Showing posts with label Area 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Area 1. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Letter #20: JULIO'S BAPTISM🥳🌊

November 19, 2024 1
Hey everybody!!!

This week was a wild one that absolutely FLEW by. Here was the highlight of the week that I know you're all waiting for:

Drumroll for... JULIO'S BAPTISM!!!🥳😭 Y'ALL. HE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!! That was 100% the best day of my mission and I really realized that everything works out and everything is worth it. He showed up 20 minutes early and was just sitting waiting for his baptism. As soon as he stepped into the font, I literally just started crying and it was such a "this is why I'm here" moment.

Truly, this transfer has been a little bit of a rough one and some days I've really just had to push through and tell myself it's just one more day. However, as soon as Julio walked into the water, I realized it's all been worth it. Every rough moment, every frustration, every overwhelmed feeling, it literally doesn't matter. At the end of the day, I wasn't remembering or thinking about the hard times of the transfer. I was just thinking about the amazing lessons with Julio, the highs and lows that the Lord has been able to help him through, and the fact that, almost a year after he started being taught by the missionaries, he was able to be baptized and confirmed. The Spirit was so strong, and it was such an amazing day for everyone involved.

2nd big news of the week is transfers! I'm (unfortunately) leaving my amazing area, but I'm honestly way excited for this next one. I get to be comps with Sister Peraza (from Cuba) who's probably the funniest sister out here, and even better news, I'm still not on a bike!🤘 Hallelujah! It'll be such a fun transfer! Honestly, I'm looking forward to it.

I got to go on 2 exchanges this week which were SO FUN. I got to be with Sister Barr who is so sweet and so chill and literally so funny. She took me on a tour of their area during dinner and I got to see like the only lake in all of Las Vegas! I saw turtles and ducks and it pretty much felt like a zoo because there's 0 wildlife here and it was crazy to see something other than pigeons, crickets, and cockroaches.

And then I got to be with Sister Glauser again! 🥲 All I know is that President will be seriously missing out on an effective companionship if he doesn't put us back together again (May transfer, President🙏) because that was the most miracle-filled day ever. We talked to so many people, got so many numbers, had such good lessons, it was just awesome. Start praying for me now that I survive when she leaves next June.

Honestly, though, it was such a good week. I'm sad to leave my area and district, but I'm excited to have a switch in scenery! Hope y'all are doing well, and thanks again for all the continued love and support!

🧡 Hna. Pursglove
Photographs Below :)

1. JULIO'S BAPTISM🥳 (Main Photo Above and Below)
2. RIP the district and area
3. Post-baptism Cafe Rio run
4. Raindrops😱
5. Sister Glauser exchange!
6. Sister Barr exchange!

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Letter #19: JULIOOOO 👑 Pt. 2

November 12, 2024 1
Hey everyone!

This week was so awesome and there were so many cool things that happened.

1. Julio once again. Y'all are going to get sick of hearing about him but HOLY COW HE'S ELECT. Julio is progressing so much and so fast it's actually insane to see. We had a lesson with him on Saturday and we ran through the baptismal interview questions with him. He answered each one with so much thought and such a strong testimony that I was in tears by the 3rd one. 

It's been such a blessing to be able to teach him and help him prepare for baptism and it's brought me so much joy. Even when a day is kinda mid, if we have a lesson with Julio, I always leave so happy and it genuinely makes the rest of my day better. His baptism is THIS SATURDAY and I'm so excited!!! Pray super hard that everything works out, okay? ALSO, we invited him to invite people to his baptism and he went above and beyond by inviting people to church as well, so Julio is actually the most effective missionary in the area at this point.

2. MAILIN! We found Mailin again! If y'all remember, we put Mailin on date about a month ago, and then she went MIA again. We couldn't get ahold of her by phone, she was never there when we stopped by, and last Thursday we decided we needed to drop her because we couldn't get in contact. That night, I told Sister A that we were going to go visit Mailin one last time to see if we could find her. GUESS WHAT. SHE WAS HOME. We sat down and talked to her, and she was still planning on being baptized and was really excited about it. She came to church on Sunday (miracle!!!), and we've had 3 lessons with her since Thursday. Unfortunately, her baptism is after transfers and my chances of staying here another transfer are really low, so I'm hoping everything continues to be smooth sailing and nothing happens.

Those were the two biggest miracles this week, so here are other random things that happened:

- I was on a blitz with an English sister yesterday and we were in my area. We ended up having two lessons in a row which I just had to teach in Spanish, so my brain was actually numb after that hour. HOWEVER, the gift of tongues is real because my Spanish somehow stuck around that long and we managed to make it through with relatively few pauses while I had to think of how to say something. Word of the week is apoderado which means proxy (shoutout Spanish dictionary).

- In a training that Sister Bartholomew and I had to do, we came up with what WE thought were really deep concerns that would take the missionaries a long time to figure out. I think we actually might just be dumb because I think everyone figured them all out within 10 minutes (it was a 35-minute training). Had to scramble to fill the rest of it but it all worked out!

- Our ward has started a weekly pickleball night and it’s actually such a success with our friends. It's tricky to get people to church here, but so many people come to pickleball and love it. Then we tell them to come to church with their pickleball friends and they don't, so we've got to figure out that connection and how to get people there.

That's it for this week, but one quick spiritual thought which y'all should actually read because I do them so rarely, whoops:

In studies this week, I read Alma 11:22 which really stuck out to me. It says "Yea, if it be according to the Spirit of the Lord, which is in me; for I shall say nothing which is contrary to the Spirit of the Lord." As missionaries, we strive to always have the Spirit with us and be Spirit-led in our lessons and interactions. Normally, we don't say much, that's contrary to the Spirit, but I think sometimes we push aside the promptings we have. We ignore the Spirit because we have our own plan, or our own thing that we want to say. If there's one thing I've learned so far, it's to ALWAYS listen to the Spirit and follow that. When we do that out here, our lessons are so much better, and people can notice the difference. When we do that, we aren't the teachers, but the Lord is!

Thank you all for the love and support. Miss you all!

🧡 Hna. Pursglove 
Photographs Below :)

1. Sister Astu and me (Main Photo Above)
2. Books of Mormon
3. Blitz with Sister Udy
4. Another pretty sunset
5. Motivational messages from Sis. A
Categories # Area 1 # Baptism Continue Reading
By Sister Morgan Pursglove at 1 comment:
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Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Letter #18: 50 Degrees in Vegas?🥶

November 05, 2024 1

Hola y'all,

This week was a little bit slower so this shouldn't be too long (fingers crossed).

HIGHLIGHTS:

The biggest highlight this week was our lesson with Jezania. Jezania is one of our recent converts and she's so sweet. Last transfer, Sister Glauser and I were having a lesson with her when she asked us for a favor. She said that her daughter was struggling and was living alone in Mexico, and Jezania wanted the missionaries to go visit her because she knew the gospel could help her daughter. She gave us the info, we sent it over to the missionaries in Mexico, and we didn't think about it again, honestly.

After our lesson on Saturday, Jezania was super smiley, and she told Sister A and me that she had a present for us. She pulled out her phone and was scrolling for a minute. I was just wondering what kind of gift required a phone or scrolling, and then she showed us her gift. It was her daughter's baptism invitation! She was getting baptized THE NEXT DAY. I actually had tears in my eyes because it was so cool to see that because of Jezania being baptized, her daughter is now getting baptized, and it really just showed me how amazing this work is!!

On Wednesday we had our ward Trunk or Treat which was so fun but also so cold!! I think it was a solid 50 degrees and all of us missionaries were actually freezing because 50 doesn't seem like it's that cold until you compare it to the 120 that we got used to. Trunk or Treat was awesome though, JULIO CAME, and we got to have a lesson with him while we were there. Baptism is still on for November 16th so please pray it stays there.

At night church on Sunday (the ward for people who can't make it to church during the day because of work), we had such a miracle. Normally, you go if you have a friend who has actually confirmed they're going to go and if they don't show up after like 30 minutes, that means they aren't coming. We got a referral from some elders and when we called him to invite him to church that morning, he told us he couldn’t, but he could go to night church. We confirmed it with him a lot and he said he'd be there.

We get there at 7, call him, he says he's coming. We wait until 7:35, call him again, he says he's just leaving and will be here in 15 minutes. At this point, by the time he gets there, there will only be 10 minutes left. We tell him this, but he says he wants to come and will be there. It is literally 7:58 when Marcos walks in, we go and sit down, the teacher fortunately is a bit of a talker, so it didn't actually end for another 15 minutes, but that was just crazy to see his desire and dedication. He said he'll come again next week, and we hopefully have a lesson with him tomorrow so that was a miracle!

That's all I have for you this week, it was such a good week with so many blessings and so many miracles. If everyone wants to keep praying for our friends Julio and Manny, that would be very much appreciated! Hope you're all doing well, thank you for the love and support!

🧡 Hna. Pursglove
Photographs Below :)

1. Weekly dinner with the Rivas fam! (Main Photo Above)
2 & 3. Pretty sunset part 73 and 74.  
4. Zone pumpkin carving
5. MLC
6. Such a good meal
7. Zconnn
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Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Letter #17: JULIOOO👑

October 29, 2024 0

Hi everyone!!

This week was so much better, it's actually night and day, so thank you all for the prayers and messages and thoughts. Here are some of the big highlights of this week!

JULIO!!!
1. JULIO CAME TO CHURCH🥳 He was supposed to be released from the hospital on Wednesday, but by Saturday he was still there. Sunday morning we called him, and he said that he was on his way to church! We were soooo happy and excited for him because he's genuinely such an amazing guy and we know baptism will help him so much. So, he walked in and we missionaries who know him almost cried tears of joy to see him there. It was such a miracle!!

2. We had a lesson with him last night and it was so Spirit-filled I actually had goosebumps even with the screaming kids running around us at Noche de Hogar. He told us that while he was in the hospital he was praying to God that someone would come visit him. He said it was 2 hours later when the elders showed up to give him a blessing and they were the first ones who visited him, which is SO CRAZY. No such thing as coincidence! He said he'd been thinking about his baptismal date (supposed to be November 2nd) and that he knew he had to change it, so he had come with his new date already in mind! He's now on date for November 16th, which is so perfect and I'm so happy for him. Pray super hard that Julio can reach his goal!!!

3. Juan came to church too! Juan is a new friend we met about 3 weeks ago and we've invited him to church every week but then he backs out at the last minute. On Sunday, we called him like 5 times to make sure he was actually going to come to night church and he said he was. We texted him one more time at 6:30 and he told us he didn't know if he wanted to go anymore. Fortunately for us, his house was on the way to night church, so we stopped by and told him to follow us there and we'd sit with him. He was literally ready though and had his keys in hand, so he definitely wanted to come, just got a little nervous. He liked it and said he'll come to the regular ward next week! Miracles!!!

4. We got to go to the temple with Maria-Alejandra! She's a recent convert from a few transfers ago and she finally had time to go this week which was such an amazing experience! She loved it and said she felt so much peace.

Fun things of this week (slightly smaller than those major events):

- Blitz with Sister Glauser!!! Love her and missed her so much, but FORTUNATELY, we're each other’s STL's and get to go on exchanges together—hehe.

- While on the blitz, we had dinner with Gabby, who is known (among the missionaries) as the best cook in the ward. Dinner was amazing, but she brought out a treat for us: CRICKETS. She kept telling us that they were lemon salt flavored and really good, and we had to try one. Sis. G and I just stared at each other and eventually agreed that we'd do it together. All I know is that I thought crickets would be crunchy? They were not. It SQUISHED. Memories though!

- Exchange with Sister Hansen! That was so fun, and she was so chill, and we got to go to a baptism!

So that was this week! Seriously, thank you all for the prayers and messages they help so much. Love you all and hope you're all doing well!

🤍Hna. Pursglove

 
Photographs Below :)

1. Sisters Menchi, Peraza, and Astuhuaman (Main Photo Above)
2. Mother-daughter reunion
3. Centro selfie
4. Maria-Alejandra at the temple!
5. Jorge's baptism😎


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Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Letter #16: Training!!!

October 22, 2024 0

Hey everyone,

This email's going to be pretty short today cause there's not too much that's new! Except I do have a new companion from Peru, Sister Astuhuaman, who is very excited to be here!

This week was the roughest I've had so far. Probably ever, actually. Adjusting to a new companion, training, a lot more meetings, planning exchanges and everything—it has been a lot for one week and it’s definitely been a week of feeling inadequate and overwhelmed and having faith and growing. Thanks to all of you who reached out, though, and thank you for all of the prayers—I can definitely feel them working.

A highlight of this week was our new friend, Manny! He was a self-referral, and he recently had some serious medical problems, but he came to church on Sunday and was participating in class. He’s so ready to be baptized but we just have to figure out how to make that happen. So prayers for Manny!

Also, pray for our friend Julio! He's in the hospital right now but he's on date and is wanting to keep progressing towards baptism so he REALLY needs the prayers.

We saw a lot of miracles this week, though, and so many blessings, but it’s been rough, I won’t lie! Thank you all for your support and love this week! 

🩷 Hna. Pursglove

Photographs Below :)

1. Sister Astuhuaman (Main Photo Above)
2. Stake activity
3. Words of encouragement from my loving sister
4. IT'S SO WINDY HERE. And cold.
5. Popsicles from the members
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