Week 55

Dear amiguchis!!

I honestly can't even remember what happened this week. It's been kind of a sickly week. I haven't had sugar in a while and I don't know how this even happened but last Friday I had gotten home and saw a cookie sitting on my desk.. I have no idea who put it there... So instinctively I go to the kitchen and get a glass of milk (for my cookie) I don't even remember doing this though and before I know it I look down and half the gigantic cookie is gone!!! I don't remember even tasting it! All of a sudden I feel supper sick... I had eaten too much cookie... And I barf all over the bathroom.... This whole experience was repeated yesterday too except for it wasn't over a cookie but over some tácitos... And my companion got sick too so that was kind of rough. Anyways we are taking it easy for the next couple of days and last week we started our intense Jillian/running plan. I committed he sisters that live with me to live a healthier mission and join me in my new morning exercise plan! :D 

Now I remember! This week we had interviews. Last night sister Brown, sister Schenk and I were talking about how interviews are great! You look forward to them every time specially when you are having a rough time and then all of a sudden you are doing fine and you don't have anything to talk about by the time your interview come around. If you were asking me how I was feeling you would have to ask me about every hour. My mood changes every hour of the day depending on who texted us or called us or how the lesson we just had went or if the person we just knocked on slammed the door in our faces.... It's a struggle! 

Interviews were great though! I had a total of 10 min with president... My interviews are usually pretty short except for last times. I asked president why I have had so many companions and areas and pretty much asked him if I could die (and by die I mean en my mission here... Mission lingo) in Goodletsville and if I could keep Hna Gamble for at lease another transfer... He said he would pray about it... I just begged him to not make me move to a new area my last transfer, that would be beyond sad! Anyways he told me that the reason my I move so much is because I was a "solid" missionary... I thought he would say that it was because I knew the language but I guess not. So that made me feel a little better but I still hope I can just stay here. 

This week we had no one come to church. It was pretty sad. Usually we have at lease one investigator, a members wife who we are teaching, but this week she didn't show up and we don't know why. Yesterday we were finally able to go into our new family's home. They were still busy but we set a date for us to come back and have a solid sit down lesson. I had lots of high hopes for this transfer but it didn't turn out as well as I thought it would. The good news is that the work keeps moving forward and we can always set new goals and try again. I have accomplished a lot of good goals this transfer and found more things to work on. I'm thankful for the time I still have to keep working. 

Wish me luck for transfer calls! Pray that I stay in this area:)

Love, 

Hermana Orellana

Pictures!!!

      Found a friend!

 The horses!

 Found a couple more friends:D


Being mean to my companion>:)

Week 54

The prank master!;D

For some reason in my apartment we have this thing where we are try to prank each other as much as possible.... This week I found a blond hair ball inside my journal, have been scared in the middle of the night and yesterday night I played the worst of them all! They were so upset with me!... So this is what happened. So we all want to go to the Grand Opri Mills Hotel today and we had been planning it with our member Kiki who is really good friends with David. So when she first asked us if we wanted to go she asked us if she could invite David too. And we were like,"....sure you can!..." and we freaked out a bit and told the sisters and of course they were supper jealous, but of course David couldn't go. So last night Kiki told us her mom could take the sisters too if they wanted to come. So I thought of this cool prank to make them believe that David had changed his mind and would be able to go. So I call them on the phone and tell him the good news that we had found a ride for them and that David was coming and they were supper exited and I didn't tell them it was a prank all day. So they were sooo exited.... i mean like really, really exited. Finally we were all in bed and I finally say. "Guys David isn't coming, it was a prank! And yall fell for it! HAHAHA" and no one laughs, NO ONE! Sis Gus says, "are you serious?... Are you really serious?? I'm going to bed." and sis Schenk goes ".... I cant trust you anymore". And then it goes quiet.... and we go to bed. OHHHHH! I should be band from ever doing another prank. They were still upset this morning but we ended up wrestling for a while and now we are good:) So David pranks are a big "no no". 

On Saturday me and Sis Gus walked 10 miles!

Also cool story! There is family down here who knows my family! We were having dinner with them and we were talking about how her daughter goes to BYU BC and then i was like, "Hey, I have a cousin who goes there!" and she goes like "What's her name?", "Nadia..." Yup, her daughter is my cousins roommate! I am serving with Nadia's roommate, Precilla! Oh and guess what?! Hna Luna was like, "Hey, we were talking to Nadia the other day about how I knew one of her uncles who died in a car accident on the way to a temple marriage"..... IT WAS MY PARENTS WEDDING! Hna Luna and her husband were going to go to their wedding! They knew my uncle Eliseo! He was their bishop. They keep telling me stories of his impersonations and allthe funny stuff he used to do.... Its a small Mormon world. 

So I don't know who my tio Eliseo was. He obviously died before I was born, but the other day I was thinking of him and his face came to my head (I didn't know I knew what he looked like but I must have seen his picture somewhere else) and I just thought about how he was now with my dad and how happy they must be that I am here right now. I had this supper powerful feeling that they were proud of me. It was so powerful, and I felt such love for a man I never got to meet. I will meet him someday. We will all be together again. 

Hasta la Pasta!

Hermana Orellana

Week 53

If you love baptizing families clap your hands!

This week was full of wonderful miracles! The best one though happened on Saturday:) It was later in the day and seriously nothing had worked out. All our planes had fallen though so we decided that we would just tract for the rest of the day. Well we start knocking a couple of trailers and maybe the third door we knock on we run into this family... the Sanchez Pina family! :D It must have been the most amazing lesson I have ever had my whole mission. We mostly talked to the dad  and we focused a lot on the family. They are so prepared! They also just happen to be from San Luis Potosi. We got to share with them the Restoration and everything just went so perfect! Keep them in your prayers! All I want if for them to be an eternal family. :D

We had just a couple of small cool things happen. Like on Friday night we store contacted at the mall! :D We were on the hunt for Hispanics and we would stop them as we passed by them and tell them my companion had to practice her Spanish so we would have an excuse to share the gospel;D It worked out pretty well. We found a new family to teach and met a lot of other people that weren't completely interested but are definitely maybes. Thursday night at institute we had an investigator come meaning we had an extra person to translate for. Thankfully David (yes, Archuleta) was there and we tag-teamed translating for them...:) I'm pretty sure he is supper jealous of my awesome Spanish/translating skills. On Sunday we found a really big gigantic monster looking crawling bug in our bedroom.... it was terrifying. Sunday was also "Restoration" day at church meaning Hna Gamble and i taught the youth Sunday School AND Young Women's class. I was really worried about them specially because one of the teachers literally asked us to teach her class right as we were starting Sacrament meeting. She was trying to show me the lesson in the middle of the opening prayer. It turned out okay though but now I know for sure that I do not want to be a seminary teacher. Sunday I also got to practice my tortilla making skills. Hna Daysie gave me an official certificate and told me that I was now certified to make hand made tortillas! :D Yeah! Also yesterday we finally got Sister Brown. Sis Brown used to serve in another area but a sister missionary in another Zone had to go home this week and Sis Hilbert (sis Brown's companion) was Emergency Transferred (ET) to fill that sisters place. Jolten, the area where they served, got closed down and Sis Brown got to come down here with the STLs:D Now I have four roommates, that is 5 sister missionaries in one apartment. That is a lot of cold morning showers my friends! BUT it also means parties every day!:D

So I thought I would share with y'all the things I do on a regular week. On Monday we start out with P-day. I get to hang out with my roomies and do things like go shopping and eat lunch and play spoons and go fishing. Tuesdays I do service for the Bishop's storehouse for pretty much the whole morning until lunch time. Wednesdays I usually have District meeting and Correlation meeting. On Thursdays we have Institute! :D I love going to institute, I learn so much. On Fridays we have English classes and usually weekly planning. We don't usually have set things on Saturdays but on Sundays we get to go to church and see our wonderful members! This is the busiest I have been in a long time. There is always something going on and our food calendar is always full. The members are just so fantastic and there are neighborhoods full of Hispanics! Now do y'all see why I love this place so much?!:D It's like Disney world every day but better because I get to teach people how to be happy! I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve. I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Los quiero!

Hermana Orellana:)

Week 52

What do you do when your companion has a seizure?

So my companion keeps praying for us to have adventures... well by the end of this week I begged Heavenly Father to just let us have one normal day. 

First of all, Tuesday was my first day of service at the Bishop's storehouse. It was tons of fun! However... the adventure followed.... So right before all this happened we had actually gone to the church to get hna Gamble a blessing for some personal issues and had hurried home to get our bikes and start our day off. First of all Hna Gamble had never ridden her bike on her mission and before her mission she barely knew how to ride one. So we start off and I immediately realize that she is't cruising down the hills like I am. She would be pedaling down the hills just to catch up to me as I just held on to my breaks so that I wouldn't get too ahead of her. I couldn't see the problem though so we continued on and for maybe two miles. She looked okay but really she was working hard and I realized this as soon as I stopped to wait for her and looked at her back wheel... it was completely flat. It also just happen to be about 80 degrees outside. So we come to this light were we had to cross this big intersection and just across the street is this Ford dealership. I suggest that we stop to see if they could pump up her bike wheel so that we could continue. So we pedal our way up the street to the garage and all of a sudden we hear this loud crash behind us, right at the intersection we had just crossed there had been an accident. So we stop and think about going over to help but in that moment hna Gamble starts feeling sick, so I go over to give her her water bottle while she cools down. Then just at that very second a man come up to us and asks us if we need help... he turns out to be a member from back in Hopkisville. He offers us 10 dollars to give to the Ford people so that they can pump up her wheel. We refuse but eventually he just hands Hna Gamble the ten dollars. All of a sudden Hna's face leans down. She was leaning on a light post and as her head comes down she starts drooling and shaking. I grab a hold of her and ask for the members help as we hold her while she is unconsciously seizuring for maybe 10 seconds. She is completely stiff but all of a sudden her eyes roll back and she looks up and says to me that she doesn't feel good and then she goes limp and I start laying her down. I get her on the floor and by this time she had fainted. As soon as I put her on the floor she starts gagging and immediately I know that I need to place her on her side. So I push her to her side and almost immediately she pukes on the side walk. As shes puking though she comes back. So I'm scared and crying over my also scared and sick companion. The member who had been standing next to us is no where in sight. I have no idea what to do. Eventually the member shows up again and he goes straight into a blessing of healing the he disappears again. By this time though I can think somewhat straight so I call who I thought was hna Stephanie who lived close by but I had actually called the wrong member. So I start telling her in English what had happened and probably freaked her out, but she ends up calling the Relief Society president, who I should have called from the beginning, but anyways! Then I call Sister Andersen, presidents wife and she calls the mission doctor who suggests we go to the ER. Well by this time Hna Gamble is feeling a little better and firmly tells me that she does not want to go to the ER. The whole Reyes family show up a couple minutes later (the Relief Society president's whole family) and at the same time a random man with lights on his Jeep car pulls up and he turns out to be a firefighting medic.... WHAT? So he checks out my companion and tells us that it was probably over heat but that she would be okay with just going home and resting. He helps us get her into the car and the whole time I'm trying to convince her to go to the ER, because seriously we almost had to carry her back in the house. Anyways... Shes okay! Later this week we figured out she might just be anemic and with all the other factors that went into it, it seams pretty reasonable. Today we are going to a clinic so that they check her out and make it official. It was kind of amazing though to see all these miracles play out. Everyone who was there at just the right time and the things that happened at just the right moments. First of all the car accident... if she hadn't of gotten off her bike she would have probably fallen along the way. All the members who showed up and the random medic... not so random. Heavenly Father is protecting his missionaries. 

Another example of this happened Friday... ready for more adventures? So earlier that day they had told us that there were going to be some thunderstorms. We had the car that day so we weren't too worried. We head over to an area about 20 min from our house for the first part of the day, but we had to come back for dinner at a member's house. Our member cancels on us sometime in the afternoon and so we just planned on being at the church at 5 for English class. At around 4:14 we start heading home because hna Gamble has this "feeling to head home early" so we go on our way and we first stop at our house to pick some things up and hurry over to the dry cleaners to get some clothes. We had gotten home at around 4:40 when it started to drizzle a little. By the time we got to the dry cleaners at 4:45 is was raining pretty badly. We finally got to the church at 4:50 and by then it was poring down really bad. We ran to the church door and in maybe 4 seconds we were completely drenched. We get inside and see a car pull up, our students. All of a sudden we hear alarms go off. The tornado warnings go off and the members come running in to the church. Hna Gamble is freaking out but i know exactly where to go... The baptismal font! We hide in the baptismal font for 20 min with two of the English students. If we hadn't of gotten there  a little early we wouldn't have made it to the church and the students would of had to be outside during the tornado warnings. Nothing happened! We are fine!:)

On another note! Conference was amazing! I received many answers to my prayers and even some I hadn't even prayed about. More revelation than I have ever before in my life! I hope you all watched it. I will for sure be listening to them over and over again over the next six months. :) I think my favorite talk was a tie between Elder Ringwood's on Saturday afternoon and Rosemary M Wixom's on Sunday. I also really enjoyed Linda Burton's, Elder Perry's, Elder Bednard, Elder Renlund, Elder Utchdorf and Elder Nelson:) And ofcourse I love President Monson. I am so glad to have a prophet on the earth today! I am so thankful for the atonement and for temples and being able to be with my family forever. I am grateful for the Book of Mormon and the strength it is for my imperfect testimony. I am grateful for Godly fear, second chances, grace and the opportunity to participate in the Sabbath day. I am grateful for the oportunity that I have to serve. I love serving. I love it with all my heart! 

There are a lot of things to send this week:D I took lots of pictures and videos of all the adventures we have had! You have been warned! this is going to be a spam week!:D

Los quiero a todos!

Hermana Orellana