Another Great Week in the Yucatan: August 25, 2014

Buenas!

Another great week in Yucatan!

This Sunday Hna Price and I gave talks! It was Hna Prices first talk and she was a little nervous for the Spanish but she did great!!! I spoke about the importance of members in missionary work. I think I like giving talks.

Our little investigator Liliana is progressing so well! At church we asked her if she wanted to be baptized a week earlier than we planned and she was pretty excited. Her grandma will also be baptized soon too.

We have another investigator German who is getting married this week and will be baptized soon as well!

This week we were walking down the street and a lady selling ice cream started talking to us in English and turns out she was from the U.S. but moved down here because her husband, who is mexican, got deported. We had a lesson with her in English and we are going to get her a book of mormon in English as well. It is funny how we cross paths with people in other parts of the world. 

Something I do love about Caucel is there are lots of people with little bicycle carts that ride around the streets in the afternoon and honk a little bike horn and sell bread and muffins. We get pretty hungry after walking around all day and we like to buy lots of bread.

Today I reunited with my mother(trainer) Hna. Martinez! There were special transfers and she is now in Merida!!! Every monday 2 zones meet together for our district meeting and we do practices together, and Hna Martinez is in the other zone. We were pretty happy to see eachother. Some people we taught together were baptized after I left, and I was super happy to hear about all the progress going on down in Campeche!!!

Fun fact, did you know you can sing Oh my Father, and Joseph Smiths First Prayer to the tune of Come thou Fount of Every Blessing?? 

Its really pretty.

Other fun fact, one of our investigators who we are teaching is named Enrique. We didnt know his last names (they use 2 here, the dads last name and the moms last name, so I would be Stacie Heather Fleischer Mickelson) because we kept forgetting to ask but yesterday we asked him and his last names are Reyes Leon, which means Lion Kings!!!!!! hahaha we thought it was pretty cool.

I have never realized how powerful the message of the Restoration really is. There are a lot of people who are very confused about why there are so many churches and beliefs, we have the truth that is so valuable and I am so pumped to be sharing it with lots of people.

Hope you all have the most wonderful week!

If you see a missionary this week, give them a cookie or some juice or something!

Con mucho amor,
Hermana Stacie Fleischer

August 18, 2014

Hello to all!

First things first, I have 6 months in the mission!!!!!!!!

Which means I will be coming home in almost exactly one year. But I dont like to think about coming home just yet. I feel like I have grown and learned so much in these months. There is nowhere I would rather be.

This week we had probably the most powerful lesson of my whole mission. Last week we contacted this guy in the street, and we went to go find him again but when we knocked on the door of the house where he was, another woman named Karina answered the door but said she was Christian, we asked if we could just share a hymn and a scripture so she let us in. We had a lesson and we talked about our loving Heavenly Father and the Atonement, Karina opened up to us a lot, and we talked about the Atonement can help us change and strengthen us in all of our burdens. The spirit was so strong!!!! It was like a warm fuzzy blanket and it was just such a good feeling. We invited her to be baptized and she said she wants to be baptized, and go to church, and come preaching with us! haha

When we left her house it was really hot, like always, but Hna Price and I had chills from that lesson.

Other exciting is that we have a couple investigators, Liliana and her grandma Josefina that are progressing so well and excited to be baptized. We are really happy for them and I know the gospel can help their lives and help their family.

This season is the rainy season and almost every afternoon it rains really hard for one hour. It feels good BUT this is when the tarantulas leave the forest. Yuck! We saw one on the sidewalk one day and you can bet Hna Price and I freaked out a lot. Also we saw some little kids that were killing one with a huge rock. We make sure to close our windows real good so nothing comes in.

I love you all! I would love to hear about any missionary experiences you have had this week or month.

My challenge for you all is to read your Patriarchal blessing and write down on a piece of paper al the talents and gifts that you have that are in there. We did that for a zone conference we had today and it helps us remember that we have a divine heritage, and also a divine potential.

Have the most wonderful week! 

Con muchisimo amor y abrazos y besos para todos,

Hermana Stacie Fleischer

August 11, 2014

Estoy aqui nuevamente para escribirles.

This week we worked super hard and we improved in a lot of things. 

One of the grand highlights of this week is that we had 4 investigators come to church! Josefina, Liliana, Ana, and German! It has been a little hard for us to get them to church, so we were really happy. Sunday is always the climax of the week.

Sometimes we invite people to church and then forget to tell them much about it haha. 2 new investigators we found this week, Liliana and her grandma Josefina came to church and when we got there Josefina asked, so.. how long is this? And we explained the 3 hours and she was really surprised and she didnt seem too convinced to stay all 3 hours but after sacrament meeting she said she wanted to stay!!! After the 3 hours we went to go find Liliana who is 10 years old and when she came out of primary she said Im not going to watch tv today! Because I learned that Sunday we should dedicate to the Lord!

She is too cute and she says Quiero ser mormon!!!! (I want to be mormon)

Hermana Price and I learn together and are improving together! We love eachother a lot and she is a great companion! I feel really blessed and her Spanish is improving very well. We are working really hard to get people to church and to read the book of mormon and to get baptized!!!

We had been a little discouraged because we hadnt had baptisms for a couple months but we are definitely going to have some this transfer!!!

The people here are wonderful and I feel a lot of love! I love the members! I love being a missionary and there is nothing like it!

Hermana Martinez ( my first companion) sent me a picture of a family we taught, the mom was very inactive and the husband wasnt a member, but they got baptized!! Even though I was only there for a couple lessons, I was so happy! 

My challenge for everyone this week is to look for an opportunity to share the gospel!!! There is no better invitation than to invite someone to come unto Christ!

Love you all tons and tons!

Para siempre Dios este con vos!!

Hermana Stacie Fleischer

August 4: Spaghetti

Buenas Dias mi familia!

You would be surprised how much spaghetti people eat here. It normally doesn't have tomato sauce, but they make it with milk and cheese and ham.  And sometimes other ways.

This week we found a family to teach and they are too cute. They are the perfect Mexican version of hippies. They are really spiritual and they love everything in nature. The mom is really artistic and they have incense burning in their house. They have a pet owl, and also a pet turtle that doesn't have a cage but just kind of roams around and sleeps under chairs. The Mom, Veronica gave us this weird but awesome jello with carrots and walnuts. They are super nice and one day it was raining and they gave us a ride somewhere.

Normally we are lucky, and when there is a storm it rains when we are in a lesson and then it stops when the lesson is over, but this week nope. We had to walk to the other side of our area and it was pouring rain, but we have rain jackets and it is kind of fun.

A little something about Mexico, if it rains a lot, the air cools down and it feels really good. But if it rains a little, and then the sun comes out, everything is super hot and the ground is wet so the sun evaporates it up so you feel like you are walking in a hot steamy place. They call it "bochorno" and it is not my fave.

missionary feet

We had some great lessons this week and I can feel the Spirit working through me to teach the gospel. Sometimes during a lesson my Spanish is super awesome and I know that is definitely the Spirit and I am an instrument in the Lords hands! One of my favorite lessons this week we had is with an investigator named German, whose wife is a less active. We invited him to be baptized and him and his wife looked at each other and smiled really big and said yes! and then she bore a super powerful testimony and we all were crying a little bit.

I love being a missionary! It is the best! 

I love you all and thank you for all the prayers and support, I can definitely feel them.

Hermana Stacie Fleischer