#17 - Ihop, Bertoldo's Baptism, Transfers!

Good Morning everybody!!

This week was awesome! I'm sending a recording of  most of our week, but the highlight was definitely Bertoldo's baptism! He was a referral from a member who met him once at soup kitchen, they don't even really know each other. He's 62 and super sweet. He told us that he thought that being confirmed and getting the Holy Ghost would be like having a dove on his head, and his testimony was all about the Book of Mormon. He's read half of it in a month! And Joanna finished the Book of Mormon this week! I attached his testimony too.

Friday we had lunch at the Buffet with Luis Vasquez and Hermano Chavez. They're so sweet too. Last week we got two referrals from Luis's, and one of them is the little brother of a guy in YSA. He came to church on Sunday and he's so prepared and has the strongest testimony already of God and Jesus Christ.

On Tuesday we joked that the Valentine YSA sisters should move into the empty apartment next to us that used to have elders, and then a few days later they moved in! They were creeped out by one of their neighbors on the other side of Madera so the Zone leaders told them to move. It's so much fun to have them right next door.

Transfer Calls were on Saturday!! The Valentine sisters came over and we ate watermelon while waiting for the call. Sister Rhodus is leaving and going to the ward where the mission president lives! She's training a new missionary, Sister Dixon is staying and training a new missionary, and  Sister Feldman and I are staying! We're the only companionship in the zone that wasn't affected by this transfer call, kind of crazy! We're so excited to just keep working hard here in Madera.

This week I found a new favorite scripture: Romans 8:38-39 (last two verses of the chapter). Absolutely nothing can separate us from the love God has for us. He has an infinite love for us and no matter what He's always there, and Jesus Christ knows everything we're going through. There are so many incredible ways God and Jesus Christ have shown their love for us, and I would invite you all this week to look for those ways and the little things in your life this week!

Quotes of the week:
"I be trippin with Alma!!" (A member we're teaching )

-"Saturnino, you're the best!"

- "Yo se que si" (Yeah, I know), really nonchalantly

Palabras en espanol:

calcomanias - stickers

Aumento, mico, armazon (all parts of glasses, frames, lenses, and the little frame on bifocals)

Love you all!

--

Hermana Marin Fisher

California Fresno Mission

1814 N Echo

Fresno, CA 93704

#16 - LUIS GOT BAPTIZED!!

 
This week was fantastic!!!!

On Saturday Luis (Viz) got baptized!!! It was probably the sweetest baptism I had ever attended. So many people from the ward came to support him. The brother in the ward who baptized him has literally become his best friend, he drove him to Fresno for work, brought him dinner, and they're just the cutest friendship I've ever seen. And four of our other investigators came to the baptism! Chuy walked in late and announced, "Buenos Tardes!" to everyone, and they all said that they felt really special. Bertoldo has now been to two baptisms, and he'll be going to his own this next Saturday! And the Elders told us just a few days ago that the goal for the ward this year was 20 baptisms, and Luis was #20! And Petra and Jose went and they said they remembered the Spirit and peace they felt when they were baptized. I literally could not smiling the whole day. And Luis bore his testimony and I'm sending a recording of it! (It's in Spanish, but  he's saying that he's really grateful for the scriptures and how great he feels to be baptized and how he's changed). He's my favorite person!!

Also, yesterday at church Bertoldo brought a friend! And Frank (who got baptized in the Spring) came back from Oregon! He found out yesterday that he was moving, arrived Sunday morning, and went straight to church, because he hasn't been able to go in two months. I've been hoping he would come back because he would be such a good friend to all of our investigators right now, and God totally answered my prayer and now he's back!

On Tuesday we went to Clovis for a doctor's appointment, and we asked Sister Mackay if we could join her for brunch. We got to go to the new mission home and eat omelettes with her. She is so sweet! And we got to talk to the workers outside in Spanish. It was really awesome to just get to know her better.

We also got a picture from Manuel, which was really random but really fun!

Also, what happened with the solar eclipse? I just heard about it a few days ago, and Joanna was telling us that the electricity was going to be out and it was going to be pitch black, but we didn't really notice anything this morning, except it being a bit more shady. 

I decided to do the Book of Mormon challenge myself! I shared 2 Nephi 4:19, which talks about who we can trust in. I would encourage you all this week to read it and think about how you can put more of your trust in God and in His son Jesus Christ.

Spanish Words:

bags for our scriptures that Adilene's brother gave us

quitanieves- Snow Plow (I will probably never use this word, I heard it snowed once in Fresno like 20 years ago)

Libras- Pounds

Chipilon - Daddy's girl, Momma's boy

Trono- crack (Like cracking your knuckles)

Tongue Twister- Trabalenguas, por ejemplo:

Trest tristes tigres tragaban trigo estres tristes trastes en un trigal, en un trigal, tres tristes tigres, tragaban trigo en tres tristes trasto

Have a great week! Love ya!

--

Hermana Marin Fisher

California Fresno Mission

1814 N Echo

Fresno, CA 93704

#15 - Hola (again)!

Our plants!

 We got two plants this week in the same day. This guy literally just came out of his house with a plant and told us that it was a gift. Then at another lesson a different guy gave us a cactus. So random, but now we have two plants. They're named Itaa and Quinoa.



Wednesday was exchanges with Hermana Whitney and Hermana Malpica who are serving in Los Banos! (Yes there's a city here named Bathroom ). I learned SO MUCH. I was with Hermana Whitney and she was just so confident, and I'm really wanting to work on being bolder. They're so sweet! Also, Hermana Whitney told me that in the middle of the night she woke up and I was speaking spanish....I have no idea what I said but that's kind of cool! And we baked Banana Bread!

Zone Conference! We talked a lot about working with members. He had everyone write down as many ward leaders as we could remember, and not just Brother____ and Sister___ But first names, children, and information about them. I realized that I really do not know the ward very well. It's hard because a lot of times I don't completely understand what people are saying, but I'm going to work on it! Missionaries are awesome, but the members stay in the area, and really help support people. Also, we sang the song "When someone cares", and I realized that I recognized the tune, but not the words. It finally clicked that I listened to the spanish version of the song in high school on one of our girl's camp CD's. My favorite line is, "With God nothing is impossible", o "Con Dios, nada imposible es". So true. We see miracles every single day!

Exchanges with Sister Whitney (blonde) and Sister Malpica

Update on Joanna: We are teaching 6 people in her house, and they are all at different points! Two are recent converts (Petra and Jose) But one prefers spanish, one prefers English. Then we just started teaching her cousin. Their family is so awesome! They're always so sweet, and we sort of do split lessons where Hermana Feldman teaches someone and I teach the other, in Spanish and English. This week Joanna recorded herself doing the Book of Mormon challenge I mentioned last week and it was so sweet! She picked 1 Nephi 3:7.

We had this crazy dinner this week when we showed up and 10 minutes in another family showed up that lives there. They seemed to recognize us, but we didn't recognize them, but they were really sweet, and they all wanted to talk to us. The son wanted to show us his graduation video he made, the mom was speaking the most fluent Spanglish I'd ever heard, the lady we were actually there to visit was trying to listen, and all at the same time we were sort of teaching the story of Joseph Smith and the song "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" was playing in the background. I'm still not really sure what happened or if we really taught, but everyone was happy!

Baptism with Maylin, she was so happy that we came!

Church was awesome!! Bertoldo and Luis came, so they can both get baptized in the upcoming week!! Luis has a date for this saturday, and Bertoldo for next Wednesday. They both love reading in the Book of Mormon and are the sweetest people ever. And yesterday one of the 8 year olds in the ward got baptized, and Bertoldo got to go and said it was beautiful and he's so excited!

This week I learned where the term "gringo" comes from. We were driving this member named Martha to a lesson, and we were teaching her a bit of English. We got to a stop light and she said, "green- go!" and then explained to us that because for Americans green means go it just kind of got mixed together. Fun fact of the day!

We learned a lot about following where the Spirit leads us this week. We ran into so many people who just really needed our message. I'd encourage all of you to pray for someone you can reach out to this week, and you will be led to someone you needs you!

--

Hermana Marin Fisher

California Fresno Mission

1814 N Echo

Fresno, CA 93704

#14 - Crazy Adventures!

A new hairstyle

Hello!!!!

Last week my companion and I decided we wanted to work on patience, and we were given many opportunities to work on patience with appointments that fell through. But at the same we always seemed to be exactly where we needed to be! We ended up randomly finding someone who was baptized 15 years ago in Mexico and didn't know where the church was here, and finding lots of new investigators! God always knows exactly where we need to be.

Joanna and her brother with water balloons

We had a relief society activity on wednesday, and two of the people we're working with went!!! They hadn't been to church in a  while, but they really enjoyed coming and meeting people, and we talked about self- reliance.

 IT RAINED!!!! It was only a few drops but it was the first time it's rained since I've been here in California. 

The beautiful sunset!

This week the Elders told us about a Book of Mormon challenge going around Social Media. It's sort of like the Ice Bucket challenge a few years ago. So, you record yourself saying your favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon ( or take a picture) and post it on Facebook or Instagram, and then you challenge two people to do the same thing. I would encourage you all to do that this week! Or even just share something positive on social media and challenge people to do the same. There's so many disheartening things online, let's fill the internet with positivity!

We did a Book of Mormon Stand again, which was super fun! And Bertoldo, this old guy who we just met as a referral, came to church yesterday!  

This week's words

Spanish - English

Yeso - cast (like a broken bone)

Estar un pez en agua - To be right at home

Trastes- Tupperware

Mizteco - Spanish - English

In ni du wah - hace calor - it's hot

co o ah tak wee - Voy a beber agua - I'm going to drink water

ya qwee - Chile verde- Green chili

In my recording this week I talked about the adventures we went on. Super great!

Love you!

--

Hermana Marin Fisher

California Fresno Mission

1814 N Echo

Fresno, CA 93704