Renton - Week 28!

This past week went by SUPER fast! At least it did for me.

We had a noche de hogar with two member families, the Ceballo's and the Tori's, and our investigators, the Ayala family. It went really well and the Ayala's are doing great! We did find out that they had both drank coffee but we cleared everything up and they're still on date for baptism on February 28th.
Apparently they were a little confused because they thought that they could drink coffee as long as it wasn't an addiction for them. So yeah, that was just our bad because I guess we didn't explain it clearly enough. But as soon as they knew they couldn't ever drink it Maria went into the kitchen, grabbed the coffee, and handed it to me to take it away. They are such an awesome family! Also the members who introduced them to the church gave them a picture of the Salt Lake Temple which they have in their living room. Audon was showing it to us and he told us that one day he's going to go there and go inside. It melted my heart! They all want to got to the temple to be sealed!
They are all also super excited for family history work! We taught them that yesterday and helped them set up accounts and get started. It really touched Audon because just a few days ago his father, Emilio Ayala, passed away. Audon is so excited to one day go to the temple and do the work for his father! He also said that he feels sorry for his brothers and sisters because he feels like they are more sad about their father passing away because they don't have the knowledge of the gospel in their lives. How amazing is that! They are so prepared! He then gave us his siblings information so we can send in a referral to have missionaries visit his family in Honduras. I just love this family so much!!
We also had an amazing zone conference this past Friday and it was amazing! I got so much out of it and I believe  it;s because I prepared and went with questions in mind and I expected to receive answers. Seriously, I wish I could've recorded that meeting because it was so spiritually edifying! I learned so much! The topic was the spirit and President Eaton talked about Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk entitled, The Divine Companionship. He also gave us an assignment to read Elder David A. Bednar's talk, Pray Always. Both talks were so great!
I love having the opportunity to learn and grow! I hope I don't ever find myself taking this time for granted.

1 Nephi 16:18-23
This is something President Eaton brought up in Zone Conference that a young man in one of his institute classes shared with him.
So in these verses Nephi breaks his steel bow and needs to make a new one so he makes a new bow and arrow out of wood. Did you catch that? He makes a new bow AND arrow. He only broke his bow though so why make a new arrow? The young man who shared this with President Eaton knew about archery and said that Nephi had to make a new bow and arrow because a steel arrow would not have worked with a wooden bow.
This made me think of how sometimes things outside of our control happen and God wants us to do the work to fix whatever it is. It also made me think of how we need to prepare properly first and then we will receive God's help. Nephi did his part by making the right tools and God blessed him that he was able to find food.
This made me think..."Am I making my bow and arrow out of wood or am I just doing part of it and expecting God to work His magic and do the rest?"
I had never thought of this and thought it was a pretty good insight I learned.

Hasta la proxima semana, Con mucho amor!

Hermana Soliz

Week # 27

So on Saturday Hermana Webb wasn't feeling good enough to go out so we took her to stay at a member's home for the day. Sadly, she's still sick. She stayed with an older couple that goes to one of the English wards and they were really nice! So when Hermana Webb stayed there Hermana Peacock and I went out to our set appointments.

One of the appointments we had set was at 8:00 with the Hernandez family. They are the members that introduced our investigators, the Ayalas, to the church! Which is awesome because the Ayala's are GOLDEN! Their baptismal date is set for February 28th!!! :)

Anyways, we wanted to help the Hernandez family continue with their missionary work and try out some of the tips we just received from training. BUT, when we got to their house at 8:00 nobody answered the door! No one was home. :(

We heard the neighbors talking and we decided to go over and talk to them on the porch. We ended up talking to Ricky and Jermaine who are father and son. Jermaine especially had a lot of questions and he already knew some stuff about our church. We ended up giving them the information for other missionaries and the address of the church. We also gave Jermaine a Book of Mormon. They also said we could come back and teach them any time. Hopefully missionaries can teach them real soon!

I can't tell you enough how much I am learning and growing on my mission. One thing I've learned recently is that members working with missionaries is the key! Please, don't be afraid to try to share the gospel with others. It really is part of our purpose to share the gospel with others!

Moses 1:39- "For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."
I also want to share the scripture 2 Nephi 5:27 in the Book of Mormon,

"O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away, and my strength slacken, because of mine afflictions?

And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy?

Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.

Do not anger again because of mine enemies. Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions.

Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation."

When I read this scripture I thought of a lot of things but one of them was that we shouldn't just give up when we go through hard things. We need to always try to follow God and never give up hope. This scripture also made me think that we have the power to choose.

The scripture says, "Oh my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul." The enemy is Satan and he will try to get into our hearts but we can choose to not let him in. And if he does get in,  we can choose to allow him to stay there or not. I think this scripture says a lot about our personal responsibility for our own actions and persevering to the end.

I just love scripture study! There's so much to learn. Oh and I was asked to give my testimony in church this past Sunday. That was fun :)

Les Quiero Mucho!

Hermana Soliz

We're infected!! JK, Hope me and Hna Peacock don't get sick too!

This family is awesome!

This has been a different kind of week...

So this past week Hermana Webb was really sick and she was throwing up several times per day. Here in the mission, if you throw up you're not supposed to go out. So we stayed in for a total of five days. That's right 5 days! That's crazy! But now she is feeling better! She's still drained but she hasn't thrown up!
Hermana Peacock and I were able to go to a couple lessons while Sister Allen watched Hermana Webb but for most of the time we were in the house too. We got to talk a lot and work on the area book!

The two lessons Hermana Peacock and I went to were both with the Ayalas and they were amazing lessons! They all want to get baptized soon and their daughter prayed that we would be able to go over more often so they can learn faster and be baptized sooner. It's so sweet! Also Adan who I was teaching in Enumclaw is committed to be baptized the end of February.

Everyone here was pretty depressed about the Sea Hawks losing the big game. Some of the members in our branch actually came to church with green hair. Yeah, they're hard core fans.
But it's okay. They have the gospel so they'll live.

I've been studying my patriarchal blessing and I encourage all of you that have one to do the same. It has brought me so much insight and you can always learn something new from that special blessing that is in every way personally for you. If we listen to and learn from our personal blessings they will, "chart our course and give us safe passage to our heavenly home."- Thomas S. Monson

I also love this quote! "In His plan there are no true endings, only everlasting beginnings."- Dieter F. Uchtdorf. This quote is so true! It is never to late to start again. The key to happiness is to lean on Christ and to never lose hope.

I also want to share the scripture Alma 37:27,

"Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

Isn't that a wonderful promise that we are all entitled to?! And we receive the blessing just from praying morning and night! I'm working on improving my prayers and I encourage you all to do the same. I know you will grow closer to God and more fully feel His love for you as you do.

Love,

Hermana Soliz

New member from Kent ward!

Hna Peacock, Hna Webb, and Hna Soliz

Back to work!

First Week in Renton....Check!

Renton has been great so far! There is a lot of missionary work to do (just like in every area) and I'm excited about it!
We are teaching the Ayala family right now and they are seriously a golden family! They are so ready for the gospel! They don't like being called investigators because they want to be members! The dad is reading a lot of the Book of Mormon and he's also read half of the manual for the gospel principles class. At one of our lessons his wife Maria said she hadn't read the Book of Mormon yet and HE called her to repentance and said she needed to read!! Seriously?! Investigators just don't do that. Unless they've been prepared by the Lord and are ready! But seriously they were committed, and I mean truly committed to baptism after the first lesson! Last night we had a noche de hogar with them at the branch president's house and it was amazing! Maria said her mom is going to start going to church with them too!! I am so excited for their family! Right now their baptism date is March 7th.

Today we went to the temple and it was so amazing!!! The temple is gorgeous and it felt so great to go again! The spirit was so strong! And it was so cool to go with other missionaries!

Hermana Peacock and Hermana Webb and I are getting along great! We have fun together! Oh and  we had a Spanish fireside this past Sunday and I was able to see Juan, Rosa, and Bryan from Enumclaw! :) I also spoke at that fireside about how God is literally our loving Father. It was great!

We also had the chance to have President Eaton come to our house this past week and he role played the first lesson with us and gave us feedback! That was awesome! I mean how often do you get to do that one on one with your mission president, right?!

I love you all! If you don't remember anything I say, remember this. Read the Book of Mormon every single day of your life! Preferably at least for 30 minutes but do what you can. Every day!

All my love!  Hermana Soliz

Beautiful, peaceful day at the temple

My new companions! Hna Webb and Hna Peacock!

Seattle Temple

Love our trio!

I'm getting TRANSFERRED!

So, sadly my time in Enumclaw has come to an end. I'm getting transferred out of Maple Valley and Hermana Killingsworth is going to stay here and train a brand new missionary!

Most people I talked to guessed that I was going to be transferred to Auburn but I'm actually getting transferred to Renton. There I will be serving with Hermana Peacock and Hermana Webb so I'll be in a trio :) I'm sad because I love the people here in my area so much!!! But I'm also excited to go serve in Renton and love the people there too!

My last day here in Enumclaw was a great one and we were able to teach a new investigator! His name is Angel and he was super receptive to our message! It was a miracle!

Here's a couple quotes I would like to share.

"To all such of every generation, I call out, 'Remember Lot's wife.' Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us...Keep your eyes on your dreams, however distant and far away. Live to see the miracles of repentance and forgiveness, of trust and divine love that will transform your life today, tomorrow, and forever."
-Jeffrey R. Holland

"Consecration is the only surrender which is also a victory."
-Neil A. Maxwell

Faith and consecration go hand in hand. When we are acting on and building our faith we are doing things that are helping us be consecrated.

I also want to share a couple scriptures I read this morning in 2 Nephi.

"Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Wherefore, my soul delighteth to prophesy concerning him, for I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name."- 2 Nephi 25:13

I love this scripture because it talks about the resurrection of Christ and many times I think we forget that He really was resurrected! He suffered and died for us but I also know that He loosed the bands on death by being resurrected and I know that He lives. I also love this scripture because it talks about delighting in prophesying about Christ and magnifying His name in our hearts. As I read this I thought more about how I can make sure I'm magnifying Christ in my heart. I think it goes right along with the life-long process of converting ourselves to set aside the ways of the natural man and becoming the kind of people that God wants us to be. I encourage you all to think of a way that you could better magnify Christ in your heart and then I challenge you to do it!

"And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowise be cast out."- 2 Nephi 25:29

When I read this scripture I thought about the phrase, "the right way is to believe in Christ and deny him not." I thought of things that I could improve on to help me, in essence, stop "denying Christ." I thought of how I could do better with following the promptings I get from the Holy Ghost and also of how I could do better at evaluating myself by accounting to the Lord and then working on improving those things.

I love you all very much! Keep loving God and growing closer to Him! He is the only way to true happiness!

Hermana Soliz

With Bro and Sis Ramos and Bro Castro

With investigators, Leonor and Alice

Baby Shower for Betty, Front right,,,,and guests.

Me and Sister Corbit

With investigator Aura

Driving through Enumclaw, beautiful rainbow...

The end of the rainbow!

Change is hard but necessary...

Here's a scripture I want to share with you all!

Mosiah 3:19- "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

I love being a missionary!! Not because it's easy because it's not. It can be hard work and there is always something to do. I love being a missionary because I am learning how to more fully come unto Christ too,  just like my investigators. I am learning more about how to identify the natural man in me and to then give that up and become more like Christ. I am changing which is necessary if I want to receive exaltation!

I was also listening to a song the other day and it was talking about a missionary ending his mission and going back home and I started to tear up because I realized I'm not going to be a missionary forever. The time is going to go by way faster than I think! I need to take better advantage of this short time that I have.Just so you know I love being a missionary and I know that serving a mission was part of Heavenly Father's plan for me! I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now!

I also want to share this quote from Thomas S. Monson which says,

"Unless we lose ourselves in service to others, there is little purpose to our own lives." 

How cool is that?? And I have this great and wonderful opportunity to serve others all day and every day for 18 months! I know that as we sacrifice our time to serve others we receive blessings from our Heavenly Father and we learn more about Christ-like love.

Missionary work in Enumclaw is going well! We're still searching for new people to teach! Pray that we find the people who are prepared!

I love you all! Remember to go to church and to pray and read the scriptures! Don't ever let anything get in the way of you doing those things! I promise you will see miracles! Don't miss out on the blessings Heavenly Father has for you!

Love,

Hermana Soliz

Hiking at Mt Peak with Bro. Blad

Smile Big!

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