"Hermana usted vale dos. Y si sigue a comer así, ay..." - Bishop trying to make a fat joke.

Hola Hola Hola,

 A few items of business first off: 

1. Last week the power went out in the internet café as we were writing emails and we had to start proselyting at 6 so I didn’t have lots of time to reply to emails.

2. Por favorrrrrr send your emails before 9 am on Mondays because we usually print out our emails to read at 9:30ish and from here on out I’m going to wait till the next week to reply if you reply after we print because I don’t have enough time to read the emails during writing time! We only really get like 45 minutes after the other stuff that we have to do in our hour. Gracias!

Okay this week flewwwww by but some things from la semana:

* We went to Cambios on Tuesday (even thought we didn’t have transfers) and I got to see Hermana Peterson and Hermana SELLERS! I was so happy because I didn’t expect to see them there since none of us have transfers until the next cambios. Also I realized at Cambios that like 80% of the American missionaries here are blonde...

* We had a zone meeting on Wednesday. In our zone there are 6 Hermanas, 18 Elders, and  a senior couple. Out of all the missionaries (besides the senior couple) I am the only American Hermana so that’s pretty neat I guess.

* I had to give a talk on Sunday... and they told me about it on Friday afternoon... Ahh if you know me well you know how much talking in front of people scares me. And on top of it being a talk, of course it was in Spanish. So that made it even worse! Also, 6 of our investigators were at church on Sunday so even more pressure to be powerful haha. It went pretty well except for the fact that my voice was all shaky because I was so nervous. But all the members said it was good so phew!

* We have been eating SO much lately. The past couple days I have literally almost thrown up while taking a bite of food, from being so full. And the other day Hermana Lopez said my face and lips were all white and that I looked like I was going to pass out towards the end of one of the meals, haha.

* Remember Patricia’s (our newest convert) daughter Marta and her "husband" Jose Eduardo? (The are the parents of Victoria who is getting baptized on Friday.) Well finally Jose agreed to a baptismal date!!!  Ahh we were seriously so happy! He was soo stubborn but finally he came to us and realized how important baptism is and said he wanted to be baptized. We invited Marta to be baptized after that and she said she wants to but she’s going to pray about it. But we’re thinking it’s going to be a yes. We have seen so much progress in their family it’s incredible. And their 3 kids all love us and always draw pictures for me when we come to teach lessons haha. We’re so excited to see them progress more.

* All the members have been telling me how much my Spanish has improved from the first day when I knew like nothing and they’ve been saying how good it’s gotten so I guess that’s good right?

* I just found out on Sunday that there’s this group of people that lives like 3

streets down from us called the Panchitos who like killing, raping, and robbing people... sweeeeeet. (Mom please don’t worry or say anything about it to anyone of authority because if for any reason we get transferred from this area because of it I will cry.)

* Yesterday we had to walk about .75 mile in the POURING rain and when we finally got to the bishop’s house all my makeup was washed off and I felt like I just got out of the shower. So they gave us sweats to wear for the rest of the night and it was awesome. I´m sending the before and after pictures haha.

Okay, I’m going to take some time to be a little serious and spiritual...  I want all of you to know that even though this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I know that this is where I’m supposed to be. I have learned and grown so much. My patience, tolerance, and capacity to love have been so strenghtened and I feel more spiritually strong than ever. I have had to put ALL my trust in the Lord and He has not disappointed me once. My testimony of the gospel has never been stronger. I want you all to know that I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It is the word of God. It goes hand in hand with the Bible and is another testament of Jesus Christ. I know that we are in the last dispensation of the gospel. I know that through Joseph Smith, Christ restored His church on the Earth and that is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a living prophet of God. I have gained a testimony of the fact that this life really is the time to prepare to meet God. If you don’t feel like you have a relationship with God, build one. Pray. Read scriptures. Go to church. Put your trust in Him and build your faith. We don’t have to be perfect. Our best is enough for God. We can always repent, change our lives, and come closer to Him. We can never fall far enough to be out of reach of His love. I know with all my heart that my Redeemer lives. He has already paid for my sins and pains, and all of your as well. All we have to do is come unto Him. I hope that you will take these words to heart and act on them because I´m telling all of you these things bluntly because I love you. I leave you with these things in Jesus’ name, amen.

I love, miss, and appreciate you all so much. I hope you all have an amazing week(:

Love always,

Hermana Eyring

Zona Chiauhtempan Oeste (My current mission zone.)

(Before) Vida misional

(After) With the Bishop's wife's sweats (:

Meeting up with Hermana Lopez's companion before me.

“Yo sé con todo mi FREAKING corazón”

Well tomorrow I officially start my 2nd transfer in the field! Crazy! This week was pretty eventful but I´m going to try to keep it short because I have tons of emails to write this week.

On Monday we were rushing to appointments after we emailed and it was raining and we were walking through the mud to get to one of our appointments and Hermana Lopez fell and hurt her ankle that she already hurt 2 months ago. Then  this random man that appeared helped us walk her to the investigator’s house that we were going to and they did all this weird Mexican "massage" (torture) treatment on her and she was like screaming. Finally when everything calmed down and we were about to leave I felt super sick and lightheaded and everyone said my face was completely white and my lips were like green and I don’t remember actually passing out but I’m pretty sure I did because I didn’t remember at all some of the things that they told me happened. SO yeah, wooh exciting.

The other day this man started trying to talk to me in English then started telling me that our Presidents of the US commit genocide and stuff and I was like uhhh what the heck, gotta go bye. Yeah, some people are super weird about Americans.

Here it´s totally okay to call people fat, that they look bad, etc. And people call each other whities, brownies, blackies, etc.

Everyone in my ward and all my investigators have been telling me that when I get married I have to send them wedding invitations because I guess that makes it super easy for them to come to the US so basically at my wedding there’s gonna be a ton of Mexicans.

On Tuesday we were coming home from an activity with our ward mission leader and his family in a combi and he was trying to get me to teach him English and it was super funny. Everyone in the combi was laughing and listening to us and it was so much fun. The people’s accents here when they speak English are hilarious.

On Thursday we had intercambios, which is exchanges with other missionaries so Hermana Lopez left our area with one of our training leaders and I stayed in our area with our American training leader. I was super nervous about it because I still wasn’t sure if I knew the area and we had to go to some far places but everything turned out super well and my Spanish was super good that day and yeah. But we have to take a combi all the way into the city then another from the city to our house at night because the easier way is too dangerous. And I kinda forgot how to get to the combi that takes us home from the city and I was pretty sure we were lost. I had just finished praying that we would get home safely and then right as we were walking past a Pan Dulces place, the aunt of one of the members in our ward who we had met a few times walked out at the perfect timing and offered to give us a ride to our house. Such a blessing and tender mercy! And we got back exactly in time.

We have mold like all over our house so that’s pretty neat

On Saturday we had Patricia’s baptism and it went SO well. Hermana Lopez, myself and 8 Elders sang a musical number of a mix of “I Need Thee Every Hour” and “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” and it was so powerful and Patricia was crying and ah it was awesome. Her daughter and her daughter’s "esposo" who we are teaching came just in time for the actual baptismal ordinance so that was awesome. We are so happy for her and her granddaughter Victoria is being baptized on the 24th.

It’s a fact that all the Hermanas in our mission are permanently bloated from the food. It's so uncomfortable.

Yesterday we were walking and this old guy in the streets was like "niñas! niñas!" So we stopped and talked to him and he was soo drunk... you could smell the alcohol from like a mile away and his eyes were all glazed over and he was talking super weirdly and like telling us where his house was so we could teach him and we were like welp okay... haha.

We committed 2 of our harder investigators who are living together but not married to a date for marriage! Wooh! They have been living together for 3 years but have never gotten married because they’re apprehensive about it but they agreed to a date and hopefully we’re going to set a baptismal date soon! (They are the parents of Victoria and the woman is the daughter of Patricia.)

I love you all so much and am so grateful, once again, for all the love and support! And sorry again if I haven’t gotten to your email. Sometimes they get lost in translation too, so if it’s been a long time and I haven’t responded, yell at me or resend the email haha. I hope you all have a fantastic week(: 

Hermana Eyring

PS - I tried to send a video so you could remember my voice but the file is too big. :(

Patricia's baptism!

Our amiga Gaby. She is in our stake and preparing for a 

mission and loves coming with us to appointments.

Our classic "in the font" picture. (:

Peace, bipolars!

Ayayay!

Today we took a trip to a place called Cacaxtla to see museums and pyramids and it took way longer than expected so we’re super flustered trying to email and such. We might be finishing tomorrow but I’m not sure, so I’m sorry if I can’t get to many emails this week :(

We are so tired because we had to walk so much and basically hike a mountain in our skirts to get to the pyramids. There were huge weird looking colorful spiders EVERYWHERE and we had to like trek through the wilderness. I have a lot of photos but I’m not sure how many I’ll be able to upload.

Anyways my random things about this week:

*General Conference was so good! I got to watch it with all the American missionaries in the stake center. There were about 5 Hermanas and 7 Elders and it was fun being with them and being able to speak English and everything. There’s something about watching conference as a missionary and with other missionaries that makes it even more powerful. I don’t know about any of you but all of us missionaries are thinking something big is about to happen because of how much the talks were focused on the prophet and sustaining him and trusting in him.

*Some things I learned from conference:

1. Sometimes when we help people they have bad intentions or take advantage of it but it’s not their intentions that matter, it’s about ours and our willingness to serve.

2. We need to consider our options and make our choices with the end in mind.

3. Do what you can, that is enough for God.

*Also I really liked this quote from C.S. Lewis in Lynn G Robbin’s talk, “Courage… is the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

*My favorite talks were by D. Todd Christofferson, Jörg Klebingat, Jeffrey R. Holland, Thomas S. Monson, Carlos A. Godoy, and David A. Bednar.

*So we get to see the Elders in our zone and some from the next closest zone all the time and it’s super cool! There are like 18 missionaries that go to the same church building as us (about 6 per ward), so it’s fun. The missionaries in my mission are awesome! Especially the ones from the Dominican Republic, they are really funny and there are 4 of them in my stake.

*I’m pretty sure there’s mold growing in our house and every time we walk into it, it feels super humid and just wet and I hate it. Also for the past few days most of the time we haven’t had water in the sinks or in the toilet to flush it... And the water for showering has either been cold or way too hot. Life in Mexico I guess.

*I’m starting to like Mexican rap/R&B songs that I hear in the combis or on the streets. Help me!

*I’m probably jinxing myself for saying this but I’ve been liking the food for the past few weeks!

*Here they have this apple soda called Manzanita Sol and it’ so good!

*There are 3 types of transportation we use depending on how far where we’re going. Combis (which I have described before), camiones (like a glorified combi, kind of a step between a combi and an autobus. It can sometimes be the worst thing of my life because it literally feels like you’re going over a speed bump every 5 seconds and that is not an exaggeration.) and autobuses. (Heaven!)

*Scriptures that get me through: 

Isaiah 41:10,13; John 14:18,27; D&C 100:12; D&C 121:7-9

I hope you all are doing well and that those of you who watched conference were able to get a lot out of it because I definitely did! I’m doing great and time is going by fast. I can’t believe my first transfer ends after this week! I think about all of you all the time, and even if I don’t have time to email you back I still read every single one of your emails every week because we get to print them out Monday mornings to read them before we email back. So I promise I still love you even if I haven’t written back in a little while!

Have a great week everyone! (:

Nos vemos,

Hermana Eyring

Saw and walked through webs of like a billion of these on our hike today. I hate spiders!

We got to eat subway in between conference sessions on Saturday and I was so freaking happy!

At the top of one of the Pyramids.

"Pues, bueeeeno" (A phrase we say like 1000 times per day.)

Hola! I feel like I just wrote like yesterday haha.

Okay my mind is super jumbled and blown because we just got done watching “Saratov Approach” with some of the members in our ward. For those of you who don’t know, the movie is a true story about two Mormon missionaries who were kidnapped and held for ransom in Russia. Holy cow. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. Their story and the faith they had is amazing. If I were in their place I could not have done what they did. Hermana Lopez and I both cried at the end and had chills the whole time.

Okay, ANYWAYS. My random things from this week:

*I got to see my friends from the MTC a lot this week! On Tuesday all of us had to go to Puebla to sign papers for our visas so we got to see each other and we were in the offices talking for a good hour. After that Hermana Lopez  and I went with my friend from the MTC Elder Estes and his companion Elder Perez to Dominoes and had pizza! I cannot tell you how happy I was to eat pizza. Oh my gosh! It was super fun and Elder Perez speaks really good English so it’s funny to hear him say random phrases that he’s learned.

*I got to see Hermana Peterson and Elder Jarman on Friday at a fireside that Pres. Christensen gave so that was fun.

*On Saturday we had a meeting with trainers and new missionaries so all my MTC friends were there and it was a fun reunion again and the meeting was super good!

*On Tuesday when we got back from Puebla and after the ward missionary activity, we played basketball with the ward and it was super fun. Somehow I was actually doing well and making baskets... that’s a first. But yeah I jammed my thumb pretty bad and it still hurts but whatever.

*One day this week we had 3 La Comidas (our main meal of the day) in 1 day. We thought we were going to die, oh my gosh. We had La Comida then at the 2 other appointments we had afterwards both families offered us La Comida and wouldn’t let us refuse. Somehow I finished all of the food from all 3 La Comidas. I have no idea how because I think I almost exploded.

*When it rains here, it rains HARD. There are no drains in the streets so they turn into rivers. It rained super hard the other day and we had a movie scene moment: We were walking on the side of the road and this man drove directly through a puddle right by us and splashed water all over us. It was just great...

*We figured out the other day that the granddaughter (who we´ve taught a little bit) of our golden investigator Patricia wants to be baptized! She wants to be baptized the same day as Patricia so we have to teach her everything super fast cause it’s in like 2 weeks.

*This week we found 4 new investigators who are all awesome!

*Also this week we committed 3 more people to baptism and we are so happy for them. It felt so good having them accept the invitation that I made.

*When you don’t have a ton of variety of food in the apartment you have to get creative... so one of my new favorite breakfast items is bread with peanut butter and Honey Bunches of Oats sprinkled on top. It’s so good haha.

*Everybody, whether you are Mormon or not; go read or listen to the the talk “His Grace Is Sufficient” by Brad Wilcox. It is sooo good and explains the Atonement of Jesus Christ so well.

*Here, whenever something hurts they blame it on the fact that it’s cold outside... I don’t know if that’s a fact but it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of it.

*The Bishop´s family has become like our family here. I love going to their house and their daughters are super fun. Their son (who just had his 9th birthday party which was super fun) is like our little brother, he´s awesome.

*I’ve learned to appreciate my patriarchal blessing SO much. It gives me so much comfort and makes me so excited for my future.

*So the Women´s session of General Conference was on Saturday. Obviously I had to watch it in English but my companion didn’t want to go to the stake center where they were showing it in English, so some of the Elders were working SO hard so I could watch it on a computer or anything but it didn’t end up working and I felt bad that they worked so hard for nothing. But I got to watch most of it last night so that was good. I´m super excited for General Conference this weekend!

*The daughter of one our investigators has decided that I’m her new English teacher and whenever we’re teaching lessons she will randomly blurt out questions asking me how to say certain things. It´s really funny but really distracting.

*Pretty sure I ate chicken throat the other day.

*I contacted a whole combi the other day with 12 people in it. It was awesome.

*I almost got hit by a motorcycle so that’s pretty cool... I could literally feel him ride past me.

I was looking through the 2 photo albums I have the other day and it made me smile so much and remember all the great memories I’ve had with all of you. I miss you all and love you so much! I´m super, super thankful for all your love and support. Hope you all have a wonderful week. (:

Con todo mi corazón, 

Hermana Eyring

This was super early in the morning so I look really tired! This is my 2 year-old BFF Samy.

Domino's! My first pizza since I've been in Mexico.

Nobody here can cross their eyes and since I'm the only person who can, they call it 

the "Hermana Eyring face" and it's really funny to see them try to do it. Haha