!El Poder de Su Mensaje!

There were a lot of changes this week. We have a new Ward Mission Leader. He seems really excited about the work and has a good plan to help the members be more involved in finding people for the missionaries to teach. He said that it is the members responsibility to find people, and the missionaries job to teach. When the members are finding people there is so much more success. I have seen that a lot so far in my mission. People are a lot more willing to listen when they have a friend who is a member. 

Our area has been picking up a lot, but we had a singles group in our ward for a while and just this last Sunday we found out that they are not doing it anymore. The five top progressing investigators right now are between the age of 18 and 25 which means that we might need to send them all to the singles ward missionaries. We will see what happens though. I guess it doesn't matter which missionaries are teaching them as long as they get to hear the Gospel from someone. We would definitely miss teaching them though. I haven't been able to work with very many young single adults so these last few weeks have been fun. 

This week we had dinner with all of the Elders in our district at a member in the wards house. One of the Elders in our distract was giving the message and he was having a really hard time with the Spanish and saying what he wanted to. He was super nervous. Right when he finished talking, the room started shaking (There was an earthquake) Everyone was silent so then I said, wow, el poder de su mensaje! (the power of his message!) Everyone started laughing because the timing of the earthquake was so perfect. 

This week we went on exchanges. Sister Barlow came with me to our area for the day. We taught a few lessons together early in the day but that night we were street contacting and knocking doors. We started talking to these two guys sitting outside, then shared the message of the restoration with them. Before we left I asked if we could leave them with a prayer.

They asked how long it would take and my companion thought that they asked how long we are missionaries for. She told them that we do it for a year and a half. Then the guys eyes got all big and they thought we wanted to pray for a year and a half so then they said no. It was so funny. Then I told them that it would just be a couple of minutes. They all started laughing. It was so funny! I love trying to learn Spanish. We make mistakes all of the time but definitely learn from them. It is still hard for me to speak but I still have half of my mission to work on it. :) 

This week we found a girl about 18 years old who invited us in her house. She loved the message and invited us to come back the next day. We went the next day and she invited us back again the day after. When we came the third day her mom and dad were there. Her mom was really open to the message but her dad was very Catholic and didn't want to listen to us. He sat in on the lesson with his Bible in his hand trying to convince us that there is no more scripture then the Bible. When we were talking he would listen which was good, but really only was there to prove us wrong. Then we invited them to pray at the end of the lesson and in the dads prayer he asked to bless my companion and I that everyone in the world would listen to our message. We were so confused. Haha. 

Anyway, I am so grateful to be a missionary. I am so excited for Eric to leave on his mission soon. Just remember that when it gets hard, it will always be so worth it!! :)

She Came!

Dearest family,

We had a another great week our here in California! :) We have started teaching a friend of one of our members this week. We love member missionaries! She has problems with depression right now and really wants to change her life around. The hardest commitment that we have with our investigators is getting them to church. We invited her, and she came! We were really excited. We have an appointment with her again tonight, so we will see if she has been keeping her other commitments like reading and praying. 

This weekend was pretty crazy, El Obispo called me Saturday night and asked me to give a talk the next morning since it was the 5th Sunday. Did you have a missionary Sunday in your ward too? Two of the Elders spoke as well. I was nervous when I was preparing because I didn't have a lot of time and it was in Spanish, but it actually went well. He asked me to speak about loving the people who I serve. I talked about the story in the Book of Mormon of Ammon serving the king and how the king had a change of heart. I also talked about our Savior who was the perfect example of loving and serving the people, and I shared some personal experiences. We also got to teach the young women too! We spoke about missionary work and hopefully got them excited to share the gospel with their friends. 

Last Monday night we were tracting and we found this guy who said he had been praying for someone to come tell him what to do with his life. We taught the first lesson about the restoration of the Gospel and he started to tear up. We explained to him that feelings that he was having were the spirit testifying that these things were true. He told us that he was going to read the Book of Mormon in one week and was so excited. He kept saying that this was an answer to his prayers. We are worried though because he doesn't have a lot of time to meet with us at all, and he told us that the people he's living with are very Catholic and do not want him looking into another church. He said he couldn't meet for our last appointment, but rescheduled for this Saturday. We are praying that he will remember this feelings that he had. I know that he felt the spirit, but at the same time I know that Satan is working on him too.  I know that the Gospel will change his life for the better if he lets it. I am so grateful to be out here doing this work. I am so blessed to have the knowledge I do about the Gospel. I love being a missionary!!

Eric, thats awesome that your going to the temple soon! It's the best! Curty, stop getting tan. I am trying to get tanner than you but I don't think its working. And that's sweet that you got to play the bugle, you're a stud. Mom, thanks for the package. I got it last Monday after we emailed so I couldn't thank you for it yet, but it was the best!!! Oh, and I haven't heard about the gang riots. Oh dad, you should get a www.mormon.org profile. It's a good way to share your testimony, help others with questions that they have about the church and be a missionary. Mom you can too if you want. 

Love you all so much! :) 

Bye bye.

Orange County

Hola! My first week in the mission field has been great! My companions are both awesome and help me out so much. I am assigned to the Orange city area at least for my first 12 weeks. There is a 12 week training program for missionaries now that I am doing which helps out a lot with the language.

There are a bunch of different steps you take each week. Last week I was supposed to extend the baptismal invitations and all of us were supposed to take turns contacting people. This week I get to lead the first lesson when we teach it. It's really good because it pushes me to really pay attention and be involved when we teach.

I love the area a lot. The people here are awesome. I love them so much already. Almost everyone we talk to are Catholic and right when we say anything about Jesus Christ they open right up and want to talk to you. It's so crazy. The people here like to learn but it is hard to get them to keep their commitments, and it's really hard to get the to actually come to church which is really important.

Church was great but I could not understand very much at all. One of the few things I understood was "Now our new missionary Hermana Layton will come up and share her testimony." Hahaa! So funny. It didn't surprise me though because we had dinner at the first counselors house the night before and he didn't think I could understand him when he told my companions that he would have me bear my testimony, but I could. Haha!

The members are great and they have us over for dinner almost every night. Usually the Mexican food is really good but there was one night where they fed us pig skin and something else really strange. We have a BBQ outside of our apt, so when we don't have an appointment to go to we like to go outside. The weather is great during the day but cools down some as it gets later.

One of my companions really likes cooking. She loves making us breakfast. She's made pancakes, french toast, eggs, and biscuits and gravy since I've been here. Then my other companion and I do the dishes. Today we have a zone activity and guess what we are doing! All of the Elder wanted to play soccer!! Wooo! So excited since I couldn't play when I was at the MTC. I love being a missionary. It is hard sometimes but so worth it! :)

I love you guys and tell Sean that I felt so bad that I couldn't talk to him on the phone. Love you all so much!

Adios! :)