This Church is the same no matter where you go

Hello sweet family!

I hope you are all well today and that this past week was GREAT!

I´m trying to imagine what the weather is like in Colorado, but I don´t remember how winter feels anymore. It is SO HOT TODAY. Since I took my first step outside today, I have been sweating. That´s a nice little image for ya. It´s the truth though.

I just wanted to tell you a thing. Yesterday was Sunday, and instead of having normal church, we had a thing called Stake Conference. So all the Mormons that live in our big city, called La Molina, came together to listen to people speak. It was really fun for me. What I wanted to share was that it literally blows my mind how this church works. It´s the same no matter where you go. People speak different languages, and come from all sorts of different backgrounds and lifestyles, but this church is the same no matter where you go. I love it, and it really stuck out to me yesterday.

This week, we found lots of people and taught lots of people. But yesterday, one of the sweetest families in our ward came out to teach with us. It´s a sweet couple, both returned missionaries, that just love the gospel. We went to their house to talk to them before leaving for our appointments yesterday,and they had us sit down,and were like, " Just wait here one minute." 5 mintues later, they come down all dressed up, and were like "We're coming with you today!" So they came to all of our appointments, and shared some incredible stories and testimonies. I admire the great love they have for this gospel, after all this time. The love in the gospel never ceases to amaze me!

I love you all!

Thank you for your love and support! Have a great week!!!!!

All my love,

Hermana Scott

Buenas tardes

Hello family!! I am feeling really grateful for your emails today and for the love I can feel from you even though we are literally on other sides of the world. Thank you for the words of encouragement and the "I love you´s." Sometimes after a week of walking around and speaking Spanish I forget how much I love to sit here and read about what kind of fun things you´re doing, and receive such kind little messages. Thank you, it means more to me than you know!

So I just wanted to start out this email with a little funny moment. First of all, I STAYED IN CIENEGUILLA! I told you all about my hard emergency transfer thing, but in the end, they kept me here so I didn´t have to move again. It still wasn´t easy to know that I wouldn´t be able to say goodbye, but that literally is just what we do here in the mission. ANYWAY, funny moment. So my companion is Hermana Mack, and she is white like me, from Arizona. We get along really well and have a lot of fun. The other night, we were running late, and it was really dark, and we just happened to be in the darkest part of our area. So, naturally, we decided to run. Not like some frantic super scared run, just a "I´m a little bit spooked, we´re late, and I´d rather run" kind of run. So we were running down the street, singing Taylor Swift, and we saw this guy walking. Obviously, seeing a couple of white girls running in the dark singing in English isn´t a normal thing, so we were just going to pass him and just avoid the weirdness. But at the same time, we looked at each other, stopped running, and turned back to go contact this guy. Hahaha, his face was so funny. I think he was really confused. But we talked to him for like 5 minutes, invited him to church and did that whole missionary thing, then took off running and singing again. It was honestly really weird and we just cracked up, still running. Mormons are weird, but missionaries are definitely weirder.

So this week. I don´t really know where to begin. It was just really filled with a lot of unexpected things. First of all, my new area, Cieneguilla, is HUGE. Seriously. It´s unbelievable. We take a bus because we don´t even live in our area. I literally don´t even know how to explain how huge it is...if you were to go from one end to the other it would take AT LEAST 45 minutes. It´s big. And the thing is, the Hermanas that were here before had quite a few obstacles that prevented them from working so there is so much space that is just completely untouched, and for that reason they also didn´t have very many investigators. So this first week, we went to all the parts, and went searching for people. Just talking to people in the streets,knocking on wrong doors, or asking for help when we got lost. It was honestly super fun. We talked to a ton of people, found a ton of people to teach, and met some really amazing people. This part of my mission is unlike anything I´ve experienced until now...it´s just one huge (I´ll say it again because it´s literally HUGE) project that was just kind of plopped in my lap. I don´t know how or why God thinks I was the right one for this job, but thank goodness I have Hermana Mack because she loves to work. I just have such a huge amount of hope and I am super excited for the time that I will get to spend here in Cieneguilla.

I wanted to share a little experience really fast. The most interesting part of our area is the very farthest part. You take a bus, and it´s literally the very last stop, so it´s like the end of this little world or something. It´s called Rio Seco, which means DRY RIVER. That sounds pretty appealing, right? It´s exactly that - dry. 100% rocks and dirt, and it´s just one giant hill. You get off the bus, and just start climbing this mountain. It´s just this little pueblo...some people that live in the bottom of the hill live in normal-ish houses, but the higher you get, the poorer it gets. They live in little wooden shacks with sheets of metal for roofs. Most don´t have electricity, and I´m still confused about how they have water...maybe there´s some water lines, but I don´t really know. Anyway, it´s totally different from the other parts of the mission I´ve been in. All of Cieneguilla is hills and dirt, but this part especially. Anyway, so one day we went to Rio Seco looking for this less active lady that hasn´t gone to church in 10 ish years. Her name is Isabel Marquez. It took us forever to find her house, because even though they have addresses, they don´t have like fancy little plaques with the number on it. So we asked a million and a half people where this hermana lives (made a lot of contacts though ;) ) and finally found her house after looking for a while. We knock on the door, and of course she´s not there. So we get all sad, and turn to leave. We´re walking down the hill, just kind of thinking about what we were gonna do next, just focused in our own thoughts. We passed two women and just said "Buenas tardes," and kept walking. But my companion and I looked at each other and just kind of the same time turned around to go contact them and invite them to church. We started talking and invited them, and we asked them their names. One said Rufina, and the other said ISABEL MARQUEZ. We just looked at each other and silently freaked out. We told her we had been looking for her and she just got sooo happy and invited us to her house. We had this super sweet,simple lesson with her and her friend, and talked about Jesus Christ like missionaries do, but the Spirit there was so strong. She just soaked it all up and was so excited to have us come back. As we left her house, she just stood there and waved, watched us around the corner, and my companion and I were SO HAPPY.

It was just something really simple. But in that moment, I just felt so strongly in my heart that I really am meant to be here. More than that, that God is preparing these people. It´s so funny how little we actually do out here. But I am just so blessed and happy to be here! I know I will have lots more miracles to share eventually.

I love you all so much! Know that I miss you and still pray for you every day. Have a great week, I will talk to you soon!

I LOVE YOU!!!

Hermana Scott

32 seconds

Buenos días mi querida familia!

I am just going to hop right into this email so I can tell you everything.

This past week was the last week of our transfer. The mission is broken up into 6-week transfers, and at the end of each transfer, missionaries are moved to different places and start in their new areas. Normally in our mission, we stay in one area 2 or 3 transfers, sometimes 4. I think you already understood that. But anyway...

So again, this was the last week of our transfer. Since I was temporarily put in my area, Monterrico, it was pretty much certain that I would only be there for one transfer. So the past few weeks, we have been working really hard. I think I mentioned that last week...we had been in a little slump from the holidays, but we just really picked it up and were seeing lots of miracles and getting to know lots of people. We were working really hard. Last week (Tuesday I think) we had this night of changes. Not for the bad at all - we talked about so many things. I don´t even know how to explain it all, but we just learned so much. About each other, about our goals, etc. And all together, I think we learned about our real purpose as missionaries. All of us are in different places in the mission - I have 5ish months, Hna Killian has 10, and Hermana Phillips almost has 14 - but we all learned and grew that night. It was a really speacial experience for us. 

THEN, the next day, we find out that Hermana Deoporto is going to get surgery and won´t be able to return to her area. It´s hard to explain the situation exactly, but basically, I was sitting in the mission office, happily talking to my companion and some other missionaries, and President and his wife come up to me and tell me that I have to leave Monterrico and go to the area of Hermana Deoporto to take her place. Looking back, I don´t really know why it hit me so hard. But that was like the end of the world for me. It was the last thing that I had expected. I had recently grown to really love Monterrico, I was getting to know the area, and my companions and I had had this really powerful spiritual growth together. We had so many goals for the end of the transfer, and here was President telling me that all of that was just getting thrown out the window. But it´s not like I have a choice...so I went. As soon as he walked away, tears just started rolling down my face. I wasn´t really even crying - it was just like this pain that had overcome my heart and the only way it was going to come out was through some never-ending tears rolling down my cheeks. We went back to the room, I packed up my stuff, and we left. The bus ride to Cieneguilla is like 2 hours, so I just sat there that whole time, with those broken-hearted tears rolling down my cheeks, thinking about our investigators, the families that we had come to know, and all that we had been planning to do. Maybe it sounds dramatic, but in that moment I just didn´t understand. I really didn´t. I was talking to God, just saying things like "Are you crazy? Seriously, are you crazy?" We teach people all the time that God has a plan for us, but in this moment, I just really didn´t get it.

To make the rest of this short, I just wanted to say that I figured it out. I learned more than I already have that really as missionaries WE DON´T DO ANYTHING. If He wanted to, God could just do all this stuff in 32 seconds. But He doesn´t. He gives us this year and a half or two years to learn and grow. He gives us the chance to know these people, He gives us this love that we feel for the people. It all comes from Him.

This scripture is what I read in Moroni in the Book of Mormon "I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite ^agoodness and ^bgrace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end."

I can´t be there forever. I can´t do everything. I´m just some weird American 20 year old, that walks around with ugly shoes and a backpack full of scriptures talking to people in broken spanish. The thing that actually matters is that the people we talk to can hear the message we have, and that we do all that we can to serve the people WHERE WE ARE, and do all we can. Take advantage of each moment that God has given us. 

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

Have a great week, and just know that you are always in my prayers.

I LOVE YOU!

Con amor,

Hermana Michelle Scott

Happy New Year!

HELLO FAMILY!! How are you all?? I hope that this week has been a good one, and that you passed the new year happily :)

 

This week has been kind of dificult out here. Well, acutally, it was one of the best weeks I´ve had. Which doesn´t really go together, but somehow that´s how it works.

 

This week, my companions and I really worked hard. The holidays had us in kind of a slump, and we hadn´t really had a lot going on because either people left to go party on the beach (I don´t blame them) or didn´t want to talk to a couple of gringas because they were hanging out with their families (again, I don´t blame them). We were kind of bummed becuase we just kind of felt like we hadn´t been able to do a whole lot. So we set some goals, and decided to just "go out and do the missionary work." BUT, there´s a little bit of an overlapping story...

 

So my first companion, Hermana Deoporto, and I had our problems. We loved each other, we worked hard together, we saw miracles together, and we had a great time together, but it was not an easy time for either of us. First of all, I didn´t speak any Spanish at the time but was still convinced that I knew everything and that everything should be done in my way, so that didn´t help very much. We defintely had our rough patches. Long nights, trying to work things out. Lots of goal setting, trying to overcome the challenges and trying to learn how to love each other and just focus on the things that really matter (AKA God and His children). I could see that she was struggling, but I don´t think I knew how to help her. We worked together a lot, and as my Spanish improved we were able to talk about a lot of things, but I think that there were a lot of things that got left unnoticed.

 

My current situation is that I am the companion of the "sister leaders." I don´t remember if I already explained this, but if not,every mission is broken up into "zones." For each zone, there are about 20+ ish missionaries, and there are 2 elders that are called Zone leaders. Recently, what the church has decided is that 20 year old men can´t always help 20 year old women with their problems (interestingly enough), so recently they have assigned sister leaders to be sort of like zone leaders for all the sister missionaries. In our mission, there are two companionships that are sister leaders, and I am just the companion of two of the sisters. I hope you're following me. So I am not a sister leader, but I am their companion, and so I obviously do everything with them and help them when I can with their responsibilities.

 

So why this is all important - as the companion of the sister leaders, I always know when people are stuggling, because they always know and are always working to figure it all out. But sadly, Hermana Deoporto has really started having problems, and just is sort of giving up little by little. She had told our mission president that she wanted to go home, and she was really going to do it, but he talked it through with her and she changed her mind. But recently things have gotten really bad....this week, we did a Little division. Since my companions and I are a group of 3, my companion Hermana Phillips went to their area to work with them. To make a long story short, Hna Deoporto just kind of had a break down last night. She started screaming (this is something that I have experienced before, and really, it is SCREAMING) at her companion, and my companion was there to see and hear all of it. She started packing her suitcases and said she was calling president to go home. We got a call at midnight telling us that she had settled down, but the moral of the story is that she is having a really hard time and no one really knows how to help.

 

I kind of blamed myself for a minute when all of this started happening. Like maybe I could have done something or said something to help. But I realized that I shouldn´t think that way. something that Hna Killian (my other comp) said the other day has just been replaying in my head... her friend told her this, but I feel this words in my heart whenever I read them -

 

"I´m on my mission to become someone new. If you´re thinking about where you've been and what you´ve done, you´re limiting your vision of what you can become."

 

Hermana Deoporto is a dear friend of mine. We have overcome our hard times and become friends. But I know that these words are true for me, and even though I know I have so much more to learn and so much more to do, I can feel myself changing. And the amazing thing is that Hermana Deoporto too has changed so much for the better. She just needs to see that, and believe that.

 

Thats the point of all of this. That our own thoughts, and our own actions are the things that keep us from having a bigger vision. A bigger vision of what we can become.

 

I´m out of time. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Know that I am thinking of you and I am always praying for you!!

 

Have a great week!

 

Mucho amor,

Hermana Scott