March 29, 2016

This week as I studied the talk by elder holland called "none were
with him" last week, I found a quote that really struck me. "For His
Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like
to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like
to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally,
abjectly, hopelessly alone.
    But Jesus held on. He pressed on. The goodness in Him allowed
faith to triumph even in a state of complete anguish. The trust He
lived by told Him in spite of His feelings that divine compassion is
never absent, that God is always faithful, that He never flees nor
fails us." That part really struck me. I have never thought of the
fact that being Christlike means not forgetting who we are and where
we came from. The mission is hard, I have had many, many struggles,
but I think going forward in this new area, with new trials, I can
become more like him by remembering who I am, who I came from, and
that God is always faithful, that He will never flee or fail me.

I've always had companions who spoke Spanish before their mission
except my MTC Comp and my trainer until now. Well, I understand way
more than I thought I did of Spanish. Like.....I understand everything
they are saying. I didn't really think I would, but I do, so mission
miracles I guess! My companion is awesome though and her Spanish is
definitely way better than mine was when I had her time in the
mission. She is from Hurricane, Utah and she's 23 (Yes! I got another
oldie, they're the best!) we have been having a good time together and
it's definitely not awkward and quiet al the time....I always get
nervous about that when I receive a new companion. My area is
literally on the border of Mexico and so we teach English and
Spanish.....but most everyone here speaks Spanish. The Ward has an
English group and a Spanish group, which is cool, but also a
challenge. We have some awesome members though and I love them.

In this area, there is not a habit of asking every person to be
baptized on a specific date at least by the second lesson. We have
been working on that and we got someone with a baptismal date on the
first lesson! It was a miracle because he has wanted to get baptized
in this church for years, he has just been putting it aside. His name
is Arturo and we are hoping that he can keep his baptismal date, he is
getting his Ph.D. Which has made him very busy. Prayers are definitely
needed for him to be baptized on the 30th of April! I am super excited
though, he has wanted to talk to the missionaries and get baptized for
20 years! He even wants to move to Utah once he finishes his Ph.D.

We had an awesome Easter. I gave a talk in the English group this
Sunday and I had to apologize for my English! Another thing I thought
would never happen. We had a dinner with an awesome family and I
definitely have some people to add on to my list of favorite people I
have found on my mission.

Anyway, it's been a great week full of miracles and I have been cooking lately!

Love,
Hermana Lapp

March 22, 2016 Now serving in Calexico... Imperial Valley

 Well I'm going to start out this email with transfer news. I just got
transferred to el Valle imperial........its the farthest from
everything else in the mission and it super hot.its supposed to get to
120 this summer.its the desert. I actually haven't even got there yet
but I've heard about it my entire mission. I will be serving in a
small town called Calexico. Apparently we live 3 minutes from the
border of Mexicali, Mexico. Pray for me that I don't die from the
heat! I have my first compa that is learning Spanish since I was in
training, sister Shields. She just got out of training. She's also my
first compa from UT! But....I'm going to miss sister Romero. Speaking
of which, MY TRAINEE IS TRAINING! What!! It's so crazy, but it's
awesome, she's going to do great.

Our investigator from Chula, Fransisco, didn't go to work because he
worked from 10pm-7am......so sad. But he has a new baptismal date and
I think now that he lost one, he realizes better how important it is.
He was excited to get baptized and I think he was disappointed that he
can't get baptized. I'm excited to hear about what happens with him!

I just drove into Calexico, and I have never seen a place like it. It
looks like what I imagine Arizona to look like....flat, hot, dusty. It
going to be awesome though! I've heard miracles happen here in all
this heat! Ive heard a lot about the valley and how the valley is the
best. That's what our zone is called, the imperial valley. It's going
to be a good time here in little Mexico/ Calexico!

There was a cool question our president asked in his email today that
we are supposed to respond on and I thought I would include it on here
with My answer.
(1) What do you love most about your Savior, Jesus Christ?

I think what I love most about my savior is His willingness to
forgive. I have made so many mistakes and it is really hard to forgive
myself. I have made mistakes in and out of the mission, but all of
them He makes up for. I love the feeling I get when I repent and I
just feel that peace, the yoke is literally lifted. I am grateful that
I am allowed, as imperfect as I am, to be His representative.

Well.....I don't have that much to say this week and I'm a little
short on time....

Love you!
Hermana Lapp

March 15,2016

UPDATE on our investigator Fransisco. He has met some people from he
ward now. He almost came to church, but last minute his mom asked if
he could help her with something....and no one says no to mom,
especially Cuban ones.

This week we taught our investigator who is a super old man. 2 of his
kids are members. Well, I think yesterday when we taught him, I
realized how much I love this old man like Christ would love him! It
was weird, I just realized how much I wanted him to get baptized. That
happens a lot to me. All of a sudden in a lesson I just realize how
much I love them and how much I want them to be baptized and partake
of the gozo that I have partaken.. Its hard when they dont accept
that, but I think I have come to realize that God truly has his timing
with everything. Its just so perfect that we dont even realize it
until it has already passed.

Now I would like to discuss the subject of Mexican Food. As you know,
I am spanish speaking, so I eat a lot of Mexican food. (You can look
up all the terms you dont know on google). Yesterday one of our
investigators wanted to feed us lunch and it was like this super spicy
ceviche with shrimp. Then she gave us this drink, let me tell you it
was so nasty!!!!!!!!!! It was basically tomato juice filled with Chile
and Chamoy and Tajin. Luckily I didnt have to drink the whole thing so
I didnt die. But then dinner came.....Super spicy beef tacos with
giant Jalepenos! She made us eat SIX of them! Oh man, I wanted to die.
Anyway, day in the life of a missionary.

Sorry its so short! We went to coronado and rode a surry! there were 6
people on it!  It reminded me of that time I went with you :)

Love,
Hermana Lapp

March 7, 2016. Zona......

Today for pday we went to a place with our zone so that a missionary could try to eat a four lb burrito.....he almost got there. Our mission president came as well! Haha he was super into it and took a bunch of pictures of the elder. We are going bowling soon as well!

This week I made my way back to good old Ramona for zone conference. We went to camp wildwood for the weirdest, but funniest zone conference I have ever been to! We started out with some training by mission leaders and I learned a whole lot about planning. I think I learned the most from the APs about that. It really struck me when they said we need to weekly plan for he experience we want them to have. I really loved it. We also did some team building exercise. As we were doing the team building I also learned that we need to talk as a team before doing something rather than just jumping into it. When we jump into it, we don't have a good experience (fall down or something.) planning as a missionary is super important! 

We ended the zone conference with a hike! At first it was super easy and I was just thinking about things. I was thinking about how I think of myself and what the savior would say about me. I learned a lot and it was super spiritual, but then our mission president realized we were going the wrong way! So we turned around and found the actual trail. This one was hard and rocky! It was a cool lesson to learn. I'm glad he made that mistake so that I could ponder because I was out of breath after a minute....

MIracle! Yesterday we had an awesome night! All week we were trying to set people with baptismal dates. We invited so many people and they were all turning us down. Well we have this new investigator from Cuba named Fransisco (somehow we found more Cubans). We invited him to be baptized and he accepted without putting up any fight! He even told us he would get his tattoos removed if he needed to! He is preparing to be baptized the 9th of April. He wants to come preach with us.....before he is baptized. Haha he is super awesome! 

We also invited another person to baptized. He did not accept a date, but he did tell us he is planning on getting baptized, he is just not ready for a date. It is super cool because two of his children are members. When we invited him he didn't say yes or now he said " I know who I want to baptize me. My son." It was super cool! He talked to missionaries 50 years ago and for some reason he never got baptized. He is grateful his kids found the gospel and hopefully we can help the gospel touch his life as well.

Last miracle is Annabel and Ramon! They have investigated the church for 4 years and can't get baptized because Ramon couldn't get divorced, so they couldn't get married, so they couldn't get baptized. They are very active in the church. Last week we dropped them and decided to do that faithfully. Yesterday we held in our hands his divorce papers! We are still not sure when they will get married because of legal issues, but it should be pretty soon!

That's all I have this week!

Love,

Hermana Lapp

Sent from my iPad 

May 1, 2016 Hermana Lapp's 20th Birthday!

My 20 year old face...And my companion. 

Well my birthday was good! We went to sushi for district lunch and I
was so happy with my life! I haven't had sushi in 10 months! I was in
heaven but I just realized I forgot to take a picture :( super sad.

Thank you for the package! I super loved it! The shoes are good! I thought they were too small, but I think they just
need to be broken in:)

Yesterday we went to go visit this lessactives old couple. Well, the
husband is in the hospital and we think he's going to pass away. It
was super sad because she is all alone and she is just super sad. Plus
she has chronic bronchitis. Me and my companion just cried with her
and read a scripture with her and sang to her. I didn't cry until I
said the prayer and then we were just all crying. I definitely learned
the meaning to mourning with those who mourn.... But don't worry, we
recovered! We called the relief society and they are all over it!

I went on exchanges with sister Lopez and she is super awesome! I
learned a ton on that exchange and it was a super busy day! We were
both saying it was a breath of fresh air because both of our areas are
in a finding phase. It was super cool though and i reached my goal of
setting a baptismal date with someone! It was at the very end of the
night, so I got lucky! We also ate dinner with the patriarchs wife and
she shared her super awesome conversion story. Then she took us to go
see our friend! It wasn't planned, she just said, let's go visit my
friend! That was super awesome.

I've also been doing better on talking about the restoration for
street contacts! That is something I have been working on recently. I
have definitely seen some miracles on sharing my testimony of the
restored gospel in my first contact with people.

Funny things from this week!
Some guy was yelling at us from the other side of the street that
either he loves us or God loves us.....I hope it's the latter!
Yesterday we saw a weird Dancing mime in the middle of a parking
lot....I'm not really sure what that was all about but we were sad
when he got kicked out...
Love, Hermana Lapp

February 23, 2016

My birthday is coming up and my companion has not heard the end of it.
I will never stop making my birthday a big deal ahaha. I tell people
that its my birthday soon and she tells them I never let her forget. I
guess my old ways don't change! :)

This week has been a pretty good one! It was pretty slow, but we made
the best of it! We had a lot of members come out with us and yesterday
we had a girl and her daughter come with us. We were meeting this lady
at the park.....where we found out shes kind of homeless and we are
pretty sure she still thinks we are Jehovah's Witness even though we
explained a few times that we are LDS Missionaries. It was pretty
funny! The member couldn't help but laugh with us afterward.

Yesterday we also got a door literally slammed in our faces! At first
I was going to be upset, but then my companion said "that was so
awesome! I am living the dream!" haha what an example she is to me!
The other day she tried to street contact someone and they threw up a
peace sign and said "I'm a satanist" and walked quickly away before
she could respond. She said that as soon as she saw his Alice in
Chains T-shirt, she knew we were in for a treat.

This week I have tried to become a bolder missionary. I've been trying
to work harder on making sure that the people we teach take me
seriously. We taught this guy the other day for the second time and he
said he hadn't read yet in the Book of Mormon. We started to say it
was ok, but then I remembered my goal,         told him I was sad he
hadn't read because I know the blessings that will come from reading.
He finally gave a sincere commitment to read and I felt pretty good
coming out of that lesson. Its amazing for me to feel how much I have
changed on my mission. Just last week before I started working on it,
I probably would've been to scared to be so bold. I know that boldness
brings blessings.

We brought our recent convert, Flor, to a lesson with us this past
week as well. We hadn't taught these people yet, only met them. Well
Flor started doing the How to Begin teaching herself! She told them
that if they do the things the missionaries ask them to, they will
come to know it is true just like she did! It was so awesome to hear
her bear testimony in a lesson to these people. I am so grateful she
came with us and could share her testimony on the restored gospel.

That's it for this week!

Love,
Hermana Lapp