our investigators are golden!

     So, I hit 5 months this last week...sick! That day (Tuesday) we had a new missionary meeting. I got to go in with the trainers this time. Imma just say, I hope I don't have to do that anytime soon. Training would be terrifying! I like being middle man. But since when has a mission ever let me feel comfortable? Ha! We did another exchange on Tuesday-the last one!- with Hermana Skidmore. She is just so fantastic. She is one transfer younger than me. Talk about a prepared missionary. I hope that I will be able to work with her one day!

     We had two lessons with Lili this week. The first one we were going to teach her about the Word of Wisdom, but it just went off in an entirely different direction. We talked about recognizing the Spirit. Lili also mentioned that she really wants to talk to her mom about being baptized but she is scared so we helped her to overcome a few things and gave her some advice about how to approach it. Lili started to cry a little. She told us that she always feels good when we come over :) It was very powerful! We also went over on Saturday and we were able to teach her and her sister Lesli "the Big 3" aka The Law of Chastity, Tithing, and Word of Wisdom. They both agreed to live them too! Even more fantastic: they both drink coffee sometimes but decided that they weren't going to do it anymore. Just like that! Ah! I love the mission! The Lord truly prepares his people :)

     We also are teaching another lady named Gleidy and her mother Antonia. They are from Guatemala. Gleidy has been taught before, but she was dropped because her mom had throat cancer and she was also going to radiation and didn't have time. However, her mother is now in remission! Gleidy has 4 kids and is actually married (a miracle in and of itself) AND says that she knows that The Book of Mormon is true! We taught her the Plan of Salvation and the Spirit was SO strong! She and her mother both loved it. She even expressed her desire to be baptized. She just wants to make sure that she is qualified. We are going to have a temple tour on Saturday. Pray for her! Our investigators are golden!

     There is another less-active family in our branch that has a ton of drama, but I love them SO much! So, the dad Carlos is married and has two kids: Daniella and Nuno. His wife is Blanca. Blanca has been in jail for the last bit because of drugs and being around the wrong crowd. She just got out of jail like 4 days ago and she loves us! Blanca's sister Caroline is 19 and moved in to the apartment to help Carlos with the kids a while ago. We visit with Caroline a lot. It's a bit crazy with her sister back, but they are more than willing to let us come over for dinner, to share scriptures, and they told us that they are going to start coming back to church this week. We'll see, but it's definitely a start. Caroline is very special to me so I hope so!

     Hna White has been sick this week and Hna Carlson isn't feeling so hot at the moment. Um, yeah, I am living off of Vitamin C right now. That's the only downside to being with someone 24-7. It's rough. However, I love my Hermanas so much! We have had several moments where we have been laughing so hard that I started to cry! I am so blessed that we get along so well. I can't believe that next week is transfer week. That means Man-up Monday. You know, cuz our P-days are usually Monday, but on transfer week they are on Tuesdays. Bonus: we are going to the temple next week! I CAN'T WAIT!

     Well, I love you all! MWAH!

Love always, Hermana Freestone

And then a bum took our picture

     Oh my, this week has seemed so long because of our severe lack of P-day time. There is a reason we have them people. Sundays are the busiest day of the week, therefore Monday is our day of rest. Hna Toro and I had a joke. The Spanish version of "Welcome, Welcome Sabbath Morning" starts, "Bienvenidos, dia santo. Ya podemos descansar." LIES!!! So we changed the words to "Bienvenidos dia santo. Ya debemos trabajar." Ha! We're so clever :) We had to make a bajillion phonecalls, face-to-face people, find rides, study, train, and a ton of other stuff that seems simple, but we were completely drained!

     On Tuesday I did an exchange with Hnas Washburn and Clonts in North Sac. We did a LOT of tracting! My door approaches are getting pretty fantastic. We all had to stretch ourselves a little bit because we're all still learning :) I love Spanish!!! I have a sneaking suspicion that Spanish is the language that we all spoke in Heaven...just sayin. I can definitely testify that the Lord is helping me because I took 2 years of Spanish and just learned the bare essentials. I've been on a mission for 5 months and I can, at least, have a halfway decent conversation with someone. The gift of tongues is real! :) Really though. On a serious note. I know that he is helping me every step of the way :) We did another exchange on Saturday. Hna Carlson and I were with Hna Hanson. It was great! We taught some really great brothers Jose and Eusavio. They are from Mexico :) They are very deep searchers and are going to get baptized...they just don't know it yet. We taught a fantastic Plan of Salvation lesson with a member and they were both like, "It makes so much sense!" One of them even said he felt like he'd heard it before. The gospel is so great!!!

     On Thursday President and Sister Lewis took us to breakfast at IHOP because our zone broke the high water mark for baptisms in South Sac. it was 10 in one month and we hit 11 :) We were all eating or fluffy pancakes and President had us go around in a circle and talk about our baptisms. Well, after we went around we only counted 10 people. Everyone was looking around and the zone leaders were frantically counting numbers in their planner and President was like, "Did you really not break the mark?" We were all freaking out! Then, some blessed child of God Elder realized that he was counting for the wrong month and we really did have 11. Mini heart attack right there! We all went out to take a picture after and President asked some homeless guy to take our picture. His name was Gabriel. Talk about an eventful morning....

     We have really been trying to strengthen the ward here. The retention isn't all that fantastic so we visit a lot of less-actives. Honestly, I love it! I love listening to their conversion stories and reminding them that they truly do have testimonies! It also builds mine. One thing I am learning every day is that everyone has their story. People are so complex and yet we are so quick to put them in boxes and criticize them for their faults. The Lord loves us all individually. Once we learn to love people the way Heavenly Father loves us, we will be so much better!

     I just love my companions. We laugh SO much! We are all different from each other and I think that is what makes it interesting. Last night we were laughing so hard that we were crying. My stomach hurt so much! I was laying in bed laughing uncontrollably. The Lord truly knows what He is doing when he puts people together :)

Love, Hermana Freestone

on the move missionaries

 This week has been so crazy busy and there are no signs of slowing right now. I did another exchange in North Sac with Hna Clonts and Hna Kennard and it was so much fun! I just love working with the other sisters. Funny story: we went to dinner and the member made some super spicy food. I'm not talking spicy like, "Oh, I need some water." I'm talking like so spicy my lips were turning red and it burned both ends if you catch my drift....On Saturday we had another exchange and I finally got to stay in my area. Hna Hanson came to party with Hna White and I. We did some service that morning. There is a lady in our branch that cleans houses and one of the houses that she cleans had a gigantic orange tree in their backyard and they wanted us to come and pick them. I thought it was just to help them gather them all up, but they let us take home all 10ish bags that we picked. Hna Hanson was climbing all over the tree, I was on a ladder, and Hna White has a nifty little picker. It was great and we were able to share a scripture with the people that lived there :) We also taught quite a few other lessons that day. We were definitely "On the Move" missionaries. 

     Thursday was Zone Conference. It was my first one. Apparently, you have to get your cars inspected and if you don't pass you could lose your driving privileges. Well, the sisters hadn't cleaned that car for almost 3 transfers and it was a disaster. You probably could have filmed an episode of "Hoarders" in there with all of the junk and nastiness. I don't know how we drove it to be completely honest. After one run through the car wash, 6 rounds of quarters at the gas station vacuum, and an hour of spot-cleaning, dusting, and window washing our car was sparkling! You could definitely feel the difference. Anywho, training was fantastic! We talked about being "on the move, on point, and on purpose" missionaries. They actually changed the dress code for the elders. It's pretty nifty. I learned a ton from it. I love our meetings as missionaries! You just have so many spiritual experiences!

     We were able to teach Lili again this week and  it was fantastic! She is so ready and I just keep praying that she will receive an answer and that her family will support her. I have never heard someone pray so genuinely. She almost made me cry again! We were also able to teach her older sister Lesli. She got framed for something a while ago and got out of Juvie around the same time I arrived here and is on house arrest. She is 17 and told us that she has been praying for her sister to get baptized because she knows that Lili really wants to and she also told us that she wants to come to church because of how much Lili loved it! Ah! I am so excited for them! Other than that, it has been really hard to get ahold of people this week. La semana que viene will be better though :)

     So, fun story. Our branch president is President Beus. After much digging yes, we are related. His great-grandpa and my great-great grandpa are brothers. He has a book of the original Beus family and all of the following generation up until the 80's. Yeah...dad's name is in the book. I took some pictures of what it looked like. I was kind of awe-struck in their living room for a few minutes :)

     Today we had a huge activity "El Campo Esta Listo." It was for all of the Spanish population in the mission. We have been planning it for a couple of months now. We had it at the temple grounds. We had carne asada, brincolines, zumba classes, un torneo de futbol, and a ton of other stuff. We were so excited for it and were expecting a lot of people. Well, you know how it hasn't rained since I've been here? Yeah, the heavens opened and the rains came down and the floods came up! We were drenched. However, "no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing" and we still had a huge turnout! Like, over 800 people. I love this work! I was also really excited to see the other Spanish missionaries again. I got to see all of my Hermanas today :) It was a big success and I know that we were blessed because of it :)

     Well family, I love you all and am so proud of you! Congrats to Kris and Lori! So excited! Keep staying great! Happy Birthday today Ali. MWAH!

Love, Hermana Freestone

Yay for Exchange!!

 We started exchanges this week. YAY for exchanges! Hna White wanted to bring the sisters into our area so she and Hna Carlson stayed here in South Sac and I was the one that got to party in another area. On Wednesday I went to North Sac with Hna Kennard and Hna Washburn while Hna Clonts came here with my companions. We had a super fun day! We were able to teach a couple of lessons-one was super awkward-and add a new investigator for them. They are super funny! Any time we talked in English we spoke with a British accent all day long! It was really hard to quit when I came back. At the end of the day Hna Kennard decided to pluck my eyebrows while we waited for my companions to come back (they were running late). You'll have to look at the picture...she looks like she killed me. Ha! On Saturday I went to East Sac with Hna Skidmore and Hna Thomas came here. Hna Skidmore is fantastic! It is her second transfer and her Spanish is so great and she is very outgoing. I hope I can actually be her companion one day :) We taught this man named Pepe and the spirit was so strong! We also ate dinner with the East Sac-Carmichael sisters-Hna Hanson, Hna Cardullo, and Hna Jensen (visa waiter). It was so fun to see them again! 
     We are teaching a girl named Lili and she is seriously the best things since...EVER! We had a couple of really good lessons with her. She is praying about being baptized but she is a little hesitant because she will be the only member in her family and she is only 16. However, after we talked to her for a bit about all of the people that will in the ward to support her she felt a lot better! She says the sweetest prayers. They are so sincere and I actually started crying yesterday while she prayed. She is so strong and has a ton of faith! Pray for her to receive an answer! Fun note: we also helped her with her math homework...that was interesting. I hope I never have to take algebra again because I would fail.
     Oh! Ok, so people here are nuts! They will do anything to get money...even try to get hit by cars. Hna White has had a couple of times where people have just walked out right in front of her and she had to swerve to miss them. They want to get hit so they can get money out of it. So, the other day we were driving and watched a man hit a guy on a bike on purpose. They were trying to get another car involved. We pulled over and called the cops. We know they did it on purpose because right after it happened the biker put his bike in the back of the car and they drove to the hospital. It was super sketchy! Joys of a mission!
     I love this area! There is so much work here and we are working with some amazing people! I know that, with the Lord's help, we will be able to help them come closer to their Heavenly Father. I love this work so so much! There's nowhere else I'd rather be! I love you all SO SO SO SO much!
Love always, Hermana Freestone

P.S. Kris and Lori, CONGRATS!!! I love you and am so excited for you! MWAH!

I DO Have a Testimony Of This Gospel

     Wow...this week has been one for the books-that's for sure. The flea market on Tuesday was fantastic! It was super hot, but we loved it. What I really liked was when people would say something to us in Spanish and we would smile and actually respond to them. Or, they would say something funny and I would laugh. They would give us a weird look and say, "Oh! Son muy hueritas. Hablan Espanol muy bien." It was fun. Hna Toro and I just tried to enjoy our last day together. I had to scramble to pack all of my junk. After 12 weeks in one place things really start to accumulate. I need to de-junk. We made some peach cobbler (sorry, no pictures) to enjoy. Actually, we were both kind of moping around the apartment that night and we ate our feelings with cupcakes, ice cream, and peach cobbler. Missionary drama :) On Tuesday morning we headed to the mission office with Brenda. We met a lot of the other sisters there and talked while we waited for the new missionaries to come through. I sat in the back with Hna Toro while President announced the new companionships. We said goodbye and took some pictures. Just ignore how crazy I look. I had been crying a lot that morning. However, I am now with Hna White and Hna Carlson and I love them! Hna White is from Massachusetts and this is her 3rd time training. Hna Carlson is from Orem, Ut and she is just a cute little 19 year-old missionary with a strong desire to serve! 
     We have some golden investigators here! One is a girl named Lili. She is 16 and her tios are members. She wants to get baptized so bad but her mom hasn't been letting her come to church. Well, we went by and taught her with a member and her mom said that is was ok if she came. SCORE! She came to church and loved it! She is praying about getting baptized on the 7th of September. We told her about General Conference and she was like, "It's only twice a year?" How great is she?! Our other guy is Isaac. He is 23 and just moved here from Guatemala. He grew up a 7th Day Adventist. He is very nice ad doesn't have anything against the church, he just is very "by the Bible." I'm so glad we have the Libro de Mormon so that we aren't so confused about certain things. He also came to church for sacrament meeting :)
     Last night we decided to go and look for a couple of people that had been taught before. One of them is named Luz. She has 2 boys and a girl on the way. Hna Toro taught her both times that she was in this area and she told me on Tuesday night that I should baptize her. Lol, I hope so! She is the sweetest person ever! The biggest potential problem is that her "esposo" doesn't want to marry her. Grrrr....the Law of Chastity is there for a reason people! Anywho, we are going back to teach her this week. We also met a man named Gabriel. Well, first we met his mother who is like a straight-up witch doctor who told all three of us our future...appartently, when I get home, there will be two men in my life: un moreno y un blanco. I guess I won't be able to choose between the two of them...but hey! Two men! My future looks bright :) Ha! So her son, Gabriel, is amazing! He had tons of great questions and he is a searcher. He asked me in the lesson why I decided to serve a mission and I told him and was able to bare my testimony about the gospel and it was such a powerful moment. It reminded me of a scripture in Alma 30. In this story Alma is contending with Korihor, the anti-Christ, and he basically tells him that, as long as he has his testimony, he has everything he needs. I DO have a testimony of this gospel and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to share it with my brothers and sisters here in Sacramento!
     Well, I love it here! We are actually living in an apartment again. They moved us out of Sister Crosby's house and put the English sisters there. English sisters...they must think they're entitled or something...? :) JK.

Love always, Hermana Freestone

P.S. "Let's not use a sickle. Let's use a combine." -Vaughn J. Featherstone
in reference to Doctrine & Covenants 4

Its hard to listen to the spirit when we arent paying attention

. This letter may be a bit short today, we have a TON of stuff to do with transfers! Speaking of which, I am leaving Lodi. Hna Toro is going to be staying here with Hna Pitcher and they are both Sister Training Leaders. I am going to the Sac 7th branch with Hna White and a visa waiter that will be here tomorrow. Yup, I am going to be in a trio and living with a member :) Hna White is also a Sister Training Leader. I was telling Hna Toro last night before we got the phone call that the one thing I won't miss being her comp for is all of the exchanges she had to do (we were almost positive that she and Hna White were going to be put together). Well...PSYCH! The Lord was probably laughing really hard at me...He has a weird sense of humor that way :) 

     We were able to finally find Esperanza this week and teach her and her "esposo" and his son. However, they were going to separate shortly and, when we went back to teach her two days later there was a moving van in front of their house and she was in the hospital with stomach pains...what the random, right? So yeah, we are going to try and find her tonight (I will leave for Sactomorrow). Our investigator Anselma is no more. Que triste! Her husband is just super controlling and a little abusive and he doesn't think that she needs to be baptized so she has lost all desire to keep learning. We were super bummed! We have visited a few other people this week, but nothing too amazing. We visited with Alejandro though! He is just the sweetest person ever! He said the sweetest prayer before we left and when we walked out I just turned to Hna Toro and said, "Can we keep him?" I am really bummed to leave him behind. I hope he and his wife go through the temple in a year so that I can come back and see them! We also have another member that I just love! Every time that we call her she practically yells, "HOLA MISIONERAS!" It's just so great!

     We also had a chance to teach the sister of one of our members. She lives just a couple of houses down from them so we like to visit her from time to time. She tells us things that she is confused about and we do our best to help her understand. The problem there is that the gospel principles and truths that are confusing in the Bible can be made more clear using the Book of Mormon, and she really won't let us use it. We taught her two days in a row and she finally agreed to let us come by and just tell her what we believe and why we believe it. I think she has heard so many things from her sister and brother-in-law that just confuse her. We are going to go back this week. Teaching her just built my testimony on the book of Mormon. I'm SO glad that we have it so that things can be made more clear for us!

     A couple of funny moments. Both involve our zone training last Thursday. The first one is that I had to put the bike rack on the car so we could take the Galt sisters their bikes. Well, I put the wrench on the back of the car and thought that Hna Toro grabbed it. Come to find out-she didn't. We heard a loud noise driving to the conference and thought that the bikes had slipped off the rack...nope! We lost the wrench-so guess who gets to buy a new one...yay for my seemingly endless blonde missionary moments :) The other fun story was an object lesson. Two elders were blindfolded and given a ball. They had to walk through an obstacle course in the gym and put the ball in a bucket. I was "the spirit" for Elder Idso and Sis Oliphant was "the spirit" for Elder Ruiz. The tricky part was that each of them had 7 or 8 other missionaries yelling at them and trying to trip them up through the obstacle course. Our team dominated! I was yelling at the top of my lungs practically (which is totally contra the idea of the spirit) and it was really hard for poor Elder Idso to hear my voice. He really had to pay attention. It was all good fun though! It made me think of how many distractions we have around us and how it can be really hard to hear the Spirit if we aren't paying attention. I know I really need to work on that.

     Well, I am excited to see what this week will bring with all of the transfers and such. I can't even begin to describe how much I am going to miss Hna Toro, but I will get to see her again at the giant Spanish activity we are going to have on the 2nd of September. And today we are going to "la pulga" aka the flea market. Be jealous mom! Actually don't...that's bad. I love you all so so so so much! I'm so blessed! The church is true, the book is blue! Work hard, have fun, git 'r done! MWAH!

Love always, 

Hermana Freestone

Once we were lost, but now are found

 So this week was very interesting. We started to teach a lady named Tayde and her daughter Cassandra. We have met with her once before, but she was always working. A few weeks ago she fell off a tractor while she was working and messed up her back and all that fun stuff so she can hardly walk right now. It just looks painful. She is home every day so we go over as often as we can to teach and help around the house. Sometimes the teaching is hard because she REALLY likes to talk! It makes sense though. She is a single mom that can't work right now and all of her kids are in school. I would want someone to talk to as well. We taught her and her daughter most of the Restoration. I have a good feeling about this one :) In fact, we went over there one night and a guy was working on her car. When we showed up I guess he told her that he had his Bible and he was going to come over to "prove us wrong." She told him that she likes listening to us and she always hears people say bad things about the Mormons but she never has heard us talk bad about anyone else. She also said that she sees a lot of bad things on the news about other religions, but she has never seen something bad in the news about our church. Then she told him that if she were to convert to any religion it would be to ours. How fantastic is she?! We also started teaching another lady named Theresa. She is a friend of one of our members. We were hoping that bringing a member to the lesson with us would help us out because Theresa like to talk a lot too. Well, if you want the member to help out you probably shouldn't bring the investigator's best friend. We had a hard time getting a word in edgewise and when we finally did the member took it in a completely different direction...oh the joys of a mission! Ha! But they both learned something about the Spirit. Theresa mentioned something about seeing people on tv "feeling the spirit" and yelling and fainting all over the place. Hermana Toro quickly corrected her and told her that that is not the Spirit. The Spirit should make us feel at peace inside and shouldn't make those around us feel uncomfortable to be there either. I'm not sure how willing Theresa is to change right now, but we will have at least planted a seed for future missionaries :)

     One funny thing that happened this week: we were going to a member's house for dinner and I plugged their address in Hna GPS (the gps-our amazing 3rd companion) and we took off. Well, it was taking us a really different way than usual so we checked the address and it was right so we kept on driving. We started to get into unfamiliar territory so Hna Toto checked the address-still good. We kept on driving and just about got to out destination when I checked the address for the third time. Well, our members live in a town called Acampo. When I put the address in Hna GPS I put that they lived on Acampo road-which is clear out in the sticks of Acampo. Yeah...we drove like 20 miles out of our way. Both of us were just laughing. We joked that we once were lost, but now are found! Thankfully we had extra miles and it was the last day of the month :) We were literally so far out in the boonies!

     Hna Toro had another leadership meeting on Friday so I spent half of my day in Sacramento with Hna Cardullo and Hna Sharp who are from Provo and West Jordan respectively. They are in a trio with Hna White-the other sister training leader. They are so great! They have both been out just a transfer more then I have. One of them had to go and get some work done at the clinic so we spent a lot of our morning there. They are both 20 I think. I love being able to meet new sisters! At this point there are 21 Spanish sisters-2 are visa waiters-and I have spent the day with 14 of them. So, as much as I don't like my comp being gone all of the time, I enjoy meeting everyone else :)

     This week I learned some more about a few other cultures. While I was with the sisters in Sacramento we met a super sweet little Muslim man! We learned all about their Ramadan (I think that's how you spell it) fast for 40 days and a little bit more about their culture. They invited us to come back when they had their big feast to break their fast. It would have been fun, but we're not allowed. Actually, we have to get permission to teach anyone who is Muslim due to some of their beliefs. It's not really safe for them. Anywho, I also met a man yesterday who was a Jehovah's Witness growing up and then left when he was 20. He told us a lot about their religion and some of the things that they practice. I kind of enjoy learning about other people's beliefs. 

     We are really pushing to get our less actives back to church. We are still working with Dulce (got to love teenagers) and we are also visiting a man named Hno Rivas. We have visited him a few times and he finally came to church last week. When we went to visit him on Saturday we found out that he was able to find a new job where he doesn't have to work on Sundays. Um...BLESSINGS!!! He was very happy about it and he came to church yesterday again :) I love this work! I really love seeing how happy it makes other people too :)

     Well, I love you all and hope that you are all having fun and enjoying life. "Men are that they might have joy." So work hard, have fun, git 'r done! :) MWAH!

Love, Hermana Freestone