I don't want to leave....

I can't believe that we're on week 5 of this transfer! It is going  by super fast! Transfers will be on January 20th and I have a feeling that I might get transferred...but of course I don't want to leave Enumclaw. We'll just have to see what happens but I trust that I'll be sent wherever I'm needed at that time.

So first of all I'll share some funny moments.

1. Hermana Killingsworth and I were looking for potentials out in Buckley and I was feeling pretty sick and a little exhausted. We went through the potentials in the area book pretty fast and then didn't know what to do so we pulled over to pray to know where to go. I said the prayer and I said "Por favor bendice nos con salud y energia"...after that there was silence. I had fallen asleep! Oh my goodness! It was so embarrassing and Hermana Killingsworth thought it was hilarious especially because I had just asked that we would have energy.

2. I set the kitchen on fire. Ok...not the whole kitchen. Just the oven. I was pulling out a batch of cookies and I dropped the hot pad and it just so happened to catch on fire in the oven. I was freaking out on the inside but on the outside I was pretty calm. Anyways Hermana Killingsworth helped me put it out and we're all good!

3. We saw a house that had a HUGE picture of Jesus on the wall. Seriously, that thing was big. Anyways, that made Hermana Killingsworth think that they could be Catholic so she wanted to knock and see if they were Hispanic. We stopped the car to try the house but as we were getting out I said "You know white people are Catholic too." And well...there just so happened to be a white lady standing by that totally heard me. She just looked at me with a blank stare. I tried to make it less awkward by having a conversation with her but yeah...I'm going to be more careful with what I say out loud. Haha! Oh and by the way that family was not hispanic.

This past week we also met a family that just moved here and there originally from the Hawaiian Islands. They're members and they're really nice! After I learn Spanish better I think it would be cool to learn their language.

Oh and also this week we wanted to try to talk to more people so we decide to walk to the trailers where the Mejia's live. That walk is about 7 miles. It was way longer than I thought! It took us like 2 hours to get there. We did talk to quite a few people but still we will not be doing that again! On the walk Bro. Blad called and he asked me what all the noise was and I told him it was the traffic. He then asked where we were and when I told him his response was "Promise Grandpa that you will never walk to the Mejia trailers again!" Haha! Hermana Mitchell and I didn't think it was dangerous but we promised never to do it again because it was so long! Sis. Blad was also nice enough to give us a ride back after we made our visits.

This past week we weren't able to see a ton of investigators but we did see quite a few less-active members. One of the less-active families we visited was Jose and Jenny Barrera and their kids. We invited them to read the whole Book of Mormon this year and invited them to come back to church. We also asked Jose if he would be interested in teaching the Gospel Principles class and he said maybe. The Barrera's also had a friend named Sean over at their house. We talked to him about the church and invited him to go to the English ward. We gave him a pamphlet about the restoration and invited him to also read the Book of Mormon. I felt bad because we ran out of English Book of Mormons so we couldn't actually give him one at the time but Jose told him he could get it on his phone.

Then this past Sunday Jose came to sacrament meeting! It was really good to see him there even without the rest of his family. AND his friend Sean went to all three hours of church with the English ward!!! What a miracle! The English Sisters were also able to set up a lesson with him :)

This past Sunday was also our first Sunday with the 1st Ward. It was really good and as of right now the Spanish Group will still be having all of the classes and sacrament separately. The ward seems really nice and I'm excited to get to know all of the members better and to work with them. A lot of them signed up to feed us dinner so hopefully we'll be able to have more lessons with members if we get investigators there too.

All of our members and investigators are doing pretty good! One of our less-active families, Perla and Junior and their kids moved to Tri Cities :( I'll miss them but hopefully they'll visit! Sister Blad is going to have knee replacement surgery pretty soon but she's doing good too.

I read the parable of the prodigal son this past week. I hope we can all be like the father in this story and less like the oldest son. I also invite you all to think about what personal consecration means to you. I'm studying this and if you have any cool insights I would love to hear!

I love you all very much and I hope you are recognizing the miracles that God is personally giving to you!

Hermana Soliz

Week 21 - Enumclaw

Hola mi familia bonita!

So on Tuesday we had exchanges and Hermana Killingsworth went to Auburn with Hermana Ah-Hong and Hermana Sasangi and Hermana Singer came here to Enumclaw with me. The exchange was a lot of fun and I got to know Hermana Sasangi and Hermana Singer a little better. During the exchange we were able to have 7 lessons! It was awesome! We also did really good at speaking Spanish more!

One of those lessons we had was with a woman who had lost one son in a car accident and the other committed suicide. We taught her the plan of salvation and got her information to have missionaries go teach her in Mexico. It was a great miracle!

Also starting January 1st the Spanish Group will be depending on the Enumclaw 1st Ward instead of the 3rd Ward. So we've been having meetings and discussing with leaders to try to make it a smooth transition that  benefits everyone. I'm really excited about it and I  hope everything goes well! It looks like they want us Sister missionaries to translate the Relief Society lessons for the Hispanics so I better learn Spanish quick! Haha! Oh boy...well if we do end up doing that I'll have to let you know  how it goes.

I loved being able to skype you guys for Christmas! It was awesome!!! It was so good to see you! On Christmas Eve Hermana Killingsworth and I made tamales with Sister Rojas which was fun. We actually had Christmas dinner on the 26th with the Blads and that was great! They have a big family so it was really special. Hopefully I have a big family one day.

So this past week Hermana Killingsworth and I walked a lot one day to try to save our miles. We walked to Bro. Blad's house and he ended up feeding us dinner :) haha! Then we walked to our investigator Leonor's house which is farther. It was a little farther than we thought too. It took us about 40 minutes to get there. We talked in Spanish the whole way and Hermana Killingsworth was saying how she thought it was a little sketchy because it was super dark. Luckily though she had a flashlight. After the lesson Leonor was kind enough to give us a ride back home which was a blessing because I don't know if we could've made it back by our curfew if we had walked.

Also this past Sunday something really cool happened! A girl who is about to come serve in this mission Spanish speaking came to visit the area with her family and we were able to talk with her and her mom and answer some of their questions. The girl will enter the Mexico MTC in January and will be here in the mission field in the beginning of March. Also she and her family know Hermana Bown my MTC companion! It was so cool! They told me that Hermana Bown wrote them and told them that I was here. How cool is that! Haha! I bet I'll probably be her companion sometime.

So yeah, this transfer two Hermanas are going home but we also get two more. Then the next transfer in March we'll get two Hermanas (one being the one that came to visit with her family) and then in April we get no new Hermanas but in May we get two more new ones. Also after Hermana Dubon and Hermana Ah-Hong go home this transfer no one will go home until Hermana Killingsworth in September.

Hopefully I stay here in Enumclaw for one more transfer but we'll see on January 20th.
I just think it's so crazy how the time flies! I'm getting closer and closer to my 6 month mark and then 3 months after that is my halfway mark and then 3 months after that is my 1-year mark and then 3 months after that I'll only have 3 more months until finishing. That's just so crazy!

Anyways...

I was reading in Preach My Gospel earlier and I read a quote by President Gordon B. Hinckley that says, "Do you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. Lend your efforts to helping people...stand higher, lift those with feeble knees, hold up the arms of those that hang down. Live the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

I really love this quote because the first thing he asks is, "Do you want to be happy?" Then he gives us the answer of how we can be happy which is to serve others and live the gospel. I just love that. It's so simple and easy and yet sometimes we just don't do it.

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful New Years Celebration and that you are able to accomplish your goals!

A couple of mine are to work through the whole green book (it's for learning Spanish) and to also think more about what God would prefer rather than permit when I make decisions. After all, "Decisions determine destiny."- Thomas S. Monson

I love you all to the moon and back!

Love, Hermana Soliz

Christmas Package from home!!

Getting ready to open our Christmas presents!

Skyping with family!

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ENUMCLAW!!

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Christmas! I'm sad I won't be with you guys but I'm excited to Skype you! It looks like Hermana Killingsworth and I are going to have a really great Christmas!

We had a Christmas party with half of the missionaries in the mission and it was a lot of fun! We did a white elephant gift exchange and there were a lot of good musical numbers. President and Sister Eaton also gave us a disc with some photos from the year on it and I'm in a few. There's a cute one of me and Hermana Mitchell so I'll have to send you that.

Also Hermana Killingsworth got a big bag of anonymous Christmas gifts from someone. There's something to open each day until Christmas and today it was stuff to bake cookies so it looks like we'll be doing that. :)

Our investigators are doing good but it's just really hard to see them around the holidays. Leonor is getting really excited about baptism!

We also had our Spanish Group Christmas party this past week and it was tons of fun! There was good mexican food and a lot of people! Hermana Killingsworth and I texted everyone in our phone inviting them to come. There were actually more non members there than there were members.

We ate and we did an activity similar to a "Posada" which is a tradition in Mexico and they also had pinatas for the kids and Santa Clause.

On Sunday we had our Christmas program and Hermana Killingsworth and I sang Venid Adoremos (Oh, Come Let Us Adore Him).

I'm really excited for this upcoming week! I Know miracles are going to happen!

Recently I've been rereading all of the talks from General Conference and oh my goodness...I just love them! I learn so so much from all of their inspired words! I encourage you all to reread them! And for those of you who aren't members I encourage/urge you to read or listen to this talk by Elder Bednar entitled Come and See!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/come-and-see?lang=eng

Keep sharing the gospel and letting the light of Christ shine from within you! You have every reason to smile!

Something I learned this past week is that ALL of us are LITERALLY worth the life of a God. Don't underestimate your potential and keep striving to do better!

Love you all so very much!

Hermana Soliz :)

I can't believe it's almost Christmas!!

So this past week has gone by pretty fast and everything has just kind of blurred together. LOL! But I guess I'll start by telling you about my new companion.

Hermana Killingsworth has been out on her mission for 8 months and she's from Nebraska/Wisconsin. She's the oldest in her family and has three little brothers. She's really sweet and is a good missionary!

We're both more on the quiet side but we're working on that.

One thing I'm working on is testifying with more power and conviction.

Going along with that is putting complete and total trust in God and fearing no man. 

I'm loving working with our investigators and I'm excited to find new people to teach!

I encourage you all to find your own missionary opportunities to share the gospel and serve.

I also can't believe it's already December and that it's almost Christmas! I feel like I just left for the MTC, haha!  I'm so excited to skype you guys!

I love and miss you all!

Love & blessings,

Hermana Soliz

I'm staying in Enumclaw :) Best place ever!

I love being a missionary! I know I've said that before but I'll probably say it a gazillion times more because it's the truth!

This past week I had to say goodbye to my amazing companion and trainer, Hermana Mitchell because she's finished her 18 months. It was so sad and we both cried but I am so thankful for her example and the effort she put into to training me. I just love her so much and will miss her!

I already know who my new companion will be but transfers are at 2:00 so I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her yet. So I can't really tell you any details about her except for that her name is Hermana Killingsworth. I've only talked to her once or twice before but she seems really great! I'm excited about it!

Oh and this transfer there are no new Hermanas coming in. Just 7 Elders, 2 Sisters, and a visa waiter.

Since I had to drop Hermana Mitchell off at the mission home at 8:00 Monday morning I was able to be companions with Sister Heaton for the day. We had to follow each other home in separate cars and it was so weird! Lol But while I was with Sister Heaton I was able to teach Todd who is a man that Hermana Mitchell and I found and sent as a referral to the English Sisters! He's learning about the gospel! & he's committed to a baptism date! It was a really cool experience!

Anyways when Hermana Mitchell was still here we had something really awesome happen! Hermana Mitchell and I had done a lot to get our investigators to come to church and there were a few of them that told us they would for sure be there.
We were really excited to have these investigators come and we were sure they would be there because they showed a lot of interest. But sadly, none of them came.
Then after our first hour of church we got a phone call from our investigator Aura saying that her and her family were almost to the church. We were so surprised! We weren't even expecting her to be the one to show up! Aura and her husband Juan and their little boy stayed for the second and third hours. Since third hour is our sacrament they were able to hear everyone's testimonies. By the way I bore my testimony too :) They also stayed for a break the fast we had after and the members were really welcoming and they seemed to enjoy themselves.

I also thought it was really cool that when they left Juan said that they would be back next Sunday! (and we haven't even taught him a lesson yet- just his wife)
I learned from this that blessings always come when you work hard and that also we should have high expectations for ALL of our investigators, even if they may seem that they are progressing slower than others.

I can't tell you to much about our other investigators because it's been hard to see them and things are still being worked out. But don't worry! I'll make sure to tell you when they're baptized!

We also went to the church event we helped set up for called Celebrate the Nativity. We went all together with members of the group and it was tons of fun!

I love you all so very much!

Pray, read your scriptures, go to church and your life will change for the better!

Hermana Soliz

Love these sisters!

My Christmas stocking!

Merry Christmas!

Hiking Mount Peak

Best decorations ever!

My view at the summit

At the Summit

He is the Gift!

Hi Everyone!!

So first of all, sorry for not giving you the heads up that my p-day would be on Tuesday instead of Monday. It was kind of a last minute thing so I didn't really know about it. Anyways it was because here in Maple Valley the church has this huge Christmas event at the stake center and they wanted the missionaries in the zone to help set up for it on Monday. So since we spent a lot of time doing that our p-day got moved to Tuesday. The event is Friday-Saturday and we've been inviting everyone we talk to. It's pretty popular and people come from nearby to go to it. There's supposed to be tons of different kinds of nativity sets, music, a cookie room, and a live nativity where you can dress up and take a picture. It should be tons of fun and I think our Hispanic group is planning on going together. So yeah, A lot of the missionaries in our zone helped set up and it was a lot of fun and it felt good to do service! Hermana Mitchell and I put up a lot of Christmas trees!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! All of the missionaries had three hours to play sports and games the morning of Thanksgiving so I was able to play volleyball and basketball which was fun. I also saw Elder Brown so that was cool! Hermana Mitchell and I spent our Thanksgiving dinner with Brother and Sister Blad and their family! It was really good and I enjoyed it! They have such a wonderful family!

This is the last week that I have with Hermana Mitchell and I'm really sad about it. She's really amazing! I'm just so lucky I had her as my trainer. It definitely helps to have a companion that is truly consecrated at the beginning of my mission.

As Hermana Mitchell and I have worked it's amazing the miracles we see!

So the other day we were driving to an appointment and we saw a Hispanic boy walking on the side of the road. Sometimes it's hard for us to find Hispanics that we haven't already talked to so we were really excited! But we didn't have time to talk to him so we kind of just followed him home to see where he lived. That probably sounds creepy but we just wanted to get his address so we could try going and teaching his family later.

Then this morning Hermana Mitchell and I hiked Mount Peak and when we were at the summit I started talking to this man to see if he would be interested in hearing a message from the missionaries. Then Hermana Mitchell told me that right when I started talking to that man the English sisters texted us a referral. And guess what....it was the same address of the boy we followed home! Small world right? Lol

The man I spoke to wasn't interested in hearing a message but he did say he would go to the Christmas event in Maple Valley. Even though he wasn't interested in hearing the gospel we spoke to him and were blessed with a referral.

Oh another funny thing that happened! So we went to visit one our investigators, Leonor and her daughter Alice. Now this visit was totally in Spanish. Well Leonor was talking and saying that Alice had a "pajaro" that was like family and that she should bring him out to meet us. "Pajaro" means bird...but what I heard was "pareja" which means couple but people here use it all the time to refer to their boyfriend or girlfriend. Haha! I was so confused! I was thinking Alice is only 13, how can she have a boyfriend and how could Leonor already be saying he's like family. And then Alice brought out her new pet bird...the pajaro. Hahaha! Oh it was hilarious! Maybe you just had to be there but it was funny!

Oh and also just yesterday sweet Brother Blad brought us a real Christmas tree for our apartment! He wenrt and cut it down himself and everything! He is so great! I love him!

Before I go I want to leave you a scripture I just read and now live.
It's D&C 112:28

"But purify your hearts before me; and then go ye into all the world, and preach my gospel unto every creature who has not received it."

I am so glad that I am a missionary and that for this short time I can focus on the gospel literally 24/7. I hope that as I learn more I can continually work on purifying my heart. I know that the closer we come to Christ the more pure our hearts will be and the stronger our desire to share the gospel will be as well.

I love you all so very much!

Remember to check out the short video He is the Gift that the church put out! It's amazing! It's at christmas.mormon.org

I also love the Because of Him video they put out for Easter at easter.mormon.org

My next p-day will also be Tuesday because of transfers so until then!

Hermana Soliz

So I have a lot more pictures from this past week but I forgot my camera cord. So the only one for this week is a picture of the zone that was sent to me. Sorry...but there will be a lot next time!

This is a beautiful life!!

Absolute truth does exist!
We can all know for ourselves that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is God's ONE AND ONLY TRUE church on the earth today.
Jesus Christ established ONE church when He lived on the earth. Only ONE. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is that church.
Jesus Christ established His church with the power of the priesthood. The priesthood is the power and proper authority of God to act in His name.
When Jesus Christ was crucified and His apostles died the proper authority to act in God's name was taken from the earth.
The true church of God was no longer on the earth because the power of the priesthood was missing.
People became confused and started forming their own churches.
Some sincerely wanted to follow God and others changed the Bible to fit the needs of mankind.
Either way, all of these churches were missing important parts of the gospel, including the power of the priesthood. People were confused and they couldn't find answers.
We needed a restoration of the power of the priesthood and of the true church of Jesus Christ.
Through the power of God Joseph Smith was called to be a Prophet and restored Christ's church on the earth.

I love the gospel so much! I know with all of my heart that is true. The gospel is the way to divine happiness.

Here's a link to the video Because of Him from last Easter. I love it and I love it in Spanish too! Let's all try to remember Him more often in our lives each day. After all it is because of Him that we are able to live again with our Heavenly Father,

http://easter.mormon.org/

Being a missionary is hard work but it is a beautiful life. I am having experiences that I would have never had if I hadn't decided to serve a mission. I am so glad I decided to serve because if I hadn't I would have been missing out! I think of how much I love the people here and I can't believe that if I didn't serve I would have never met them! It really is a privilege to serve!

My trainer, Hermana Mitchell finishes her mission and goes home of December 8th along with three other Hermanas. It's really sad and I'm going to miss her a lot. I've learned a lot of great things from her and I hope I can apply the things she has taught me throughout my mission!

Right now we have 13 Hermanas in the mission and they are all just great girls! I love them all so much!

Since Hermana Mitchell will be leaving I started driving this past week. She said it would help me learn the area faster and that it would be good since I will most likely be staying in Maple Valley.

I hope you all have a fantastic and safe Thanksgiving this week! Know that I am thinking of you! Brother Blad invited us to have Thanksgiving with his family so that will be a treat!

Sorry there's no pics this time mom.

All my love,

Hermana Soliz