Week 14 - My new companion...........

Just making Piniatas

September 1, 2015

Hermana Crider, my companion, told president in her email our first
week together that she wouldn't be surprised if I trained
soon.......that little mentirosa. She thinks it's going to happen
but......I'm too young for that still. I need a little more
practice......maybe 14 more months worth :)

We are trying to get our youth involved because at the moment they can
be pretty lazy about missionary work. But there is one girl who
loooooves coming out with us and so we've got one coming with us and
her sister came out with us once! It's a miracle they came, the young
women's president is very proud of us! Haha She was also very excited
because one of the girls took us to see some less actives with her
(she is the new class president) and we actually saw two of them with
her! One of them never wants to talk to missionaries but she talked to
us for a long time and let us share a message! The other hasn't been
going to church because something bad happened at church with a
leader. She had been going somewhere else but when we visited her she
said that she was already planning on coming back because she didn't
like the other church she was going to. She said that when we came it
was like a sign that she was doing the right thing.

Im definitely feeling more confident in the area and being a leader. I
still have issues like when no one is home I constantly apologize to
my companion that I didn't do better.....but people have their agency.
(Agency is the worst ) :)

We were running out of miles this week but we made it to the end of
the month without running out, so I felt pretty good! I'm learning how
to budget money and miles, so that a plus of being a missionary.
Another plus is that we study a lot and I am learning so many new
things that I never knew. I'm also getting to know our apostles and
prophets a lot better through their talks and that has been a huge
blessing.

Honestly my week has been full of experiences with the spirit and
walking around in the hot hot sun in the middle of the day and no one
has been home. But the experiences with the spirit were priceless. The
other day I forgot where we were going and so I just said lets Go see
this less active. So we get there and the less active is not home. I
really felt discouraged because I thought we were supposed to be
there. Then this guy pulls us aside and tells us his girlfriend wants
to listen to the missionaries, she really wants to go to church. Like
bad. So we showed them a video and talked about Christ. He started
crying! Then I told her the experience I had and that I felt God had
sent us there! Then she started crying! Luckily I didn't cry. We had
to give them to the English elders though :( it was still so amazing!!
She went to church on Sunday too! Yesterday we also had a lesson with
a former. The spirit was so strong and he told us he wanted to receive
an answer very bad. There were a lot of times during that lesson where
I didn't know what I was saying, I was just saying it! It really
strengthened my testimony that the spirit speaks for us if we let it.
It was so crazy. He even said the prayer without arguing (and he's a
big I don't want to say the prayer person). But he could feel the
spirit, it felt like we were In a tiny room and it was just us him and
the spirit. And we were outside in the apartment complex! I was
soooooooooo tired afterwards. The spirit really drains you!

Other than that, the work is slow going still, but that's ok! A lot of
people are just never home or have a lot of excises (investigators and
less actives a like) and that can be really annoying sometimes, but
I'm getting over it. You gotta love em anyways, even when you know
their lying to you.

I love being a missionary, it's such a great blessing and I'm grateful
for this opportunity to forget myself and go to work! I'm grateful for
the chance that I get to serve!

Well that's it!
I miss you!

Love,
Hermana Lapp

Me during studies with my blanket

"I'm a beautiful butterfly" -bugs life (that's what I say after my prayer every morning that I have he blanket all around me,,,in the voice of the caterpillar from bugs life)

Week 13 .... Still loving Ramona

My trainer just went STL (basically a girl version of zone leaders)
and now I have a new companion! Her name is Hermana Crider and she's
so awesome. She is 24 and from Maryland. Her mom is from Guatemala and
her dad is from Louisiana, but he served his mission in Argentina so
she grew up speaking Spanglish in the home. She has been out 14 months
(and I have 14 left!!) We get along very well! She is awesome and we
are doing great things out here in Ramona! We are getting the
youth/young adults involved in missionary work. We got this super shy
18 year old to come with us yesterday and she really got out of her
shell. She's going on a mission, she just doesn't realize it yet. my
companion also will just randomly switch the conversation to Spanish
and that is really helping a lot. It's hard to speak Spanish always
when you're in the states.

I already can't remember life before the mission and I've only been
out 4 months. I'm such a baby in my mission too! I think I'm the
youngest full proselyting Spanish sister in the mission! Woot! Im
never the youngest in anything so that's pretty exciting stuff for me.

we had to go to San Isidro (the border of Tijuana Mexico) for a
baptism in my comps old area and so we have no miles left....actually
we have 200 but for missionaries that's not much. We had a couple
walking days so I felt like a legitimate missionary.

I don't know if I told you this yet but In our mission we have
American Sign Language, Arabic, Laotian, Mandarin Chinese, Tagalog.
Plus the native languages, English and Spanish (it's about 50/50 down
here, I think. Ok that's probably an exaggeration.)

The food here is ridiculous sometimes! it's picoso Mexican food that
makes my mouth sweat, it's so picoso. All the members think I can't
take the chile, but I can! Actually sometimes it makes me want to die.
The other night we had this pasta that was just COVERED in picoso
chile salsa. Oh man I though my mouth was just going to explode.

Let's see what else.......Sunday was the worst day of my missionary
life. It was pretty bad. This happens sometimes. You just have a day
where people hate you and they don't want to see your face anymore.
People are rude and reject you, people tell you they are catholic
(story of my life). But you keep on trying! You keep going and talking
to everyone, spreading the gospel and being an instrument en Los manos
del señor! It's such an amazing experience and it's already going by
so fast, I neve r want to leave! Luckily I have 14 months left, so I
don't have to worry about anything yet! It's just crazy how fast time
flies when you're a missionary. It still feels like the first month
sometimes, but then I realize I'm in my 4th transfer (1 in the CCM and
one in the field.) and that's a crazy feeling! It definitely flies by
way too fast.

There's not really much else to say....same old same old. Right now we
are teaching a 13 year old girl and she accepted a baptismal date, so
we'll see how that goes. I'm pretty excited and we are hoping she goes
to mutual tomorrow to meet the other youth (since we are a branch it's
combined with one of the wards). The young women's president is one of
the coolest people ever, so this girl will probably just love her and
love mutual. It'll be a great opportunity and then hopefully the other
girls can help her to attend church!

There's not much else to say! Write letters and all that! Love you!

💕Hermana Lapp💕

My apologies for not posting anything for a while.

I know it has been a while since I posted anything here. With my continuing health problems and stress involved I dropped the ball!! I also forgot to "publish" a couple of posts so they were just sitting in the queue.  Oops! I promise to do better.  I will be going back and posting for every week I missed over the next couple days. Enjoy!