Arlington; Sunnyside Branch - Week 9

28 October 2019

This week was pretty awesome!!! Filled with some whack experiences, too. Haha. Alright fam, LET'S GET TO IT.

I Got Asked Out on a Date:
Lol so during finding time I got asked out on a date. I know. Lol. We street contacted this guy that seemed super interested in the Book of Mormon (I honestly think he really is) and we were telling him about it and how it's the reason we're serving missions and then he was like asking us if we could date during the mission and we were like lol NO. And explained how we have all these rules and he was like. You guys are totally worth waiting for. I would wait 18 months to date you which is sweet and all but this guy was like mid 30's. Lol, I was shook. We sent the story to the district and Elder Helms sent this meme:

100 DAYS:
Wednesday was my 100 day mark in the mission. I know. Lol I made it folks. If I can do 100, I can do like 400 more. Anyway. Hermana Luker and I SENT IT and got Panda Express and it was the best night if my life. We watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" while we ate Panda. Almost felt like home again. Casi.

CRAZY LADY:
Okay to make a long story short I talked to maybe the most actually insane person I've ever met in front of Sister Auna and now she loves me. Lol. This homeless person came into the church during interviews to use the bathroom and then came out and asked us if we were the Mormon church. I did the whole "Church of Jesus Christ" shpeel and then she was like. Oh, well one time I tried to go into one of your church buildings and you didn't let me in. So THEN I did the whole temple shpeel. Then she was asking me if there were pelicans in Utah. Then she started talking about some whack island that Charlee Scheen's dad made a movie on and how every day since the 80's the virgin Mary has appeared to someone and been like "Yo WHACK stuff is about to happen." And how she's starting a non-profit for it and she told us what the website was and I was like, "Here's a card with our website on it where you can find all the answers. You should check out the Book of Mormon app, too, have a great day." And now sister Auna thinks I'm a legend. She called me poised. Lol.

DEREK:
This was SUCH an amazing experience. Hermana Luker and I received a referral to a place we had been tracting last week and didn't finish, so we headed back for finding time. We ended up talking to our referral and she said she was taking lessons with the JW's, but I didn't understand, so I taught her all about the BoM while she waited patiently. I bore my testimony, gave her a BoM and we left. Pretty sure we won't get a call from her at least in this transfer, but we went on tracting.

And let me tell you, tracting like the white missionaries do it is BIEN DIFICIL. People yelling at us constantly and talking about how their life sucks, but then wanting nothing to do with Christ when we tell them he can make a difference. TANTO DIFICIL. #respect to all these state-siders out here. So I'm feeling discouraged and frustrated about everything and just praying constantly for the faith to find, and we come to this door and have a really meaningful contact with a man named Victor. He was so excited and got emotional when we showed him El Vive. 10/10. Made him a friend. And we kept trucking on with hope. 7:00 came along and my companion wasn't doing too hot and just wanted to go home, but there were 3 doors left. I said, "Let's just do these few and then we can leave." As we passed the one we planned on knocking last we saw this big burly white dude inside and Hna Luker was like, "whelp we def don't have to do that one." We knocked the other 2 doors and had 2 great meaningful contacts. As we were walking back (in the pitch dark, mind you) I was like, let's just knock this door really quick. Lol and let me tell you my comp was NOT happy about it. She was like, "we can either end the night on a good note or we can knock." But I went stomping on and knocked. I see his big burly shadow emerging from the hall through the window and IMMEDIATELY I was thinking "WHAT did I DO?" This dude is terrifying and we're going to die right here on his doorstep.

And then...
He answered the door.

He was like, "Well hi there, how are you doing!? Let me turn the porchlight on."
HE WAS SO NICE. And he kept being nice to us after we said we were missionaries. We told him about Christ and his atonement and that He loves him and this guy starts BAWLING. I'm talking about tears streaming down his face, can't speak he's so emotional. Immediately I just started testifying about how God has a plan for HIM and how the BoM will bring him closer to Christ than any other book. I gave him a book of Mormon and finally, he said "I really needed you guys tonight." He went on to tell us that he works nights at the casino and today is his only day off and if we could meet next week that would be amazing.
I've knocked on that door 3 times before with no answer. GOD IS MINDFUL OF US. HE MAKES THINGS HAPPEN SO THE ELECT ARE FOUND. Get freakin' recked. I've never been so happy in my life. We got in the car and I just screamed at the top of my lungs, "FOURTH FLOOR, LAST DOOR SUCKA'!!" A miracle.

SOCCER:
Our branch started doing these soccer nights to encourage less-actives and friends to come and to build fellowship in the ward and it was super fun. All of the Hermanas just sit on the stage and cheer everyone on, but Hermana Luker and I play and every time one of us gets the ball they're always like, "Si Hermana! Como asi! Fortaleza! MIEDOOO!!!" Anyway it's good fun and I scored a goal, but I definitely biffed it in the gym and popped one of my ribs out of place, so RIP. I'mma need some more workouts from Kev. Haha. We had bacon-wrapped hot dogs, donuts, chips, and jamaica!! The people out in Washington know how to eat, fam.

7th Day Adventist:
Hermana Luker and I headed up to Granite Falls to spend the day because we had 2 lessons planned and it's 30 minutes away so it's kinda a whole day adventure. (I've only been there once before). So we pull up to this ghost town out in the boonies and knock on our first appointment and... 

we got stood up.😭😭😭

So then we stopped at Shell to get some caffeine to get us through the next 3 hours of weekly planning and finding we were about to do. After that, we had an awesome appointment with some Seventh-day Adventists we've been teaching. They fed us enchiladas and we laughed and enjoyed and then we taught our lesson. Then she showed us a really crappily dubbed over 40-minute long video in Spanish about all of the evidence towards the sabbath day being Saturday, but how at the end of the day it is just a day out of seven and we were like...

?

????????

??????????????????????

Because the video just basically said it didn't matter what day we have the sabbath on and the family is really held up on this SILLY little thing and none of the answers we find satisfy them. BUT they're awesome and we love them, so we watch the weird vids they show us. They also gave us the journal of the chick that started their church and I promised her I'd read it after my mission. So yeah! Fun times in Granite Falls.

ACCIDENTAL RHYME:
So we were in this contact with a guy that legit thought he was the moral compass of the world and we were talking about all of this stuff and I can't remember why, but I ended up just blurting out, "We share the SAME gospel at every door, from the rich of the rich to the poor of the poor." And then I was like, "wait, did I just rhyme?" Anyway. That was WHACK, y'all. He really liked us, but he wasn't tryina' learn.

AUGGA
I'm living the boujee life out here in Washington. Not even going to lie, the members we live with are my favorite part of Washington. They always give us food, ALWAYS. They always talk to us about normal stuff that makes me feel like a real person again, and they make us feel like part of the fam. I'm going to miss them so much when I leave this area.😪 Anyway, peep the actual Chinese FEAST Augga made for us on Saturday. They also gave us chocolate strawberries and grapes and cheese and crackers. The boujee life. Lol.

Hopefully my emails are a little more entertaining with these little experiences!! Haha. I'm going to try to start doing this every week.

Other than all that jazz, we have the baptism of Miguel this week!!!! I am so excited and so proud of him. He was SO ready to hear the gospel when we started teaching him and I'm honestly just so excited and grateful that I've been able to teach him this whole time, from the first lesson to the baptism. It's crazy to see how the gospel changes people's lives. We were talking yesterday and Miguel told me, "When you first taught me you promised me that God would answer my questions and I was like '¿how? He's just going to talk to me or something, yeah right' and then I opened the Book of Mormon, and the answers came." I know that God is mindful of us and that he listens to and answers our prayers. This Gospel has the power to change your life. It really does. But, maybe even more valuable than that is the power the atonement of Jesus Christ had to change our hearts. He's waiting for us with open arms, we just have to be willing to let him change us.

I know this Gospel is true, fam. I wouldn't be out here in Washington grinding every day only 15 hours away from my house if it wasn't, so do me a favor, if you aren't 100% in just FREAKING do it. As Elder Rasband said in this past conference, "FREAKING YEET WHATEVER GARBAGE IS HOLDING YOU BACK INTO THE WATERFALL AND COMMIT." We don't need lukewarm people in this gospel. We need YOU and we need ALL OF YOU. You will be blessed beyond your wildest imagination as you sacrifice things of no eternal importance to the Lord. I promise you.

I love you guys! 

Hermana Jimenez

PS: Someone PLEASE go to Chick-fil-A for me. Haha.

Oh also I dropped my phone and it hit the side of the curb completely shattering the screen protector. So it's great that I had another one!!! 

Woohoo for blessings. Haha.

Arlington; Sunnyside Branch - Week 8

21 October 2019

Sorry I missed a week we were wildin' out here. Things are great in Washington. It rains every day and it's starting to get really cold, but people respect us a lot more when we're out knocking, so that's awesome!

This week has been pretty awesome. We hit standards again. THAT'S A MONTH HERE IN SUNNYSIDE WE'VE HIT STANDARDS. So crazy.

I'm teaching English classes every Tuesday. We have so much fun. It started with the Elders teaching the class, but the Hermanas in the ward asked me if I could come to teach conversational classes so I did, and I don't know exactly how. But I kinda ended up just teaching the whole thing. At first, there would only ever be like one of the Elders' friends ("friends" being the word that they use in Sofia's mission for investigators) and an Hermana from the ward. Now we have at least 7 people every week!! We had a huge number jump because we serve at the food bank and whenever I take someone through in Spanish, I invite them to come to the English classes. One woman accepted my invite and brought 3 of her sisters!!! It's a blast. Everyone is just laughing the whole time but really they're learning (that part's a secret). I started making these sheets for them with difficult words to pronounce, for example, a column of b words and a column of v words or I made a whole sheet for w sound words with the Spanish translation and a corresponding audio file so they can practice. My little sheets and audio files are actually working super great!! English class is actually my favorite thing because a lot of it is SLP (speech-language pathology) and seeing people's speech improve is everything for me!! (Sofia decided after her freshman year at BYU that she wants to study speech-language pathology - we'll see if that sticks.)

We have 3 progressing friends, but I want to talk about Miguel today. He is THE perfect convert. Haha. A fun story about him today is that when we taught him the Word of Wisdom he told us that for the past two days he just had 0 desire to drink coffee (which he was usually crazy about). After we taught the lesson he quit Cold-Turkey. The guy is so willing to do ANYTHING for the gospel. It's insane. I love him so much and he's getting baptized on November 2nd!!!!

The gospel is great, the gospel is good. It's the way to find joy in any circumstance, in any place. I love it and I invite each and every one of you to live it. Live the gospel with all your heart and see how it can change your life. Because it can AND will. I love you guys and I'm so thankful for all of the emails and prayers and thoughts. Keep bein' awesome.(;

Hermana Jimenez

Ps: Momma check out the allergic reaction Augga gave me!! (This stuff was well worth the risk. Hahaha)

Pps: Fitz is still out here hanging out with us every day. He's my favorite dog.

Arlington; Sunnyside Branch - Week 7

14 October 2019

LISTEN

I had my first bible bash on Wednesday and it went a little like this.

We walk into this lady's house and start talking about the Book of Mormon. She puts her hand up and says, "can I make a call?" We're like, "uh, sure" she calls her friend to COME TO HER HOUSE TO BASH US. Her friend shows up and starts shooting a bunch of questions at me that I answer. Then she gets all mad and asks harder questions that I answer. At one point I use a scripture to explain my point and she goes, "THAT'S GARBAGE. THAT SCRIPTURE IS STUPID AND NOT TRUE" and I was like, "WELL IT'S FROM YOUR PRECIOUS BIBLE!!!" she was shook. Then she started talking really fast, so she would speak some Spanish at me and I'd whip around to my companion and say, "WHAT'D SHE SAY?" and then yell some Spanish back at her. Eventually, it ended with her saying "You're just going to WAIT for me to die to SPITE BAPTIZE ME." and I was like, "LOL NAH you CAN WAIT." And then we asked if we could pray and she offered and it sounded like some kind of Satanic chanting and I'm pretty sure I got cursed, so yeah. That was that.

Hermana Luker is Sofia's new companion. She has about 8 months in the mission and has served in 5 areas. They had a pretty good week. Sofia was able to maneuver the area and they met Standards again this week.

Arlington; Sunnyside Branch - Week 6

7 October 2019

Alright peeps well here's the Tea... I'm being half-trained. Hahaha. No one saw that coming, but I'm staying in the area and my trainer is coming to me so that's 10/10 stressful because I guess she's in charge of me, but it's my job to teach her all about the area. #RIP.

Everyone and their dog is getting whitewashed or half-trained, so that's whack. BUT THAT MEANS THAT I'M PROBABLY GOING TO GET TO SEE HERMANA NILSSON AND THAT MAKES ME REALLY HAPPY.

This week was 10/10. I got my package with all the goodies (including some sour gummy Alpacas) Love how my family still finds a way to roast me even from hundreds of miles away. 

WE HIT STANDARDS AGAIN which is basically unheard of, that's 2 times in a row. What a wild ride out here, haha. This area is being blessed A LOT right now, so that's amazing. We got Jose on date (woot woot!!). And it was GENERAL CONFERENCE YALL!!!

Also, we taught one of our new friends and the whole time he was so preoccupied with how "powerful" my voice was. Lol get recked. He was like, "if you chastised me I would die." "Your voice is so good for this job." "You're going to go so far in life." Get recked. Hahaha. It was really weird, but he's progressing a lot and doing good, so that's amazing!

Whatta' ride. General Conference was amazing. Everyone kept mentioning one of my favorite chapters in the Pearl of Great Price (and scriptures in general) Moses 1 when Satan comes to Moses and says, "Moses, thou son of man, worship me." I was always shook that Satan had the kahunas to try to convince Moses that he was worth worshipping directly after he saw the literal FACE OF GOD. Like, are you KIDDING me!?!?! But he's a convincing dude. He uses fear and deception to try and leverage himself to seem more important than he is. FAM. SATAN IS GARBAGE. Don't let him think you're of less worth than you are. You are a Daughter or Son of God.

Love you guys,
Hermana Jimenez

Also EAR BAGS. No one knows they're there and when I tell them, they're shook!!! Hahah. I took them for a spin one night and everyone and their dog wishes they had them. So thanks momma.🧡🧡🧡

Arlington; Sunnyside Branch - Week 5

30 September 2019

Okay fam. This week was a WEEK of MIRACLES.

The past 5 weeks have been extremely difficult to say the least, but this week was just full of blessings!!! Get LIT.

This week we made something called "standards" which is basically just a standard of excellence for the mission regarding key indicators. It doesn't happen often and I feel really blessed to be able to have achieved that!! If anything it's just a testament that hard work and obedience will eventually pay off. It took almost a whole transfer, but something happened.

Because my companion is an STL (sister training leader - kindof like a zone leader for the sisters) we are constantly on exchanges. I had 3 exchanges this week and we have another one tonight. I'm honestly a little sad because I've been on 5 exchanges with Sister Snowder, but this was her 3rd transfer in the area, so most likely she's leaving next week.):

Things are pretty good. We live in a pretty nice apartment on a golf course and we see bunnies all the time, so I took a picture of one this week. Heheh. On Wednesday we woke up and it was FREEZING. It's starting to get really cold in Washington and I remember thinking to myself, "I'm going to freeze to death here in Washington." And the. That day, our broken space heater started working, the next day the housing coordinators dropped a space heater off at our apartment and the day after that, Ashlee, Augga's daughter, bought us a space heater. So basically God is real and my house is toasty. I took pictures with all of them. Haha.

ABUELA. THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE SPICES. My district was shook that my abuela sent me spices in the mail. Haha. I think I just proved my Latin blood with that event. I'm making some fajitas this week, Abuela!!! Thank you!!!

I put my first friend (that's the mission word for investigators... they are "friends") on date this week!!!!!! What an amazing experience. SO HAPPY ABOUT THAT. He is so excited to be baptized and that is the best part about it. He is so happy to be learning and I'm FREAKIN' ECSTATIC TO BE TEACHING HIM. Hahaha.

Washington is beautiful. I feel super blessed to be here. And TRUST me I'm still getting my Mexican experience as far as food goes. TACOS, TAQUITOS, POSOLE BONES SKIN FAT AND ALL. Get recked. It's growing on me though.

Okay, my district keeps yelling at me to come play kickball so I've gotta skirt, but God is good, the church is true, Heavenly Father is mindful of you!!!!

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEEEE
HERMANA JIMENEZ

Arlington; Sunnyside Branch - Week 4

23 September 2019

Hey fam!!! This week is really tight so it's going to be a short email.

This week has been amazing!!! I learned so much about just keepin' on. The Lord will bless us after the trial of our faith. We have multiple progressing friends so that is really exciting!!!! The people here are awesome and everyone is tryina' feed me. Yesterday I was fed beef stew and tacos. Get recked. So much food.

This week I ate a cricket. So there's that. I also got a picture with our favorite dog, Fitz. He's the dog of the member we live with. I was having a really hard day on Wednesday and I got a FAT note from Titi Emily with a bunch of pictures of the cousins. The best. Thank you so much!!! This week has been the week of the Aunts. All of the Aunts emailed me. I love them!!!

I'm learning how to be bold out here on the mission. I know. I thought I was already bold, but here we are. This week I talked to someone about the Book of Mormon and how it's true after they tried to bash with us. The spirit came so strong. I also taught the Law of Chastity to a 40-year-old man, so yeah. My fear of all things has just flown out the window. Hahaha.

Washington is really starting to grow on me. The people here are awesome and it's gorgeous even though it rains every day. I love seeing the gospel click in the hearts of the people we're teaching. It makes everything worth it. READ YOUR SCRIPTURES EVERY DAY. THERE IS POWER IN THE WORDS YOU READ. STRAIGHT UP. You will feel Christ near to you as you read. You will feel his love.

Sorry my emails have been kinda 4/10 lately. Next week is going to be good.

Find someone who needs a little love in their life and share a scripture about Christ with them

Love you guys,
Hermana Jimenez

Ps: I went back to the alpaca farm
Pps: GET RECKED. It was not fun.
Ppps: my hair is doin' Gucci y'all