Still in San Jacinto (YEAH!!)

Sad farewell with H Clarke

I am still in San Jacinto (YEAHHH!!!! *sigh of relief) I love it here. I am no longer companions with Sister Clarke. She went back to Rialto 4th (we were both trained by the same person in the same area...so she is just going back to her first area) I have Sister Erickson, from Centerville, UT she is the SWEETEST! It has been a little hard to transition just because I was so used to Sister Clarke....but it will be great. Sister Erickson has 3 months in the field (so I am follow-up training). Our companions literally just switched places...

This week was pretty good....mostly pictures though. I don't have a lot to say because it's been a blur of changes and transitions..... 

 
Our first day together, we were able to set a baptismal date for Mariah!!! YEAHH!!! She is going to be baptized on the 14th and she came to church this Sunday! I love her so so so so much! 



Maria was also able to come to church, but this time she wanted to try English.... I am still a little broken hearted. But we will see which she likes better. If she chooses English, then we won't be able to teach her anymore! But the language doesn't really matter, just that she gets to hear the gospel. 

My new companion !!!  Hermana Erickson
She is from Centerville, UT

Al is doing good but we didn't get a chance to teach him at all last week. Our awesome YM president said that he would take the young men to meet him for mutual on Tuesday !!! YEAHH!!!! He will be getting baptized sometime at the end of November or Beginning of December. YEAH!!!!



New Roommates - H Lewis (12 months in mission)
and H Romrell (still in training)

Old Roommates

I am so sorry that there isn't much to tell. Things are good! Thank you for all of your prayers for myself, my investigators & my area.

THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

I hope you guys have a great week!!!!!

H.  Wright

Transfer Week

Well family it is transfer week, and we still don't know what's happening. So you will all have to anxiously await my email....

Thanks for the 'favorite things' package!

This week was both eventful and awesome. Maria came to a baptism with us and really liked it! She is so awesome! She wants us to give her more pamphlets because she loves learning so much. She has come to church the last 3 or 4 weeks!!!!! That is super big! I am confident she will be baptized this next transfer! She is so funny and has the most interesting personality. I am pretty sure we are best friends.

This week we had 12 progressing investigators, that is more than I have ever seen in the history of the area, at least for the past year. We have two people on date for baptism and Maria  is DEFINITELY going to be baptized. She is so so so awesome.

 

I love you so much!!!!!  Hermana Wright

It's cooling down!

This week went from the 100's to 70's....woohoo !!!!!!  Now I understand why there is human life down here!!!

*  I went on exchanges with Sister Hamblin in Borrego Springs. That is the lowest part of the mission and is only 1.5 hours away from the border.  So that is where the pictures come from. I learned a lot about lessons to learn early on the mission from Sister Hamblin because she leaves in a week. She gave some good advice. Some of which includes things like, making my prayers more sincere and studying more effectively, ESPECIALLY from the Book of Mormon!

*  We had 3 investigators come to General Conference!!! Maria (the one we met at an inactive members home), the guy from Spain we met first transfer...super cool! and Alvaro, the son of Hermano Sandoval.

*  This week Al (grandson of an inactive member) told us that he received his answer that baptism is for him. He is 15 and has had some really hard struggles.  He is SOOOOO awesome!  He loved our plan of salvation lesson and asked 1 billion deep doctrine questions and said lots of things like, "So does that mean that if my body is pretty buff, then my spirit would be too?"  When we asked about his friends, he said, "I don't really have best friends. When I walk down the hall I get lots of high fives and all of these girls try to hug me."  He is SO cool!  We asked him last week about baptism on the 7th and he said 'Yes'.  It is now even more confirmed!  YEAH!!!!

*  Going into General Conference I was hoping for some insights into helping people recognize answers to their prayers...low and behold, the last talk in the first session was a GREAT help! It was all about prayer. It was a witness to me that Heavenly Father does answer our prayers.

* We have been teaching a lady named Sister Flores who has not been active for a really long time, but she has come to church the last 3 Sundays !!!  After the Saturday sessions of General Conference we had a lesson with her and talked about the Tree of Life.  She has had a hard time understanding it in the past. The lesson helped her understand it much better. Guess what they talked about in one of the talks in the Sunday Morning session (which she went to)?  The Tree of Life!



Sister Navarrez. She use to be a professional singer.
I got her to sing while I played the piano and she
sounded GREAT!

I just want to bear my testimony about the Book of Mormon.  It is the most powerful thing I have ever encountered. I PROMISE that diligent and sincere study WILL bring miracles into your life.  Just the act of faithfully reading a couple of verses a day will demonstrate the faith power needed to work miracles.  It happened in my life, it can happen in yours. ANY problem, and I mean ANY problem can be sorted out, made light, and handled through the Book of Mormon! Have faith that it will work! Even if the doctors say that you will never get rid of the pain, or the teachers say you will never pass, or if people around you say that you can't break your addiction because you are too far gone...the BOOK OF MORMON BRINGS MIRACLES !!!! Please Please read it !!!!

Things are going really well here! I am excited to see what the next transfer will bring these great people here in the San Jacinto Branch !!!

Love you guys !!!!

Hermana Wright 

Good things coming!!!

Our apartment in San Jacinto

Good things coming!! Well this week was good....kind of a rough week as far as lessons taught, but no complaints. I am just going to put as much down as I can remember. 

Funny Moments:

*While driving down one of the streets in Thousand Palms at night, I saw a sign that said "Hay Tacos". I was super confused and I said out loud "Hay Tacos? Why would anyone make tacos out of Hay???" and Sister Clarke, who had not seen the sign was like, "That's super weird".  About 30 seconds later she said "HAY tacos" as in "There are Tacos (in Spanish...)....hahahah.

We laughed really hard. Apparently I am not as fluent as I thought. 

*Had a lesson with the most interesting, cool couple ever. Part member family, they don't speak Spanish (so I am not sure why they are in the Branch). We sit down and they are making us dinner....so I try to start up a conversation by saying "So, tell us about yourselves! We don't really know you guys all that well!" To which she replies "Oh, no, lets save that for dinner".......gladly sister Clarke had it under control and laughed it off.........hahaha it was really uncomfortable because that basically eliminated ALL conversation until after we had dinner on the table. 

 * Had dinner with the Torres family....they are AWESOME!!!!!!!! Hermana Torres was telling us about some problems she's had in the past with people who don't obey the Word of Wisdom. Talking about the smell of tobacco, she said that it smelled like 'squirrel'. We all paused for a second, super confused, until someone said, you mean 'skunk'? We laughed for like 5 minutes.....

Little Miracles:

* Got out of the car to visit an Inactive Member, and the first person we see comes up and talks to us and the conversation goes like this:

Him -  "Hey I've seen you guys before, my name is Jose. Do you guys have a card so I can have your number? My friend has been having a hard time, so maybe I can have two cards."

*We have been giving out LOTS of Books of Mormon. We have determined that is one of the best ways to find out if someone is being prepared. If you give them a Book of Mormon and they don't accept, they aren't ready.....We followed up with a lot of people to whom we had given a Book of Mormon, to see if they would let us come in and tell them more about it.  Two of the random strangers we had given books to had read!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT!?!?!? 

*Stopped by to see a Potential Investigator who we met 6 weeks ago. She wasn't home, but we started talking to this teenager (classic example of "eat, drink, and be merry"....side thought, it has been one of the hardest things to get teenagers to care about spiritual things.....this mentality of eat, drink, and be merry is so engrained in their minds its nearly impossible to help them see the importance of the gospel...to be continued). We offered her a Book of Mormon, as per usual, and she told us she would take it but probably wouldn't read it. She did, however, let us show her the video 'Because He Lives'. We sat down to watch it, and 3 other teenagers came out and watched it with us. One of them, named Eva was really into it. She asked for our number and told us to come by on Sunday.  Super cool.....we talk to everyone because you never know who you can affect. Even if the original person you talk to isn't interested....

Cool rainbow...

* In the same house a few days later, we went to try to re-find the potential investigator and found her!!!!! Yeah! We had planned to teach her the Restoration, but instead she asked us every question that the Plan of Salvation answers. So we obviously started in on Priesthood and Auxiliaries.......hahahaha Just Kidding....no, we taught her the Plan of Salvation. She was really into it, especially the part about Repentance. It was one of the moments where I realized that she was someone that I am on my mission for. She had lots of concerns about Repentance and we really just talked about how it is a blessing to repent. 

Love you guys!!!!

Thanks for all the support!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Wright

A Lively Week - Branch Fiesta

September 21, 2015

Well folks, this week was definitely a lively one. We had an awesome branch fiesta to celebrate Mexico Independence. They do it every year and it is HUGE!!! Big enough that the members invite all of their friends, who invite all of their friends.....the list goes on. I am sending pictures. It was awesome!!  We met an awesome family that gave us their phone number as they were leaving! Yeah! They are friends with another family in the ward.  We had lots of people come to church this Sunday !!!  Including our new investigator Maria, I think I told you about her last week. It was so so exciting. Also President Parks just got released as Branch President, so it will be interesting to see the transition.

Funny Moments: All of these funny moments are brought to you by the one and only… Jair, who is one of the coolest pre-teens we teach. So first, let me paint you the picture. Its 8 pm and we walk up to their house and it's nearly pitch black.  A large dog we've never seen before (German shepherd) starts barking at us from inside their front gate. So, I did what had to be done-- I sent Hermana Clarke in as the bait. We finally made it to the door with me standing between Hermana Clarke and their door. We are having this conversation about how the dog is going to eat us, when we hear from the window of the room next to the door, "Missionaries?"   And we were like, "Jair?"  "I'm in the bathroom." "Ok, well, take your time.....we are just going to be killed by the giant bear out here. Will he eat us?"  " Oh, the dog? Yeah probably, don't get too close."  HAHAHA

ALL OF THAT REALLY HAPPENED.

Also, a couple lessons ago we talked to him about fasting, so that his dad will let him be baptized. He was so adorable.... We came to see him about 2 hours after he had stopped fasting and he told us he hadn't taken a shower or brushed his teeth for fear of swallowing the water. Hahahaha!  He is the coolest!!!!!

Cool lesson moment:
We had a lesson with the two girls that we had dinner with last week. One girl told us she wanted to learn more. We taught her the Restoration and she was feeling the spirit so strong. She said she couldn't stop smiling because she felt something.  It was so cool to see the spirit working with her... tonight we are going to bring B Rodriguez (you probably remember her:)) to a lesson. I am so excited!

Our Church Building
 

Well family and friends, that is it for this week! I would love to know how your missionary efforts are going. If you ever have any concerns on how to answer people's questions, let me know!

 

Love you all!!!!
Hermana Wright

 

 

Right on Rebecca Way...

Couldn't pass up the opportunity for a
 photo on 'Rebecca Way'

Hola mi familia y mi amigos!



This week has been another week of Tender Mercies and Miracles.

First though.....updates. It's still hot. I am in the 'real' desert...and I LOVE missionary work! 

 

So, now that you are all caught up, I would love to share some 'moments' from this week. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Study Moment:
This week I started reviewing all the conference talks from the April edition. This morning's talk was the Music of the Gospel. I thought it was such a good parallel to teaching the gospel on a mission....but also for all of us in our daily lives.

A lot of times when we teach people they will tell us that they have felt something missing in their lives....or even that they have learned lots of things with the missionaries but still lack something. The answer is the HOLY GHOST. We can give them piles upon piles of gospel knowledge and information, but when the earthquakes come and try to shake us....those rocks will all scatter. The Spirit is the concrete that holds it all together!!!!!! Without the spirit, none of our efforts to share the gospel will stick. 

In his talk he mentioned some things we can do to help people not just 'know' the dance steps...but also 'hear' the music. In other words....how can we help people feel the spirit and not just know the principles. 1) We ourselves must have the spirit in our lives---we do that by studying the scriptures....specifically the Book of Mormon, praying, going to church to partake of the sacrament and be taught, and striving to be worthy of the spirit always!!!! That means eliminate contention and all ill feelings of yourself and others!!!!!

2) Live the gospel (even if it looks weird....like people singing in the car. Others may not be able to hear the music....but they should be able to see your example) He also said.... "It does little good to scold the darkness. We must DISPLACE the darkness with light". .....translation..... help them feel the spirit by filling their lives with good wholesome things. 

 

This applies to EVERYONE, not just children and family members......this applies to anyone who wants to share the gospel with ANYONE!!!!! You can do this! Missionaries need the help of the members.....it's the MOST EFFECTIVE way to do it. I invite all of you this week to 1) get to know the missionaries in your wards, stakes, or areas and then 2) Set a date in the near future when you can find someone for the missionaries to teach in your homes with you. If you set a specific date and pray sincerely and specifically....you will help bring another of Heavenly Father's children back into his arms!!!!!! We are to be the people that help lead the sheep back to  our shepherd....don't walk by people and not share what we have. That is like walking right by the lost sheep that we are so desperately looking for as missionaries. 

Miracle Moment:

This week gave me new perspective, as many of our appointments fell through.  I began to feel a little down and upset. It took a little while for me to realize that sometimes that is how Heavenly Father directs us to the people we need to talk to. One particular day when all of our plans were falling through, we went to go see an inactive lady (our only scheduled appointment left), we knocked 3 times with no answer. We tried one last times with hopes that she hadn't heard us before (we may have also awkwardly peered through the window to see any signs of life). Soon after, someone answered the door, not the member. So, we told her who we were and that we wanted to give her something. So I gave her a Book of Mormon. As soon as we handed it to her, she told us that she had always wondered about the difference between it and the Bible. She said she knew she needed to answer the door because something told her! So we sat down with her and taught her the Restoration. She said yes she would be baptized....we couldn't quite get her a date.....but still awesome! She is the coolest!!!!!!!!!!! She was literally taking notes the Whole time in her pamphlet.....and when we got to the first vision......she was SHOCKED!!!!!!! I mean...I have never seen anyone act like that....she was in shock and awe! She was so excited that she started asking about scriptures in the bible that testify of the Book of Mormon that could help her when she tells her friends and family. SO COOL!!!!!

Another Miracle Moment:

We were nightly planning one night when decided to call and confirm our dinner appointment for the next day. Sister Clarke called the member and confirmed....soon after I looked down and realized she had called the wrong member, one that hadn't even signed up to feed us at all!!!! So we didn't really know what to do except cancel the original dinner we had planned and keep the new one. When we went over to the house we ate and talked, but the mom had to go. She left us with her 2 teenage daughters, one who just graduated from high school who is not a member. We showed them the video 'Because HE lives' and then just talked about their relationship with Jesus Christ and what it means to them. They both really opened up to us. I ended up asking if she was interested in talking with us more about the Book of Mormon and what we believe and she was super on board!!!!! It was way cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a side note...I am sure I told you before that in the past we have been teaching MANY single men......and we gave them to the elders.......so we kind of started from square one, but with more of a focus on FAMILIES. We have been praying to find families....and we have found families and mothers this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Thank you for all you do !!!!!  Thank you for your support and prayers!

I hope you all have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yo y Hermana Clarke

Love, 
Hermana Wright

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Dearest Family & Friends:

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! I have the best family and friends ever!!!!!!
Thank you for all of your love and support and Birthday wishes!!!!



Hermana Clarke & I are still together in San Jacinto

I will get right into to this week since I don't have much time. We had transfers this week, but I am in the same area with Hermana Clarke--YEAH!!  Sister Teichert was transferred out and we miss her. The week was a little slow at first.... mostly because all of our investigators have been canceling appointments...and we gave a lot of the investigators to the elders. We decided we wanted to be smart about which men we would work with from now on.  So sadly, the elders are teaching Javier (and his 6 family members) and Jose. We are focusing a lot on finding.....so that means walking, contacting, and . . . singing while we walk.

Miracle moments:
* We went walking yesterday...aimlessly...it was fast Sunday and we didn't have anyone sign up for dinner.....so yes, we were drooping with despair. But, this man stopped to talk to us and was talking about other missionaries he knew. It totally clicked that his family had been the former investigators we had been trying to contact.  After talking for a little bit he invited us to a barbecue with his family!!!!!      WHAT!!!!

* We had a lesson with that man in Thousand Palms, Luis. He was the one that called us Angels. He asked us how we do baptism.... What!?!?  He said he had been reading and wants to study it out more before he makes a decision. He already knows a lot about the church because he had a friend in Mexico, a long time ago,

that was a member of the church.  He got to help clean the temple there  once, so he has lots of questions.   Super awesome week!

Thanks for all of your love, support, Birthday Greetings and letters!!!  Thank you for making my birthday the best!!!!
Love to all,   Hermana Wright

There are BEAUTIFUL sunsets in San Jacinto!!!