Letter #12 11/24/14

This week was easily one of the longest of my life, but then it also doesn't seem real that it's Pday again. The mission time warp is so very real and so very weird. It was most likely the longest of my life because SO many exciting and interesting and different things went down this week, which ruled. 

First things first, I went on my first ever exchange on Tuesday! Meaning that our sweet sister training leader's came down and one stayed the night here while I drove back up to Cloverhill with the other one. It was really very exciting! It's up closer to Richmond, like suburb-y area and NIGHT AND DAY different than here in Crewe. We went tracting first and it absolutely blew my mind. As we knocked people did NOT want to speak to us. I couldn't even handle, because here in Crewe EVERYBODY is religious and it's in the country so at least everyone is courteous and whoa. I now know that even though Crewe was hard at first, The Lord DEFINTIELY knew what He was doing because the people here have the hearts of hispanic people and genuinely care about you. We got invited to our dear friend Donna's bible study the other night, and of course we attended. It was really interesting and cool to explain a little more about the B.O.M and answer their questions about our faith. I felt a lot like I was at one of those house party things the southern ladies have on The Help, and I dunno dreams do come true! ANYWAYS back to the exchange.. we got to go to dinner with one of the families in the ward, and the mom served a mission in Argentina.. so she was dying to have me pray in Spanish. That was really fun and then we taught a few different lessons. One was to an AWESOME old lady named Virginia. Her son just recently joined the church, and he is convinced that she will not change but the missionaries are visiting her. She's open to everything but just doesn't want to leave her church that she's been attending her entire life. As we talked to her about The Gospel of Jesus Christ, she started on this little rant about how when we repent, sometimes we have to give up stuff we really love, stuff that might even be good, to come closer to Christ. It was incredible to see the spirit working through her to help her answer her very own question. The last guy we taught was Robert from Honduras, and I got to use my Spanish AGAIN with him. It was super neat to see how the Lord helped me to be able to use some of my Spanish even on an all english exchange. I know that He knows and loves me!

One last thing, let's just all appreciate the fact that I got to go to TARGET. *Insert hallelujiah chorus here* I'd be lying if I said I wasn't in heaven. I had strictly TEN minutes in there and I just grabbed every cute warm clothing item I could find. It's been such a blessing to have a coat finally! Also I got eat at chili's so that was the best. #chipsandsalsa

The next day we had a zone workshop, which was pretty cool. President and Sister Wilson were there and we did this fun (not) thing where we did teaching role plays and they video-ed us. It was absolutely nightmarish to watch ourselves teach, haha. It wasn't that bad, but I was REALLY on edge that day. Just like super nervous for everything. President was videotaping us once and mentioned afterward something about that, I can't even remember what he said, but I quite literally just started crying and it was SO bad. It wasn't what he said at all, but He felt awful about it. It was very awkward, but I got everything under control and had like 40,000 prayers answered so that ruled. I learned SO much about how I need to learn to trust the spirit or I am never going to be the missionary that He wants me to be. For the last role play, we were to go in the hall, pray for the gift of discernment, and go back in and find the need of our investigators (who were another companionship of missionaries). We went in and it was SO cool. I could feel the words to speak on my tongue. I knew if I opened my mouth, I would know what to say. We asked many questions, felt that they had serious Book of Mormon doubts, and I felt like I needed to bear testimony of Joseph Smith. It was awesome, the spirit was STRONG. IT was just what I needed to feel okay after my near fatal breakdown. The life struggle of emotional Becs. 

OK, TOO cool.  Seriously considering post mission educational pursuits at VCU, just so I can stand by this wall in my free time.

On Friday, we got to go to this meeting called 'Return and Report' with President for all of the trainees and their trainers. It was SUPER wonderful. We had lots of beautiful trainings and then for our role play for the last one, we got to go into the streets of beautiful downtown Richmond and contact people. IT WAS INCREDIBLE. But it also really showed me why I am where I am.. I couldn't handle, it was too wonderful and artsy and cool and the focus struggle was real. Haha, but it was awesome. I was paired with another trainee and it was really neat to both not know what we were doing. I met so many cool people and was basically in heaven. After it was done, we found out our ride was going to be 20 minutes late so Hma Clark and I decided to kneel in this little alley thing and say a specific prayer.. I prayed that we would find a lady that would be prepared and talk to us, and while we were praying I imagined that she would be getting out of a car when we found her. We walked all around forever and time was almost up, when we passed this lady in a car on the curb.. we walked past, but I knew I needed to go talk to her. We did and it was really cool, we gave her a card and invited her to church! She is muslim but she seemed super open and interested. Then, on the way back to the car we met another lady who looked super similar getting out of her car as well.. it was my first real experience with specific prayer, but it really strengthened my testimony. The Lord WILL answer in specific ways if we are willing to ask. 

City girl at heart yo! :)

One more cool experience with the spirit, we were driving home from our dinner appointment that very night and I prayed in my heart to know who we should visit tonight.. when I saw two people sitting in the laundromat that we were diving past. I felt VERY strongly like we should go visit them, but felt as though it would be too awkward.. so we went and tried to contact the people we had planned for the night, but nothing. I knew we needed to go back.. and it turns out it was a girl we had previously met that works in the laundromat named Justice and her boyfriend Zachary. They were SUPER open and we talked about the Book of Mormon and became great friends with them. I am super excited to teach them soon. The Lord makes a way for us when He asks us to do something, Nephi knew what he was talking about!

The one and only Princess Jenni!

One of the happiest things ever, one of our cute investigators, Jenni, came to church yesterday! She's 8 and adorable and I just love her so much. After church we taught her and she just LOVED the sacrament. We were eating chips and drinking water and she's like, guys! This is like the sacrament! Haha, her mom is from Mexico and her dad is from Honduras and I am really hoping that her excitement will peek their interest. She told us that she felt, "happy and like a princess" at church.. the spirit RULES! 

Missions are hard, but I learned SO much this week. He really will help us and guide us if we will trust him. Trials are HARD but everything is for our benefit. I'm so grateful to experience and really feel all of the ups and downs of being a full time representative of Christ. 

Love you all SO MUCHO! Les quiero! <3

Hermana Yost

Letter #11 11/17/14

There's a used tissue in my Goodwill jumper (and other stories, most all of which are about animals)

If the subject doesn't say it all, I will.. I BOUGHT A WOOL JUMPER at goodwill last pday and I'm way excited about it. Now I can say that I'm that much closer to living completely by the white 'missionary hand book' bible! (It says that sisters should wear jumpers and i've always thought it was hilarious but now I love)

Another week, another email. This week was filled to the brim with many an emotional roller coaster, but such is missionary life. I'm gonna be a stone cold killa when I return from the mish, ready to conquer ANYTHING that life throws at me, haha. *knock on wood, I don't really want anything too crazy thrown at me* But it really is crazy. I have learned quite a bit about the importance of 'bridling our passions, so that we can be filled with love'. If anyone knows me well, they will know that there's a small part of my soul (maybe not small) that is a self proclaimed 'feminist'. And if anyone knows me well, they will know that I may or may not enjoy a good, healthy argument. And.. yeah. Basically everyone and their dog here loves Jesus and thinks they've found Jesus and that you're on their porch for them to preach to. Which really isn't the reason we're here in Crewe, but we get a lot of people preaching to us and it's hard to get out of the situation and so you end up spending an hour and a half of the Lord's time listening to why you're wrong. Anywaysss, this was happening with this guy and he said something about how Eve didn't have a clue what she was doing when she partook of the fruit and that's why it wasn't her transgression and my little feminist part of my heart burned within me and it was just bad. I left the talk with the guy realizing that all I had testified of was Eve and her knowledge and bravery and.. I hated myself literally the entire rest of the day. YIKES. But, such is life. We live and we learn and I am learning SO much every second.

So we have a sweet part member family who attended our branch once, and we decided we needed to go visit them. At church they gave us directions to their house in a TINY not even town called Greenbay, but we basically forgot them so all we knew was that they lived in Greenbay.. and there may have been something about a bridge.. or two bridges.. and, maybe an orchard, and that's it. Haha, so we were sent on a wild goose chase through the backwoods of VA to find this family. And it was CRAZY. Haha, everyone we saw or felt like might know something about them we stopped to talk to, so we got to talk to a LOT of people about the gospel and little by little each clue led us closer and closer to their home. One of the neighbors told us the house of the father of the family's father, so we went there and to our amazement found a literal hound dog farm. We must have counted like 30 hound dogs and it was crazy and sad and weird, but then.. out of all the hound dogs there emerged a HUGE hog. And, I don't know why, but I totally wigged out. I thought it was going to kill me. And it was trotting after us and I was sure it was chasing us to attack us and needless to say I need to CHILL out. Haha. But it was such an adventure, and finally after hours of searching, we were talking to a family when the father of the family we were looking for pulled into their drive way! What? Prays are answered, tender mercies are everywhere. Haha. It ruled. And we got to visit with them for a while, and invite them to the Branch Chili Cookoff that night and they CAME! It was awesome. And then they came to church yesterday, so #miracles all across the board. 

After the chili cook off on Saturday, we attended the fiesta de cumpleanos of C. Garcia and ate the most DIVINE stuffed chilis that ever existed and I nearly died. All of the extended family members think i'm insane because i'm this super white chick that really really really wants to be Mexican, but I can't help it. Haha. How I love hispanics. We were contacting a lady when we saw one of our hispanic investigators at the park across the street surrounded by other hispanics, so naturally we went over to visit with them and the kids wanted to show us how fast they could run and their cute little chiuaua and that led us to a conversation about perros and one of the little kids told us that his family is raising two dogs to eat.. uh. And I didn't know if I understood him correctly, I thought he may have been saying that they were so cute he could just 'eat them up' but.. no. Haha, so that's that. If we end up teaching his fam I'm gonna be REAL careful about what I put in my mouth, that's for sure. 

ALSO basically every hispanic we meet is a 'cradle catholic' meaning they rarely attend, but are not shy about the fact that they are CATHOLIC. And every one of these humans has an obsession with Maria. And I will tell you that yesterday the ninos had stolen my camera and I saw the poster of Maria on the wall and used it to my advantage. I asked, 'What would Maria think of your behavior right now'?! To which G. quickly replied, "bad..." And I never thought I would be the one to use the term "What would Maria do?" but there you have it. Haha.

We have this sweet returning member lady in our ward that we go and do scripture study with some days. She is older, single, so funny and she just recently was suprised with a kitten on her doorstep. She really felt that this kitten was a manifestation of God's love for her and is just absolutely in love with the thing. So after we read scriptures, we are headed to a dinner appointment. She tells us not to hit her kitten, as we see it run behind the car. So we pull out and still don't see it but figure it ran behind and past the car. I made some joke in passing about how I really hope it didn't climb into our motor or anything, and what if it did and we were off. On our way to the appointment, the member calls us to tell us that the cat is lost and she can't find it anywhere. So now we're really hoping that it didn't climb into our motor. ANYWAYS like an hour later we're just eating dinner in the house with the family, and one of the ladies went out to smoke. She comes in and says that there's a tiny grey kitten out there that she's never seen before. Hma Clark and I both jump straight out of our seats and run outside and what do you know, cute little Tinkerbell is outside! Three towns away from home! She must have hid in the undercarriage of our car all the way! It was absolutely INSANE! Like the greatest miracle that the lady was outside at that exact time to see the cat and it was all just too perfect. So we called the member to tell her the news, finished with the appointment, I got to ride all the way home with a kitten in my arms, and we returned her to her momma. It was seriously MAGICAL. The member just held us and cried. Our Heavenly Father really does love us, really does care about the little things. It was so beautiful. 

Miracle of the week! So we have an investigator, D, and we love her so much but she is difficult sometimes. Like she tells me all the time how I dress like a grandma and what not.. haha. Well after one of our lessons with her, I had the smallest little prompting that we should ask a member of our branch, Charlotte W, to come to our next lesson. So we did, and she agreed. At first it was crazy because D. was having a bad day and we didn't know if she was going to let us stay, but she did and I am SO glad because as her and Charlotte talked, they realized that D. had been in the hospital having a huge surgery for epilepsy at the same time as her daughter Robyn and they just clicked. Charlotte understood EVERYTHING she had gone through because she'd been through it before. It was nuts. We left the room for a minute to look at D's new fish tanks, and we never wanted to go back in because Charlotte was just saying EXACTLY what she needed in ways we never could have said them. After the lesson D. texted us to thank us for the lesson and for bringing Charlotte. It was SUCH a blessing and I was so grateful to have been prompted to do that. It's incredible to me to know that the Lord knows His children SO well. He knows exactly which random member of the branch will be able to change our investigators life.

Follow up on D, however.. we have a feeling that she was VERY close to getting her answer and getting baptized last lesson with Charlotte, because she is going through a lot of struggles now. A bunch of people have been telling her all sorts of terrible things about the church and she doesn't know what to think. We are trying to help her understand that the only way she can know for sure is to ask God. Keep her in your prayers! I love her so much and I know that the Lord will help her to know. I am so grateful to know that He is there and watching out for all of us. His hand is incredibly apparent sometimes in the work and it truly is a blessing to see it!

I love y'all! Be strong, be happy and be GRATEFUL because, the gospel provides SO much hope in our lives. Things WILL work out as we follow the Savior.

<3 Hermana Yost

PS My camera is not working, but be way prepared for 10,000 photos of the crazy rabid hog next week, okay love you bye

A couple of pictures taken at a Zone conference in Richmond that I stole off of Sister Wilson's facebook page. :)

Letter #10 11/10/14

Another week has come and gone, and life is just as good as ever. It's still weird when I really realize that I am a MISSIONARY. Like, what? It's so neat. I love all the implications that come with the calling, I really do. Oftentimes, however, I feel like I'll never measure up to the missionary that the Lord would have me be. I want so badly to be this missionary that I know I can be, that every human in the world has the potential to be, but it requires a serious amount of work and faith and trust and the whole lot, and sometimes I'm not too good at all that. But if there's one thing that I absolutely love, it's that the atonement is REAL. I can go to bed feeling like I was the absolute worst missionary that day, wake up, do my personal study and the Lord gives me another chance with a new day! I'm so grateful for that knowledge. ANOTHER THING THAT HAPPENED WHOA. I just have SUCH a testimony of personal study. Ah, we have some returning members we visit that struggle to read their scriptures. Before the mission, I was definitely that person, but now I almost die when I hear that.. like, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING? Is what I want to say, but I don't say it like that, but it's so true. The Book of Mormon can change you, and it's so simple to read it, but it's so simple NOT to as well. Hma Clark and I were talking about how those are the things that get ya.. the things that are both easy to do and not to do. We are truly changed by small and simple things. It's tough to watch investigators who don't keep commitments, because we know how much it can change their lives.. we can recieve answers, but we have to act!

Hipster tag pics on some old civil war bridge and #lifeisntallthatbad

Anyways, i'll jump right on down from my soapbox and what the awesome thing that happened was.. So, I had been praying every second of my life as of late to know how I could be better, to become this missionary that I wanted to be, so I went into my study with that prayer in my heart and I came upon DC 60. Holy smokes, this here chapter done gone and saved my life! The first verse talks about how happy the Lord is to see missionaries out, how it's pleasing to Him that they would even have the desire to serve.. but it goes on to talk about the things that don't please the Lord. When the missionaries don't open their mouths, and don't share their talents. And that if they continue to do this, all of it will be taken away from them. This hit me like 400,000 bricks. So often, especially in Spanish lessons, I don't say anything I'm thinking to say for fear of saying something wrong. And at times I keep to myself more than usual because it's scary and awkward and hard and my companion is REALLY quiet, so I don't really know when it's just her being quiet or if it's someone that I shouldn't talk to or something.. haha. But, anyways, this just changed my whole world. After reading, I again got discouraged thinking like, "oh, this must be why I feel bad about my spanish.. i'm a lost cause now because it's already been taken away from me", and so I continued to scan the page and the first verse I see is 7. It reads 

"And in this place let them lift up their voice and declare my word with loud voices, without wrath or doubting, lifting up holy hands upon them. For I am able to make you holy, and your sins are forgiven you." 

What a beautiful answer to my prayer! He is able to make me holy! To make me into the person I am supposed to be! So, on that note, I've made a commitment to always lift up my voice, trust him and I feel changed! Missionary work is happier when we are willing to do it the Lord's way. With His help, we need not fear! I am so grateful. 

Just a lovely "Zone sister pday hike" pic.  Don't forget to look at the trees. #beauty

Basically, I am gonna gain 4,000 lbs here in good ol' VA. We have two dinner appointments tonight (We had already told Hermana Garcia we would come over for their sons birthday, forgetting that we had a dinner appointment with a member planned) and I'm terrified. The secret that missionaries can never say is that members and investigators think you are starving always, so you feel as though you should feed a huge meal plus dessert every single time, but the reality of the situation is that I am quite literally always stuffed. Haha. Like last week we had three huge servings of ice cream in the same 24 hours and I was certain I was the worst person that had ever lived. 

So, this weekend we kind of struggled with lessons.. hardly anyone was home and the ones who were ended up talking our ears off for 40 years, so we hadn't even taught one lesson the whole of Saturday. When we came to the home of J. and M. M. told us to come back next week, but their cute daughter J. still wanted to chat so we told her we would teach her a lesson. She wanted to show us her barbie dolls, so we decided to teach her the Plan of Salvation, acting it out with the barbie dolls. IT WAS SO NEAT, haha. I loved it so much. Because it was interesting to her, she retained a ton of it, and when the neighbor boy came over and started to tease her, she came back at him with, "Cristobol, you're gonna go to the STAR!" (Terrestrial Kingdom, hahah), and as we're all dying of laughter she adds, "You just got serveddddd!" Ninos (kids) are really the winners of the world. We may or may not have decided that our purpose in life is just to baptize all the ninos in the whole world. Haha. 

E. and G. #bestillmyheart

So two neat miracles of the week! First off, remember the cute miracle family we met in the laundromat and lost contact with because the number she gave us didn't work? Well, I'd been praying that we could some how find her again because I wanted so badly to teach them, and felt like we should, but hadn't had any success with finding her. Anways, we randomly stopped by the Garcia's last week to check on them and G. (the cute little daughter) showed us how her friend from school had invited her to her birthday party. I asked to look at the invitation and... IT WAS THE INVITATION TO DESTINY'S PARTY, one of the little girls from the laundromat! Containing two phone numbers and an address! What in the world?! I fell to the floor in pure wonder and we couldn't even handle.. hahah. So, that's that folks. It's been decided. As our dear friend Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "God provides a way when there is no way". It was so so beautiful and I can't wait to contact them. 

Miracle number two, Saturday morning for training we talked about finding people, and something so interesting really stuck out to me in Preach My Gospel. It said that there are people prepared, and you will be led to them, or they will be led to you. I've been here for only two weeks, I know, but I just really yearned to see this.. people that actually WANT to listen to us, what? So anyways, when were were knocking on J. y M.'s door, a guy came out. We talked to him for a second, He said his name was Julio, and he was on his way. Nothing special about our encounter. Later, when we were teaching the barbie lesson out in front of the house, he came back in his car and yelled to us "When are you coming to my house?!" We asked him where he lived, and he said Blackstone, which is actually the Elder's area so we gave him to them as a referral, but it was so neat. He came over to us, told us about his family (he has a wife who's almost ready to have their first baby) and gave us his address. It really was so cool. What a testament to the fact that people are PREPARED!

I'm actually a ghost.  Life is so hard when you're so white. haha

It is SO beautiful here in VA, I can hardly handle. I am so grateful for the blessing I have to be here doing the Lord's work. It's wonderful to see His hand. I know He knows and loves us! I know it. And I know He loves y'all. It's incredible to be here where SO many people love Jesus. There are churches on literally every corner. All I want is to give them that little taste of MORE that we have! We are so lucky. I love y'all SOO mucho!

<3 Hermana Yost

Welcome to the Burkeville Branch. :)

Letter #9 11/03/14

Crazy to think that it's been yet another week! I can't hardly get my footing here, but I'm sure it'll come in time! Every moment I feel like I've got it, is, of course, the moment right before I feel completely lost and all I can do is smile because I can't remember a lick of espanol.. The Lord wasn't kidding when He told us that He would show us our weaknesses, everyday I see a new one, but because He's showing me them I KNOW they can become strengths. As long as I rely on him, I'll be able to teach efficiently, and love more, and have patience in the work.. maybe even speak spanish someday, haha. It's cool to realize that I'm in His hands, as well as the work and our investigators, and that things that are hard now can be made easier through him.

So, I still don't know how to organize this emails because remembering an ENTIRE week of things is nuts. Haha, so I'll just start at the very beginning and then jump to and fro as I please. (ALSO, just a word of caution, I am developing a southern accent.. I'm like a little sponge, I can't help it. So if I say anything that sounds silly, forgive me por favor). Anyways! Last Pday was just super hard. After emailing I had another like 'okay, what am I doing here, I don't have time to get back to anyone let alone write a decent email and really ah what is my life' semi breakdown, so that was real fun. BUT THEN. Of course, the Lord just shows forth His loving hand as it turned into the happiest day of milagros (miracles). I came home to find that HAPPIEST package on our doorstep, so that was incredibly perfectly beautiful. Kudos to the best momma of my life. So, that made me way happier. Then we headed to Wally World and met the NEATEST hispanic guys. They were way funny, and the one was looking for a wife, and we told them that if he came to church and was baptized, we might marry him.. hahahah, uhhh.. he was actually heading back to Mexico the next week, but he pinky promised he'd find the missionaries there. Haha. Then, we went to our COOLEST sort of recent convert human friend Sister Davis's for GREEN SMOOTHIES, and you know how I feel about greens. And smoothies. After that, we were at the laundromat.. and, yikes bikes. Our clothes were taking FOREVER to dry. And we were real late (P day ends at 6), so yeah. But then these two little girls walk in and we started talking to them. they were just so funny and I dunno. Then their mom and this random guy came in and we talked to them. The guy was super crazy Christian, but the mom didn't know where she was in life or her testimony. We got to stand in this little laundromat and bear testimony to the little girls and their mom that they were daughters of God and that Jesus knows them. It was so cool and the spirit was BEAUTIFUL. We got the moms number, but can't get ahold of her. I still have faith that we'll see her again one day, but I KNOW that we were supposed to be there late to help them. It's neat how that happens. The icing off the cake was a lesson with a hispanic couple named Anaseli and Manuel. They have a son, Thomas, that we hung out with at that hispanic party and it was just EXACTLY what i'd always imagined a lesson would be. They were interested and the spirit was there and I know Heavenly Father knew that that was what I needed to feel good again. 

Halloween on the mish is really fun.. hahah. I had a TON of candy (thanks again, mom) and I'm trying not to gain the weight of the world here (both Hermanas that were in this area before me gained 30 pounds on their missions.. YIKES), so I decided I would use the candy as a service opportunity. So I made these cute little bags of candy and glowsticks and such, along with pictures of Christ and children, and as we were parked in front of our investigators houses, the little beautiful hispanic children would come 'trick or treating' at my window.. the cutest thing EV. Ah, I thought I was gonna wait til later, but I can't. I LOVE HISPANIC CHILDREN. Alright, I said it. Hahah. I am just learning SO much what Christ meant when He tells us to 'become as little children'.. these kids are the best. They want to listen to us, they don't stop talking about how much they love God, it's incredible. They ask us every second to give them more pamphlets and cards cause they are all starting a collection of "God things" as they so eloquently have named it. Haha, it's the cutest thing. I will never forget the feeling of sitting on a little porch, surrounded by kids, teaching them 'I am a Child of God'.. seeing these kids sing these incredibly powerful truths, learning it for themselves, SO beautiful. Ah. ALSO you'll get a kick out this.. so we gave them candy, right? And naturally, they're little stinkers and threw their trash on the ground.. OH NO YOU DIDN'T, I exclaimed.. and then went in on this huge sermon about God's creations and came up with, on the spot, this beautiful analogy of "how would you feel if you made this awesome art project and everybody came around and threw trash on it".. hahah, Hermana Clark and I decided we should add "not littering" to the list of commandments we teach in PMG. 

So we are heading soon to a dinner appointment (TACOS!) with investigators, the familia Garcia, but let me just tell you how great they are! AHHHH, I love the kids. Just the best. And their mom is the most hilarious human. But we haven't really had the opportunity to get to know their dad.. until lately. By some miracle (we prayed for it) he has been able to be home more, and he RULES. He knows how much I want to be Mexican, so when he shakes my hand he calls me 'la mexicana'.. hahah, apparently my braid around my head is ONLY done in Mexico, so he thinks I'm a total wanna be, but maybe I am. He did tell me that he thinks I'll learn Spanish fast because i'm like a 'Mexican', I listen intently and really try.. I guess that's what Mexicans do. I'll take what I can get. We had a super intensely beautiful convo with him, about gospel things and the Book of Mormon and he's SO SOLID. He told us that he'd have to think about baptism because he wants it to be a family afair.. little does he know, his kids have already committed to baptism.. hahah. Ah, I love them.

Oh, I wish I had time to tell you all.. but really, it's a happy life here. HARD as can be, but happy.

I must really be in the south, also, I ate fried 'gizzards' (YUCK) at the local tastee freez and last night we totally ran over a HUGE possum. I laughed my head off, Hermana Clark thinks I'm the worst. Good times down here, no doubt about it! I love learning about Christ. I love feeling his spirit through personal study each morning. I love the gospel and I LOVE PEOPLE. 

AND I LOVE YOU GUYZZZZ.

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. :)