Letter #8 10/27/14

Mi comp Hermana Clark from Spanish Fork

Holy smokes, y'all! I AM HERE.

You have all these thoughts in your mind about what your mission has in store for you, and naturally, at least from my experience, you are ALWAYS wrong. Hahah, life's a lot like the most beautiful joke that ever was, haha. So back in the days of the CCM, I spent my life trying to convince all the Chile bound elders in my district that I would be speaking Spanish just as much as them and yada yada yada. Just keep this in the back of your mind. Welp, transfer meeting was on Tuesday and I got my first companion and area. Hermana Clark has been out nine months and she is from Spanish Fork. She's great and nice and SO SIMILAR TO ELPHABA it's creepy. Hahah. She has helped me so much and her demeanor is smooth as cream which contrast nicely with my airheaded, all over the place, emotional wreck-ness. I love her and we have good laughs. 

  I'll let you know that we got assigned to Burkeville. It's in the southernmost area of the mission and it's got a bit of a reputation. When Sister Wilson came and asked Hermana Clark and I about our area, she gave me quite a fright when she basically forced herself to be excited for me.. hahah. She exclaimed 'Burk for lyfe!' before quickly walking away. At this point i'm way confused, so I force Hma Clark to give me the deets.. basically her and her previous companion opened this area up for Spanish from little to nothing last transfer, so we're still in the process of getting Spanish work going here. And it's really hard to get Spanish investigators to come to English sunday meetings because there's no Spanish Branch around these parts. And I was super down for that, a challenge! The green-ness of my missionary being was way too pumped for that, and I continued to tell her that I would do anything as long as I wasn't speaking english. She was a little quiet, but not too long after that President came to tell us that both the companionships in our branch will be doing English/Espanol work.. Needless to say, I have been sufficiently humbled. "I'll go where you want me to go, I'll say what you want me to say" has been given many a new meaning as I have the privilege of saying the things he wants me to say in the way he wants me to say them, and a lot of the time that means english and it was really hard at first. I didn't understand why Heavenly Father would give me this mission that's completely opposite of everything I ever dreamed, and I had many a breakdown this past week, but I have learned SO MUCH. That Heavenly Father rarely gives us what we want, but he ALWAYS gives us what we need. I have learned to love these people so quickly, and to really internalize the fact that our Savior has SO MANY different kinds of sheep. And he wants ALL of them to blessed by the gospel. And I have this beautiful blessing to share the gospel to people from so many different nations and tongues.

  This week has been nuts, though. I can't even remember a day to day thing so I'll just tell you about some cool people we are teaching and some neat stories.

  First off, I mean we're probably not supposed to choose favorites, but I love this kid named Luis Mario! He's the coolest, he's 12 and he just barely arrived to the states. His parents have lived here for a while, but He just arrived. My first night, we went over to teach his family a lesson. (His fam rules too, by the way) but only he was home. So we taught him a lesson on his porch. He lives on this beautiful ranch and the sun was setting so beautifully and I just knew that was what Heaven was like, hahah. It was a good little lesson and I got to introduce him to El Libro de Mormon. I also accidentally answered yes when he asked if I left a novio (boyfriend) in Mexico, it happens often that you answer really incorrectly and weird to questions when you don't understand a lick of spanish, haha. But he now makes fun of me always for loving Hispanic boys and tries to hook me up with his friends in Mexico, hahah.

  Another hispanic family we are visiting is La familia Garcia. They're kids are nuts crazy and SO fun. The parents don't speak any english, but the kids hardly speak spanish and speak more like ghetto kids, haha. It's so funny, they really are very confused with who they are racially I think, haha. But anyways, we've had a few lessons with them and we got invited to their daughter, Gabriella's, birthday fiesta!!!! That was on Friday and, OH BOY I literally almost died. You have never seen fun until you have been to a real live Fiesta de cumpleanos and got in on the intensity that is the pinata. Hahah, it was loco. I got knocked down by the crazy crowd of humans running for balloons filled with money and.. I don't even know. It's cool, because they invite 400 million amigos to their parties so we made appointments with a couple of their friends, and strengthened relationships with other friends that we had met previously. There's no shame in trying to find Spanish Speaking humans around these parts, so a lot of the times we racially profile homes and if you see a cute little hispanic girl riding her bike around, OF COURSE you are going to try to find out where she lives. Haha, I love them SO MUCH.

  But I also LOVE the english speaking humans around here. We work with an incredible less active family and they are just wonderful. We work with a ton of less active people from the branch and that is really cool. Just trying to bring the spirit into their lives a little bit more. We have also found a lot of humans to teach, both hispanic and non-hispanic.. haha, it's a little bit of a blessing because we get the opportunity to talk to EVERYONE. Because we can teach everyone here. 

  I don't know if it's just I'm still super green, but every second I just feel like Alma where he exclaims that he wishes he were an angel, have the wish of his heart to tell every human everywhere about the gospel and Christ's love for them!  There are so many people I see everyday that we simply don't have time to talk to and it breaks my heart. Ah, but I know they will have a chance because they've been promised it!  And I know that if we are diligent in or work here, we will find the people that we need to teach at this moment in time.  It reminds me of the quote by Mother Teresa, something along the lines of "I may just be a drop in the ocean, but without me the ocean is one drop less".  Oh a beautiful scripture I found in my personal study, D&C 123:15-16.  Sometimes it feels like these little things we are doing here don't really matter, but by small and simple things we are laying the foundation for a GREAT work!   And a big ship, Christ's gospel, needs the help of small helms such as us.  And to answer your question, people are nice to us for the most part.  Most people here have GREAT faith in Jesus already, and it's really very hard to be mean when Jesus is the topic of conversation I think.

  I'm sorry this email is actually the worst, but I am loving life here! It's hard at times, and I miss Mexico more than life, but it allows me to relate to all of these hispanic people who also miss Mexico even more than me. People are wonderful, and I have just been enjoying the opening of my eyes to SO many different cultures. At times I even have a hard time understanding english speaking folk here, we are DEFINATELY in the south. (I got called a yankee the other day for telling someone to have a 'way good day', hah. And if you don't drive a Chevy, you're no friend of a good portion of the humans here in Crewe.)

  I have felt the hand of the Lord in my life so much though! I know sometimes He doesn't always bless us how we'd like, but He will NEVER leave us alone. When we really ask him for help, He WILL help us. We taught a lesson to a minister the other day and almost got him crying. The Lord is with us. He speaks through us by the Spirit to bless these people! I am so grateful! 

Love y'all! <3 ///// Les amo, mi familia!


Hermana Yost


P.S.  It's BEAUTIFUL here!!  Holy smokes, I cry large tears every time we drive anywhere (and let me tell you, we drive EVERYWHERE #thecarlifethough) because it's just this beautiful magical autumn wonderland.  I feel so blessed and I think if anything I was called here to testify of the beauty of God's creations because LOS ARBOLES. <3  AHHH.  It's hard to feel discouraged when you're driving through a heavenly mix of red, orange, yellow and green.  The people in the branch look at me like I'm nuts when I rave about the beauty, but I just can't help but love.

Hermana Sivilla the girl whose place I am taking.  Everybody here loved her more than life.  I'm trying my hardest to fill her shoes, but it's really hard.  Haha, she's incredibly awesome and I talk on the daily with people about how much they miss and love her.  It's a little the worst, but a lot the best.

Letter #7 10/18/14

All the lovely humans I was blessed to encounter in a classroom setting here.  Members of my district and our teachers. (Also cute CCM gold statue dude fitting right in)

Week 6 has come and gone and I am officially deucing out of the CCM in T minus ONE day.. AHHHH. What is my life. Today was quite easily the hardest day of ever, probably. I thought I had thoroughly prepared myself for the never ending goodbyes a mission brings, what with Oakcrest this summer and all that jazz but, NO. Holy smokes, there's just something about the people you feel the spirit, learn and grow with. The people that strengthen your testimony and help you become a representative of Christ. Over the course of this week, I have oft times felt a wee bit angry for the fact that Heavenly Father gave me all of these BEAUTIFUL humans, helped me to feel more love than I ever have before, and then makes me leave them. It's just not fair, ya know? And today was the icing on the cake, obvs, saying goodbye for reals. I was really struggling with it when it came to head to the ELDER NEIL L. ANDERSEN devotional, and I was really not super excited. Like I would have traded meeting an apostle to have one more day in class in the CCM. Moment of weakness, but it was real. As we were waiting for him to arrive, I was searching El Libro de Mormon, when I came across the most beautiful thing of all time! Alma 26 has long been one of my all time favorite chapters of scripture in existence, and I really felt like I should read it today. Ammon opens the chapter talking to his bretheren about the great reason they have to rejoice, because would they ever have thought when they left their homes that God would have granted them such wonderful blessings. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'd spent my whole day being sick to my stomach with sadness over the fact that I was leaving all these beautiful people that I love in Mexico, when I should have been REJOICING! I never, ever could have imagined the beautiful blessings I have recieved here. I have had the opportunity to meet some of the most wonderful people to live on this earth, to love them, to learn from them and I AM SO SO GRATEFUL. Ah. 

Eating contraband tacos because #yoCCMo #youonlyCCMonce (BTW they were easily the best thing I ever ate and street tacos are wonderful and my stomachs feeling iffy today, but it's all worth it)

Anyways, this week was the craziest whirlwind of all emotions, if the first paragraph didn't clue you in. Wednesday was THE rollercoaster day of the world. First, I was struggling way super bad just feeling like a terrible missionary. This happens sometimes when Satan doesn't really want you to be doing what you're doing. SO I was basically just feeling that because I wasn't perfectly obedient, and that kept messing up and falling short, the Lord wouldn't trust me to be his servant. I dunno, one of those weird feelings. Hmo Vargas came up to us in class and told us that we would be teaching Alejandro after class, and that it was okay that we hadn't planned because it was going to be a bit different and we should just follow the spirit. So we went outside, I just prayed to feel better because I knew I couldn't teach the way I was feeling, and we went in. Alejandro started to tell us all about how he didn't feel like he could continue taking the lessons because he just couldn't do everything he knew he should and how it was just too hard and basically dropping us. I began to bear my testimony of how the Lord will NEVER leave us comfortless, and that He understands our weaknesses, and.. I realized the words coming from my mouth were the answers to all of my prayers. Let me just say, the spirit was crazy strong and there was many a wet eye in that room. It was incredible to be led by the spirit, and to feel the love my Padre Celestial and Jesucristo have for me through that spirit. Ah, I can't even describe it. We then kneeled to pray at the end of the lesson, and we asked Alejandro to pray. For the duration of the prayer, I was just PLEADING for Alejandro to feel the love and comfort of the Savior, and after we left Hmo. V came and talked to us about it. He particularly mentioned that during the prayer, he recieved many an answer to his prayers and felt the spirit so much. HEAVENLY FATHER ANSWERS US! HE CARES! He cares enough about Hermano Vargas to answer his prayers through the fake lesson to his investigator role through us. This work is incredible.

SO after this, I just cried and cried all the way to the comedor. It was magical. Thennnnnn.. I dunno, some things happened and I got way down in the dumps again. Yikes, bikes. The ups and downs are unreal. After dinner, we were walking and I could tell something was wrong with Hermana Flitton. So we had a little chat, and all four of us girls proceeded to break down in a beautiful/terrified/joyous/grateful/crazy fit of something that only the CCM can do to you. It was awesome though. The spirit spoke so much to us about how we ARE qualified to do this work, that Heavenly Father cares, that we were MEANT to be here at the CCM together at this time, I dunno. It was really a beautiful thing for the whole experience to come full circle. I now know for a surety that Hma Flitton and I were made companions for a reason and that Heavenly Father knows me personally. It ruled. Then, Hma Flitton proceeded to get a blessing from Elder Peterson (our district leader) and all of our cute boys stood in the circle. It was really the happiest thing ever and all of her struggles were mentioned and my testimony of the priesthood has grown 10,000 x out here. Heavenly Father sure knows what he's doing. 

The beloved Hermano Vargas.  I cried like a baby leaving this human today.  He has changed my life in so many ways and has literally been the best teacher I've ever had in my entire existence.

Now we can chat about the Neil L. Andersen devotional.. So great, SO great! I can't even tell ya, it ruled. Remember last week how I made a big fit about how we had to practice the shaking hands procedure beforehand and what not? Well the day finally arrived, and we all got in there and seated all nice. I also previously mentioned that we had to wait for him to arrive, right? SO they were under the impression that he would arrive any moment, so we sang the opening hymn of Secret Prayer, or whatever that song is called in english, and he still hadn't arrived.. so we sang the 4th verse again.. still didn't come.. so we sang the 3rd and 4th verse again.. still hadn't arrived.. so we repeated that once more, and then they had us begin the song over. All for the sake of looking all natural like we were just singing, doing our thing when he entered the auditorium. It was the worst thing that ever happened and Hermana Meacham and I couldn't even control our undying laughter. Yiiiiikes. Hahah, but it was supes awesome. Elder Andersen is quite literally THE most sarcastic general authority that ever lived.. I couldn't even handle.  SO funny. He made a comment about Elder Packer having one foot in this world and one foot in the spirit world that gave us all a good laugh. He talked about the atonement and it's importance in ALL aspects of life but focused on missionary work for obvious reasons. It RULED. I'm so grateful to know that we're all a work in process and how one day, we will be the perfect friend, the perfect child, the perfect human, as Christ like as possible. I'm stoked for it! 

THE Hermano Silva.  This is our beyonce "flawless" pic, idk.  Call it what you want. :)

Next time we chat, I will be a real life missionary en EL CAMPO. Aye aye aye, guys. I love the CCM SO much and could easily spend my entire mission here. BUT I have this message in my heart that i've gotta share with real humans because I know it'll help them! There's hope, people. I'm so grateful to have come here and be speaking spanish and to have fallen in love with the Mexican people. I know there's a reason I didn't get called to France, or Portland. I need Richmond, and Richmond needs me. I'm comin' for ya, land of the trees! <3 

Hermano Polo is silliest of all and I'm so grateful for all I've learned from him. (It's impossible for cut Hma F. to be anything but cute. <3 her.)

This picture is the definition of our days with Silv-Bot.  So much love.

Far too much gozo en mi alma hoy.

Letter #6 10/14/14

Hola! Como le va?! 

This week has been a crazy whirlwind of emotions/life lessons/tragedy/triumph, the whole sha-bang. I love love the mish because, no matter how well you think you're doing, or whether or not you think you've 'got it down', you definitely don't and The Lord has the kindest, sweetest, most loving way of showing you that. There's ALWAYS room for improvement when our end goal is to become like Christ. I've seen a whole bunch of my weaknesses laid out in front of me like a 10 course meal, but i'm super grateful because, although they taste worse than the CCM cafeteria food (jk, it's good, but for the sake of an analogy) at the moment, I know at some point in the mission, or in my lifetime, or even after they'll turn into strengths and be absolutely delicioso to the taste! 

Hm, hm, hm.. Hma Flitton and I gave our worst lesson this week, and that was no fun. Idk what it was, well actually it was a lot of things, but I was already struggling and the spirit was just not there. Simple as that. We've begun teaching people in our class in addition to our teacher/investigators and that is a lot harder than you'd think. Not the amount of lessons, just the classmate teaching is weird. Anyways, I had a good ol' fashioned 'I can't do this and I thought I was making so much progress and now I feel like i've regressed right back to my week one self and why why why me' which is never good for anything but I just wanted to wallow. After I wallowed for a little while, I started studying my scriptures for personal study and came across 1 Ne. 3. The good ol' "I will go and do" scripture where Nephi basically tells his bros what's up. Except for this time, it took on an entirely new meaning to me! I knew that was exactly what I needed to do 'go and do' this thing the Lord had commanded me (mission), and took straight to heart the promise that He ALWAYS provides a way to accomplish the difficult tasks he asks of us. WE CAN RECIEVE PERSONAL REVELATION THROUGH THE BOOK OF MORMON. It's so important to read it because, as you see with investigators time and time again, it literally has NO point if it just sits on your bedside table. But when it's in your hands, and in your heart, it really does become a golden book.

The next day in class, Hmo Vargas said he had something to share with us, that he'd had a random (never ever random) impression to talk about and bear his testimony on obedience. I had prayed really hard the night before to know what I could do to feel more close to my Padre Celestial and to be a better, more inspired missionary and *BAM*, Hmo V answers EVERY SINGLE ONE of my questions ever. And I knew it was for me. And I cried and cried and I am just eternally grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and teachers who are in sync with the spirit and love us enough to take time out of the lesson to follow their promptings. It's true, y'all. The Lord KNOWS us. He hears our prayers! Estoy MUY agradecida.

After this ever so loving spiritual claps on the cheek, we went outside to play a game. Hmo Vargas absolutely loves this game where you all have to stand in a circle and each person says one word of the particular thing we're memorizing (this day it was Santiago (James) 1:5,) really fast and if you say it to slow you lose and and he just got wayyyy into it and started getting in our faces and waving his hands around all intense like and it was quite literally the funniest thing I have EVER seen, I think. I dunno, maybe you had to be there, but for some reason I wrote that down as something worthy of my email, so you can just know that you should wish you were there because I've never laughed that hard in my whole life. Jajajaja! (Typing spanish laughs is a dream come true- you should try it sometime)

Sunday, we watched a really solid devotional by Jeffrey R Holland that blew us completely out of the water (as per the usual). LOVE ELDER H. It was, yet again, full of a's to my q's. The spirit here is just nuts town, I can't even describe it! It makes me super stoked because.. GUESS WHO'S COMING ON SATURDAY! Neil L. Andersen, babyyyy! Hma F and I have known for a while that someone really special was coming to visit because we are BFFS with the lady who knows everything, cute Hma. Jones, the wife of the executive secretary to the Mission Pres, but now it's a hot topic of conversation for everyone. Tonight at Tuesday Devotional we are practicing how to shake an apostles hand. Yeah, you heard me, we're doing a RUN THROUGH of a handshake. It might be a titch silly, but Presidente Pratt did warn the Elders that if they ask him to trade ties they will be shot. What i'm trying to say is the reason we are practicing handshakes is most directly correlated with the crazy antics of the elders. Haha.

We got to go to the temple today and it was SO NEAT. Getting outside the gates was the happiest thing that has ever happened to me, Mexico City is literally the coolest place in the universe. I often times feel like The Hunchback of Notredame, or Ariel when she sings that she wants to be 'Part of your woooorld!', and I was like a kid in a candy store to finally be able to see the outside world! I love latino humans more than life! Ah, it was awesome. We could only go to the visitor's center because the temple is closed, which is a TOTAL bummer because I am craving the temple more than life right now, but it was still beautiful. The spirit in the Christus room completely enveloped me, I am so grateful for His example. I became BFFS with the workers in the 'Zarahemla store' as the little gift shop is called and it was so magical trying to talk with them en espanol. We took way too long in there and were almost gonna miss our bus when we still had to get a photo, so we did and then this cute couple came up to us and asked if they could get a picture WITH us.. hahah, wut? They were so excited to get a picture with the missionaries! It was the first time it hit me that I really am a MISSIONARY. Like, in the CCM, everybody is a missionary so you don't realize, but it was just so so neat. It got me super stoked for the field!

The Mexico City Temple

Yesterday will forever go down as the single best day of my mission to date. Honestly, I don't think I have ever been so happy in my entire life! I tasted the joy that you always always hear about in terms of the mish! So, we have this investigator Daniel, right. He's played by Hermano Silva and he's sometimes a bit of a stinker. Like, we love him, but he's 16 and a lot of the time doesn't seem to care about what we have to say. SO, i've been worried about how to reach him for a while now and the other day I was praying to know what to do and I had the thought that we should sing with him. I had never thought about it before, but he'd previously told us that he liked music a lot so we decided to go with it. One problem that I have before lessons is I get SOOOO incredibly nervous. Like, so. It's a complete lack of faith and trust in the work, but sometimes I just get scared that I won't know what to say or that it'll just be way bad. But I've had the thought over and over again that if we ask in FAITH, he will help us with whatever we ask. So in this lesson, our last lesson with Daniel, mind you, I decided to be bold. We prayed before, I waltzed in there and we started to talk. We told him that we'd like to sing a hymn with him, and I told him with all the boldness I could muster that I KNEW the spirit would come when we sang. And I wasn't scared or anything, and we prayed for the spirit, and began singing I Stand All Amazed, or 'Ambroso Me Da'. We sang the first verse, then told him to join in for the second and third. He did, but he couldn't hardly sing because he was crying. The spirit was NUTS. Then, afterward, we asked him how he felt. He basically just poured his heart out to us about how he was so grateful for Christ and how he wanted to do all the things we asked and wanted to change and knew he needed to and it was so incredibly powerful. We talked about repentance, and at the end I bore my testimony of The Savior's love for him. It was the coolest thing I've ever experienced. I gained such an incredibly deep appreciation and love for the Savior, and I knew that He loved Daniel. That He knew him and wanted nothing more than for Daniel to do the things necessary to come unto Him. It was incredible! I am SO grateful to be a missionary. It is seriously the neatest thing in the world. 

Hermana Melendez and Hermana Beltran both from Mexico.  Hma B speaks really good english because she grew up in the Mormon colonies in Chiuaua, so she was our translator when it was absolutely dire that we got our point across, but we learned so much and felt so much love from these Hermanas.  They will always be in my heart and they are going to help me find a cute latino boy when I get home to marry, so that's neat. :)

I love my investigators, I love my teachers, I love my district, all the people I've met here, I love the gospel and I LOVE the Lord. He really does love each and every one of us, He cares, He knows, He understands. I am so, so incredibly sad to leave the CCM on Monday but SO excited to meet real humans with real problems and help them to know that there is someone who understands PERFECTLY! 

Love, love, love you all! Next time we chat, I'll be headed home to the states! VA here I comeeee!

Love, Hma Yost <3 

Becca and her cute Kohler 2nd cousin Sarah Christensen.

Two of our cute Latina friends Hermana Guzman de Mexico and Hermana Lam de Guatamala

Becca playing with the ladybug that she found in her hair.

My pure joy at tasting of the goodness that is San Pellegrino. :)

Letter #5 10/7/14

Mi familia! Mis amigos! Mi gente! Les amo! 

This week, though. Time marches on, what with only ONE P DAY LEFT in el ccm. Can you believe? I surely can't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one for counting down ever but Hermana F is the QUEEN of countdowns. She says, wow! Only 20 days til we leave the mtc! And I reply with wow! Less than twenty months til we're home! Woo! I just don't really see the purpose of doing something if you're counting down the days til it's over, but to each their own, haha. 

ANYWAYS. This week was wonderfully great and my mind is ALL over the place so don't be too upset if my email is as well. 

To explain the subject of the email, I'm just really bad at being a missionary. There's something about being a representative of Christ that means you're supposed to act different, and it's reeeeeallly hard for me, as you can imagine. A kid in my district, Elder Komenda (who, by the way, IS Braiden Wilder to a T) teases me mercilessly and i'm sassy back, of course, and the other day he was ignoring me in the middle of an argument so I fake kicked him in the calf and basically got a baby talking to from Hmo. Vargas about how 'missionaries don't kick other missionaries' hahahah. Yikes. I was a wee bit embarrassed/mostly about to hysterically laugh because, yeah. I'm the worst. So i've developed a new mantra, which is 'Act dignified, Bex'. I say it to myself when I'm about to dance around or punch an elder in the arm or call an elder in my district 'baby boy'. ALSO Sunday, before conference, we had our weekly class with the mission presidency, and cute lation Presidente Tonorio gave the most wonderful talk about specific prayer.. he talked about the story of Rebekah at the well and how Issac specifically prayed about which girl would come and then she did. Anyways, I was way into the fact that her name is my name, obvs, and I lost my waterbottle earlier in the week so I had just been using a plastic cup from El Comedor for drinking. I kept making all of these jokes about going and filling up my pitcher at the 'well' and it was all in good taste until this Elder began talking to us and said something about finding a guy at the well and I thought up this classic 'is your name Isaac' pickup line and proceeded to say it and.. yup, totes innapprop. 

Can I get a WOOP WOOP for conferencia general?! WHOAAAAA. I could have died I was so happy. When it started, I just broke down. #tearsfordayss. Conference weekend really is my favorite of the entire world. I can sit here today in this uncomfortable computer lab chair and honestly say I love it more than Christmas. AH. And watching conference as a missionary? It really can't be beat. I've waited my entire life to watch conf as a missionary, and I will tell you that it lived up to every expectation of my heart. I would certainly recommend it, SO wonderful. Something that really stuck out to me the entire time were the parts about taking Christ's name upon us and our other baptismal covenants we renew at baptism. I looked down, saw the name 'Jesucristo' on my nametag and was overcome by the incredibly joyous blessing and privilege it is to literally take His name upon me EVERY single day. I am so blessed, and so grateful and so loving the hard work of becoming a little more like Él Senor, mi salvador, todos los dias. Also, I will tell you of the incredible power felt when we all stand for President Monson as he walks into conference. I've always loved that part, but never more than now. After testifying day in and day out of a latter day prophet who speaks for the Lord, that our Heavenly Father wants to continue to provide us revelation and help, just as in old times, WOW. It's incredible how your testimony grows simply by sharing it. 

I had a day this past week where I was SUPER bummed out about the language. Hma Flitton and I have become really good friends with a few Latina hermanas in our building and we talk to them all the time. Or attempt to, anyways. It destroys me when I try to talk to natives and realize i'm not anywhere near where I'd like to be in my Spanish. Ah. But they love us anyways and give us cute latina cheek kisses and I can't handle it. 

This spanish bummer also stemmed from the fact that I got to play an investigator in a teaching demonstration that Hmo V and another district's teacher gave. It was really hard because I didn't always know what to say in Spanish, but it was still incredible! My name was Maria and my husband and I were preparing for baptism but I wasn't progressing  because I had a, missionary term, 'iceberg'. We had a baby that had died and I was sure he was with the devil because he hadn't been baptized. I really tried to get into character and feel how she would have felt. I felt so bitter and angry and hurt and couldn't focus on any of the scriptures we were reading together because all I could think about was my baby. It really hit me SO hard how hard it is to progress with an iceberg in our lives. I realized that even I still have baby icebergs that I need to get over to fully understand and feel the love and blessings of God. This leads me to our investigator, Alejandro. He's a champ, but refuses to read el Libro de Mormon. There is little to no progression to be had when you won't read, and he simply wasn't progressing. Hma F and I realized that HE had an iceberg too! We got tons of beautiful advice from other Hmo's in our building and really studied how to help investigators overcome their challenges throughout their conversion. We realized that we kept bringing in new doctrine, all important, and walking WAY in front of Him when we needed to be walking right with him, working out his concerns and showing him that we really do care more about him than our lessons. I then had the incredible opportunity to watch conference, seeking answers and inspirations for my investigator! IT WAS SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL. Ah, I love him. I was just really stoked, and we REALLY felt like we needed to share what Elder Uchtdorf shared about the umbrella of doubt and fear and pride that keeps God's constant shower of blessings from reaching us in Womens session. We went in, and taught the lesson, and I thought it went fine but not really what I had hoped, when Hmo. V stopped us from leaving, paused his character of Alejandro, and talked to us about the lesson. He was SO kind and shared how much it had helped him and Alejandro and we were on top of the world. I am so grateful for a caring Heavenly Father who is willing to shower down blessings and help upon us so that we can in turn help his children. It was really SO cool and such a wonderful experience. We walked outside to pray and chat, and guess which song is playing on the loudspeaker outside the gates? None other than Alejandro by Lady Gaga.. hahah, such a beautiful fun happy tender mercy that I hope to always remember. Heavenly Father is AWARE of us, friends! So very aware. 

Hermano Sylva, our new teacher since Hmo Polo dueced out to Salt Lake City, leaving all of us behind, is seriously the most hilarious human that ever existed. He's the sassiest mexican human that ever existed, wears pink on Wednesdays (reference from the movie Mean Girls) and is seriously the best. He is, however, VERY different than Hmo Polo. Polo is straight up the funniest guy in existence and is a total silly goose always. Hmo Sylva believes in the blessings of CRAZY hard work and pushes us a ton. Some of the guys in our district were totes upset by the upset of Hmo S, but us Hermanas see it as a TOTAL bendicíon from a loving Heavenly Father that knows we need to work hard. He shared the mormon message about the gardener that loves his bush enough to cut it down, so that it could grow and become better. I've experienced LOADS of cutdowns but i'm super grateful to the Lord for loving me enough. He really does see our potential!

So, funny story, Hmo F needed something from the casa so we came home in the middle of the day. We could hear a male singing which is SUPER weird, for obvious reason. We then realized it was coming from our very own room! When we went in, my alarm clock was randomly playing the radio and the song was none other than Sound of Music, Favorite Things and it was probably the funniest thing EVER. 

Ah, ah, ah! Sharing the gospel all the time is a wondrous experience! I'm so grateful for all of the beautiful things I am learning here, and for all the beautiful people I am meeting. Latino people RULE! The gospel RULES! And Im just totally loving it all. <3

Abrazos for dayyyyys!

<3 Hermana Yost

She was so excited to get our package with her favorite San Pellegrino drinks.

We're headed to Virginia sooner than soon!! 

Hermana Potter is a little PB obsessed and brought millions of tubs of it and we found out that they have BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN OREO GALLETAS in the vending machine, so what better way to celebrate Conference Weekend than with a little oreo and peanut butter party. :)