December 2, 2103

  Me at the UPS store!

'Your mom' - found this written on the wall. (Us being dorks at the "Mexico City" apartments)

Pamela and Javiers wedding

 Getting new tires. It took 2 hours. My face says it all haha

Our Jesus wall in our apartment

So for those of you who wanted to know what a missionaries daily schedule is like here it is! And yes, we literally do this every day, on the dot. We don't slack! and believe me, we need every moment of this! 

6am- wake up, work out

7am- shower, eat breakfast, get ready for the day

8am- personal study

9am- companionship study

10am- new missionary training

11am- Language study

12pm- eat lunch

1pm- out the door teaching, knocking doors, and doing service until 5pm!

5pm- eat dinner

6-9pm- teaching more lessons about the gospel!

9pm- come home,plan the next day, get ready for bed, write in my journal, have accountablity calls.

10:30pm- in bed! out like a light! 

6am- repeat! (:

It's pretty busy, but the days go by so fast! it's great! my day feels so fulfilled and every night I go to bed happy!!

So anyway that's my daily schedule mas o menos. (more or less)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL! 

We had an awesome Dia de accion de gracias! We spent it with Giselle and her family, one of our ward members and she and her family are so great! we love them! 

It was their first time having an actual Thanksgiving dinner together and we got to be part of it! Giselle, Hermana Peterson and I helped cook it! and if I do say so myself it was picture perfect! (please insert picture perfect thanksgiving picture here (: )

 haha but no really I was pretty impressed on how awesome everything turned out, especially it being all of our first time actually cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. It was so yummy! 

We had a great time talking about Ecuador and trying to do english and spanish tongue twisters.

Try this one out:

Tres Tristes Tigres Trigan Trigo en un Trigal.

pretty great.

I told them to try saying the skunk sat on the stump three times. 

So one great lesson we had was with the Zapata Dominguez family. We made gratitude turkeys! It was so fun to see the kids and their mom drawing and coloring these gratitude turkeys as we listened to a spanish kids song about jonah and the whale. We came back to their house the next week and they put all of the turkeys on their door! (please insert turkey door picture here (: )

Okay so we had the opportunity to go visit an African family with the english sisters the other day and it was so great! there are a lot of Africans here straight from Lyberia and they are the coolest! A little background story with them, Asah, is the father of this family and he came here to work and bring his family here to start a better life, as most of the immigrants are here to do, and they really are the hardest working people. they do anything for their families. So Asah had found out that his mother had died in Lyberia this last week and so he's been trying to comfort his brothers in sisters in Lyberia, and try to figure out all the funeral plans from across the world and everyone was looking to him to figure everything out. Aside from being devistated about his mother, he felt a lot of pressure of responsibility for everything. Sister Toone and Sister Ballif are awesome. We all sang the hymn "I am a child of God"  to them and it's such a simple song, but it touched everyones hearts including mine that we are all children of God. It's pretty profound for a childs hymn.(if you could put that song on here that would be great!)

Lyrics

 I am a child of God,

And he has sent me here,

1. Has given me an earthly home
   With parents kind and dear.
2. 2. I am a child of God,
   And so my needs are great;
   Help me to understand his words
   Before it grows too late.
3. 3. I am a child of God.
   Rich blessings are in store;
   If I but learn to do his will,
   I'll live with him once more.
4. 4. I am a child of God.
   His promises are sure;
   Celestial glory shall be mine
   If I can but endure.
5. Chorus
   Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,
   Help me find the way.
   Teach me all that I must do
   To live with him someday.

haha one of Asahs sons said we sounded like a girl band.  But we continued to teach the plan of salvation to this family and that this life here is not the end and we all have the chance to be happy, here, and in eternity. And that we are not alone here. We have a Father in heaven who loves us so much. It made me so grateful to know that I know that this isn't the end, we are going to see the ones we love, and here is only a short time when we won't get to be with them. But because we have such an awesome Heavenly Father, we can be with them again, and for eternity. For forever. 

It was a great lesson, and the sisters went back this last week and their whole family is going to be baptized. 

This gospel brings so much happiness in all aspects of life that we can't keep this to ourselves. It brings comfort, and understanding, and help. And to state it plainly, God has given us a clear plan on how to live this life successfully, fully and happily. Who doesn't want to live life happy?  

So I've been thinking a lot about hope. 

I've taught a lot of people who don't have any hope for their lives. One investigator we teach melts my heart every time we are there. Her life has been one big story of disappointments, despair, and sadness. Every single aspect of her life has literally been a trial and one night she just broke down. She said she's come to terms that there are people meant to live on this earth to suffer and then they just die, and she believes that she's one of them, and that her daughter will be to. She looked at us and she said, where is God? I don't believe there is one.

That's the saddest thing I've ever heard, and to look into her eyes and see that she truely believed that. 

I told her that that is absolutely not true.

Sister Peterson said "look! Jesus Christ has literally knocked on your door. We are here! He sent us here for you because he knows who you are and he wants you to be happy."

I want to tell everyone YOU ARE ALL IMPORTANT! 

I bore my testimony in my broken spanish as best as I could and I said,  you are a child of God and he loves you so much. Do not listen to satan who is telling you that you are not worth anything. I know that life is hard, believe me I know, this life is going to be full of trials and sadness, but we have a Heavenly Father who loves you. He knows everything that you are going through, he truely does.

Living life without hope is a very sad thought. To believe that there is no God, that we have no purpose, that we just simply die miserable and that is that. It breaks my heart.

There have been so many trying times in my life, and to an extent I've felt that sadness of why is this happening to me? I know we've all felt that way, there isn't one person who hasn't not had anything bad happen in their life.

Trials are part of life, we are meant to be "tried" to be taken down so low that we don't feel like we can get up again. But that's how God makes us better. We have to see that through all the trials and dispair, God is here for us, we just have to see it.

I'm going to quote preach my gospel because it's awesome.

"Hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to you. it is manifest in confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance. It is believing and expecting that something will occur. When you have hope, you work through trials and difficulties with the confidence and assurance that all things will work together for your good. Hope helps you conquer discouragement. The scriptures often describe hope in Jesus Christ as the assurance that you will inherit eternal life in the celestial kingdom.

President James E Faust taught:

"Hope is the anchor of our souls..."

"Hope is trust in Gods promises, faith that if we act now, the desired blessings will be fulfilled in the future..."

I've come to learn that trials are literally a blessing in disguise. They are the times that make me grow. Without trials we would not experience this life the way God intended it to be. And in that is the blessing. 

I AM NOT PERFECT.  

But everything is going to turn out okay. I know I'm going to have trials ahead. I look back on my life and my life is one big trail of mistakes and bad things and so much unhappiness. But then I look at what happens after and I see how much I've come to understand how to take care of others with pain, that I love more than ever, that I have a stronger testimony that there is a God and that he has carried me through it. I'M STILL ALIVE AND I'M STILL HAPPY! 

I figure we can look at life two ways. the way Satan wants us to see it, or the way God wants us to see it. 

I can look at life with happiness knowing that bad things are still going to happen, because I know that me and Heavenly Father  are going to get  through it together.

He's real guys. 

one more thing I wanna say about this whole matter is ACT.

like faith is an action word, hope is an action word as well.

how do you show faith if you never do anything about it?

We have this analogy that one of the Elders told us, he said faith and hope are like a cake. You bring in this super yummy looking cake and everyone is eating it and they say it is so yummy. and you say "man that cake looks so good! I wonder if it is good. man... I wish I knew if this cake was good!" and you just sit there staring at this cake just wondering if it is good.

What do you have to do to know if the cake is good?

EAT IT! 

You will never know if something is good if you don't try it! And it is the same with Faith, it is the same with Hope, prayer, reading the scriptures, following the commandments, everything about happiness requires you to act. 

Jesus did the hard part and gave us the opportunity to try over and over and over again, to be forgiven of our sins and right EVERYTHING that is unjust in our lives. All he asks is that we follow him. and that involves acting.

So be happy! Everything is going to turn out okay. Do your best, that is what is required. and trust in our Heavenly Father who loves you so much.

I know that life is hard and I'm grateful for that. It shows me how much Heavenly Father loves me.

 I say bring it on! 

Love you all! stay strong! life is hard. See how blessed you are!

Love Hermana Ficklin