5.07.2015
by K Fletcher

Miracles


Well, we had a miracle this week. Yes, you heard me right. I guess the Lord remembers all his missionaries, me included. We've been trying to get in contact with this family. We first met them on the 10th of April and it was just a group of kids on a porch. We went over to talk to them, even after passing them, because, well, why not? We chatted with them for a solid 10 minutes and told them the background of the book of Mormon and shared a few copies after they showed some interest.
We stopped by their house a day or two later and their Dad was home. He told us that we were welcome to knock on their door, but they are almost never home.
Over the next few weeks we always said hi to them, but were never in the right situation to teach. Eventually we walked up on the 15th of April and the kids were playing outside with their Dad, when he invited us in. We were stunned. Then we asked if his wife was home. She wasn't! Heartbreak, right then and there.
The next week we knocked and one of the sons told us which of the cars belonged to the mom and which to the dad, and if both were there, well then, both the parents were home.
Then, on the first day of May, it was drizzling outside. And BOTH CARS WERE HOME. We knocked on the door, we taught the restoration, we laughed with them, we felt the spirit, and we have another lesson this week. A beautiful family that I pray every day will accept the gospel.

Another miracle is that we talked to 100 people outside of people that we would normally be talking to and invited them to come closer to Christ... TWO WEEKS IN A ROW. Miracles. They happen. With a ton of hard work. #ThatIsFaith

I just wanted to thank everyone for the letters and e-mails and everything. I'm a little backlogged on e-mails, so it may take a bit to get back to you, but I read them all and thank you for them!

Con Amor,
Hermana Fletcher


Me and my "mission chips"
Me and the daughters of one of our investigators, the one in bright pink once said to her mom, "Mom, is God Jesus' Dad? Does that make Jesus the ladies' (missionaries) brother?" Yes, yes it does.
Hermana McCoy and daughter. She is really just the most lovely lady. She helps us so much in everything that we do and we can always count on her!
 a bingo game we made for an average day of Spanish missionary work.


5.01.2015
by K Fletcher

First, a miracle

We fasted with an investigator for 3 reasons: 1. for her to overcome her cigarette and mountain dew addictions, 2. to know the truth of the gospel, and 3. to get the trailer she had put a bid in for. Well, (and this story she told us later) the night we broke fast she missed a call from the Trailer Lady. She called back the next day and after a few tries got a hold of her. The lady told her that they had received another offer of $18,000 cash for the trailer, versus a lower number on payments. But then the lady said that her husband had had a dream of a family coming to live in that trailer and had said to her, "Give it to the family. I don't care about the money." And so she is getting the trailer! I pointed out to her that I would attribute that to the fast and she finished the sentence for me, saying that she had thanked God for His blessing that very night. Talk about a testimony about fasting!

We did more trash pick-up in local parks and open areas.  We do this most Saturdays now if we can.  President Baker actually complimented us on our thinking outside of the box for a service activity. And people talk to us all the time asking what we are doing. Service of course!

And this last week, we received a heartbreaking phone call from someone we care about so much and how they had faltered for a moment and didn't want to meet with us for our appointment that night. Well, we moped for a little bit, and then an idea sparked in our minds. We flew through the house gathering up everything we could find and filled a bag with church movies, snacks, drawings, pass-along cards (that's how missionaries show their love: through pass-along cards) and whatever else we wanted! Then we packaged it up and doorbell ditched it at their house! It was so amazing and lifted their spirits as well as ours. And the next day, they were at church #tendermercies

And we went to Jamestown. Because I need to experience the culture!
And we took a brief stop again at Colonial Williamsburg.
Candy Shop
Like two missionaries in a Candy Shop
 The closest we can be to a boy
We didn't look at the plaque so we're not sure who this is.

Pray for us this month, because it is going to be a month of miracles (Per last blog post President Baker said we would have a baptism in May), and we need all the help we can get. I love you all so much and hope you are safe and happy and well.
Con Amor,
Hermana Fletcher


Llamados a server (Called to Serve)


The package contents and two crazy missionaries


4.23.2015
by K Fletcher

This week was loca

One of the sisters had appendicitis and was out of commission until Saturday, so we were in a trio between two areas for 5 days! It was so very much fun and absolutely exhausting. But you know what? It is worth it! This is all worth it! I just want to share an excerpt from a letter to a friend (another missionary) to demonstrate how I feel right now:

"GUESS WHAT?! IT'S A NEW WEEK. AND WE ARE GONNA GO CONQUER THE WORLD, BECAUSE WE ARE MISSIONARIES. (picture a mission-approved eye of the tiger theme playing right now) WE'VE GOT ALL THE POWER OF GOD ON OUR SIDE AND WE ARE GONNA HELP HIM ACCOMPLISH SOME MIRACLES.

I don't know what changed in the last, like, 13 hours, but I am crazy pumped up for this week. IT'S GONNA BE AMAZING. You should keep an eye on the TV, because Newport news, Virginia is probably going to be translated or something, so that's cool.

Haha, I'm just kidding, but this area has such incredible potential. It feels like I'm never going to leave. I've got a solid transfer after this, I'm almost guaranteed to stay here so I can do some great things!

Also, something that maybe helped with this whole attitude change is that I finally broke the comprehension barrier. You know that point where you feel you are finally understanding most of what everyone is saying. I finally hit it! #5monthsin What a blessing. And while I'll have to fight to learn the language the whole rest of my mission, I feel like it is actually possible now.

ALSO we are going to baptize someone in May. So spoke my mission president. In the month of MAY, if we are faithful and diligent, every companionship in my mission will have a baptism. Miracle May. That's the one.

I'm so excited for missionary work. It is so much fun. It is so great. We can do anything. It's amazing. Miracles are real. God is real. This church is true, and we are awesome."

Our greatest miracle this week was that of an investigator coming to church, for the first time in 3 weeks. We taught her the 'Keep the Sabbath Day Holy' lesson, and while we had an original plan I felt very impressed to speak primarily about the Sacrament. Because that is the whole reason. It is why we come to church it is why we keep the Sabbath day holy -- Because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. And before we even finished the lesson, Delia said that she would like to come to church. And then she did!

Yeah. Basically this week was extremely difficult, but oh so rewarding, and I think that is what missionary work is all about. I'm so excited right now. I wish everyone was as excited about missionary work as I am at this moment.

So get excited! Go out, and change the world!
Con Amor,
Hermana Fletcher


4.13.2015
by K Fletcher

Answers to questions, and a garbage day!

Updates on the investigators!
- Maria and Carlos are doing very very well. They still haven't come to church yet, which breaks my heart, but Maria and her daughters came to a ward Easter activity! Basically our whole brach was there and tons of screaming kids, chocolate galore and enough food to feed Utah.

- Delia is a somewhat new investigator and she lives with her son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. She also came to the activity! It was so lovely to see so many people there, we were just smiling all day long.

- Zacario has been much harder to get a hold of. His work schedule has ramped up and we haven't been able to meet with him as much. It's also hard because we need that third female now in order to teach him. But we look forward with faith that we will be able to get more contact with him.

- Esther and Angelica are two new investigators, friends that live in the same manufactured home park. They are two of the most lovely people you will ever meet and have been in the states for less than 6 months! It's incredible. They are so cute and I look forward to getting to know them better.

Our members are absolutely the best. Most recently we visited the Ramirez family, who have always been excellent fellow shippers with Eduardo. Yesterday we taught him about teaching and learning in the church with that family and President Chamberlain.  Everyone pitches in with such wonderful comments.

the Ramirez Family
 Selfie courtesy of Branch President Chamberlain
And then one of the Hermanas in my district had appendicitis, and not even an hour after her surgery Hermana McCoy (former RS president) and President Chamberlain were calling to see if everything was alright, if she needed food, priesthood blessings, etc. You couldn't ask for a better branch.

What's really interesting is that there are 6 Spanish missionaries assigned to the stake, and all of them are in my branch! We each have roughly drawn out borders on our areas that we proselyte in, but we have open communication and easy passing of contacts and the like.

Speaking of contacting, he have been doing so much of that lately! It's super fun, but it can be hard thinking of new ideas and things to do. So this Saturday we were brainstorming how to connect to people better and we decided service was the way to go! But there isn't any organized service here and people have a tendency to turn strangers down, so we did community service! We popped out, bags and gloves ready and picked up trash for 2 hours in one of our common areas.
(picking up trash)
 
The best part was halfway through we ran into a group of children playing, and of course they asked us what we were doing. We told them, "We're pickin' up trash! Look how dirty it is!" Then one of them cries out, "We gotta help 'em!" "Let's be nice to the earth!" and suddenly we have a dozen helpers running around and cleaning up their community. It was super fun and totally worth it.

The kids and us after picking up trash
 slushie break after that

Two miracles:
1) While out contacting we run across this man who shakes our hands and asks what church we are from, we say The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and he says "I grew up Mormon!" We come to find out that he had made the decision to leave the church, but, all of his family was still active. His son had just moved in with him and he wanted to offer his son the chance to learn about the gospel. I'm sure many prayers from faithful family members were answered in that moment! We got his information and will be sending the English ward to him soon.

2) Contacting. Our last one for the night. We see a man and think that Family History might be the best approach for him, so we pull out a card, hand it to him and he gets so excited. He has tons and tons of family history on paper. His family even had a "family tree gathering" as the church calls it, to gather family history information. And he had no idea he could put it all online. He also said that he had been missing a chunk of about 400 years and that with familysearch.org he just might be able to find it.

Miracles abound in the mission, especially when we strive to follow our mission President's counsel.

One last story: We are walking around contacting and we hear Mariachi music. Well of course we are going to go talk to these people. What comes next is literally the most Mexican scene I have seen on my mission. 4 Spanish speaking people, white trucks, blasting Spanish music, beer, cigarettes, Chihuahua, Español. I imprinted that on my mind. And all four were so nice! We had met one of them before, but all the rest were very interested and happy folk. I look forward to seeing them again.

Sorry today's post was a little long, but a mission is great. It really is.
I love you all and hope you have a splendid week!

Con Amor,
Hermana Fletcher

Diago, the cutest little boy on the face of this planet.
So sometimes we find some really sketchy structures

    4.11.2015
    by K Fletcher

    General Conference: The Super Bowl of mission life

    Well, it was General Conference. To quote one of our investigators, "The Super Bowl of mission life". How true it is!

    This was one of the first times I went into general conference with a question I really wanted answered. And while I'm still not sure exactly what my answer is, I learned more than I ever have before. It was a lovely experience. Even before my mission it was already the best time of the year, and being on the mission amplifies it to a greater extent. There is such a peace that comes from the gospel. I sometimes wish we could have general conference every month! But alas, we have to make due with every 6 months. At least we get to revisit conference in the Ensign issues.

    I don't have much to report this week. It was a little bit slower, and no crazy stories, but I just want to share something about my mission. One thing I really love is that I can already see a difference in myself. I like myself so much more now than I did even 5 months ago and it is such a pleasure to be shaped and polished by the Lord (although the actual polishing isn't as pleasant!).

    This isn't going to be a long post, but I just want to tell you that He Lives! This Easter, here in Virginia, spring came upon us all at once. And with every beautiful flower and every sunny sky, I can see the world testifying of Him. Has He left Himself without witness? I say unto you no. For all things therein testify of Him.

    And I testify of Him!
    Happy Easter!

    Con Amor,
    Hermana Fletcher
    Spring is here!
    with Hermana Johnson