Prayer and happiness

TEMPERLEY — Hello and Happy Monday! 

It seems a little weird to be writing today, because I got to call home yesterday on Skype, but here I am in the cyber writing nevertheless :) Yesterday was SO good to talk to you all! I loved seeing your faces. So crazy but good! Happy Mothers day to my amazing mother, grandmothers and all you other moms out there! You are all special daughters of God!   

Hermana Newman Skyping on Mother's Day

I Skyped from my investigator's house. Her name is Débora. She is awesome!! Love that girl! She is 21 years old, and I am teaching her English as well as the gospel :) Perfect! Speaking of her, I have to tell you a quick little miracle. I wanted to tell you this yesterday on Skype but I didn’t want it to be weird that I was talking about her at her house.

Ok, so she is still a little embarrassed/nervous to pray out loud. We are working with her on it, but she doesn’t like to. She is awesome and praying every day, but silently. Well, she told me a little story yesterday that I loved! It was a miracle for me. 

A rainy day in Temperley

She said that this week she didn’t pray. (And it just so happened that we couldn’t teach her much this week.) But she came to church on Sunday again and liked it. She told me that one night, she just knew that she needed to pray. So, she asked her sister if she wanted to pray with her. Her sister said yes... then her brother asked them what they were doing so they invited him to pray, too. They were praying at nighttime and their mom heard them talking so she starts yelling ¨go to sleep, go to sleep. Then the mom called them on the phone to tell them to be quiet and go to sleep. She said to her mom, ¨mom, we are praying. ¨ Her mom began to weep with tears of joy at the beautiful sight of her kids praying together. 

I am amazed with them and was so happy to hear this tender mercy. It is yet another testimony to me that our Heavenly Father is real and that when someone feels the Holy Ghost with an open heart, they can't deny it and can only change and follow it more.

Service! They got to paint a fence

I hope you all know how much I love you! Sorry this is a short one again, but we got to get going to the church to play futbol! :) I hope you all have a fabulous week! More adventures to come I am sure!

Love ya,  Tear it up!

-Hermana Newman

Have I done any good? Service, sincerity, and the Atonement

COLUMBIA, Md. — Well, here we go. Starting off yet another week. Week 6 of the transfer. Yikes! :) Transfers are next week. If I don’t have my visa by next week I will be lucky enough to spend my 5th transfer here in Columbia, Maryland! 

This week has flown by (most do for me here on a mission). We had tons going on this week. Lots of activities, service opportunities, church, normal lessons and mission conference. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you about everything, because that would just take forever and a day and I don’t think I can type fast enough for that. SO I will tell you bits and pieces of my week. All summed up ... It was wonderful!

When you get bored in companionship study, you balance books on your head while studying your language.

We started the week off with Elder Carlson (of the 70) and his wife coming for a mission tour and having mission conference with us. WOW! What a powerful speaker and motivator he is. I got so many wonderful insights and I just love personal revelation. I am sure every single one of us missionaries there got something different from his message, but all directed to us personally by the Spirit! 

I was going to tell you about some of my favorite parts and what he said, but like a silly girl, I left my notebook in the car :/ bummer. But I will try next week to bring it and share some of his thoughts. But yes... just fabulous!

Saturday we started the morning off my doing service! Yep... I am going to say it again. I LOVE service! It was kind of funny because the whole time I was just thinking about Mom and Brittany. The reason why? Because I was stuck inside cleaning when I wanted to be outside: P 

I wanted to rake leaves and help with the outdoors stuff, but we were asked to help in the kitchen. Good thing my mama and sis taught me how to clean real good because I spent the next hour or so on hands and knees scrubbing the tile. Feels good to get down and do some service. If you want to feel good and happy in your life (which I would assume you all do) GO SERVE SOMEONE!

Saturday night we had an activity with our investigators and some people in our branch. Marcos, our branch mission leader, thought it would be good for our branch to know our investigators. So each investigator was invited to a member’s home for dinner to chat and get to know each other. Then after, we all met up at the church to watch a movie (Finding Faith in Christ) and have dessert.

It went soooooo well! Our investigators came and loved it. They loved the branch and seemed to have a great time. Well, even better, they came to church on Sunday. It’s amazing what a little love and friendship can do.

Every Tuesday, we have our District meeting. As part of it, we go around sharing our miracles of the week. We see soooo many miracles in the Gospel. So since today is Tuesday, I would like to share Hermana Crotzer and my miracle of the week. The Riveras :) 

Oh if you could only see my face right now. I just can’t stop smiling. I have been working with these girls since I got here. Their Mom is a less active of many years. She was baptized when she was 9 and fell away at age 11. Anyways, our goal has been to really get them involved in the branch and Young Women’s. Well let me tell you — it worked. 

This week, we forgot to remind the girls about mutual but guess what? They went, even without us reminding them. Then on Saturday, they went to the dinner and movie activity at the church. And to top it all off, they came to church and stayed for all 3 hours on Sunday! Bah! 

I have been here a long time for sure. And I am not sure why I am still here, but I know this family has got to be one of the reasons! I need them, and they need me. The oldest daughter we are inviting to baptism and setting a date for hopefully this month. :) I love seeing miracles.

What happens when you serve in a stateside Spanish mission: country pride for all sorts of countries.

One of my favorite things about serving a mission is watching people change. I get to watch people change and use the Atonement of Jesus Christ all the time. It has helped me to understand the importance of the Atonement and why we all need to use it daily. If you don’t have a testimony of your Savior and what He did for you personally, I beg you to go pray! Go pray and ask for the confirmation. I testify that God lives, He loves us. He gave us a plan to return. Central to that plan is Jesus Christ. I know He died for me personally and you all as well. This Gospel is real. It takes work but it is worth it! God promises us all He has if we follow our Savior Jesus Christ.

This letter is getting long, so I will stop now. I hope you all know how much I love being a missionary. No matter whether it is here in Maryland, down in Argentina, or back home in Utah, once a missionary, always a missionary. Go out and find your missionary moment.

Love you with all my heart! Have a great week!

Con Amor,

-Hermana Newman :)

The Miracle of Mutual and ward involvement

COLUMBIA, Md. — Well Hello. It is another great Monday here Maryland. I hope you all are doing well wherever you may be today :) I am thinking of you and love you lots!

MIRACLE OF THE WEEK:  Let me first start off by saying I love Mutual (A weekly gathering or activity for Mormon teens during the week)! Always have, always will! :) Thank you to all my leaders for making mutual a wonderful experience. I know it is not easy. BUT it is powerful and definitely brings blessings and miracles. 

Hermanas Crotzer y Newman with a recent convert who moved from Texas

We have been working with the Rivera family for a very long time. They are doing well, but need to be putting in a little more effort. They are a part-member family. The mom is a less active and the girls are our investigators. We have been struggling knowing how to help them progress. Well, Mutual was the Key. 

We invited them to Mutual and wanted them to get involved. The first week, we invited they didn’t come. Second week, same thing. The third week... they came. And as a result, they went to the Young Women’s campout this weekend and came to church on Sunday! One of the girls was telling me all about church and what she learned and how much she loved it. She is excited to come to Mutual tomorrow and start volleyball with the branch this weekend. MIRACLE right there. 

This helped my testimony grow of ward support. When the branch/wards are involved, that’s when things happen, that’s when the work moves forward and people can progress. Don’t know how to do missionary work? Invite a friend to church or an activity! Easy as that. They will feel something just from being in the church or being around members. It works! I promise. People have agency and can and will say no sometimes, but it never hurts to try and more often than not, people are willing to come to do something fun or learn something new.

 Challenge: Give it a try this week! Invite someone to church or an activity. Let me know how it goes :) I am excited to hear your miracles.

Hermana Newman ready to pull some weeds!

I have been asking a lot of people about General Conference lately and what themes they noticed, which talks were their favorites, etc. Conference is amazing and everyone likes different talks by different people, which is good because we all have different questions and need different things in our lives. But I noticed a lot of people mentioning how much they liked Elder Dube's talk. That talk was really hard for me to understand because of the interpreter in Spanish and the dubbing was not done super well for his. I decided this week I would go back and reread his talk. And yes, it was pretty great! :) The message in all was great but a few things stuck out to me that I would like to share with you all.

 "In the sight of the Lord, it is not so much what we have done or where we have been but, much more where we are willing to go."

"In the service of the Lord, it is not where you serve, but how."

"The past is to be learned from but not lived in."

"Our common goal is building the Kingdom of God.

I wrote these quotes down and really have been thinking about them a lot this week. Where am I willing to go and do?  Am always looking forward or dwelling on the past? Am I learning form the past? How am I building up the Kingdom of God? These are just a few of the questions I have been asking myself, and I invite you to ask yourself as well and evaluate accordingly.

Time is up so I better go. Remember I love you and am praying for you! Thanks for your love and support :) Have a wonderful week. Smile and laugh lots!

Con Amor,

Hermana Newman :)