Letter #33 05/26/15

The Charlottesville dreamland........

Becca and her new companion Hermana Beckstead

Okay, HI. First, most formal apology ever of my life- I have been the world's #1 worst emailer the past few months in Woodbridge. I've been learning to immerse myself in the work, which is super neat, but also, like, families (and friends) are forever or something and you all mean SO much to me, so- yes.

                                                                 Aqui estoy!                    

 In Charlottesville, VA. It is a serious DREAMLAND here, hence the subject title. But, really. I can never quite handle. The University of Virginia campus is in our area and our ward is chalk full of young marrieds who are just doing the college thing and the better portion of them all served missions in Spanish speaking countries, so it's been awesome to have them out to lessons with us!

Speaking of lessons, THIS AREA HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL. It's awesome.

 We have taught/found/refound lots of really neat people who are really interested. My first day here, we went to teach this guy named J. He has three kids, and is from Mexico. His wife wasn't home, so we went out to the backyard, sat on the stairs in the baking sun and taught him and his two oldest. The moment I stepped back there, I was not in Virginia anymore.. They have preserved the Mexican culture quite well in their little spot of America. Chickens for dayyyyss. Anyways, it was really neat lesson. We focused a lot on prayer and as we were talking about baptism, G said he turned 8 on June 28th, so.. their little family is all on date! #birthdaybaptisms! 

Becca, Hermana Sprunt and Lilian who has been so good to Becca!  We love her!

Blanca and her cute family that Becca loves. 

We've seen a bunch of really neat miracles!

There's this rockin' awesome recent convert named S in the college YSA branch. She was baptized in November, and is SO solid. Her mom's from Peru, so she comes out with us all the time and it's so much fun! We've really become such good friends. We were out with her for the night and things had been crazy, we had just had like 3 lessons with people that really weren't interested and I was feeling a little down in the dumps. We decided to go with the little time we had left of the night to visit an investigator named R. We hadn't planned anything for her, so we just went in to follow the spirit. Hermana Beckstead's hymn book was randomly opened to 'families can be together forever', so we sang that, prayed and started talking about temples. As the lesson went on, R just opened up SO much about how she lost her daughter when she was a baby and WHOA. It was incredible. Everybody was crying and it was just really neat. 

My testimony of transfers has gone up at least 300% as well. Sometimes when missionaries are in an area for a really long time, you kind of think you know like who isn't interested, if an entire trailer park has been knocked through. And these rumors can remain as new missionaries come in. BUT I don't know the difference here being, coming in blind, so we've just been inviting EVERYONE to learn. And we've seen some awesome miracles come from it! My first day here, we went to visit a lady named Ru that they had been visiting for a while, but her husband answered. So, not knowing the stigma, I just asked him if there was a time we could come back and teach the whole family.. and so we set Sunday as a date. Missionaries have never taught him before, but he was super game. The lesson was awesome and now we have a new family we are teaching. 

Also, there's this INCREDIBLE recent convert named V. He's such a champion, and he lives with like 4 other guys. They'd been teaching two of them, so we went to set up appointments, and I got to meet them and another roommate, L. Hma Beckstead had always heard that he wasn't interested, but.. once again, I didn't know that. So we asked if there was a day we could come by and share our message with him. He gladly agreed to Friday, and he was there like he said. We had the HAPPIEST lesson in the whole world with him. So open and spirit filled and fun. At the beginning, he was kind of talking about not having a lot of time to really read and find an answer, but by the end he was like.. ya know what, work has slowed down a bit, I think it's the time. SO prepared!

And......  I ran out of time because the happy little miracles were abundant this week! I'm so SO grateful to be here. I'm thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who knows me so perfectly and knows exactly what I need. I'm so thankful to know that, even when change comes and I'm super scared and frustrated because I don't want to leave the beauty of Woodbridge, my Heavenly Father just tells me to wait a good second and then leads me to something different, but just as wonderful filled with so many blessings! He loves us! His promises are SURE. 

Becca  and Hermana Clark on their way to the transfer meeting.

Love y'all. Pics and mucho mucho mas next week, I promise. 

<3 Hermana Yost

Odd and End:

*V gives every new missionary a nickname. Mine is 'Hermana 'Like'. You can guess why?

Letter #32 05/04/15

Everyone and their 5 year old daughter thing I'm Merida and my cute latina companion.

Okay, so let me just tell you that this week was straight up chalk full of beautiful baby miracles that all combined into one of the most incredible weeks of my mission. It was like from last Sunday to this past Sunday (yesterday) I have been completely changed by understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ, it's incredible. IT IS THE SINGLE MOST WONDERFUL THING IN THE WHOLE WHOLE WORLD.  I really am just so grateful to know of His unwavering love and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to share it with every single human that lives here. It's cool to be in a position where literally every human you meet is your 'projimo' (neighbor) and it's not even that awkward or weird when you talk to them about all of their problems and creepily tell them you love them. It's like past life Becca Yost's 'biggest dream' come true!

Emulating the companionship disunity of the two sister missionaries depicted in the above wall art.

Cool graffiti walls and all the goods.

Welp, the last few weeks had turned into kind of a grind and I was just like seriously lacking the faith necessary to perform miracles as a servant of the Lord. Everyone we met was just like, "meh, you girls are nice but please don't come back to my house" and I was just like, "Where in the world are all the prepared humans?!" But THEN Hermana Sprunt and I both had super neat studies about hope and faith and all the goods and we were just determined to go out and conquer the world and find at least 300 searching Hispanic humans.

Searching Hispanic young adult male #1: We had an appointment with one of our cute less active ladies, F but when we went there she had company and wouldn't let us in. SO we had a debate about maybe going to find another one of the less actives or just to knock doors in her neighborhood as we'd planned. We were almost gonna leave, but I just really felt like we should stay. So we drove down the street, parked in front of a random house and got out. Knocked one door of a nice black lady and then noticed a Hispanic walking inside his house.. we run over and ask if we can give him a card and start talking. His name's J and he's 23 and we start talking about Jesus Christ. We watch 'Because He Lives' with Him and his mind was blown.. he was like, "I've never thought that way before.." and the spirit was super strong and awesome! Then, we said a prayer before leaving and after I said amen he was just like, "I feel so light.. and tingly.. what is that?" And we were just like, "That's the feeling that'll let you know our message is true." and he was like, "That's the feeling that makes me want to invite you guys back."

Searching Hispanic young adult male #2: We were going back to contact this guy named W that we taught once, and his mom M answered the door. She told us that W wasn't home, but that her other 19 year old son, F, was. We had given him and all his rough young friends "Because He lives" cards and so we asked if he'd watched it and he hadn't. So they invite us in to watch it. He started watching with a, "who are you two random girls" little smirk, but as he watched his eyes just became glued to the screen. As we talked afterwards, we talked about the direction and peace that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings and asked Him if that's something he desired. He was like, "You won't believe it, but just the other day I was thinking that I could really use some direction in my life, and here it is.. knocking on my door."

Searching Hispanic young adult male #3: We went back to teach F, his dad and mom, but he had another friend there named M. As we started to teach the restoration, it didn't seem like he was very interested, but then we got into talking about the great apostasy and I asked him, "M, have you ever felt like you were walking in darkness?" and then he just broke down and started crying and talking about how he feels like that all the time. The spirit was the most powerful I have ever felt it in a restoration lesson as we testified that God doesn't want us to walk in darkness and how THIS is the light.

You guys, the Lord is preparing people! And I think they're all 19-23 year old men. It's just super cool how the little bits of faith and trust we put in, The Lord gives us beautiful unmistakable miracles. I am so happy here. He loves us and wants us to find true happiness and hope in a world where there's not too much of it. I love Him with all my heart and know He loves every single one of us perfectly and completely.

helives.mormon.org <3

Hermana Yost

My sweet pal Lydia sent me these beauties and they've quickly become my pride and joy.  The white handbook says a whole bunch about animals and children but not one thing about herbs.