Week 18: Hospitals are hard

Hello family and friends!

Again, thank you so much for the prayers and thoughts on my behalf this week. I had a hard weekend, being a missionary and being in the hospital is not the best. It was really hard for me. reaaaaallly hard. the best thing was that I got to talk to my parents on the phone and that I have the best mission president and he acted like my dad throughout the weekend. I was so grateful, it was hard being in the hospital without family. honestly, I have tears as I am typing this letter. the mission is so hard. It is sooo hard being sick on the mission. It is sooo hard not feeling 100% all the time. It is hard to have faith about me getting better because us and every doctor has tried something different and nothing has worked. what I am doing is pretty much the last try. please keep the prayers coming!

Decided I still represent the Lord in the hospital.

This was the view out my window from my room. So pretty and such a nice hospital!

Before I went to the hospital, I had a pretty good week! I am teaching English like never before. I am teaching 5 different people. Not a class, but a recent convert from the other hermanas in our apartment sets up appointments with us so we can have conversations in English about the gospel. It is really great! I think we have an appointment with him this week, so hopefully that will encourage me and lift my spirit! I am also teaching a daughter of menos active (a less active member). She knows absolutely no English so it is fun to teach her and see her progess. I am teaching Xochitl (the lady in the picture) and two teenagers (granddaughters of Hermana Buitrron). They are fun to be with and teach! Teaching English is a looooot harder than I thought. We have so many dumb rules that I cant explain! Hahaha just be grateful that we all know a very hard language that everyone here wants to learn!

This is the lady that I have had the cool English experiences with...Xochitl. she is so great...we love teaching her English!

A cool experience happened to us right before I went to the hospital. The day before. So we just finished contacting a street and we were on our way to an appointment. We walked by a house and Hermana Tirado felt like she should knock on the door. Hermana Tirado told me that she has knocked on this door before but a cranky old lady answered twice but she still felt like we should knock on it. So we did! A lady about 30 years old answered, we presented ourselves and told her we wanted to share a message with her. She told us to come back in an hour! So we contacted a little bit more and came back! We told her that we want to share a message about Jesus Christ with her and asked if we could teach her and her family. She told us that her parents are eating inside and asked if we could teach her from her door! So we did! The hard part about this was, as I am finishing my training, I am supposed to be starting the lessons. And I had never practiced the Restoration lesson with the opposite parts. But Hermana Tirado pushed me to start. So I did. We went through the lesson and we got to the first vision. I recited it word for word and almost started crying. The Spirit was so strong. Sooo strong. After the lesson, we asked her what she thought. She started to cry. Cry and cry. She then told us that we are the answers to her prayers. She has been praying so much about joining a church and she basically said she already knows this is true. I invited her to be baptized and she accepted with an affirmative "YES". I have never met someone sooo prepared before. They know that this is right and I cant wait to teach them! Such a cool experience!

I looooved conference (the church meeting that is held in Salt Lake and broadcast around the world). I got to watch it in English and I learned sooo much from every single talk. it was soo amazing and so many things that I needed to hear! we are so blessed that we have the opportunity to hear from our prophet and apostles!

Thank you again for all of the prayers. This week will be the week where we see if my final medicine works. I have faith that it will but I am having a hard time still. Love you all and have such a great week!

Hermana Garner

The best first companion ever! She has been so patient with me throughout this whole thing!

Week 17: "Conviction, not obligation"

Hola familia y amigos! Como estan???

This week has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs! I have had one of the best moments of my mission so far and a pretty hard day yesterday. I have also learned so much!

I had divisions again this week with Hermana Villalobos. I live with her and I thought it would be super hard because she speaks no English and she has a really thick accent from Honduras...but it went SO well. She is such a great missionary! We felt the Spirit soooo strong in all of our lessons. It was soooo great!

It is almost October here and it is pretty chilly! Especially in the mornings. We dont have a heater so we have to layer up to sleep. We are getting a space heater soon! Dont worry mom!

We got to watch Women’s Conference this week. In Spanish. I understood most of it which was a blessing! Next week is General Conference and we get to watch it in English! There is an American room....sooooo grateful! Hermana J and I will watch it together! I couldnt be more excited to listen to the words I need to hear!

We are still teaching the lady English and wow what a cool thing it is. I had never imagined teaching English would be hard, but it is! People ask so many questions "why is this like this?" and I honestly have no idea what to tell them. I am grateful that my native language is English because sooo many people here want to learn it! We are lucky!

Hermana T’s birthday was this week so I made her a huge breakfast. Eggs, blueberry muffins, fruit, toast, cereal everything. I got her earrings and a member bought her a huge cake which I smashed her face into. Pretty fun! 

Downtown Mexico City! so many cool decorations!

The highlight of my week was with Luis - our recent convert that started drinking again after his baptism. We haven’t been able to contact him in a while and we were about to give up. On Friday ( I think) we were in the church and we were walking to another appointment. Luis lives right next door to the church but you need a key to enter his apartment complex. But when we walked by, the door was wide open and no one was around. We kept on walking and thought nothing about it. And then I had this thought, We need to go see Luis`s mom. Because we knew that Luis was getting help in a Rehab center or something similar. So I told Hermana Tirado "We need to go and see Luis`s mom. She said "ok..." So we walked through the wide open gate and got to his apartment complex. We yelled from the bottom "Señora Lara!" (the mom of Luis) over and over again. No one came. We almost walked away and we heard the window open. It wasnt Luis`s mom. It was Luis. He said "HI! I will come open the door for you!" We were frozen and our hearts were beating. Honestly, I was scared to go in. We went in, sat down and started talking. It was the coolest experience. We talked about how in our lives, when we do something good and Heavenly Father is proud of us, Satan is also very powerful and can have an influence over us. He felt really bad and he said 3 things that I loved. One he said, "This whole time I have been having a hard time, I have heard the piano in the chapel and thought of you guys" he also said "The love for God has always been right here" and he put is hand over his heart. We talked to him about returning back to church and reading the scriptues again and he said "Yes, I will continue to read the scriptues and go to church with conviction, not obligation". wow. he still has such a strong testimony. this meeting brought me sooo much comfort. that He still has a love for the gospel. we asked him "what are you going to do if you fall into temptation again?" he said "I will beg for help in prayer" he knows what to do! So we will see what else happens with him. But thank you soooo much for all of the prayers for him! He has such a big place in my heart.

As for my health, I am doing a lot better! I feel a lot better but I still cant eat a lot, so I continue to lose weight. Hahaha. A lot of my skirts I have to pin and some shirts are pretty lose, but it is a good thing right?! Im still not completely normal (my health..haha) but I feel a lot better. I worked everyday this week and felt great! Thank you for the emails and prayers! It means so much!

Have a greaaaat week this week! Always remember to say your prayers, morning and night. Morning because when we bring the Spirit in the morning, we have it for the rest of our day! Night, because we have soooo many things to be grateful for. Sooo many blessings. Read the scriptures too! I have grown to LOVE the scriptures. They help me so much!

xoxoxo

Hermana Garner

Members gave us these mugs one meal with our names on them! So nice of them!!