My new companions name is Hermana Gutierrez and she is 20 years old and she is from Aguas Calientes and she has her BFF's here in the mission.  She is a non stop talker, which is super fun until you want to sleep haha. She's has tons of crazy ideas and is definitely a way creative person.

Hiking in the Tuxtla mountains

                                       going to a zone conference and we are matching

                             Bishop and his family took us hiking in the Tuxtla mountains

My first transfer ever!!!! Whooo, definitely feel like I am just starting the mission again and it is definitely a little strange. The members here are awesome though and when you show up make you feel right at home! So it is easy to get to know them.. Pretty funny at first though, because most of them start out speaking only to my comp thinking that I'm brand new and cant understand what they are saying. Then when I reply they ask me how long I have been out in the mission.

My companion is hermana Morelos from the cuidad de Mexico! She is great and has a fun bubbly personality and just likes to laugh. We're going to be friends I know it. 

We have been going to work and the area is awesome. There is so much work here and the members help out a bunch. We have 2 baptisms planned for this Saturday and a couple more people who will be baptized in the following month. So I have high hopes to be here for a long time! 

In the ward there are 4 missionaries again like in cordova. 2 hermanas (us) and 2 elders (leaders of the zone) and the zone leaders are pretty much opening up their area.

Getting used to teaching with a new companion is always interesting! Its definitely good because you change up the lessons, so that you aren't just teaching out of routine. Hermana Morelos asks a million questions and its different, but I like it. The whole inviting people to be baptized thing is tricky, because I was just throwing it out there to everyone in tapachula, and if people accepted we went back with them, and if not nope.  but she says that she hardly ever invites to baptism here until they feel like the people will accept. Its different, but something is working because they are having baptisms..  I've learned a lot about that this week and we are starting to get used to teaching together and its great. But its easy with her, she is a good companion and we'll definitely enjoy this cambio. I am learning more than I have in my whole mission and feel like I am in my training again because I have no choice but to literally rely on the savior. 

The house is pretty normal, a little smaller than the one we had in tapachula. and its all blue. Like a million different shades of blue that kind of make you want to throw up, but it has AC and hot showers so I'm happy.  the bishops wife gives us the keys to her house on pday so we can use her washer for our clothes... so that's awesome.

Oh and the Internet is a lot faster which is stellar. 

Last hug from Yessenia

With the family Rebeca don't mind my hair.. Tapachula is hot Tuxtla is not

Our first Sunday together! The church is way pretty, like it actually has normal pews and everything and I feel like I am in the states.

Vivi who always goes out to preach with us. Is getting ready to leave on her mission!

Well this week has been jam packed crazy!

Friday night (or Saturday morning) at 1 in the morning we all met up at the church and got on a bus to Tuxtla to listen to elder Oaks!!!! I didn't know if I should be more excited to see hermana canalizo and ortega or him.. hehe. But I did get to see all of my friends, and I actually saw elder Johnson too, who has gotten ridiculously tall if I can just mention that. The best was seeing hermana canalizo as she is going home this week!

But what was the best was actually listening to elder oaks!!!! He shook every one of our hands and greeted us personally, it was so cool.  He got up and said that he loved what president George said and the whole theme of what everyone said was a lot about how we have to put aside our cultural differences and be good companions and live the culture of the gospel. That we have to teach our investigators and not regañarles (scold). He admitted that he didn't have a talk prepared, but he talked a lot about stuff that we should share with investigators. Especially the sacrament. I liked it best when he just told us all that God loved us. I felt happy. :) We drove back to tapachula that same day and I was dying from lack of sleep, but we haven't died yet hehe. 

We also found a new family! THEY ARE SO AMAZING! we just met them in the street and it was just a dad and a couple of his kids and we went to the appointment and they weren't there. Usually when that happens we don't go back, but with them, Sunday night we decided we should go back. We did, the dad was there again with another kid that we hadn't met yet and they listened to our message. It killed me because the Dad looks and acts so much like Dad. Has his colored polo with some Bermuda shorts and dark skin and was just some relaxed guy that fell asleep reading the paper when we showed up. He told us that he is having a really tough time because his wife died a year ago and he got a little teary eyed but didn't cry too much and then said that he just wanted a church for his kids. His attitude about church and why we go and everything was just 10000% dad. It was killing me.

It will be exciting to see what happens with these people over email with hermana Ramirez, because tomorrow I'm headed to Tuxtla! I got transferred and will be there with hermana Moreles who I have no idea about. my DL is going to be my new district leader in t=Tuxtla again

Some pics

Hermana Canalizo!!!

The elders had a baptism: Ivett 

AMALIA a reference from the ward, she is finally progressing and happily reading the book of mormon and wanting to come to church. Good lady.

Well today is Pday and I'm excited because we got permission to go to Hermana Tia's house (now she is in the area of the elders in our ward) so we are going to go eat with her. yeah! This week has been great and full of different activities. First on Monday, we had our regular pday. Tuesday we had our district meeting, Wednesday we had our all day activity with president George, and we watched "conozca a los mormones" or meet the Mormons and it was soooo good! I imagine that its already been in Utah and that maybe you've all already seen it. But It was super super good. If you haven't seen it you should check it out and invite your neighbors.

Thursday was a normal da.y

Friday we got up early to go clean up a park with our zone, but not like pick up a little trash, we pretty much took out trees, this park was badddd, but by the end it was looking pretty good! AND the big old spiders that run away when I weed don't even phase me. 

Saturday, another normal day.  Sunday we met with the bishop in ward council and because its part of the plan for Mexico 2015 to start family history. We were trying to figure out how we could help the ward get involved in Family History, so Hermana Ramirez and I offered to teach the ward council on Saturday afternoon. Only the bishop and Carlos showed up, but we helped them out and now they've got names to take to the temple!

Had my second activity again in Izapa and It was good even the second time, to my surprise I understood a lot more than I did when we went in the first 2 weeks of my mission (language barrier). The first time Hermana Canalizo messed with me SO bad and told me that the ruins were an MTC for the Nephrites. liessss....love her :)  I feel like I've got the most time in one area than any other missionary here in Tapachula!  My favorite was that after the activity we had time to play basketball. It's like your one day of vacation on your mission and it only happens every 6 months!

Pictures of our district and district leaders....etc

This week was still a little slow.. we actually ended up finding one of our male investigators and it turns out that yes he is interested still, but that he started school and is still working like crazy and therefore pretty much has no time in his life. BUT another hermana investigator came to church and is way excited! We have another appointment with them on Wednesday and we are thinking we will have a baptism with her. She's hilarious and most of her questions are super random like "but if i kill someone and I had to kill them it's not a sin am I right?" or about if drunk people can feel the spirit.. But she's a good investigator and we are going to work hard with her.

Also best of the best of the best was last night. We went to go find a house of 2 cousins that we contacted in the streets. Turns out this house is more like a door for a whole bunch of apartments where students live.. so it turned out impossible to find them (tricky tricksters those 2) But it was SO COOL. Because we couldn't get in past the front door to start searching for them because it was locked.. so we were just waiting around and then 2 boys showed up who were moving in and asked us if we wanted to pass. We were like yes please. And then after asking them if they knew these contacts we were searching for we went to knock on the door that we thought was theirs (the cousins). It turned out it totally wasn't them, but that it was some other girl and she is so crazy golden I was going to cry. It's like after a few weeks of feeling like everything is falling through that at the end of the week the last hour of work God gave us someone that is totally definitely going to be baptized. Wow. We left pretty happy and it just reaffirmed my testimony that there is no such thing as a coincidence. We invited her to baptism in March and she accepted so easy and was like "it would be nice if we could go to church together though, can you pass by for me?" Uh yes. 

One of my favorite things we are doing right now as a mission is helping people learn about family search and family history. It has been so awesome to understand a little better the website and get other people started in finding their own ancestors! Hermana Claudia bore her testimony yesterday about how if we aren't doing our family history, we don't have our salvation.. pretty hard words, but it's true. God wants us to do this work for those who have already passed! And you really can feel the excitement and spirit of it right when you start.

SO MUCH FUNNY STUFF happened this week. From Hermana Flores (instead of Hermana Ramirez) on the birthday cake to that little old lady giving us Popsicle. One of my favorites was when we went out to go visit more of Hermana Maria's references. We were waiting at a door for the lady to come out and we kept knocking and shouting buenas tardes but nothing was happening.. then we heard "Buenas tardes!"... we knocked again and heard "VOY" which means I'm coming! and we were just laughing so hard because it was a talking bird! And hermana Ramirez jokingly responded "ah bueno, aqui le esperamos" hehehe aw man we just lose it sometimes laughing, but the funniest things happen with hermana Ramirez. 

I love this gospel and I am grateful for all of you and for God in my life. If there is one thing that I learned this week is that we do things out of Love for God. We can obey for all sorts of reasons, but nothing will ever ever help us to change if we don't do it out of love. For example Nephi, Laman and Lemuel all obeyed God and went to get the plates.. why was Nephi blessed more than his brothers? Because he loved God, he allowed the experience to change him. So applicable am I right?

I hope that you all have a wonderful week! 

Love

Hermana McNaught

We ate pozole which is Hermana Ramirez's favorite food (thanks to hermana Lilia)

We ate a cake on Thursday with the entire zone that said happy birthday hermana Flores... hahaha Hermana Lilia forgot my companions name. We laughed pretty hard

We had a surprise cake eating at Cintia  house on Tuesday! I was crazy impressed with being able to plan that without hermana Ramirez knowing. Everything turned out awesome. We planned it all in the day of divisions we had last week and in secret phone calls. We also ate m&m pancakes in the morning and the elders in the district gave her gifts which was super nice because one of them was a huge tub of ice cream which I can also benefit from :)

 We also contacted this little old lady on my comps birthday and shout out she gave us Popsicles for helping her with her bags and 2 references. my favorite was when she wanted to give us 2 more Popsicles of flavor mame and my comp said "well it is my birthday" hahaha. And the surprise cake in a family house!

Well the title says it all, this week was crazy with it's ups and downs and I have never felt so weird. There's a quote in PMG that goes something like "when you have tried your hardest, you might still feel disappointments, but you can be sure that God is happy with you when you feel the Spirit testifying of your words". Feeling like we were working super hard this week to do what we had to do to get everyone to church and to commit people to baptism and everything, but once Sunday rolls around nobody shows up... bummer. But we have decided that it's like a test. That God wants to see what we are going to do when we have lots of weeks where almost nobody comes to church or nobody is progressing. Are we going to give up and stop working, or are we going to keep on keeping on? There's a scripture in the book of mormon; Nephi says that every time he wants to rejoice and be happy he remembers he's a sinner and feels sad again. But then he remembers Christ and if he has confidence in him he CAN actually be happy. All we have to do is rely on Christ's atonement and we can be happy. We have the power to change and to change others.

We have 2 investigators who are siblings of an inactive member that we are visiting and they are doing good. This week we had a day of divisions or splits with 2 youth in the ward Cintia and Nayrobi from the family from the bakery. I went with Cintita and Hermana Ramirez with Nayrobi. It was fun because we contacted every person to get them excited about missionary work. Our new DL is now giving us "colors" to contact every day. The day of divisions was the color red so everyone that we saw who had something red we had to contact. But other than that, pretty much all of the appointments we had were not there and it was only a slightly productive day. BUT I felt a lot better when we all met up at the house of our investigator for the last lesson of the day and Cintia wanted to share an experience that she had during the lesson. She said during the day she had the question of whether she should go on a mission or not because she's about to turn 19. and during the day with me it helped her with my experience in choosing to serve a mission and what I had to do to receive an answer if I should go. After a week of a little discouragement or moments of feeling that maybe I wasn't doing a whole lot of good, it was super sweet to hear that at least for her I had made an impact this week. 

This week should be great though! It's hermana Ramirez's birthday tomorrow - shout out to McKayla Aunt Shar and Raven too! hope all of you have a fantastic week and that you pray and read your scriptures. God loves us, he sends us mini trials and big trials and wants us to move forward. It's all so that we can be better and make it back to him better than we were yesterday. No pain no gain I suppose. Can't wait to tell you next Monday about how awesome his coming week will be. 

Thanks for all of our prayers and support I love you all! 

Love
Hermana McNaught