Blanca could never be whiter

Dear Family,

BAPTISM!!! YAY!!!! Like I said, Blanca could never be whiter- clean from EVERY error or stain she has ever had in her life. CLEAN. 

I think my memorycard has a virus or something because even though I can see the pictures in my camera they don't show up on the computer. DAD?!?!

Anywho, you will have to imagine the baptism without pictures.

It was a powerful baptism. Blanca's son Victor is an investigador in another ward and doesn't want to be baptized. But when he gave his talk about baptism, you could tell that he knew that it is necessary that he gets baptized. We will have to see when he takes a step of faith and hopefully it's soon! After, her daughter in law gave a talk about faith and WOW. For being a convert of four or five months, she has a strong testimony and she doesn't lie. But although the talks were powerful that isn0t what I am trying to get at. Blanca felt the spirit so strong that she began to cry. She doesn't cry. Hardly ever. I had the wonderful blessing to lead the hymns and see her face and see that she really knew what she was doing and that she had found and FOLLOWED the truth of God.  

Even though her water was FREEZING and she had to wear a suit instead of a dress, it was clear that she felt the power of Heaven confirming and rejoicing in her decision to be baptized. 

As for Evelyn y Renata, they are doing really well. They understand everything we teach them and they are preparing with all their strength for their baptism. Evelyn is ready to be baptized any time now, but Renata wants her parents to be present at her baptism, but with difficulties that their family is passing for right now her parents probably wont be able to return home until March at the soonest. Outward forces are creating problems for their family and the two of them live with their Gma Mercedes. We are going to keep preparing the both of them with prayer and fasting and we have high hopes that all will turn out well for the Villafuerte sisters :)

I wanted to share with you something that my mission president, President Mejorada taught me this week in our conference with him this past week.  Sometimes we find ourselves with the question in ourselves if we have faith like Nefi or cualquier prophet in the scriptures or of our times. Well, I am going to tell you  what Pres. Mejorada said,

"If you have to ask yourself if you have faith like Nefi YOU DON'T. If you have faith like Nefi you don't have to ask yourself, you simply know you have to act according to the faith you have."

If you want faith like Nefi, don't ask yourself if you have it- WORK FOR IT. Faith without action is dead. 

I hope your week is SUPER FANTÁSTICO,

Hermana Beardall

U N O.

Dear Family,

This week has been amazingly crazy! Let me tell you a little about it.

E. Y R.: We started teaching them this week and WOW I can't believe the ways the Lord is preparing his children to hear the gospel. They prayed to know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and all that we are teaching is true. They said they couldn't express their feelings perfectly but that they had felt a little tap of the heart confirming again that what we taught is true. They will be baptized Feburary 14th yay!

B.: here comes the week of trials. Just like with her grandaughter K., we are heading into the week of trials. We have already started with one BIG HUNKIN PROBLEM. The baptism was all planned and everything and then our bishop tells us that we are going to have stake conference the same day as B's baptism. This caused problems because her son who is a member is coming from far away to baptize her can only come Saturday. The bishop said that we are NOT going to postpone her baptism one week more and now (after many phone calls and lots of thinking) are going to have her baptism in the morning on Saturday. I hope all goes well! Promised photos and story coming next week.

Hermana Leonora gave us a reference to visit her daughter. They have had some rough spots in their relationship and she hasn't seen her daughter in over a year. We went to visit G and she asked us all confused who sent us.  Luckily we brought with us a member who lived close to Hna Leonora and knew G when she was little. She helped saved the day (because Leonora doesn't want her to know that she sent us... :) She accepted to hear our message and we put an appointment to return this week. We'll see how it goes!

We went to San Miguel de Allende (again) to help our fellow companions. It was good to see some familiar faces and to talk to a few members. They are pretty impressed that I can finally speak spanish :)

I honestly can't believe that I almost have one year as a missionary. To tell you the honest truth, this has been the hardest but most rewarding year of my life. I can't think of anything more to say but I know that the church is true.

Living the gospel brings happiness into your life that fills your spirit. There is no need to go back to our Heavenly Home hungry when we have the gospel to fill us. To be honest, there are days when I lay my head on my pillow at night and while I reflect on my day I feel like I have eaten way to much (spiritual food) but the magic of it all is that my stomach doesn't hurt :) The magical thing is that I could keep on eating. A year full of days like this eating like I do (we are still talking about sprititual food) I should be extremely fat, but the magic of it all is that it only makes our spiritual light shine bigger and  brighter. 

The mission really is magical.

I hope that you can take this opportunity of a new year to reflect on your obedience to the gospel. I hope you haven't decided to go on a spiritual diet but that you live a thanksgiving feast every day, that you feast upon the words of Christ. I hope that you can sleep at night feeling full but the capacity to keep on eating. 

THERE IS NO NEED TO GO BACK TO OUR HEAVENLY HOME HUNGRY.

Eat and be full,

Hermana Beardall

your proud and happy full-time missionary

MIRACLES.

Dear Family,

This week we saw a miracle. We are working really hard these weeks so that we can have baptisms in Februrary. For a long while we were struggling to find new people and helping those we had progress. 

But God gives his servants miracles.

On Sunday, we recieved the same reference of a family THREE TIMES. This week we went to visit them and seriously they are golden. E and R are sisters and came in contact with the church through E's boyfriend. They have gone to church and love it and practically asked us when they could be baptized. We haven't even taught them yet and they are already progressing a TON!!!!! Tonight, after I finish writing we are going to teach them. 

I have been pretty sick with a horrible head cold all week. I wanted to stay home one day I felt so horrible but with a lot of prayer and help and excitement of my companion I was able to have the energy to work that day. 

On Sunday, I lost my voice and was asked to give a talk on missionary work. 

God gives his servants miracles. 

I feel better and was able to express what I wanted to say in my talk and all turned out well. 

God is a God of miracles.

Headin' out to the white field,

Hermana Beardall

Theme 2015: Embark in the Service of God

Dear Family,

I am sorry but this week I can't send pictures. For some reason the computer doesn't read my memory card.

With these festive holidays it has been really hard to teach people. But in a week full of trials, God didn't leave us without His miracles. Normally we struggle immensely to have lessons with members but this week we had almost triple lessons with members than we did without. I gained a stronger testimony of the importance of the members in missionary work.

I hope you all know that you have a major responsibility as a member of the true restored church of Jesus Christ in the work of God- Missionary work. When Jesus Christ established his church, he gave his apostles his authority to PREACH the gospel. All of His ministry was pure missionary work, helping all of his brothers and sisters have the pure word of God. The last thing he invited his apostles to do was to feed his sheep, or in other words to preach the gospel, to be a missionary. It is the same for us, all of us have the same responsibility to be a witness of Christ and spread His word to all those who don't have the blessing to know His restored gospel.

I invite you to reflect on your year of 2014 and how you feel about sharing the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. This might sound harsh to those who are failing to share their testimony, but here is the truth- be humble, repent, and share the gospel.

In this almost year I have serving full time, teaching full time I have never found more joy more satisfaction in this life. Service is what brings pure joy to the servants of the Lord.

Open your mouth and share your testimony. I don't care if you live in Utah and all of your neighbors are members- look for those who need the gospel just as much as you do. 

This is your year. This is your time to be a missionary. Your testimony, no matter the size, is POWERFUL. The simple thoughts of your heart are sufficient to help people recieve endless blessings from our Heavenly Father. 

I am praying for my missionaries at home- family, friends, acquaintances, etc.

Now is the time to embark in the service of God.

With lots of love,

Hermana Beardall

ITS BEINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS IN MEXICO

^^^ PONCHE. It is a christmas drink that they make here in mexico that is SOOOOOOOOOOO delicious!!! It is like wassail or cider but with lots of fruits. It was delicious, seriously.^^^

^^^We visited the Hermana that I was telling you guys about that is pretty sick and has almost died a lot of times. We visited them and sang them Christmas hymns. They were soo happy to see us :) ^^^

 

 ^^^ We helped a family who is less active make tamales so that they could go to the hospitals and such to distribute the tamales to people who don't have anything to eat. ^^^

^^^We brought Karla with us to give service. This was one of the only pictures that she let me take with her:) She is a beautiful person in and out. ^^^

^^^ When we finished making the tamales there was quite a bit of chicken and green salsa left over so we made tortas or sandwiches with what was left over. Oh did it taste soooooooooooooooooooo good!!! ^^^

CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER

^^^ SUGAR CANE. It is like chewing gum or something. It tastes pretty good but after chewing on it for a while the texture grossed me out. But it makes a pretty great pictures. These boys are the greatest. Everytime we go over to visit them, they run around the house announcing loudly that the missionaries have arrived. :) They are football fanatics in every way and love candies from USA. Isaac is the oldest and has 8 years. His brother Eric is the one next to me. ^^^

^^^ WHAT WE ATE. This is some meet. I think it is cow. Not sure. But it is yummy with some yummy salsa above. Green Spaghetti too. Hermana Lara is an AMAZING cook. ^^^

^^^ Dinner selfie. I love this picture because Eric came and sat by me, stole my arm and put it tight around him. I thought he was falling or something so I asked him what happened and he said something I will never forget: Te quiero. It means I love you. I almost cried. Seriously, I am coming back to Mexico to visit this family! ^^^

^^^ MY VIEW. ^^^

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Dear Family,

Sorry if this letter is kinda short but when I was writing my letter disappeared.

Let me tell you the news about B.

She won't be getting baptized Dec 24.

She will be getting baptized the first Saturday in January!!!

Honestly, we had reached the point where we had no idea what to teach her or tell her because she has completed with everything she needs to before she gets baptized the only thing that keeps her from following through is to step away from her fear and accept the challenge.

We went to her house on Wednesday to see her and K. We didn't say anything about baptism but we talked about how through Jesus Christ we can be clean from sin. We asked her how she thought that this could be possible.  Normally people talk a lot about prayer and faith and perpously avoid saying anything about baptism, but her very first response was BAPTISM. we kept asking questions about Jesus and all and she came right out and told us, Hermanas I want to be baptized. I want to be baptized in January.

I honestly felt so peaceful that she had finally accepted to be baptized and she was doing it because she wanted to and not because we were pressuring her. She looks even happier when she listens to us and when she comes to church. I know she knows what she is doing is the right thing to do.

Her daughter B is also listening to us. She is very rebellious but Hna Plata and I know that she is going to be baptized, too. 

You have no idea how powerful this family is. They have a great potential and grand opportunities in front of them. Slowly, little by little, they are learning and seeing what we see or even better what their Heavenly Father sees in them.

Oh hey, we also had a ward activity with pinatas and tacos. We put on a talent act as missionaries and ooh I was so embarassed but all the members loved it haha

We also went to an act show thingy of members of our stake in Scrooge-s christmas. Many of the members brought their friends to the play and it was a GREAT opportunity to find new people and have ourselves a good Christmas laugh.

Whelp. I will be talking to you on Thursday.

Have yourself a merry merry Christmas.

With lots of holly and jolly and Christmas love,

Hermana Beardall

Christmas in the Pines

Dear Family,

Yesterday we had CAMBIOS. I was sooo nervous because I didn't want to change and not celebrate Christmas with the people I love here in Pinos.

Guess what? 

I am staying here in the Pines (Pinos) for Christmas!!!!!!!!

Oh hey, guess what mom? I got your package!!!! Thank you to kolob and back for everything and my compa wants me to tell you a million more thanks for her gift. She can't stop telling me that my mom is the best. Good thing I already knew that :) I will tell you more details in my package I am going to send this week.

We had our activity/comida with President Mejorada this week. It was sooo beautiful and I LOVE celebrating Christmas in the mission. We got flu shots as our first gift of christmas. We did a christmas gift exchange with the hermanas with the whole left right story thing to pass the gifts around. 

It was fun to see old companions (my trainer who goes home tomorrow- Hna Miguez!!) and elderes y hermanas from my generation!!

We have been working really hard with B so that she keeps progressing towards baptism and well you know her salvation. She accepted to be baptized on 24 of December but she got scared when we went to visit her the next day and she backed out on her goal. I know that she will get baptized but it is going to be a lot of work to help her not get scared and back out again.

Her granddaughter K is excited to leave school for vacation and start to work with us! She said she wants to go one ENTIRE DAY to work with us! What a good way to prepare for a future mission :)

I am not exactly sure when I will be skyping you but I am sure it will be Christmas Day. We just recieved instructions and we are going to find a member this week that we can go to skype. Next Monday I will tell you more details.

Now is the time to study about the life of Jesus Christ and remember all that he has done for you- the greatest gift of all times is His Atonement. I invite ALL to search the scriptures for the greatest gift and pray to know that God loves you.

SEE YA LATER!!!

Hermana Beardall

PICS:

1. Hey. That's my companion's name. (Street in our area)

2 y 3. A house in the Fuentes Ward  puts on a Christmas production. It's a house of a member and she had the institute here in Celaya sing for the program. It was sooo pretty and soo cool to hear Mexican Christmas songs- I don't remember what it is called but some song about the perspective of the fish in the river on the night christ was born. My companion says it is called Peces en el Río. Look it up and what it means. Jaja I like it :)