Hola familia!!

Okay so this week was great once again! I think I will start off all my letters like that. We started out on Monday without water! It hadn't rained for like 3 days and so they shut off EVERYONES WATER!!  what is this, Mexico? I have never genuinely prayed for rain. But I was praying. Luckily the night before we had filled up our big tub to wash our clothes and we were able to use that for showering and the dishes and the bathroom and everything. But then Tuesday night it rained and bam our water was back and I got to take a "normal" shower. 

Wednesday we had a day with the Bishops daughter again and she went with us to our appointments. I love going out with the youth in the ward. Teaching with them is so fun! Its too bad though, because she is moving to Tuxtla this week and so we wont be able to have her help us anymore. I was thinking about how if I get transferred I may NEVER see these people again!! That is terrible! I honestly feel like Javier, David, Octavio, and Ana and Alejandra are my friends. The mission is so great. I feel like there are people here that I just love.  I honestly love some of our investigators!  Octavia our gold of golden investigators moved 10 minutes away into another area!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO!!!!!!!!! But he doesn't want to switch missionaries... But he has to because he isn't in our area anymore. But the reason he switched houses is because in the house he was living in, the other students were drinking and smoking a lot and he didn't feel good about it anymore. So that was actually really cool.

We also have an 8 year old who has been coming to church Yahir and his parents aren't members but gave him permission to be baptized. He can be baptized before the end of this transfer! He is super adorable and super smart and its always good practice for me to teach little kids because my Spanish is the equivalent of a 5 year old. (better than a 3 year old). 

On Thursday we had a big zone conference about sanctifying our missions. there are so many things we can do to drive away the spirit in our lives! Its crazy how much we really need to do to be disciples of Christ. But its good. We buried a list of things we need to leave behind in the grass by the chapel which is so typical, but it made me think a lot and later I made a whole long list of things that really can help me! One thing about missionaries that half the time I like and half the time I don't like is that they always have this "if there is a problem we're going to fix it" attitude. 

After the conference we went to visit Maria, an older lady who lost one of her legs. She is a recent convert. During the lesson I started feeling super sick and thought I was getting a migraine which is weird because I haven't gotten one in forever. I was sharing my testimony and crying because I hurt, but it just made me look super spiritual :). After I told Hermana Canalizo that I was too sick to work and we went home and I slept for a while. then she got me up and we went to the doctors and turns out I had a stomach infection, the doctor said maybe salmonella. So it was making me dehydrated and that's why it felt like a migraine. So We got it taken care of real quick with some antibiotics and I'm good now. I think that happens a lot to the gringo missionaries here when you're new, because I have heard lots of similar stories from elders. Guess I should give it another couple of months before I say I'm Mexican...

Last night in my training, hermana canalizo was talking about recognizing the spirit. When we have the gift of the holy ghost with us always it can be hard to recognize when he's talking. But its possible and I know that if we always are trying to do what is right, we can feel good that we are doing what we need to do.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Hermana McNaught

This week was great! We dont have a lot of investigators right now, so we are trying to focus ourselves on who really wants and needs our message. We visit a lot of Recent converts and inactives during the day. Its almost like a half and half. But they need us too. Its just sad because with the inactive members, the people in the ward should loook after them and take care of them, but some members have expressed that they dont feel like this is their responsibility! Um... yes it is. We all need to take care of our brothers and sisters. Visiting teachers and home teachers are SO IMPORTANT. the missionaries cant do everything and visit everyone. But if everyone does their part and has a little role in helping someone, we can get people the love and attention that they need. 

How was everybody's conference weekend?? Mine was a little weird, because I got about half of everything the prophets were saying. I'm glad I had at least the time I did in Mexico learning Spanish before Conference, for the people that came in a transfer after me I felt way bad. There was one new elder I saw that was just totally asleep. It's pretty hard to stay awake when you can't tell what's going on. But I really liked the talks! I thought it was interesting in the Sunday morning session how they had 2 talks about the prophet in a row, and then after the prophet spoke. I thought he was going to make a huge announcement or something, but he didnt! I explained to Hermana Canalizo how there are big movements in Salt lake with women wanting the priesthood and things like that. I love it because whenever the members here, hear about these kinds of things they react as if it is totally ridiculous. Being separated a little from the politically correct pressure in Salt Lake puts it into persepective for them. The law of God will always be the law of God. When people don't understand the reasons for why God does the things he does they have trouble following.

But besides all of this... Our investigators!! Sonia and Octavio and a new investigator Luis were at conference. Luis is a pentacostas and said that conference made him scared... so uh.. theres that. And Sonia has one foot in the LDS church and another foot in a different church, so we are going to visit her lots and help her understand a lot about why its so importnat to pick the church the has the priesthood!! BUT OCTAVIO!! Is awesome. He came to 3 out of the 4 sessions. He is 22 and is the student that I contacted my 3rd day in Mexico and then later randomly found him in the street. Well we keep on randomly finding him (as if God is saying hey you need to teach him!!!) and after conference he called us and said "What do I need to do after I get baptized?" Best experience of my life. Yep, he's ready! We are super excited about him. 

Also thought you all should know I officially killed mulitple coachroaches. I'm a mexican. Also I eat super spicy, like the people here sometimes tell me I can eat like a mexicana.. So basically I'm mexican. It's good fun. Really missionary work is fun. It can be stressful at times when you don't know exactly what you need to do, but God will always help us know what is right. I have so much to learn about loving people and about the church. I feel like I'm learning so much. I have SO much more to learn. I'm not very good at teaching yet and I definitely dont know the language, but when I look back and see how much I have changed, I love it. This is good! 

Hermana McNaught

                                                      Mckenna's companion made her breakfast stuffed peppers!

                                                       Holding a families dog and bird

Whoo this writing time goes by SO FAST and I used up all my time sending pictures.. So I promise that next week will be better! Sorry to everyone. 

This week was super great! We had our baptism with David!! It was crazy insane because he still needed like 2.5 lessons and we only had an hour to teach them before his interview with our district leader. So it was a little chaotic, but he is so ready and has been going to church for 2 months. His first Sunday was my first Sunday! He is my first real convert, because his first lesson was with me. He was so happy after his baptism and was talking about how good he felt and really couldn't stop talking about it! I have such a strong testimony of these feelings! I know that every week with the sacrament we can feel these same clean feelings again and again. The longer I am out here the more I realize there is a 0% chance I'm ever going to be close to perfect, but I feel super happy that every week we can have another chance. Another chance to obey a little better and to help others a little more. 

This week we found some great new people! First of all, we had a lesson with Octavio, and Javier and David were there helping with the lesson. Octavio is going to get baptized, he is super interested!! Just that he works on Sundays. That's the only problem! But its exciting!

We contacted this one guy on the street this week and he was talking about how he was baptized but never really a member and how he's done so much bad that he can't come back. Hermana Canalizo was like, no you can! ¨´Have you ever killed somebody??¨´And he paused for a second... and then said mas or menos!! I shouldn't be laughing, but the point is that hermana canalzio was trying to get the point across that he isn't that bad but the guy had like killed someone. So we contacted him and invited him to church and everything. And then guess who was at chruch? him! And he came to a baptism of a little girl in the ward that we taught a couple of lessons to (Abish) As well. He knows its time to change and I am happy that we ran into him. Sometimes people just need a little push to come back and start repenting. But he isn't in our area so we will pass on his reference to other missionaries.

I don't have a bunch to say, but I do want to bear my testimony on how right now is the time that we have to change our lives. I know that that is what this life is for. There are so many people that we teach that have excuses for not coming to church or reading their scriptures or praying. There will ALWAYS be an excuse. Satan it the master of procrastination. We have to change now!! But I know its possible and I'm so grateful for my savior for this. Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana McNaught

PICTURES: 

Sept 22, 2014

Alright! This week was another good one! I've got a load of pictures to send, but these computers are super hit and miss, and today its not working on mine... so next week lets all cross our fingers! Monday after PDay finished we went out with this hermano that this week just came home from his mission early. Him and his baby brother came out with us. At first I was super skeptical, because before we even started he started giving us some criticism and I was not about to have that. But then I was thinking how I could either just throw the rest of the day away or show him that I'm actually awesome. So me and Hermana Canalizo were like on fire. Seriously, we were contacting everyone and I felt like I talked a lot more in the lessons, and it was like the Spanish was coming a lot easier! That day we had a family home evening with a member and their neighbor who was close to being an investigator. And in this lesson she FINALLY accepted a baptism date!!! whooooooo. And she was at church on Sunday and we have another FHE with them tonight and she'll be there. YAYYY! Her name is Edith was actually super helpful! Turns out I can actually step it up a lot more.. It was a good wake up call. And we are all friends now, so I'm happy about that. Also at the end of the day, he told me that I speak as if I've lived in Mexico for 6 months!! Which is definitely not true, but I felt pretty good about that. The language is like hit and miss. Some days its good and some days I don't have any clue what is going on. but everyday I think I am improving. Anyway, this set the tone for the whole week! It was awesome. Super grateful for him. Also with Cambio's!! Hermana Hickman, who's blog I read before my mission is in my zone now, which is really cool. I feel like I met a celebrity.

Contacting in the colectivos is always the hardest and me and canalizo sometimes chicken out. But If I say hello and start it out then hermana canalizo always does good, we make a good team, because I'm less scared to just be like "hi my names hermana mcnaught and I'm a missionary and a little weird, but how are you?" and afterward she is better at spanish and keeps it all going. But this week, we had a bet on whoever ate their flan the slowest had to contact the entire colectivo and invite them to our activity on Saturday. I was like alright its on. And I lost hardcore. So I talked a lot on the combis. But we got some appointments out of it, so hey, its all for the Lord am I right?  Sometimes hermana Canalizo teases me because there have been two times where I have accidentally had some attitude in my contacting... I don't mean to. Its not super bad, but hermana canlizo thinks its So funny. But the best was yesterday this guy was like "Hey beautiful girl" and all this stuff, which usually we just ignore but he was so close to us and we were waiting for a bus, so I was like alright. And Hermana Canalizo tells the story best, but I guess a just flipped around and moved my hair out of the way from my plaque and was pointed to it and said "hi, I'm A MISSIONARY for the church of JesusCrist of LDS and just started turning it into this weird contact it was way funny, but bad because I never realize when I'm like that. My comp tells me I am turning into a Mexican with my attitude.

Oh and get this! There are always a ton of earthquakes here and people are just super used to them, and I have felt 2 already!! one night I was talking to my zone leader and he was like, "can you feel the earthquake" and I was like "uhhh... woah, yeah I can!" and then we had a missionary activity on Saturday with the whole zone and we sang hymns and watched mormon messages and stuff which turned out pretty good, and after our first song there was another mini earthquake! Wow! Also, speaking of activities, there was another one last night with some guy from the US who came to speak more about Izapa and how we are living in BOM country. pretty cool stuff, although I didn't really hear any of it because we were making appointments with people. Also there have been some of the craziest thunder storms of my whole life. HOLY COW! The other night at 2 AM there was the LOUDEST crack and me and hermana canalizo both woke up and she's like "HERMANA ARE YOU OK?"  I said yeah I'm good, was that an earthquake?" Super funny because I was so tired the first thing I though of was that there was an earthquake. Nope, just rain. 

Oh! and update on our investigator David! He has been kind of hit and miss, and not really willing to listen to our charlas but comes to church every week. So we finally got a hold of him and we were like, whats your deal?? And turns out he just doesn't want to invite his parents to his baptism. so we told him it wasn't a requirement, and now he feels lots better! He will be baptized on Saturday! We just have to teach him nearly all of the lessons this week! But he is ready and excited!!   

Also this cambio we have the goal of baptizing two families! And its totally possible because for every general conference someone attends it counts as a church attendance! We already found one family to teach and taught them a lesson yesterday and they are golden! So we are hoping that they are the one!! And there is one more that are good potentials as well!! The field is white already to harvest! God loves us! He cares about our families so much. He wants us to be happy, and I know that we can be if we are living how we should! 

Love you and have a great week!

hermana McNaught (Macnouuuuut in a spanish accent)

So this week!! Wow Time is literally flying. I am about to reach my second cambio! Its definitely possible that me and Hermana Canalizo might not be companions this next change, because right now we are actually working 2 areas, and we hope that by the next exchange there will be some missionaries to cover the other area we are covering right now. The thing is that they are probably going to send hermana Canalizo and a new missionary to one of the areas and leave me here with a different trainer to take care of this area. But who knows! I'm really hoping that nothing changes. 

This week went pretty normally! 

Yesterday we finished our fast at the house of the one of the families in our ward! They are the family that I told you about earlier and they just have super adorable children, loads of references for us and the mom reminds me a lot of Aunt Chrissy. So the other day we were talking about what foods I liked from the U.S. because these people are English professors and they love to learn about the states. And I was like; I really like lazagna. And they don't eat bread here which is kind of a bummer, mostly they just have tortillas at every meal, but never bread. I miss bread! So we show up to dinner, and what did she make? LASAGNA AND SALAD AND BREAD! awhhh it was probably the nicest thing ever. I love people.

Okay, until next time! I love you all! Have a great week!

Hola everyone!

So this weeks update is going to be a little shorter, sorry! But Yesterday we had a baptism!! My very first of my mission. Really I'm just lucky and blessed to be able to see this so early in my mission. I feel like I didn't even do much to help convert our investigator, but then again the spirit does that anyway right? He was so good. His parents aren't members and are devout catholic, but the church helped their son change so much and they are so grateful for the missionaries. His mom was crying the whole time. It was really beautiful. And his testimony was like so solid. Here the investigators have to attend at least 5 Sundays before they can be baptized, and he had like 7. He was ready to go. What an amazing person!! 

Yesterday I had to give a talk in church and it was the scariest thing I have ever had to do!! haha I don't know Spanish! I spoke about faith hope and charity and threw in temples because

I love the temples. Our investigator told me after he gave his testimony at his baptism that he knew how I felt in my talk. He's like I didn't know what to say! I was like me either! It is seriously so funny how greenies are just like there investigators. We don't know the language or what is going on, but we have testimonies!

This week was great and we just keep finding new people to teach, although they don't always follow through, but the field is super white here! I love it. The strangest thing I had to do this week was eat cow stomach. hermana Canalizo said that was the best prepared cow stomach she has ever had, but i am here to tell you it was not only awful, I thought I was going to die! That was the first time in my mission I have felt like I just couldn't put it away and it came back to bite me let me tell ya... ah the things missionaries do to gain the members trust am I right??

Have a great week everyone!

August 25th:

This week! SO much happened! Dad you asked about P-days. Well the last two we have gone to the centro and looked around, I would send pics, but like every other week, I promise to next week :) I have a bunch for you. Today for P-day we had a big area activity! All the missionaries in Tapachula (including MTC companion!!) got to go to Izapa or something like that and see waaaay cool stuff right by the border of guatemala! There is one rock there that is Lehi's vision!! WHAT the church is so true it's hilarious. Then after we played volleyball and had pizza and stuff. Super good fun. And seeing my MTC companion again was the bomb. I love her.

On Tuesday to Wednsday we had splits with the sister zone leaders and it was AWESOME.The Zone leader helped me out with contacting and not being afraid to talk with people a whole lot. You just got to do it! I never thought I was afraid to talk to people until I came on my mission, turns out its not always as easy as I thought. But I slept at their apartment in the neighboring area. Also it was super good because the Zone Leader is from mexico city and they speak really clear Spanish there. I love it. In chiapas its very mumbly. So it was great!

This week we were getting ready for our investigators baptism, but then he actually had to get interviewed by the president. So when the President came down for the activity today he got interviewed (and passed!!) and we will have his baptism and hopéfully his friend's baptism on Sunday. We are also working with an investigator, a young mom who is 16 and has a baby with an inactive 18 year old. She has wanted to be baptised for a long time, but can't until she gets married or separated and her spouse doesn't want to get married. Ugh it is awful. And she wasn't keeping any of her commitments because I think she felt hopeless, but we had a really good lesson with her about the stuff that she can change on her own, and then on Sunday, she was at church! Woohoo!! Super happy. I'm keeping her in my prayers for sure because we are her 3rd set of missionaries, and I know she can do it this time!

Anyway love you so mcuh family! have a great week!

August 18th:

Well hey!

This week i cant even begin to tell you every thing that went down! like woah missionaries do so much in a single day. But don't worry grandma I'm keeping a journal :) Okay so first off our investigator, whose baptism is next week, brought a friend to church and he is just as golden as he is!! He's 19 years old. They are both super púmped about baptism. And his friend's baptism might actually be next week! They are both so great and super receptive. Love teaching them. And they pretend to understand my Spanish even when I know they cant. so thats a bonus! Also status update we teach like 25 or so lessons a week, but it seems like there is no way to fit in more! We are always going somewhere and always have stuff to do. When one lesson falls through my companion is like boom were going to go here and bam we teach a lesson. people here are super nice and willing to listen to us. I've only had one lesson yesterday that was a little weird. One of our recent convert who we are teaching the lessons over again to didn't come to church so we went to visit him. but he lives on the same land as another family that isnt members. they have a 27 year old son who was a little rough but at the same time was like super willing to listen to what we had to say. people are super considerate here. But at the end he was like sorry but in my opinion you guys are just wasting a year and a half of your lives, and to be honest that's my opinion, sorry. He didn't offend me, it was just the first encounter I've really had with someone I felt like wasn't super grateful I was here. He just said that though because his point was that you don't have to show God you love him you just have to say it, which is wrong. Faith without works is dead. Which is pretty good when you think about it. most people are like wow how neat you are doing this with your life and are super nice to us, so the fact that there has only been one person here who thinks I'm wasting my time is solid. It was good though because he was asking me lots of questions like why are you a mormon and why are you here and I love answering those because one thing i can say in Spanish is my testimony.

Honestly the days are ups and downs, but usually by the end of the day they feel like that was a pretty good day! Wednesdays we have district meetings and everyone besides my comp in the district which is just 2 other elders are gringos and i love it because they always speak English. Wednesday was really good after that meeting i felt a lot better about the language because i had a little break and i was ready to go again! After the meeting we had a lesson about tithing with a recent convert and it was so good! When I feel happy and don't stress out, the Spanish comes easier.aid than done when you feel a little lost and confused especially with the language.

Oh also 2 families I want to tell you about! The first familiy: Their son commited suicide and we went to visit them and taught them a lesson. we have gone to visit a couple more times too. The dad is really receptive, but the mom is atheist. Its sad becuase she really has no hope for where her son is in the afterlife. But Today we went over to help them clean up there house too because here in Mexico people grieve and grieve, and even though there son has been dead for like 2 weeks 2 nights ago the whole neighbordhood was over again with floweres and they had a whole room dedicated to candles and a big altar to respect their son. Its super intense. So we were helping clean up. We are trying to slowly convince the mom to come to church. Because we think the dad wants to. And the dad is super great. Hna canalizo says he speaks like hes from the street but i like him because he always tries to include me in the conversation even if i don't get what hes saying the first time. Also in the first lesson we had with him he was saying how he was so grateful for 2 people who just spoke about God that could come to Chiapas just to teach his family. I dont know its so easy to love people that love you. But Hna canalizo is always thinking about this family all day every day all she talks about. Its awesome. and we are trying to do all we can for them.

And a Family in our ward, don't know what to say, they are just the nicest mormon family ever. I want to send pics of them next week if i get some because i love them. and they are both English teachers so they can understand my gringo accent too. Its soo good.

 you will not believe it! MOM guess what! I did my hair in a braid one day and we were standing in a doorway when i felt something fall onto my back. I was like oh no its a spider, but it went away so i was like ah its all good.. got home and started taking my braid out when on my finger crawled a COCKROACH! not even kidding it had been in my hair for like 2 hours. and me and my companion were screaming and ripping the room apart searching for the bugger and we never found it. ahhhhhhh gross; its super funny though, honestly cockroaches arent that bad. Also speaking of my hair, it is way to hot to leave down here and i never do anything with it. I look so gross every day, but no one even cares! I love it here!

Anyway love you all!