HELLO WORLD‏

Linnea, Hna. Adorable, and Hna. Guerra at the SL Bees game. Don't mind how gross I look. I blame it on the unbearable heat.

My district last transfer at the Elder's favorite restaurant...La Familia

This week the Spanish Elders in our area gave us this big apartment complex to work in that is actually part of their area. They never work in it and our real area is a little low on Hispanics so we were super stoked to add it to our area. It's called Canterbury Apartments. We have already added 4 new investigators from this complex and we are excited to keep up the finding and eventual baptisms. We are finally starting to get the work moving more steadily here and we love it.

My companion putting vaprub/plastic on my bug bites. 

Obispo Meneses en his Mexico pancho. VIVA MEXICO!

 This weekend was Mexican Independence Day and let me tell you...it was great. There was a strong aroma of carne asada lingering in the air of Rose Park for a good 3 days. There were tons of bounce houses and even a few bandas. Our bishop even was wearing his littleMexican flag pancho at the ward activity. I even learned how to make horchata from scratch. So good. I'm definitely going to be making a little Mexican feast when I get home. It's going to be awesome.

CHECK MY TURTLES!!

‏

   Monday we went to the SL Bees game(the minor league baseball team) with the entire mission. It was super hot. We were sitting right behind home plate, really good seats, but the sun was just pounding down on us. Unbearable. We opted to move up to the nosebleeds to be protected by the shade. My companions and I didn't stay for the entire game because we still had to go home and clean, etc. It was really fun though and we got a souvenir bees mini baseball bat. 

     That night we had an awesome FHE  (Family Home Evening) with this family we are working with. The wife's name is Johana and the husband's name is Fabian and they have a 5 yr old son. Johana is a member but Fabian is not. We have been working really hard with them but Fabian just won't budge. We decided about a week ago that this FHE would make it or break it. We decided to teach them the 10 commandments with the fabulous finger signs and we assigned every one a little job. Fabian got the spiritual thought.  We thought for sure he'd say something like "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" but no...he opened up D&C 136:32 which talks about being humble so that our hearts and ears are opened. We asked him why he chose that and he said because he feels like it describes him perfectly. He said he needs to be humble and listen to our message. We didn't catch half of what he said because we were just in shock that he was being so open and humble. We are super stoked to see where this goes. We love this family and we know that it's Johana's biggest desire to see him become a member of the church. We shall see what happens. 

On to check my turtles...we went to an appt that the elders set up for us and we knocked on the door...no answer. The kids sitting on the step told us the guy in the Mexico jersey lived there and so did this other little kid in a Mexican jersey. The little kid heard them and said"I dont live there!" and they started arguing back and forth about whether he lived there or not. Finally, the kid in the Mexico jersey said "DUDE go in my house...go in my room and CHECK MY TURTLES...they ain't gonna be there cuz I don't live here anymore!!" We were laughing so hard..of all the things to check in his room ... he says his turtles. So we have been saying that every since. CHECK MY TURTLES! also that same day this little Hispanic girl about 4 years old comes walking towards us so we say hi and try and ask her how she is. She doesn't say a word and just keeps walking towards us but as she passes us she just books it. Runs so fast. We just said all she was thinking in her mind the whole time was STRANGER DANGER like we were a huge bear or something...she needed to act calm in front of us but once she got passed us it was all over.

Princesa Grandota

Linnea with her Cuban friends

So first off...let me explain my subject of this email. To give a little background information...never in my life have i been identified as the "Tongan".  Never.  BUT everyone we talk to thinks I'm Hispanic(mostly Mexican) so I often get the.."What part of Mexico are you from?"  I then explain that my mom is American and my dad is Tongan...and then from there on out I'm know as la tongana. I better embrace it while I can because its never going to happen again. Anyway since there are tons of Tongans here everyone knows that generally Tongans are a large built people that eat a lot. And since I'm always starving for some reason, I eat a lot, which just helps identify me more as la tongana. So the other day we were talking to our Cuban friends Angelica and Maria Elena and we get up to leave and Angelica gives Sister Corrales a hug. She then gets to me and says 'y mira que grande es ella! eres mi grandota princessa' (which translates to...look how big she is! you are my great big princess) I cant tell you how many times people have told you how large I am. I have not gained weight ps...i think its just cuz everyone I talk to is Hspanic and tiny and so anyone over 5'3" and 120 lbs is gigantic. It makes me laugh every time. and it definitely makes Hna Corrales laugh..she won't let me live it down. I should start writing down how many times people call me big. Its great. I love tiny Hispanic people who feed me mountains of food. This week I suffered a lot because we ate with an English ward and I kid you not we had chicken casserole like 4 times. My body is yearning for some beans and rice and tortillas. This week we are eating 5 out of the 6 days with Mexican families. Its gonna be a great week.

Pioneer Day...July 24th

Pioneer Day... July 24th

In Utah, Pioneer Day is an important day since it was pioneers who settled the state.  Each town has a parade and everyone in the town comes out to be a part of the celebration.  Linnea got to experience her first Pioneer Day by going to the big parade downtown in Salt Lake City.

A parade float made by the
Polynesian Cultural Center (Hawaii, near Tess).

Linnea said the float was followed by
at least 100 Polynesian dancers.

Elder L. Tom Perry (one of the 12 apostles of the church)
  was watching the parade nearby

Snow, finally!

February Snow

Since Linnea has been in Salt Lake City the only extreme weather has been the heat.  This summer has been an unseasonable hot one in Utah but the winter was mild.  There was a little snow and here are the photos to prove it!

Linnea with her companion, Hna. Magdaleno, enjoying the snow.

After their appointment, they ran into some elders
who  had left a message on their car.

Here's the message!

A little snow covered tree!

Celebrating a Birthday on a Mission

Linnea Celebrates a Birthday (February 27, 2012)

I just received the photo disk with all photos from February to July of 2012.  That is the reason that this post is being put up now.

One of the families made her a cake.  When she went to blow out the candles
 the kids pushed her face into the cake!

The cake makers.

There were balloons,

pinatas,

birthday hats

and what is a birthday without gelatina!

I guess instead of birthday spankings there are birthday punches.

Here she is with her birthday balloons and pinata.

Her cousins, Juli and Shane and family
sent her a giant cookie

She shared it with her zone at one of
their favorite (not her favorite) eating establishments.

Vaminos!


Sister Guerra told me the other night at around 3AM...I started moving and mumbling in my sleep and then I said in a nice loud voice VAMINOS!! Haha! Yesssss, I guess I was dreaming in Spanish. So awesome. I think the first time I talked in my sleep it was in Spanish. Reminds me of the good ole days when one of my former companions, Sister Marshall, would have full on conversations in her sleep. I hope you all have a good week. You all are always in my prayers. Please keep my investigators and the investigators of all the missionaries in your prayers. We appreciate it!

Linnea with some of her favorite people!

Faith...
We had a training about faith by the mission secretary Bro Soulier. He talked about how we teach faith as a principle of action but we need to use it as a principle of power. We need to use our faith to show our power and authority and help people grow in their faith. It was a really good training and he talked about the importance of the gift of discernment as missionaries. If we can pray and have the gift of discernment we can eliminate all the fluff from our teachings and get to the heart of the matter. We were also trained by one of the counselors in the mission presidency, President Atkinson. This man is a legend. Every time you get a training from him you just want to go conquer the world. He's super animated and very direct. He taught us how we need to help people RECOGNIZE the spirit as opposed to feeling it. He always tells us that if the investigators don't know what they are feeling is the Holy Ghost its our job to tell them. He shared some crazy stories and basically had everyone...even elders paralyzed by the spirit/in tears. Sister Winn also trained us about mormon.org. Now every week we will be spending an hour each week on mormon.org We will be creating profiles and everything so you all should make profiles as well! One of the new missionaries in our mission...Sister Gomez has a video that will be coming out on mormon.org very soon so be on the look out! President Winn had invited us to pray for mountains to climb to build our faith and he left us with an assignment on Wednesday so we could see the power of our faith (since most of us had over come our mountains). There is an elder in the mission who has been suffering from severe migraines every day. And the mission dept wants him to go home but he doesn't want to. So President Winn invited us all to fast as a mission from Saturday-Sunday so that we could heal him with our faith. Pretty crazy stuff. So as a mission we fasted this weekend for this elder and in every prayer we were mentioning his name. We will see what the outcome is but I know there is no faith/power stronger than 200 missionaries fasting and praying at the same time.

 May 28th email...A DRY MONTH

We have 2 investigators who we need some prayers for..Her name is Noemi and she is great. She has been investigating the church for like 2 years now and she would have been baptized 2 years ago if she wasnt waiting on divorce papers to come in so she could get married. She comes to church EVERY week with her 4 kids and hasn't lost hope of getting baptized. Her divorce papers should be coming in soon so please pray so that they come this month so her and her 8 year old son Brian can be baptized. She is so dead set on getting baptized and last Friday she asked us to remind her how to fast so that she could fast and pray for her papers to come in. She's legit. She fasted the next day...and she broke her fast with us by inviting us over for sopes! Sooo good.

    We have also been working with some less-actives and they are great! The Toledo family was attending an English ward and then all of a sudden stopped going. The Ward mission leader in that ward gave us their name to go visit because they also speak Spanish. We went over and talked with them and they have been coming to church at Lucero for the last 3 weeks! They are awesome. We also got a referral of a guy named David who was less-active. Hes from Honduras and turns out he grew up in the same place Sister Guerra grew up. They went to the same church building. He's so cool. He lives with a woman named Zuly(also from Honduras) and EVERYtime we go to their house...they always have prepared some delicious food for us! So goood. We have an appt on Thursday and they are making chile rellenos.  And David came to church on Sunday!! Zuly works at LDS hospital and works most Sundays but at LDS hospital they go around giving the sacrament to employees...pretty cool huh?