Mountains and Miracles

Happy Halloween everyone! One of my favorite things in this world is to walk through a bunch of colorful leaves on the ground. It's entertaining somehow. Love this time of year!    My it has been a SUPER long week but first things first, transfers! Hermana Dorsey and I are both staying in our area, as is pretty much all of the Spanish zone. Good thing, because we have some work to finish here still! Though it was long, that means a lot happened. It  was also a week I felt like we started to see miracles. Our investigators are starting to progress!    Our ward had a very successful Halloween party  on Friday , lots of investigators and members friends and less actives came! We got some new contacts out of it :) They were each miracles to us! All of our investigators on date for baptism and confirmation came to church, and so many things were said during church that I knew were meant for individual needs of our investigators. I was so happy! For example, ...

My dear dear dear familia y amigos,   I just love you! I have had quite the roller coaster week but I have found that I find a lot of joy in expressing love to others, so I hope all of you can feel a little more loved after reading an email of mine. As always, there's so much to say but no time, so just a disclaimer my emails really only give a small glimpse of how I'm doing. But I'll do my best.    So first, after I ended my emailing last Monday, all the sisters in the valley in our mission went with our mission president and his wife up the canyon to Brighton to see the beautiful fall colors. So fun and so beautiful! It is so wonderful to talk to other, more experienced missionaries and be strengthened by them. Example of how our missionaries are from diverse places as well, I met a sister from Kenya who gave up being on her national soccer team to come on a mission, a sister from Ukraine who learned English for her mission, and a loveable sister from Tonga. Pic...

Mi querida familia y amados amigos,   First, I want to say a very special happy birthday to my Dad. October 16 is special to me now, and today it's 45 years since the day you were born, wow! Last year at this time I took a trip to the Provo temple with my college friends to think of you, and today I am a missionary, trying to honor you. I love you, Dad!   What to say about this week. This week was a week of revelation for me. I approached my studies with questions, and especially talking them through with my companion was really inspiration filled. For example, we came out of studies learning that we need to tap more into the power of the Spirit than trying to come up with answers to every doubt. Sometimes I feel like I need to have a scripture as an answer for everything, but from some of our lessons this week we saw clearly that the logic of doctrine isn't enough to change someone's mind. I learned from PMG that only the Holy Ghost can change hearts. I want to foc...

Queridos Amigos y Familia,   Every mission has its challenges. Some missionaries knock doors all day and face rejection at every turn. Some missionaries have some of that but find golden people prepared to hear the gospel. As for me? We have no shortage of people to teach, we teach lessons all the time. But these people are quick to hear a message and slow to act on it.    We had a very good zone meeting this week with an area seventy who is latino. He helped us understand a lot more about how to teach people of the Latino culture. One of those things is that these people are very welcoming and love hearing about God and love building relationships- so they like missionaries! (normally). But he reminded us our purpose in missionaries is not just to make friends and hang out with families. We are inviting them to change their lives, and enter into saving ordinances, promises with God that they need to return to live with Him again! Many people aren't used to the idea t...

Holaaaa Familia y Amigos!   Wow time is starting to go a little faster now! What do I even say about this week? Well first of all I want to thank you all for your prayers and email notes. I'm so sorry I can't respond to everyone! But know they mean so much to me. I can see my email each night, so feel free to send me emails, I just can only respond once a week on Mondays.  To explain my title haha, we got to go to General Conference!! Tickets are pretty difficult to obtain though, so that was way stressful. But our angel elders gave us some for the Saturday morning session. We really tried to have an investigator come, but that didn't end up working out. We decided to go anyway since last time we decided to stay with a family for Women's conference instead of going even though we had tickets (that was so sad). So because of that, we had three tickets. At one point in line, my companion and I started to look for our tickets and suddenly couldn't find them anyw...

Hermana Alley with her mission president and his wife, "This is the Place" monument in Salt Lake City Holaaaa Familia y Amigos!!  Oh my I just wish I could hug all of you, the love that Heavenly Father blesses his missionaries with to share with others is so much. Also because I have a taste of what it means to be a real missionary now, I respect all missionaries and returned missionaries everywhere so much more now! Thank all of you amazing people for serving the Lord with all your heart!! This is demanding stuff. If I wasn't here for the reasons I am, no one could convince me to do it.   OK so, I'm going to start with talking about the Salt Lake City East mission! Any of you out there who don't think Utah is diverse, you would be surprised! I am covering the Mill Creek 3rd ward(Spanish speaking) with my trainer  Hermana Dorsey and we've met people from (get ready for this list) Iraq, Bosnia, Brazil, Guatemala, China, Colombia, Mexico, Holland, Gha...

Holaaa Familia y Amigos!    Aaaah I have so little time and I don't even know where to start so I am so sorry this is going to be a scatterbrained email. First, my CCM experience is coming to an end! I fly out  on Monday  to Salt Lake and will stay in the mission home that night! Crazy thing is, if I understand the email right,  on Tuesday  morning I will be traveling to the Provo MTC with my mission president to pick up the missionaries there! Which is so crazy for me because I thought I wouldn't see Provo again for 18 months. Its going to be hard driving through there knowing I have many friends and family members there and I cant see them! My people in Provo, know that I am waving to you the morning of  September 19 !   So much always happens but Ill just pick a few things to share right now. First, at the  Tuesday  devotional this week I sang with the CCM choir, and we sang the EFY medley, the Army of Helaman and Sisters...