joy haha. So, I felt super good about that experience. That is the first cool Spanish experience I've had!! Awesome, yeah??

On the down side...our investigator, Ethan (13 yrs old with the baptism date), never came to Church these passed two weeks and we visited him every Sunday to get him to come and he won't. Now he is always gone and it's weird. :( Freaking satan ruining our investigators. ughhhhhh. We'll work on him, but so far it doesn't look like he'll get baptized on the 15th. BUT, our other rockstar, Ramon, always comes to Church and loves it and loves the people and has like 30 friends already. So awesome. He is totally gonna get a baptism date this week. HE BETTER! I love love love all of the sisters I work with at the VC. My frenchy comp rocks. Everyone loves her. We get along great!

I haven't heard anything about VISAS at all :( That's ok though. I am loving Mesa...sometimes haha. A part of me keeps saying, I am so glad I won't be here too long. I know I shouldn't think that but Mesa isn't that pretty sometimes. Super brown and ugly and dumb cacti everywhere. Seriously, why do people like those things? Hna Sordes LOVES THEM! She wants to like decorate her house with it. Weirdos haha I hope I get to Spain around January!!!

Enjoy the Christmas season! I am missing SLC lights SO BAD! Mesa has cool ones, but seriously, SLC has the best. Everyone go. I think about all of you every day! Spanish is still hard but now I just don't care :) I laugh and say stupid words in Spanish so people will laugh at me. It's fun :) Our area in Valencia is still very hard to work with, especially when you only work about 3-4 hrs a day in the field. We are always at the VC. I have seen the five minute Luke 2 movie about 187 times. I can now imitate every sheep noise in that movie. haha It's great. HAVE A GREAT WEEK! Love you all, share the Gospel, bring the sheepies home. YEAH! Adios mi familia, Ciao!! (I hope that's how you spell Ciao)

Hermana Daly

MTC & Arizona pics..i'm sure you can tell which is which!

 

Week 2 in beautiful Mesa, AZ!

Hola Familia!!

Another week down in BEAUTIFUL Mesa, AZ! What is one word that I could describe this week....Bipolar...seriously. But, I guess I learned that the whole mission you become bipolar. That is definitely me right now. We said goodbye to our comp-Hna Aranda, she is back in SLC. Now it is just Hna Sordes and I!! It's been super fun and crazy crazy crazy busy. Holy crap, let me tell you.

So, we are Visitor's Center sisters, yeah? So that means that we get to be there every flipping day from 5-11pm. Wow, it is freaking crazy. It's the Christmas lights like SLC has except not NEARLY as cool as SLC, but that's ok haha. Anyways, so about 6,000 people come through JUST the VC. That means that there are still like 10,000 people that walk around the temple grounds and then about 6,000 of them come through the VC. We all get assigned different companions every night and then you stay together and put on presentations. So, for one hour I am with my comp at the big Christus statue and we introduce it and then play the narration and then bear our testimonies at the end. The next hour, we got to the Luke 2 movie that we have. It is about 5 mins long about the birth of Christ and once again we introduce it and then bear our testimonies at the end of it. Then we go the Nativity Room for an hour and talk to people, then back to another Luke shift, then go to our God's Plan movie thingy, then float for a while....bla bla bla, we are busy, running around, feeling the spirit, testifying every two seconds, praying for inspiration, speaking really bad Spanish....it is pretty dang fun and exhausting haha. I am always paired up with an English sister because it's about 70% white people and 30% mexicans. So we always have an english part and then me, the spanish part. I am getting really good at just bearing my testimony and saying, "Bievenidos al centro visitantes!!" I hope that's right because I say that every time haha. Then, we get back around 11pm at our mansion house and then get to sleep around 11:45pm or sometimes midnight. We don't really have a bedtime when we are doing the Christmas lights. Then, we actually get up at 7:30 and we have permission to take an hour nap during the day. Pretty snazzy huh? This doesn't even sound like a missionary schedule! haha sometimes I don't really feel like a missionary, I feel like I am an employee at the VC. I am not sure if that's a good thing or not haha

The other half of the day we are doing our proselyting...however you spell that...I only know how to spell it in Spanish. We have a baptism date!! Yayeahhhh, it's a 13 year old mexi boy, Ethan, who speaks perfect English, so we only teach in English, which is probably why I love him so much hahaha. He is super solid and awesome. Then we have another mexi, Ramon. He is like 40 and super super chill and awesome. We are working to get him baptized. He is still worried about committing but dang, this dude is gonna be serious Church leader soon. I know it! Anyways, he only speaks Spanish, which means that I only bear my testimony and say stupid things throughout the lesson that don't even make sense. Ramon is way nice to me and appreciates when I try to speak. My little Ramoncito...haha he's awesome. AND THENNNN my favorite two boys in the ENTIRE world!!! Jason y Paulo. Love them so freaking much. They are 12 and 9 years old and they are also mexi's but speak perfect English...once again which is why I probably love them so freakin much haha. Their mom understands English because her boys only speak in English to her, but she only speaks Spanish. She is like a model. Drop dead gorgeous and her boys are SOOOO CUTE! I want them haha. So, the mom is divorced and her husband is some loser who was never a member and hates our church and he refuses to let his sons get baptized. They want to be baptized soooo bad and they can't because their dad won't allow it. So this is very very hard for us. These boys have been taught for like months and have heard every lesson ever and are just waiting for their dad to have this heart softened. Jason and Paulo even told us that they put their story in one of the Church magazines so that people can pray for them. HOW COOL IS THAT?! I don't remember which magazine...but you should look for them!! Jason and Paulo...Diez I think. They are dang dang cute. I love them. It was so sad though because we took them to the Christmas lights last night and the little one, Paulo said, "Do we get to go into the tower?? I have always wanted to go inside!!" He was referring to temple and I was like super sad to tell him that we weren't going in and that they couldn't go in...but I gave him hope and said he will be able to go in someday :) He was a little upset and wanted to know more about the temple. I am super excited to have our next lesson with them about temples now!

We have other less actives that we are working with...they are a pain sometimes. We also have a huge family that are investigators but they suddenly started to ignore us...awesome. It was probably because they think that I hate them because I never speak to them in Spanish. My Spanish is still the same, not very good haha. I have been speaking A LOT of English because we are always at the VC and then we mainly teach Ethan and Jason/Paulo who also only speak English. I only use Spanish when I testify at the VC christmas lights and then for Ramon's lessons. I occasionally speak with my comp in Spanish, but we speak a lot of English ever since Hna Aranda left. She was the one that forced Spanish at all times and then we both got burned out on it so we never speak Spanish....ooops, not the best. But, at the same time, I don't care too much. I am doing my best though, I swear!!

So overall, this week has been fun/crazy busy and I have had some super rude members actually. WHITE members. I won't complain, but we get some nasty ones that come in the VC and get really mad when we try to talk to them and ask for referrals...anyyyways, missionary work is super hard and exhausting and I still have no idea how I will learn Spanish while speaking so much English, BUT I know that I'll get to Spain soon and I'll pick it up in like two seconds :) That's my theory anways haha.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND JOHN DUCUARA! I know it's late...but I hope it was awesome!! OH! Thanksgiving...it was soooo good! We had like 3 dinners at 3 different member's houses, two were White people families and one was a mexi. So we had two EXCELLENT Thanksgiving dinners and one super weird Mexican version of Thanksgiving haha. Then we worked 5-11 that night at the VC for our opening night of the lights. I have run into SO MANY cool members that tell me about Spain and friends that they know that are in Malaga and totally loving it right now, so that gets me super excited.

I hope you all had an wonderful Thanksgiving and that you watched the new TWILIGHT like 80 times already ;) LOVE YOU and miss you all so so so much. Family, you did super well at emailing me this week. THANK YOU :) Bien Hecho. Adios!

Love,

Hermana Daly

The Newest Mesa Temple Visitor Center Missionary

HOLA from MESA!!!

Hey everyone!! This week has felt like a freaking eternity and it hasn't actually been a full week here in Mesa yet...oh my gosh haha The mission is HARD. So so so so hard. Let me quickly give a funny summary of my life so far. 

Hispanics are mean, blunt, and love making white girls feel completely stupid. I love my mission presidents, Pres and Sister Ellsworth. They are super nice and caring. The missionaries in the my mission are SO NICE! All of the sisters are GORGEOUS! Seriously, drop dead gorgeous. I am currently in a trio with Hna Sordes and Hna Aranda. Sordes is from France! She looks EXACTLY like Alysia haha no joke. She is 22 and fluent in French, English, and Spanish. Super gorgeous and the nicest person on the planet. The whole mission loves her to death. I am so happy to have her :). Hna Aranda is from Chihuahua, Mexico...however you spell that. She is also fluent in English and of course, Spanish. She is actually serving in the SLC Temple Square Mission but I guess they send you somewhere for a couple months for a full in field experience. She has been here 3 months and leaves this Wednesday to go back to SLC. Both of them have only 3 months left in the mish. I love them both and they are both pros here!! The down side...they speak ONLY Spanish 24/7. This has been super difficult for me and they speak a million miles an hour. I have no idea what is going on...ever. OH AND GET THIS! I am a Visitor's Center missionary now. Yay. Not too thrilled about it but it's been pretty fun because it's the Christmas season and they do Christmas lights like SLC. Salt Lake will always have the best lights in the world but Arizona tried haha they have some cool lights. Hna Sordes is a Visitor's Center missionary so that's why Aranda and I got roped into it. We have to always be together which means that I have to be a VC missionary too. We work there like three hours every day. I will be speaking a ton of Spanish starting the 1st of December when the lights are officially up. I hear thousands of people come every week. WOWWW! So excited for all of that Spanish speaking.....Ok, sorry this is all over the place haha

First day I got here, Hna Stark and I went to the Visitor's Center with our huge crowd of new missionaries and we had a little testimony meeting and took pictures. I am sorry to say that I have only taken one picture since being here. That shows how much time we have...no time at all. We then went to the Church where all of the mission gathers for transfer meetings n stuff. I immediately was told that they needed me to be approved to be a driver in the mission. Since my comps are not Americans, I have to drive them everywhere. I took a freaking 2 hour test about how to drive. So stupid. I am now driving everywhere. It's kinda fun though :). The first day I was put with two expert missionaries and one newbie like me. We ate at Five Guys. HALLELUJAH!! FOOOOOD! It was glorious. We then contacted in the streets for a couple hours. Kill me. I said like two words and the rest of the time, I just walked around with wide eyes and had no idea what these people were speaking.

Next day (Wednesday) Transfers. I got put with Sordes and Aranda. We are in the Valencia Branch area. I had no idea it was the toughest area of the entire mission until yesterday when we were having a meeting with the ward mission leaders and they mostly spoke Spanish. But, one of them (a white guy haha) said, "Are you new?? I can't believe Pres. Ellsworth stuck you in this mission. He must really think highly of you then. Good luck." That was it. I was like, WHAT?! Get me out of here! haha SERIOUSLY THOUGH! The people are pretty much ALL less actives and they speak the fastest Spanish I have ever heard in my entire life. My companions speak pretty dang fast. But these people speak soooo fast. Sordes and Aranda were like, "yeah, these are the fastest speakers you'll ever run into." Awesome. I love this. I am having so much fun. I understand everyone so well. 

On the positive side...I have been humbled so incredibly much. I now understand normal Spanish speakers pretty dang well. I still can't even bear my testimony because I am too intimidated by everyone. I love the members though. They are pretty nice to me and they understand how hard it is. All of the kids speaking both English and Spanish of course and they are always brutally honest to me. They say things like, "you talk funny. Why can't you speak Spanish?" Other Hispanics have been saying things such as, "Do you need me to draw pictures for you? She looks so lost. I bet you have never seen people like me wearing a tank top and shorts. You probably think I'm like Satan or something, little girl...." It goes on and on. I never know they are actually saying these things until my comps tell me after when we get in the car. Ughhhh. BUT, we have an epic investigator, Ramon. He is the shiz. So cool and chill. He like whispers while he talks though. I don't think I have said anything more than my testimony about the BOM, but I like him a lot. He is going to get baptized in the very near future. 

So basically at the moment, I am still super lost. I am running between the temple VC and member's houses, less active's houses, and we have like 3 investigators. The investigators are my favorite part. We have the Lopez family. They are super cool and have like 5 kids...hello baptisms. Then an ADORABLE 13 year old kid, Ethan. He speaks English to us all the time so that's super nice for me haha. He is way quiet but loves having us over. 

Mesa is super gorgeous and super warm! The people dress like it's 10 degrees outside. They have their heaters just pumping! CRAZIES! What is wrong with them?? They wear scarves and huge jackets when it's seriously like 80 outside. I don't get it. We go running outside every morning and it is like a glorious 65 degrees and my comps are like, AHHH it's FREEZING! They are so weird haha. I am still somehow smiling after all of this. I feel like I'm not really doing any good at the moment because my Spanish is the worst thing ever haha but I love the people...some of them. Some are just mean and nasty and others are way nice to me. I love the kids the most. They are so sweet to me and talk to me in English :) haha love it! ok, gotta run. I love you all so much and I absolutely loved all of your letters :) They made my life. LOVE YOU ALL! Have a great week. I am sorry that this email isn't super positive and spiritual.

Here's my spiritual note...The Lord is mindful of all of us. I have felt is comfort every second of the day because I am seriously praying every 10 minutes. I know he is challenging me a lot right now and sometimes I think it is more than I can handle, but I know that he has a reason for it. I am happy to be out here and learning so much. My companions are great! Hna Sordes is the greatest sister alive. Aranda pushes me more and more which I hate but I know it's good for me haha, she's awesome. KEEP PRAYING AND READING EVERY DAY! It makes a difference. And be nice to missionaries cuz life is rough as a missionary. Say hi to us and give us food haha. Love you all :) Have a great week!

P.S. (I live in a freaking mansion! It is seriously super nice. I will have to take pictures and show all of you. It's legit. We live with another companionship. They are way nice. One is from Kenya. She is pretty quiet and doesn't talk much.)

Love,
Hna Daly

Reassignment - Mesa, Arizona!

Que Pasa everyone?!!

It's snowing right now, LOVE IT!!!! I.love.snow.

YAYY!! REASSIGNMENT! I have been reassigned to the Mesa, Arizona mission!!!!! SO STOKED! Hna Stark and I are both going together and I am super grateful that we will be with each other for like our whole mission haha SO AWESOME! The newest thing we've heard about Spain and their stupid Visas....It is pretty much a lottery. So, it doesn't matter when you put your Visa application in, which is good for me because I put mine in pretty late hahaThe Church says that we should be getting them starting at the end of November. I am guessing I will get there HOPEFULLY by Christmas time :) We leave Tuesday morning at 5 am and we will officially land in AZ at like 10:30am. HECK YEAH!! I am just beyond excited to get out of the MTC. I am definitely going to pass out a few times out of nervousness, but I'm ready haha oh, and my other Hna's...Haglund is going to Anaheim and Shaffer to Pocatello!

This week has been FANTASTIC as always!! Started off a little rough because we did our first "door contact" approach and it was pretty intense haha We had a sub teacher and he didn't really teach us much about how to do it. We then spent the next hour watching each other going ONE BY ONE. Pretty dang scary and it was just a teacher hahahaha yup, I'm so ready for the field...not. So, first up, Hna Shaffer. She gives a big smile and says some sweet things about what she wants to share with the guy about the Gospel and about 6 minutes later, he shuts the door on her face. Mind you, this is in flippin spanish. All of us are like, oh shoot, this is like legit practice...allllrighty then! A few more people from our district go and they all just keep getting rejected. Everytime the door opened, our teacher would play a different person. FINALLY, one of our Elders successfully got into the room and stayed in the room. We then realized, oh crap, we seriously have to keep doing this until we are let in. Kill me now. I still haven't gone yet and like half of the class has already been rejected. Hna Haglund and Stark were the next two to get in and finally, it's my turn. Bring it. I knock on that door with such confidence that it would've slapped him in the face. I smiled ever so sweetly and told him that one of his neighbors down the street told me that he might be interested in our message. He then twisted some things on me and said that he didn't believe in God when I asked him about it. I was like, great...now what. I then asked him if he had a set direction in life. Of course he said, no. I was like, yes, I finally got him where I want him. I told him very quickly that sometimes life can be hard but our Church as the gift of the Holy Ghost. This can help you when life gets confusing and hard and it can help you with hard decisions...bla bla bla, Spirit freaking rocks!! He was like, woah, yeah I want to learn more!! BOOOOOM! Owned it, nailed it, I'm ready for the field haha but not really. There ya go. Door contacting is super hard and I am so glad that we don't do that too often in the field because it's not super effective. PHEW! I'll only do it if the Spirit tells me to. Other than that, I'm stickin to using the members haha jk, I bet I will be told otherwise by my future companion and she will know way more than me. I hate door contacting. End of story.

New story. Our district was chosen to be a pilot district for this new way of practicing teaching investigators. We were told that our two teachers were going to be brand new investigators. They would tell us their situtation with where they were at with the lessons and what goal we needed to accomplish in two lessons: baptism date. We were so ready for it! We also were evaluated at the end of every lesson, which usually doesn't happen. So, we taught Mayra, a 15 year old, who was pretty dang easy to teach and we totally got her to agree to be baptized. CHA-CHING! Our evaluations were top notch and awesome. The second one was our teacher Hno. Doxey being Manuel. HOLY HECK! He was the most frustrating investigator. He was super religious and loved the Bible and loved Christ and all of that. He hates the Book of the Mormon, hates Joseph Smith, yet he is super nice to us, missionaries. He has been taught all of the lessons from other missionaries and it was our goal to pretty much soften his heart and get him to be baptized. Great. Are you kidding me? So first lesson, went ok, not too bad. We just tried to understand why he was so against the BOM and J.S. and all of that stuff. We didn't really accomplish too much. We didn't want to argue because that's stupid to argue, so we just bore testimony of the BOM and told him to read 2 Ne 29. I left that lesson thinking, if this were a legit investigator, I would've dropped him so fast. Probably not what I should be thinking but seriously, this guy was the worst. Second lesson, my comp OWNED IT! We prepared so hard. We had him read in Alma 32 about how he needs to exercise faith for like 10 minutes so we could tell him about how the BOM talks about Christ visiting the Americas in 3 Ne 11. He REFUSED to even try to have faith. Then, my freaking awesome companera just told him straight up: (in spanish) "Manuel, please, have this faith for like 5-10 minutes and listen to what we are about to teach about Christ. If you don't have faith, we cannot teach you this epic story about Christ on the earth." BOOM! Right in the FACE! He was so shocked and just sat there for like 2 minutes with dead silence. We just stared at him. Finally, he says quietly, "ok, what did you want to share with me." The Spirit was IMMEDIATELY felt in the lesson and we read 3 Ne 11 about Christ coming. So awesome. He loved it. We asked him to be baptized and he said no, but he really wanted to read more from the BOM. It was so awesome :) Hno Doxey then told us after the lesson, "you two are so ready for the field. I was blown away by that lesson. Manuel is a hard hearted man and he was not going to get baptized. But, you softened his heart. You're ready." :) :) :) SO AWESOME! It was all thanks to our major preparation and of course the lovely, Hna Stark :)

Sorry, I don't have super funny stories to tell this week and I am quickly running out of time. I will say that our four names were called on the intercom speaker thing while we were about to go to class and they told us to come down to the Travel Office and we just knew...those are our reassignments!!! I screamed sooooo loud and sprinted to travel office in a skirt hahaha. Greatest moment ever. I continued to bawl like a little baby that I am because I knew that I was not staying in Utah haha. What a great feeling.

Just want to quickly say that I know that my mission AND reassignment are going to change my life. I know that the Lord has prepared people for me to teach and I cannot wait to find them. My Spanish is no where near great and I didn't even know how to say, "It's snowing outside!!" in spanish...but hey, I don't need to know how to say that in AZ and Spain hahaha. I know the Lord will make up for my inadequacy and I will have the gift of tongues soon!! I learned in our last Devo with W. Craig Zwick-of 70- that I just need to THINK like Christ, ACT like Christ, and SPEAK like Christ and all will be well. I love you all so much!!

Scripture for the week: 2 Ne 9:51...Don't waste time. I will make sure I don't waste the Lord's time and that I serve with urgency. I love you all!!! I will send my AZ address soon and hopefully someone will update it on the blog and FB :) Take care everyone and serve the Lord!!!!

Love,

Hermanita Daly

Come to the edge and He will help you fly!

Que Pasa Familia?!

Once again, still no visas. I think I'll just forget that I got a call to Spain haha, jk jk. We have all been a little down since yesterday. Our entire District all got their travel plans and are headin out to Texas and N.Carolina and the Hermanas have heard nothing. We were so upset and took our pitch forks, rounded up the other Malaga boys from another District who received nothing and we marched to the travel office! After lighting the place on fire, we finally had a civilized chat and the lady snarkily said that we would get our reassignments next Friday or something. Soooo there ya go! If you want to start guessing where my second mission will be, knock yourself out haha. We are all just praying that we will NOT be stuck in the Referral Center at the MTC! Please no!! We have no idea what they'll do with us. I would personally love to go to Salt Lake...we'll see!!

Hope you all had an EPIC HALLOWEEN!!! The MTC threw a crazy dance party and we got to dance with the Elders. Only on Halloween though. Then, we got to dress up! I chose to be Catwoman. It was a sick costume. We then got to go trick-or-treat and hit up some Provo dance parties!! Best Halloween ever!!

Or this happened...we ate ourselves sick in everyone's candy that they received and taught lessons and felt the Spirit and read scriptures. IT WAS AWESOME! So be jealous, you didn't get to feel the Spirit so strongly that night. And I'm pretty sure I had more candy that everyone out there combined!! We had like 40 Elders share their candy with us :) BOOM!

I also still love Hna. Stark like crazy. She really enjoys scaring me at least 4 times a week. Most of you know that I am the EASIEST person to scare. So, on Halloween night she hid in my closet and sure enough, I managed to make a blood curdling scream as I saw her there creepily hiding behind my clothes. Thank you companera ;) She is the funniest person I know.

Our District all took turns this week teaching Pedro (our teaher Hno. Doxey) in the observation room. This means that our entire District got to sit in the tiny observation booth hidden behind a mirror glass thingy, like a criminal FBI room. It's pretty sweet. We all took turns teaching our normal lessons but this time 8 other people were observing us behind the mirror wall and it was TERRIFYING. Of course, Hna. Stark and I were chosen to go first. We freaking OWNED that lesson. It was the greatest lesson we have ever done. We just taught him about fast sundays and what things he could fast for. The Spirit was just felt to strongly and our Spanish was just lighting up the place. Yeah. We're pretty good. After our 20 minute lesson, Hno. Doxey had us all come together and talk for like 15 mins about how epic our lesson was. He just said it was an amazing lesson and we owned it. The rest of the District went for the next 2 ish hrs and Hno. Doxey never said anything about any of the other lessons like he did with us :) It was really nice.

K one more bragging thing haha, sorry this makes me feel so good! I just need to talk about so I feel better about my major inadequacy with teaching and Spanish. So during class we were asking random questions about the language grammar. I asked a question about the subjunctive stuff which is SUPER HARD! All you fluent Spanish speakers are probably laughing at me but whatevs. So I asked Hno. Doxey a question about subjunctive because I didn't understand any of it. All he said back to me was this, "Hna Daly...you are the best one in the class and probably the best missionary I've had with understanding subjunctive. You use it ALL the time in your lessons and I hear you say it in conversation with the other missionaries." ummmmm wow. Best compliment ever and then my District continued to chime in with Hno. Doxey saying that they hate me because they are jealous of my Spanish haha. But, let me just say this, I am DEFINITELY NOT GOOD at Spanish!! Either he felt super bad for me because I'm the worst at Spanish...unlikely ;)....or it is 50% true. Who knows haha

Ok ready for some spiritual stuff?!! YES!! K we watch millions of Elder Holland talks that he has given at the MTC in the past 100 years, so there are A LOT! They are all so so so great!! We watched one that was pretty much exactly like his General Conference talk about Peter and the quote, "Do you love me, then feed my sheep." and it was so awesome. My favorite part of it was when he got all choked up and said something like this, "Dont you ever turn your back on the Gospel. You will break my heart. You will break the Lord's heart. You will break God's heart."

Another quote from him you may have heard. This is when he is referring to the Lord speaking to His children (us) and telling us to come to the edge of the cliff.

"Come to the edge," He said "No, we'll fall."

"Come to the edge." ...."No. We'll fall"

"COME TO THE EDGE!" ....We went to the edge. He pushed us. And we flew.

I absolutely LOVE that story because we have to go to the edge even though it's scary. We have to do all that we can as missionaries and reach our potential. All of us have divine potential and it is our job to make sure we push ourselves enough to reach that potential. I definitely feel like I am afraid of the edge at time and won't go places that I am not familiar with. I strive to keep pushing myself more and more. I find that the more I push myself, the more I improve and become better because I have the Lord helping me to fly.

So your challenge this week, Push yourself. Come to the edge and He will help you fly. We have so much work to do with this world. Get on it :)

I love you all!! I am very aware of all the prayers and I am so grateful for them. Thank you for loving and supporting me and writing me and sending packages. I couldn't do any of this without my support team :) Thank you!!!

Love,

Hermana Daly :)

SILENCE=SPIRIT TIME!

Oh Heyyy Family!!!

Are you ready for the greatest email of your lives?! haha jk, it's not too special but I have quite a few funny stories about Spanish and cool spiritual stories too :) First off, I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT THE SNOW!!! YAYY!! It was so much fun to see all of the snow and make a snow angel in the centimeter of snow that we got. It is freaking cold but that's ok, I'll be warm in Spain soon!! So, still no VISAS...super sad. But hey, we still got like 2 1/2 weeks left till we are OUT OF HERE!! Can you believe it?! I am going to be a legit missionary in 2 1/2 weeks. Unless I get reassigned to the referall center, boooooo. Ok now time for the good stuff!!

So we have this hour long workshop thing every Monday afternoon where most of the Spanish missionaries go to and we are taught about how to better our lessons. So this last workshop was HILAROIUS! You all may not think it's funny because you either A) don't speak spanish or B) don't understand how missionaries learning a language sound when teaching their first lessons ever in Spanish. Our teacher was super funny and he did a role play with just himself of how ALL of us sound when we are doing a lesson. It goes someting like this:

Missionary: "Hola Nacho, como esta?"

Nacho: "bien bien"

Missionaries: "oh bien bien, bueno bueno....ummm como esta su esposa?"

Nacho: "bien bien"

Missionaries: "oh bien bien, bueno bueno..." *one whispers to the other, "what else should we ask him?" "umm....como esta su perro?"

Nacho: "bien..."

Missionaries: "oh bien bien, bueno bueno.....umm....uhh...esta bien si uhh...usted orar?" (in a terrible gringo accent) hahaha anyways, you probably think this is not funny at all but we were just all dying because we are the worst at Spanish. That was definitely me at the beginning!! But don't worry, now I know how to say this instead: "Que bueno!!" haha jk I can do more than that but it's still pretty pathetic

Super funny story #2: So Hna stark and I go into teach our investigato (our teacher), Pedro, and we are teaching the word of wisdom. We go in there and we're speaking legit Spanish and totally just owning up the lesson and then Hna stark starts to say the line, "our bodies are sacred." So she says it like this..."Nuestros cuerpos son sangrados." She then looks to me and whispers, "Sangrados, right?" and I look back at her and say with total confidence, "yeah, sangrados, you're good." She then continues to look at Pedro with a smile and continues on with the lesson. So we leave the lesson skipping down the hallway because we were like, YEAH we totally owned that lesson! Our Spanish is SO GOOD! YEAH! A couple minutes later, our teacher, Hermano Doxey, (aka Pedro), comes down the hallway with the biggest smile and is kinda laughing. He says to us, "heyy, so you two are super chistozo (funny). In the lesson you said 'nuestros cuerpos son sangrados.'" We look back at him smiling and thinking...heck yeah we did!! I bet we totally blew him away with our vocabulary....Hno Doxey says with a smile, "yeah, that's not right...you just said our bodies are bloody." hahahahaha we should've said SAGRADOS not SANGRADOS yeahhhhhh soooooo we are defiinitely NOT ready for the field. We were on the floor laughing our heads off and Hna Stark says, "We only said that like once, right?

Hno. Doxey just stares at us and quickly says, "hah, no. Four times. You said it four times. I was trying incredibly hard to just bust up laughing during your lesson. It was still good though!" hahaha ok end of that long story

Ok Spiritual side!! This week was AWESOME! We focused on how to teach with the Spirit and how to listen to the Spirit. The mathmatical equation to this is: SILENCE=SPIRIT TIME. So we practiced with someone who wasn't our companion and we taught each other one-on-one. I was with my other favorite, Hna Haglund. We pretended to be real people that we knew who weren't members and then one of us would be the missionary and the other would be the "investigator" or the person that you know who wasn't LDS. So Hna Haglund taught me first and I pretended to be one of my dear friends. We started the quick role play lesson with the baptism invitation. The Investigator would of course say no and then it was the missionary's job to have long pauses during the lesson and to listen to the Spirit so that they knew what INSPIRED QUESTIONS to ask them. We had quite a few long pauses and just stared into each other's souls. Hna Haglund asked a few simple questions to get to know the real concern that I had with being baptized and then after like a two minute pause she asked an amazing question that had hit me so hard that I started to tear up. I couldn't even asnwer the question because I was so choked up. I knew that that was the question that I needed to be asked as my friend. Hna Haglund then began to cry because she knew that that question was definitely the right one to ask me. It was so amazing and it only took about 4 minutes to feel the Spirit that strongly. The whole class was doing this exercise at the same time but our teacher was only watching Hna Haglund and I the entire time. He then came up to us after we finished and said that he was very impressed and felt the Spirit also during our little 6 minute role play. PS this was all in Spanish and I felt like I could totally speak whatever I wanted to when I felt the Spirit right then. It was incredible. SO BOOM! It totally is the Spirit that is the teacher and I am so glad that I got to understand a little snip-it of what it will be like when I am teaching real people in Spain.

I am just amazed at how much I didn't understand about the Spirit and about the Church until now. If I didn't go on a mission, I would've missed out on HUGE spiritual opportunities that have already changed my life and my perspective on our purpose here and the life to come. There were other funny stories I wanted to share but I have zero time!! :( I hope everyone spends time to have some silence during their day to listen to the Spirit :) It is amazing.

Fun Facts!! I am officially the NEW coordinating sister and I have been helping a girl in our Zone who just had knee surgery...yuck. It's been a crazy couple of days with that. I am excited to be a host next wednesday for the new missionaries! I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting IN SPANISH a couple weeks ago haha sorry I forgot to mention that. Everyone was impressed. BOOM. Go me. haha jk, that was totally Preach My Gospel's handy dandy work ;) We also taught our first 40min lesson in Spanish at the TRC. Super cool experience. We finished all of our grammar lessons and now we just have 2 weeks to speak spanish!! Our District is the most coveted District in all of the Spanish Branches...no joke. Every teacher that has taught us...ehm 20 teachers....LOVES US! We have 2 legit teachers but then we are taught by 20 others every now and then haha. Hno Doxey just says that all of the teachers keep asking why we are so amazing and awesome and funny and can speak spanish and are spiritual. Yeah we rock :) ok I really gotta go! LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Be safe!!

Love love love,

Hermana Daly :)

Batch #2 of MTC Pics