Lost and Then Found

ZOE IS BACK IN MY LIFE!!!! I am not sure if I have told you all but for the past 2 weeks Zoe has been dodging calls, citas, EVERYTHING! It has been so hard. But this past Tuesday, we had an appointment with Zoe's neighbor and we took Yancy. For some reason we had freshly baked cookies with us too. Anyways, our appointment with the neighbor fell through but Zoe's cute orange car was there so we went up. We were literally put in the right spot with the right people at the right time. Zoe received us with open arms and was super exciting to see Yancy- wedding bells anyone? Anyways, Zoe looked a lot different. Her countenance was a lot darker. She told us that these past 2 weeks have been really hard and that she hasn’t necessarily been making the best of decisions. We talked again about the atonement and shared about how it heals us immediately if we just turn to Him sincerely. She said how before she wanted to change but now it has come to a point where she needs to change. She is a lot more determined this time around. I know that God did not leave her solita for those two weeks but was getting her more prepared to be a better disciple of His. 

Another great experience was when we took Hermana Gaytan and Maria Gutierrez to the temple. Francisco (Maria's son) was also there. He presented her with a gift. It was really awesome. He also explained how in his patriarchal blessing he got a few weeks ago it talked about how this is the year for his mother to join him in the true church. It also said how her husband would follow his example. Bottom line we are all just focusing so much on her because she is the key for this whole entire family. She is so stinkin close.  I love her so much! I want her to be happy. This week we stopped by every single day (we aren’t obsessed or anything) and one day she just turns to us and says she’s not happy. She didn’t want us to dwell on it or anything but I just know for a fact that she just needs to get baptized and everything she is concerned with will fall into place. Keep praying for her! 

Ok so I had a really cool personal study this morning. A common phrase that we get all the time is "si Dios quiere.." Which means, if God wants. Well that’s a great concept right to want to do God's will. Well here most people use it as an excuse for not doing something which makes absolutely no sense because the things that we ask people to do are literally invitations/ commandments from God. So I found a ton of cool scriptures that I am so excited to one day soon (probably today) use to help them realize obviously God wants them to do these things. Really random but I am just really stoked about it. Alma 42:27 is my new favorite scripture probably to use for this because it literally says right there that God is not going to compel you to come. He will not and cannot compel you to come. He does desire you to come those (moses 1:39) and He help you come but ultimately it is up to us. He have our agency. He has laid down the path to come to Him, which is baptism, but he will never force it. Obviously it is right- we can read that in the scriptures. I really think this applies to any principle or commandment. A lot of the times we wait for answers to our prayers like, should I stop drinking coffee, should I wait to pay my tithing next month, etc. We know the answers already! If we never exercise our faith to sacrifice, we do not have the faith sufficient for life eternal. We just have to act.

I am currently experiencing a lot of heartbreaks with Francisco Juarez y Carol. Pray for them. We finally helped them talk to the bishop about marriage and I think his mind and heart has been changed little by little. They should be praying together now. Prayer is so important!!!! Especially in a companionship or in a relationship. It literally is the only way to access and call down the help of Heaven. But you have to do it together if you want the full effect. 

I just want to close by saying that I know that once we have received illumination once, we have to avoid the temptation to stray from that illumination. If it was right at that time when you prayed about it, it is still right. Truth cannot be changed. God is the same today, yesterday, and forever. I know that. I trust in that. He has never changed on me and I know He will never change on any of us. For this reason, I can have complete trust in Him that He has my best interest. 

I know that membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is literally membership in the Lord's Kingdom. I know that He leads and guides this church because there is no other plausible source that could provide me with all this joy, guidance, and love. I love my Savior. I know we just need to beseech Him and kneel down to Him and He will and can heal us. 

Have a super stellar week!

Keep smiling, 

Hermana Parry 

Armadillo sighting and catch

Learning to cook

Houston temple

These people are just so great.

Please don’t get mad buuuttt I forgot my camera cord again. I will really try hard to bring it next time! Hermano Bernal caught an armadillo yesterday and the pictures are hilarious. He and Hermana drove us to church and on our way home he spotted one, pulled the car over, and chased this armadillo down. He kills me! I’m pretty sure they are my favorite. 

Well now that I just said that, 20 other people just popped in my head that I have claimed are my favorite. These people are just so great. Seriously have some forever friends down here in Louetta. 

One of them is Maria Juana Gutierrez. She is so shy and quiet but oh man I think we are really becoming best friends. Yesterday we stopped by because she couldn’t go to church and I just was giving her this huge lecture about how she is breaking my heart. She was just laughing and then was making some smart comments back. She is a clever one. Literally though this woman is amazing. And we had one of the most powerful lessons with her this week! She is planning for baptism for March 1st. She has a lot of doubts but it really trying to prepare herself. She feels different and knows its true. It’s just a big decision so she is a little scared. At the beginning of the lesson she said something to the effect of not wanting to do this anymore. She then walked out of the room. Hermana Baxter and I just turned to each other and mouthed, what the heck are we suppose to do. We just sat and waited. When she came back in we were all just quiet. After a little, some sentences were exchanged and we shared some scriptures about baptism by proper authority. We invited her right then and there to pray about baptism. She did and boom spirit was so strong. She immediately opened up the Book of Mormon and started reading. Guess what she opened up to? 2 Nefi 31 o sea, the doctrine of Jesus Christ. She read it all the way through out-loud. At the end she said I need to get baptized. We then started talking again about baptism and when we brought up the date she said, well I just want another answer. So she prayed again and boom, the spirit was so thick. The key in this whole lesson was that we were quiet and we just let the spirit teach her. It should have been off the district! I am so glad we just had her pray and then didn’t try to force anything on her but really helped her have an experience with the spirit. One of the most rewarding lessons because I learned how powerful the spirit really is in our teaching. We are here to create experiences. 

We also had a killer lesson with Francisco Juarez. He told us on Tuesday he wants us to come by more because Sunday to Sunday is a really long time and he just wants to learn everything. On Thursday we visited him again and brought his friend Hno Gaytan. It was awesome. He told us that he has fears. It was getting close to 930 so we couldn’t stay to find out his fears but my studies on Friday and Saturday were focused on him and his possible fears. I have never prayed so hard for the gift of discernment. It was awesome because when we went into our next cita with him on Saturday night, all the scriptures that I had found for him were exactly what he needed. I only know that because he told me it all makes sense now! The moral of the lesson was that faith and fear cannot co-exist and if we don’t act because we have fear of messing up, we don’t actually have faith. It was so great. Yancy came with us and shared some cool experiences from his mission. When we had to leave for our next appointment Francisco was so sad! But he told us that he wants to accompany us to a temple visit this week and that he is really wants to see another baptism- luckily, there are 2 this Saturday! He is getting so close. He finally understands that us being humans will make mistakes but as long as we have faith in Christ, we can be made whole time and time again. 

I just want to end with saying how I know that the atonement is real. Christ

Heals hearts and fixes broken things. I know that our Savior loves broken things because that means he can fix, enlarge, and strengthen them. We can be made better because of him. Go read Moroni 10. Literally sums up everything. I love you all! 

Keep praying for these people!!! Miracles are happening. 

Keep smiling too, 

Hermana Parry

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

In honor of Valentine's Day I wanted to share one of my favorite scriptures about Charity (1 Corinthians 13: 1-2) 

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

First off, what is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal? Extra noise right? Exactly. It doesn’t matter what we say to these people out here as missionaries, if we do not have charity towards them, all of it will be unnecessary noise. Love must be the motivation of our actions. I can talk until I am blue in the face but it will profit these people nothing unless I love them! That is why we are commanded to pray with all energy of heart for this gift! Because it is only the pure love of Jesus Christ that is going to change these people and ourselves! 

I know that that is something that I am really trying to work on out here. Loving these people as God does and literally seeing them as my brothers and sisters. Its something I have to pray for because that is not something that we can make ourselves do. God is the fountain of all love therefore we have to access this kind of pure love through Him. 

As for this week here in Louetta.. WOW! God is so good to us. in just 4 days we set 5 baptismal dates. The amazing thing is that these are people who literally found us! It is amazing to see how God has prepared them and literally put all the pieces together so things work out just perfectly. We are really trying to teach these people to turn to the Lord and gain strength in Him right now because trials are going to hit them while they try to get closer to God. We saw that last night with Elmer and Maria but we had a really good lesson about how living the gospel exactly gives us the strength to overcome. 

I am really excited because 2 of the 6 upcoming baptisms are part member families! Little by little more of them will join them so they can get sealed in the temple. As for Fransisco, we are still working with him! No date yet but he wore a really nice suit to church on Sunday! He was excited about it so obviously I am excited about it. We are working with them to get married! Pray for some miracles. I know that they will happen! 

I don’t know if you remember the man Fabrizio Modenessi from when I was in Gulfbank. Well he is the one who always bought us pupusas and gave us mangoes. He is always smiling in the pictures! Anyways, he came to Louetta Ward yesterday!! I just about fainted. I love that man! He is the king of being lost and found. This time we really hope he stays! We are having a huge family home evening tonight with the Sanchez family, their cousin who is preparing for baptism, and Fabrizio. It will be a party. 

Zoe kept the word of wisdom for one whole week! She only drank cafe once and it was on the eighth day. Is that not amazing progress? She also got a new job that will allow her to come to church more frequently! She committed to ley de castidad this week and is really praying about her date. Still nothing is set with her. 

Transfer calls were last night. Honestly I am grateful I am training because if I weren’t, I probably would have been switched out. I was joking around with Hermana Espinoza on Saturday telling her how I already have 6 months in this area and I might get switched out so you should probably just come to church already. She just looked at me and was so serious and said; if you leave no one will visit me. In the moment I was so happy to know that she felt my love for her. I’m glad I have 6 more weeks to get her to church! 

We stopped by to visit our little Vietnamese friend this week. Here was the advice she left us this week "marry a man who will take you to buy French fries even though he wants BBQ." 

Bottom line, this week was amazing. God loves His children- ALL of them. I am grateful for the atonement because it stretches me to be more and do more. Honestly, I would be so crushed by the stress in this world if I didn't know that I have a Savior who makes it possible for me to do all things. 

Keep Smiling, 

Hermana Parry

Look Up More

Honestly have ten minutes to write this so you probably will want to proofread it before sending it out... 

I really just want to share with you one story. There are so many great things happening but this one just takes the cake. There is a lot of background information so I hope that I can fit it in all there. 

There is an Hermana: Maria Oralia Gonzalez. She has been investigating the church for 3 years. Her son got baptized last year. She wants nothing more than the be baptized! The only problem is that her esposo will not give her permission to do so. When we had our specialized ward conference, the stake president was ready to fill up the pila right then and there and get her baptized during church. He could just feel her pure heart. Anyways, she has been consuming my thoughts non-stop lately. Miracles have happened and little by little we have been able to see her more and more. Last night we felt inspired to take her to our lesson with Maria and Elmer Rodriguez. We had planned to teach them the plan of salvation. It was so simple and so amazing. By far the most powerful lesson of my mission. Anyways, we taught the fall and the atonement perfectly. The gift of tongues was present. Before we even started the plan we talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how that is the path that God has laid down for us to partake of our salvation. That part was really important because when we talked about applying the atonement in our lives they knew what they had to do. Maria is still really set on baptism. Elmer is getting there. Last night during the lesson they opened up to us about their marriage problems. The spirit was so strong and we talked about how the atonement covers everything! Elmer said that before he gets baptized he wants to take care of all his personal matters. We read Marcus 10:27 that says that things that are impossible for man are possible for God. We explained we access God's strength to solve problems through baptism. It was so awesome how the lesson was just unfolding. Little by little he is understanding. We left them with a kneeling prayer. Maria was just crying because she knows that they need this as a family. She is willing to do it without him to get the ball rolling but she sees how this really will help them. Maria was perfect to take. She could relate so well to them and at the end she bore a powerful testimony. She talked about how missionary quite literally are acting as our Savior. She feels and sees it in our countenance. She explained how we love the people and have pure desires to help them. It was amazing! I know that that lesson could not have happened without the spirit. It really does not matter what are talents are. We need the spirit. It guides us to say the words that will touch our friend’s hearts. Our words, when following the spirit, are scripture for our friends! 

"The Lord doesn’t care about your capability but rather your availability. Once you prove your dependability, he will increase your capability." We must turn and trust in Him more. With the atonement, we expand and become more than we could have been otherwise. Mom, show Kayla the diagram I drew for you in the letter that you get this week. It is a cool concept. 

Also, Zoe is trying to follow the word of wisdom this week. Pray for her. She loves coffee! She really is so dedicated. 

Went to the temple on my year mark. Isn’t that a tender mercy that it fell on that day. God is so good to me. Hermana Burnham and Hermana Driesel were in my session. It made it that much sweeter. I felt the distinct prompting that I just need to look up more. Hence, the title. God is in control. He is with me. There is no need to fear because I am about doing His business. He is all powerful! 

I love being a missionary. I love feeling God work through me. I know that this is His work. Honestly, looking back a year ago, the work felt different. Those prepared people are finding us! The work is hastening. I wish I could be here for all of 2014 because this time is so exciting. THIS IS SO REAL! I love it. This is true joy. 

Keep smiling, 

Hermana Parry

Bipolar weather in Houston

Temple Trip on my YEAR MARK

The cutest guatemalteco!