Santuario De Chimayo

Hey Mom and Dad! 

How’s it going? 
I may miss you, but today was pretty awesome. In fact this week has been really amazing.

We had a few really awesome lessons this week with a few different people. We taught a boy named Tom for the first time this week. He is a junior and has been going to Seminary for the past month and is in Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. So we started to teach him and he already knew almost everything.... Crazy.  Of course there are some things we need to go over and technically we do have to teach all of the points, but he is so ready.  He said he might choose to wait a year because that is what his dad told him would be wise to do. We were a little sad, but hopefully we can help him to choose to do it sooner.

We had the greatest family ever come to church! One of the members is leaving on a mission in a week, so he was giving his farewell, and invited them to church.  We have taught them once, and they are so so so awesome.  They have one little boy and they are amazing.  We love them!  We have dinner with the family on Sunday and we are going to try and teach them after dinner with the boy who is leaving.  It should be great.

Yesterday was temple day :)  It was nice.  I had a headache the whole time, but still nice.  We had to ride with a member and they drove us two hours down to Albuquerque. They said they are planning a trip to Orlando this summer for Disney World. 

Then today we went to this world-famous place called Chimyo.  It’s a Navajo Sanctuario (Catholic). Every Easter weekend thousands of people make a pilgrimage to get “Holy Healing” dirt. Last week the Elders who work in that area both got about 100 contacts because they decided to walk along and do the pilgrimage. 

Santuario de Chimayo

Santuario De Chimayo

It was really interesting. Then we ate at possibly the best Mexican restaurant EVER! I have decided that we will go back :)

Love you!
Love the pics of Warnie!

I have some birthday presents for Warnie and Mina, but they haven’t been mailed yet..... Might not get there until I have a present for Jess as well.

Dad, Peru?  That sounds amazing!  Sounds like there will be a lot of fun touristy things to do :)
Hope you have fun on your trip! 

P-Day with the Zone

Tonight we have bible study, then teaching young women’s on Sunday then also teaching our MTC class... It’s crazy tiring, but it’s amazing to be able to see people change and learn!
Tonight in bible study we are playing cops and robbers....Still not sure what the Christ like attribute we are going to pull out is.....Any ideas on fun group games for future bible studies?  Any ideas for a young women’s lesson on gratitude?

Love you!
Em

Happy Easter!

Hi Mom and Dad!

Happy Easter!

I did get the Easter package! Thank you so much!!! I loved it!  The cardigan matched perfectly with the brown pocka-dotty one that you sent me at Christmas.

Spring Time In Santa Fe

Poor Jess.  Too much drama.  You would think as a missionary, I could get away from it, but not really. That is what makes a missionaries life so stressful. You meet crazy people and suddenly their craziness is your craziness. 

I saw the pictures of the Temple! So pretty!  It sounds like it was fun there!  I absolutely love those pictures in front of the temple! So pretty! It looks so warm and moist there! :)
I wish I could have been there but our temple day is next week, so I’m really excited for that!

We have been using those church videos about Chris’s life a lot.  They are really good!

Teaching is going really good! We have several people that we've been working with and its going really amazing.  We are so excited and grateful for the opportunities to see all these amazing people making the decision to learn more and change their lives!

It has been a very strange few weeks here.  It has been a rollercoaster of craziness.  We've had some amazing things happen, like Teryn got baptized on Saturday! It was so amazing!  We are so happy! It was so spiritual. :)
Even if the Ward Mission leader did call us at 3 the day before and tell us the boy scouts fell through on the musical number and asked if we could do it :) Well, luckily my comp is really good at harmonies.  So we sang the primary song I'll follow him in faith.  It was fine.  Sunday night was the amazing one though!

But some other crazy things have happened as well, and it has just continued all happening at once.  But it is all good.  Even with all the strange things that keep happening, there is just a feeling of peace.  I know that the Lord is in charge and it will all be fine. :) 

The work is going really well.  We are teaching quite a few teenagers, and they are so ready and willing to listen!  It is so exciting! :)

The youth from the ward are amazing at missionary work, and their friends are also more interested and willing to listen than most adults.  We have had a lot of success and interest from the youth. It also helps that my companion is really good with teenagers. We have been doing a bible study on Tuesday nights that has been going really well. And the youth are really excited and love coming.  So that helps.  On average we have about 2-4 non-members there every week.

The biggest hold back we have with the youth is getting the parents’ permission.  Most of them are completely supportive though.  There is one boy who has been going to seminary for 3 weeks and has been to church for 2 weeks and want to be baptized by his friend (who is leaving on a mission in July). 
We just have to start teaching him the lessons! :)
It’s so amazing!

The great thing is, this whole ward is like this.  It’s really awesome to be able to serve in a ward like this . And it all started with a challenge to give out a Book of Mormon.

This week, well really the past few weeks, have just been packed with ups and downs and craziness and just odd occurrences, but it has been awesome and we are seeing the people here do amazing things! 
It’s been great!

Love you! 
Em

Santa Fe Trip For P-day

Hi Mom and Dad!

Sorry it will be a shorter letter today, we went to Santa Fe today for P-day and had an early dinner with a member so we have no time for emails.

It sounds like it’s been a crazy week!  It’s been a bit crazy here too!  We have had a lot going on, so the week has flown by.  It has been a very interesting and busy week.  We have had a lot of things going on this week. Which is great but it is also chaotic.  On your mission, did you ever find that sometimes things just tend to explode around you?  That was this week.

We had a really early dinner today with a member (which is why we are emailing so late) and she took some pictures and is going to send them to our moms.  :)  So she should be getting a text from Mary Luster.

Dinner with Mary Luster - Sister Mangum and Sister Grigg - White Rock NM  April 2014

I got the cds! They are awesome I love them! Thank you! :)

That is really funny about Jess's prom dress. A least it got done in time :)

Poor Warnie and Mina and FCAT.  its getting pretty close to the end of the school year, isn’t it? 
I hope Jess does well tomorrow at State Tennis, it will be awesome!  Good Luck Jess!!!!

The Fort Lauderdale Temple open house should be amazing! I’ve seen pictures of it and it is so beautiful on the outside, I bet it’s even more beautiful on the inside.

Today we went to Santa Fe.  It was so fun.  I got a present for Mina’s birthday and we got to tour around to a few places.  There are lots of really old cathedrals and such. It’s a really cool city :)

We had a few really good lessons, but this week should be packed with good things, so that’s exciting. Tomorrow is exchanges with the training sisters. Oh joy.  It will at least be something new and exciting to do.  I get to work with one of the Sisters in Santa Fe.  Hopefully we will get to do some contacting :) There is really no opportunity to do contacting in White Rock.

Love you!
Em

General Conference

Hi Mom and Dad!

Yes, General Conference was absolutely amazing! I really loved it and I got so much out of it!
I wish that they were up and available to read, Hopefully they will be up by the end of this week, especially because we are teaching several classes on it :/

I absolutely loved Elder Holland’s talk and the one by Elder Ballard.  Really there wasn’t one that I didn’t like.  Especially as a missionary.  I have found that as a missionary things like conference have so much more meaning.  Not only are you listening for yourself (Which is hugely important as a missionary) but you are also listening for all of your investigators and less-actives and you are listening for all of the classes you will be teaching in the next forever.

It seemed like everything that we needed to hear happened. It was so great. We had been joking that we just needed someone to do a Joseph smith throw-down in one of the talks.  I don’t remember who it was, but we definitely got it. :) And so many other great things!  

Then later that night we had an amazing miracle.
It has been interesting being in Los Alamos County.  
We have been teaching several classes and just recently they have started to pick up like crazy!!!! At bible study last week we had 16 youth! More than they get to come to mutual! Plus Paz!
Then we are teaching a Member Training Class (MTC haha) where we teach concepts of sharing the gospel.(we had been getting on average 6 people to those, combined with all 3 wards) 
On Sunday we held a movie night that they could bring their non-member friends to for the MTC and we had 26 people and 10 non-members!!! AHHH! It was sooo great!
All 4 missionaries were running around in circles because we were so excited!
We may have a couple new investigators! Which is so awesome!
CRAZY!!!!

Not really hot here. We are at one of the highest altitudes in the US.  It actually feels really good. Although they didn’t get any snow this year, which means the forest fires could be really bad. :/ 
So we will see how things are going in a couple months.

Tonight we are studying Kindness in bible study.  We are going to play murderer in the Dark and have doughnuts :) It should be fun, hopefully we will get through to them about something...

That’s so exciting about the Fort Lauderdale Temple! The Gilbert Arizona temple dedication just happened here, and tons of people went to it... wish we could.  Although temple day is coming up in a few weeks! YAY!

You are right just going through the motions is the way we feel as missionaries a lot :( 
But it’s alright. The good things are really good.  Seminary is a really really good use of time :)

Warnie told me you only have 9 weeks of school left until summer... That’s crazy, time flies so fast!
It sounds like Jess is doing really really well!  Warnie and mina sound about the same :)

Did you know there are giant Volcanoes up and down New Mexico?
This is the side of one.  We want to go hike it one p-day :)

Love you!
Em  

Staying in White Rock!

Hey Mom and Dad! 

So today is P-day :) because tomorrow is transfers.  Hurrah!!  I’m not going anywhere, just staying here in White Rock.  Yay!  We are both staying together again this transfer! Yay!  Which is great.  I seriously fear that bad things would happen if she left.

White Rock New Mexico

Aw!  Your day at the temple going through sessions and cleaning sounds like so much fun!  Our missionary temple day is this transfer, which is super exciting! :)  I can wait!

This transfer they are taking out a set of sisters in Los Alamos.  Luckily, we are not taking over an area. They are combining the two Los Alamos areas.  Which might make life a little interesting :)  But that’s alright!  It hopefully shouldn’t affect us too much.

Guess what this transfer is?  Tomorrow I will be officially 6 months into my mission and the last day this transfer is mother's day :)

I am so excited for General Conference! It’s amazing how much I learn from it every time.  We did get to watch women's conference. It was really really good!  I can’t wait to hear what they have to say this weekend. I don’t know if it is just because I’m a missionary, but suddenly General Conference has a new meaning for me.

How did spring break go? Or is it still going? I can’t keep track of anything anymore.

Yes, my skin is still super dry.  Thank you so much for the lotion you sent.  Hopefully the package should get here today.  New Mexico mail is fairly unreliable.   :) 

I heard from Jess about her district tennis matches this week!  Sounds like she is doing well.  Any chance she could go beyond districts to regionals?

It’s been a pretty slow week.  A lot of people not home due to spring break.  Although there have been some great things happening.  We had a ton of different activities and have had a lot of success with some of our classes that we are teaching.

Paz texted us in the middle of the night asking about the plan of salvation.  So of course we stayed up really late teaching it over texts. Super exciting, but now we are both really tired. We aren’t telling her family, because we are worried they will push her and that might push her away.

I know! We are super excited!  Not sure if she will ever get up the courage to be baptized.  It’s kind of a complicated situation, but we keep working :) We have tried to get her to interact with the young women.  She did go to an activity but she called her mom crying, and her mom called us, so we went over to the YWs to talk to her.  Typical stubborn 15 year old.

Tonight we are teaching Teryn, who is getting baptized on April 19th and Grandpa, who wants to be baptized in September :))  Yay!!!

Green Grass!!!!!

We actually found grass! Real grass! The only indication that I am in a town of millionaires, is the amount of grass here.  Water is really really really expensive.

Yes, we should be getting our iPads soon! :) I think we are the only mission in the US that doesn’t have them right now :( Not surprising though. This mission was the last in world to be offered cell phones :/  By the end of this year, we should have them! Yippee!  It will make missionary work so much easier, you have no idea.  It would be super awesome to have but I can see why we are last.  I’m pretty sure I’ve served in the poorest county in the US and the richest county in the US.  It’s an odd mix of technology and no technology.

Meals are going really well, we still have a ton of people signing up and a lot of people are inviting over less actives and non-members :)  It’s amazing how so many people know all about the less actives in the ward :)  We work with lots of less active families.  Most wards have several hundred less actives, White Rock only has about 20, but that is extremely strange.  Honestly, that is what most missionaries spend most of their time doing.  Working with the less actives.  All of the people I keep in contact with from my last area are less actives.

Love you!
Em

Power of Testimony

Hi Mom and Dad!

This week has flown by.  It’s crazy.  It’s hard to believe that next week is my 6 month mark....

I just got the best letter ever from Sister Walker! 
I wrote a letter to one of the less actives in Belen and Sister Walker said when they went over, Cecille read them my letter and then for the first time ever came to church!  And brought all the little kids!  I am so happy right now!  :) 

We have been crazily trying to think outside of the box on how to do missionary work in this area.  It’s a very odd place and it has been tracted and tracted and tracted. 

Looks like so much fun in the pool!  That is one thing I can’t wait for :)  It is so dry here.  It’s awful.  I need some super thick lotion.

Bandelier National Monument with the Los Alamos District

Did you hear that the missionaries were pulled out Venezuela? I just heard it a few minutes ago.

That is exciting that you get to go to the Fort Lauderdale Temple open house.  I’ve seen pictures of it!  It’s beautiful!  We get to go to the temple at the end of April! Super excited!  The whole mission is going :)  Every six months there is a missionary Monday at the temple.  About the time of general conference we get to go.  So in our session it will be our zone and another zone. We will have to beg a ride to Albuquerque from the members, but I don’t think it will be too hard to get a ride to the temple.

Cleaning the temple sounds fun :)  They keep asking the members here to do it, all the missionaries wish we could help 

So we have started a missionary member class and on the first week we had 6 people there, which is awesome!  It was super spiritual and we hope that it will continue to be successful.

And we teach a youth bible study on Tuesday nights and last week we had 10 kids there including one non-member.  We always try to have a game and a treat and to watch a Mormon message or something. This week is courage :)  We have a good lesson, but we are struggling to come up with a game.  We are going to talk about the story of Esther.  And we were thinking of a doing something for a game that includes having to do something courageous.  I want to make them stick their hand in a box but I don’t know what should be in the box.... Any other ideas for a courage game?  I think we are going to play spoons.  With the spoons on the other side of the room :)

Any minute to win it games that you can remember?  In the next few weeks we are talking about forgiveness, gratitude, mercy....

 Bandelier National Monument with the Los Alamos District

We had an Elder's Quorum activity on Friday.  It was so much fun.  We had two non-members there and we played a game of basketball. :) It was awesome especially when I got nailed in the face with a basketball by a three year old. Split lip and everything.  :/  Oh well.  Its better now, still a little bruised but ok :)  I should have gotten a picture.  It was pretty bad.  We are hoping to get a regular thing started where we can play basketball and people can invite non-members to it.

A really good talk that I read recently was "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox, It was featured in the ensign.  But the full devotional can be found on the BYU speeches website.  It’s so good :)

Here is the link to the talk - "His Grace Is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox

We get transfer calls this week. We really don’t know what is going to happen.  I think Sister Grigg and I are both staying, but there is a good chance that something is going to change in Los Alamos.  There are three sets of missionaries in Los Alamos and one set hasn’t been having a lot of success, so we are wondering if someone is going to get pulled out.  Not sure though.  Guess we just have to wait for Saturday to know.

Love you!
Em 

Member Missionary Work

Hi Mom and Dad!

That is sooooo awesome! I can’t believe how much success you guys are seeing from just sharing the gospel at all times! That’s what we are trying to get the members to do here!  We have lots of visual aids and fun lessons to get the members excited about sharing the gospel, because not much really ever happens until the members start talking to people! :)

I’m not surprised so many people know Jess.  There was a family in my last ward like that, everybody knew that family and it made it easier to talk about it when we knew that that family was a good example and would always be willing to help in any way they could.  There was a member here in White Rock who was doing the same thing that you are, just talking about the church, at the dentist’s office and now she is meeting with the Elders in the next town over! It’s so exciting! 

There was a family who signed up to feed us today, but they got called out of town unexpectedly, and instead of cancelling, she marched over to the neighbors (Who are not members) and asked them to feed us :)  That is so awesome! Tonight we have a meal with a non-member couple!

Yes! Always follow up! Go into McDonalds again. Find her and make a point of talking :) Have you read the Ensign this month? There is a good article about sharing the gospel. You should read it.

Today, we were going to go down to this farm and go pig riding, haha! I have no idea how you ride a pig. I guess we will have to wait for pictures :) but it was too far away, so now we are just going to go to the science museum in Los Alamos.  Should be exciting. Science museum in the most sciency town in all of the world.

The progress with Paz and her family is Amazing! Since grandpa is mostly deaf, we can’t exactly have a full lesson with him, so we do Monday night movies :)  Last night we watched the Testaments.  Everyone loved it!  And Paz sat in the room and actually asked questions.  She loves my companion. All I know is she better not leave, because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep Paz interested like my comp can...  Do you know of any other church movies that show the Bible and Book of Mormon side by side like the testaments?  They all really liked that.

Tonight bible study is on Humility.  We are planning on doing a puzzle where each person has a piece and they have to work together to get it all finished.  But in the end they need to come to us to get the final piece :) 

Nope, no crazy driving experiences yet, hopefully it will stay that way.  Tomorrow is exchanges.... I’m a little nervous.

Love you!
Em