Week 51

Goodletsville TN!!!!

What a great week! I absolutely love this new area! I was so sad to leave Hopkinsville, but I should have known better because Heavenly Father blessed me with the most amazing place. I love all the members already and we get to be pretty close to the city and to more Hispanics to teach! 

I have a new companion! She is companion number 10... Yup I have had 10 companions. It makes you wonder what God is thinking right? So I present to you all Hna Alexandria Gamble. She is from Redding, California. She is the oldest of three children and has been out for almost nine months. Her favorite color is green:) she loves owls and she is really really sweet and caring. She has a talent for bringing the spirit. She has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever heard. I love when she shares it:)

Okay so some cool new changes! I live in an apartment with two other sisters! Sister Schenk (you pronounce it "shank" like, "I'm going to shank you with my pencil") and sister Gustaveson, they are the STLs in the area! It's fun stuff:) we also share the car with them but this times it's better because they can take us places when it's not our car day. 

Also I get to ride a bus!

Also.... I met David... As in David Archuleta... As in Brother Archuleta. Okay lemme explain, So he works most of the time here in Nashville and for some reason he comes over to this side for institute. Well, we get invited to institute to translate for a couple of the kid who don't know English. So yeah! I met him on Thursday and he is a lot different that I thought he would be. He's really quiet and shy and also very short. I tried my best not to freak out but hopefully he will let me take a picture with him one of these days. What an adventure! :) he's really good friends with a little group of our Spanish members. 

This Sunday I also got a change to translate. Although we have the Spanish branch, this last Sunday was Branch conference and they asked me to translate for all the English folks. It was good:) I actually enjoy doing it and maybe I'll get to do it after my mission too. 

We have some really good investigators too but also work a lot with the members so that makes me quite happy. :) conference is coming up! I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I'm sure I will. 

 Hope hall have a treat week!

Hermana Oreo

So here are some pictures:) 

-my companion being attacked by some little monster children

-my cute companion

-dollar general! Yeah! I guess it's not getto here in TN!... I burst out laughing! Hahaha does anyone else thinks this this funny?!

-yummy food

-I made those tortillas!:D

- at Sunday lunch:)

- sis Lafevor and I! Sister Lafevor is in my stake back at home. :D

-playing with flowers

Week 50

 I'm getting transferred! Again! :( no one expected this. Hermana Hoferitza got a phone call early on Saturday and president asked her if she would train, meaning I will have to leave. The thing is that I don't know where I'm going:P they are doing this new thing where they don't tell us until we get to transfer meeting on Tuesday. Hermana Hoferitza and I have already made a chart with all the different possibilities and after talking to one of the APs on Saturday we think I might be going to Goodletsville TN with Hermana Gamble, but we aren't completely sure. :P the other possibility is West Nashville with Hna Lavoue.... Who knows.... Who knows...

The other thing is that today I officially sent things home. It's getting close people!

Also my brother got his call :) San Fernando as planned but this time his date is May 20th! He has 17 days till he leaves... But who's counting right? 

I think the funnest day this week was Saturday:) first of all we had the car! Also one of my recent converts Hno Cortez came to "have a soda" with us. So he lives in Paducah but had lost his job and had come to work down in Hopkinsville. So the elders gave him out number and he was so exited to find out that we were here, but then on Friday he quit his new job because he had found a better job back in Paducah! Anyways! He invited us out to lunch and it was great to see him again. He was very thankful to me:) it was very sweet to see the progress that he has had and all the blessings that have come in his life since his baptism. And I am very thankful to have had the privilege of being a part of that. 

Then on Saturday we also attended a baptism. The elders investigator Sandy got baptized! President Andersen even came! It was awesome:) then we ran off to do some missionary work. 

This Sunday we also quite awesome. The members were all sad to see me go which made me feel better because I'm terrified that they will forget me when I grew to love these people in inly six weeks. They had a party for one of the members birthday and we got to mesh it with a going away party for me too. It was all really sweet. 

Well this is all! I love Hopkinsville! It was a fantastic area and I love Hermana Hoferitza she was one of my favorite companions. I am very sad to leave, but I will go where the Lord wants me to go and I will give it my all. 

Enjoy the silliness,

Hermana Orellana

Week 49

Man! It's been a fun spiritual roller coaster week! :) we had some cool activities. First of all spiring is finally here! This morning I packed up some winter stuff that I won't be needing on my mission anymore. I have been looking forward to that because my suitcases have gotten excessively large this year. I remember I used to make fun of my trainer because of all the stuff she carried along with her and now I understand! Human-beings are hoarders... Some more than others, but still. 

So on Wednesday we got to go to the temple. We only get to go about every six months. This time it was a bit different... First of all I panicked a little because my recommend got a little damaged in my bag and they couldn't read the bar code numbers so I had to talk to one of the members of the temple presidency so that they would let me in. It wasn't hard but it took a little while and I sweated quite a bit during those couple of minutes. It made me really grateful to be able to go inside the temple when I did. Also during this trip I had more questions then I have ever had before and I only came out with a couple of answers the rest of the answers came later in the week or will probably get answered at some other point. Ether way, I learned that I still have a lot to learn and that the temple will be the place to go for assistance. 

On Friday we got new iPads! They are way legit! Pretty much the only difference is that they are faster and have more memory capacity which I am very thankful for. So this week we spent it trying to put all our personal stuff back on the new iPads. For the next two months we will be re trained on how to better use our technology resources.... :D

We also had stake conference this weekend. It was quite good:) we had a cool experience on Saturday night. So first off some background; we live about five min away from the stake center, walking. Our meeting had ended and we were casually walking back to our apartment complex when we noticed that there were a couple of cars on the side of the road. The people had skirts on so we assumed that they had just come out of the meeting as well. I debate in my head for a couple seconds whether we should even ask if they needed help, seeing as there were already multiple people there and my lack of car fixin skills. Well I rapidly decide to just ask anyways and in reply we got, "no we are okay, but hey are y'all walking? Let me give y'all a ride. Get in my minivan." So we say, "no, that's okay we literally live across the street" and they say, "it looks sketchy. Just get in my car anyways. Do y'all want a Wendy's frosty? It's not pumpkin time and y'all look like you could go for a frosty." We hesitate because it was literally the strangest request we had had all day. And someone goes, "they hesitated, that means yes!" So we cautiously get in her car and this random member turns out to be the coolest woman I have ever met! Until this point of my life I have never had such a strong desire to be like anyone else (except Jesus of course) in my life. She was hilarious/crazy/supper spiritual and crazy fun! She said the most outrageous things and I was laughing the whole time! It's difficult to describe her, but let's just say she was a riotous angel! So fun!

And last but not least:) My compa and I got the opportunity to go to the cultural festival on Saturday. We got to help one of our members and in the process we got to pass out the word about the gospel and ran into some awesome new investigators! We bought some cool new toys and I took some videos of the different dances:) enjoy!

-Hermana Orellana

-a man who had a pet squirrel! His name was Rockie (the squirrel) :D

-my new $3 shoes! Also notice my tan line from last year is still there!

-our temple pics:)

Week 48

Nerf Wars!

We are sitting in the Paducah building playing with Nerf guns! I had forgotten how much I love this place. The cool thing is that exactly a year ago I got to Paducah. We came down to Paducah for a funeral. It was suppose to be for Friday but it got moved to today because of the weather. It snowed again!! But this time the snow melted in just a couple of days. It started snowing on Wednesday and so everything was closed on Thursday... Including Walmart!! Anyways then on Friday we went to Spanish conference and my companion ended up in the ER.... 

Alright lemme explain, so Hermana Hoferitza has this cool scar across her neck. (She always tells people that she got her scar fighting her ex-boyfriends, jealous ex-girlfriend who tried to slit her throat... But that's not true) ACTUALLY what happened is that her saliva gland started making stones and it got infecting and so they had to go in and take her gland out which left a cool scar across her neck. Anyways, so this surgery happened about a year ago and just now about a week and a half ago it starting acting up again. So we had made plans to see the ENT specialist but the weather had gotten in the way and the doctor just wouldn't come in to work! And Hermana Hoferitza was in so much pain and it was just getting progressively worse. So come Friday morning she couldn't eat or drink anything, but we didn't want to go to the ER in Hoptown because we had heard some really awful stories about it from all the members. So we get all the way down to Nashville for the Spanish Conference and the first thing we do is call president to get permission to drive to the ER. I couldn't drive her but Hna Lapin took her. At the ER they tell her she has an infected apses. They cut her open! And all this gross infected stuff came out! It was crazy! So now she has this cut in her mouth that needs to drain. Yesterday she slept for 20 hours straight! 

So that was my week. Snow and infections...

But actually Spanish conference was really nice:) we got to get together and learn of way we can apply our teachings to our investigators and the culture. I love this culture! I love my mission!

Spring is coming! I'm so happy:) 

Love yall!

Hermana Orellana:D 

Week 47

Las fiestas!

Hello friends!

So we have been experiencing some changes on the mission. :) Last Friday we had a mission wide meeting and had some members of the 70 come talk to us about the new training we will be having about working on-line. So apparently we were one of the iPad trial missions. This means that the authorities monitored us for a few months on our use of the iPads for the work and prayerfully came up with a program to implement this into other missions. So now that the program has been made we are "restarting", in other words, we have to forget all the things we knew or the habits that we had in the use of iPads and restart with this new program!... Yay! This will start this week but we will be off of Facebook for the next two months. 

Anywho! The mission wide conference was fantastic! Like I always say, "spiritually uplifted AND socially uplifted":D I got to see all my mission friends and see how they were doing. I even got to see Hna Rico, one of the members I worked with in Murfreesboro. The funnest part about all this is that the night before there was a slight chance of a storm coming in and so President had all the missionaries that lived in Kentucky move down to Tennessee and spend the night with other missionaries... Aka SPEEP OVER! We got to stay with the Clarksville hermanas, Hna Lapine and Hna Brown. It was seriously the funnest thing that has happened all transfer. Then we got to ride down to Franklin together and those two girls are way fun! Probably the funniest hermanas in the mission; they had me laughing so much my face hurt way before the time we had to be heading home. 

Also! On Saturday our little Spanish group threw me and Hna Hoferitza a birthday party:) we had tostadas de tinga and yummy cake that we smashed on each others faces. What a blast! This members are the best!

There were also some miracles this week. I don't know why but we don't have very many lessons down here in Hoptown but the lessons that we do have are good quality. We found some amazing new investigators who we are supper exited about. Also one of our most progressing investigator Rudy was able to come to church! Hna Hoferitza and I almost started crying we were so happy to see him there. Rudy loves to read the Book of Mormon and he is truly learning and living the gospel and he is starting to see some good changes in him. The only problem with him was that his work bosses didn't like Mormons so they wouldn't let him come to church BUT now he has!:D and hopefully he will come next week and then if he comes once more after that we will have a baptism! Yay!

Oh and also on Monday I went down to Clarksville for an exchange with the STL's and got to hang with the YSAs for a day:D. That first night on Monday we went bowling! It was a blast!

So this next week we have Spanish conference coming up on Saturday and on Friday Hna Hoferitza the Clarksville Hermanas and I are heading down to Paducah for a funeral. Ally one of the daughters of a member in Paducah passed away after having fought cancer for many years. She was only 19 and I had the pleasure of working with her the last couple of months I was in Paducah. Mostly Hermana Lapine and Hermana Hoferitza worked with her the most but being so close by we found ourselves someone to take us down to see the family. 

This week we also had my daddy's birthday in the 25 and my year mark the 26th:) also mom's birthday is coming up on Friday! Happy Birthday mamita bonita! Three cheers for the best parents in the world! Hip-hip-hooray, hip-hip-hooray, hip-hip-hooray!!!! I would not be here if it wasn't for their fearless example of righteousness. 

Love yall, 

 Hermana Orellana

Lemme explain...

-first three pictures: me bowling on Monday:D

-no, we certainly were NOT braking rules and sleeping on the same bed... I eventually kicked Hna Brown off of her bed and she slept in the floor... Btw, this was our sleepover:)

-las Hermanas, chillin in the back seat (Hna Brown y Hna Lapine)