Week 16

Pentecostal Church!

I attended my very first Pentecostal church yesterday. It was quite interesting! Our apartment manager Andrew and his family pretty much run show and he has been inviting us for a log time. He is the best apartment manager ever! Well it turns out his dad is the pastor and his sister directs the songs they sing and the band... It was a good experience but I still think the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the way to go:)

Its been a tiresome week! We pretty much ran out of miles for our car and have been riding out bicycles around all week. The good news is that its not as bad as we thought but the bad news is that we get a lot less things done. This week has made me supper thankful for the car.

Yesterday, an investigator named Roberto from Mayfield got baptized! It was honestly a miracle. Roberto has had three other baptismal dates and he would always chicken out at the last moment. He had been taught by some missionaries a while back and then his mom was going to get baptized and he had some how convinced her not to. They had been dropped but then one day Roberto saw us come in to the store that he worked at and had asked us to go and teach his mom. So we did and we have been teaching them for some time now. Roberto had had a baptismal date with us about a month ago and had decided not to because he had decided that he didn't have the right reasons because he had a crush on my companion! Anyways we learned our lesson and just had the Elders teach Roberto instead and now he is baptized and his mom is getting baptized on Saturday.

Funny story about that. This last Sunday was also Mayfield was having their Branch Conference and the stake president was there so he had the chance to attend the baptism. Well during the baptism Guadalupe, Roberto's mom somehow told him that she was getting baptized on Saturday and asked President Okuda if he would do it... haha when she told me about it I was like wow! Guadalupe you've got guts!

I love resent converts! They are so new to the church culture and really just outshine everything! Roberto called us this morning and gave us the number and name of one of his friends down in Paducah. Its really amazing to see the change this gospel bring to people like him. I know that there are great blessing in store for him and that he will grow so much.

Enjoy your summer:)

    Hermana Orellana

PS I have become a Facebook missionary! I will now be able to share the gospel on line. Search for me! (Hermana Julia Orellana) but just a heads up to friends outside of my mission and to family- I wont be able to message you or be in contact with you at all while on Facebook. You will be able to see what I post but I will be "unfollowing" you so that I can focus on the work that I was called to do. So please everyone behave yourself and keep the communication to email:) Love yall!

Week 15

Its been a great week! Its been supper hot and humid and sweaty and I am browner than I have been in a long time.

I had the greatest opportunity to ride a bike this month. We have a car but we only have a certain amount of miles every week and this month we had to get car inspections which means that we were 200 miles short this week and now we have to bike. It has been tough but I am glad that I don't have to walk. Hermana Winder and I make it as positive and we can.

We have a new investigator by the name of Juan Cortez. He was a referral from the Elders and has been to church twice. We invited him to be baptized on Saturday and he said yes! He is all for it and it is such a miracle! We are supper exited for him. He is one of those people that can just talk on and on and on in a circle and we struggle to try to change the subject back.

There is an investigator in Mayfield named Guadalupe who is fantastic! She has a love for the savior and wants so much for her children to be on the right path. A couple of weeks ago the Elders in Mayfield asked her if she would get baptized and she said yes! We will be preparing her for her baptism on July the 5. We don't get to see her often but plan to talk to her on the phone and have some lessons that way so that she will be ready when the 5th comes around.

This transfer is flying by! As my compa says "time flies when you are having fun".

I love missionary work. If you want to be happy all you have to do is become a missionary:) most importantly I have learned that obedience is the key to happiness. Heavenly father has made a plan for all of us to find happiness in this life and I am here to share that plan. I love this gospel I know that it is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I have been reading its pages and I have been praying to know if it is really true and every time I ask it is the same. The Book of Mormon is true and if you have not had the chance to read it I challenge you to do so and pray to know if it is true. I know without a doubt that you will receive an answer.

I love y'all;) stay cool

               Hermana Orellana

Week 14

I took a dry erase marker yesterday and I circled all my bug bites on my legs and then I counted them and they turned out to be 23 on my left leg and 19 on my right. If I counted that right it was 46.... kidding I actually got at least 4 more bites last night. Today I am making a trip to the nearest Wal-Mart and buying some bug spray and some anti itch cream.

It was a great week and a fantastic fathers day! So this last Sunday the Paducah ward split in two. The ward boundaries were pretty far some people use to have to drive more than 30 min to get to church every Sunday so last week they opened a Branch in the Calvert area. Everything is in limbo which means that we don't have a ward district leader and we probably wont get one for a while. Even then though, church yesterday was supper spiritual! One of the most amazing Sundays I have had on my mission so far.

We also did a lot of knocking this week because a lot of our appointments fell though but it wasn't too bad because at the end of the week we had 10 new investigators! Things are looking up in Paducah even on cloudy and rainy days.

We had some tough days this week but yesterday was by far my favorite. The Paducah boundaries cover a country town named Metropolis. Yes like Superman town. They even have a giant statue of Superman in their town square and the news paper is called The Planet and all that jazz. Its all country fields and rolling hills and we have some amazing members over there. We spend most of our Sundays up in Metropolis visiting these members (because most of them are less active). I want to talk specifically about three dads that have become pretty special to me.

First of brother LaRoe, he is fantastic! He is this big guy who has a chicken farm and a teenage daughter. Brother LaRoe has had a chronic cough for 12 years where he coughs and coughs until he passes out. He is hard working but was layed off a couple of years ago because of his sickness. He survived against all odds and has come back stronger than ever. He is still battling this sickness but he is a hard worker who loves his daughter and all he wants is to live long enough to send her off safely. He has a love or life.

Second is Brother McCraw. Bro Mccraw is a mix martial arts fighter. He is a prison guard and a fantastic dad! He has a tough time with the gospel but man do his daughters love him! He is funny and kind of scary but all I can say is that after dinner he will lay on the carpet by the kitchen (his daughters follow everything he does) and he will make noises (that his daughters imitate) and they will make music and it is the funniest thing in the world. He loves to have fun.

Lastly is Brother Schneider. Brother Schneider has a son named Adam who had a car accident a while back and was paralyzed. Adam cant talk or move by himself anymore and needs help from someone 24/7 and that someone is usually his dad. Adam is a whole other story but the guy who keeps Adam safe and alive is his amazing dad. Brother Schneider adores Adam like I have never seen before. He sits with him every day and watches over him. He is Adam's best friend. Brother Schneider loves service.

I am grateful for fathers all over the world who love their children and work for them so that they don't go hungry. Those fathers who would give their life up for their family, those who love their wife and who serve quietly and don't get the credit that they should. I am grateful for my father and the short time that we were able to spend together. And I am grateful for my Father in Heaven who has given me all I have and who blesses me everyday. I am grateful for his perfect love for me.

Con todo mi carino,

            Hermana Orellana

Week 13

It has been the most eventful two weeks of my mission life so far! First of I would like to introduce you all to my new companion Hermana Winder. She is from South Jordan Utah, went to Bingham High School (shout out to all my Bingham friends you know who you are) goes to BYUI, loves to sing and sings beautifully, she is about 5' 4'', long blond hair, is terrified of squirrels, and has an abnormal sensitivity to smells (please see picture below for more info). She is fantastic but I am already mourning her loss; she goes home this next transfer.

I will start from the beginning. So we all pretty much knew that Hermana Garlitz would get transferred and so we kind of started to say good bye to all the peeps down in Mayfield but it still hadn't hit home to me until we got the call Saturday night. All of a sudden reality hit and I realized that I would be getting a new companion. It didn't help that Sister Tenny (one of my mission heroes) was going home and Elder Bishop my favorite Zone Leader was also being transferred. Okay pretty much everyone got moved around because we had a very large number of greenies coming in and a lot of missionaries going home. You  might have noticed that I did not email last week that was because Hermana G and I were too busy trying to see as many people as we could and pack everything up and clean. Also it had been Hermana Garlitz birthday last Sunday and it seamed that everyone wanted to have Birthday dinners. And on top of all that there have been tornados and flooding for the past two weeks and last Monday the flooding hit Paducah. It started raining hard at about 7:30. At 8:00 Hermana Garlitz and I were sitting in the car stressed because we had planned a Noche de Hogar and no one was coming because of the rain. I suggested that we just go out in the rain and dance (I had been wanting to do that for a while) so that is what we did. We were parked out my a members apartments and sweet Hermano Zaragoza came out with his umbrella to try to save up but we didn't want to be saved. He invited us up to his place to eat a piece of ice cream cake that he had bought for Hermana Garlitz' birthday it was supper sweet:) As we walked out to the car soaking wet a lady runs up to us and says that everything is flooded and that she thought we shouldn't go out. We thanked her but then went and saw... the water came up to my knees! Hopefully we were able to make it back to the apartment before 9:30 or we would have turned into pumpkins;)

On a happier note I have been getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, bed bugs, flees and who knows what else. I cant tell them apart anymore all I know is that I will have scars for the rest of my life.

*(warning this might be too graphic)*

On an even happier note I woke up on Saturday morning with a soar throat. I had shrugged it away. It had gone away till after lunch and then the soreness came back and then... I started to feel a bubble forming in my throat. I got up to get some water and as soon as I had chugged some down I realized that the bubble was not going away but that it was getting bigger. I went to look in the mirror to see what it was and what I found was not pretty. There was a white soar right on my throat that Hermana Winder described as gum like. I reached back and touched it but I didn't feel anything. We freaked out and I wish I would have taken a picture of it but we immediately started calling people. I grabbed another glass of water and started chugging and then..... it was gone.... I had swallowed something. I look in the mirror again and the sore was gone. I had eaten it. I went to show Hermana Winder and she realized that it was growing again like some sort of puss except for I would keep swallowing it. We got a hold of the Presidents wife and she told us that it was probably a throat ulcer. She wasn't too worried about it and it calmed me down. I just kept drinking water and the pain eventually went away. Not to worry I am all better but I will for sure take a picture next time:)

We also had a wedding this week. The brides maids were the bishop's wife, and two sister missionaries and the grooms men were the Elders! What an epic wedding:) The new couple will be getting baptized on Sunday.

The work is going good! I have high hopes for this new companionship and we expect some baptisms this transfer:)

Well I'm off to more adventures and happier days! I love you all. This church is true.

Cheers,

   Hermana Orellana

PS I'm thinking of dying my hair.....

PPS Happy Birthday to my fabulous friend Michelle Nguyen! I hope you had a fun time and expect something in the mail sometime this week;)