LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF THE SPIRIT

Hola Familia!

I just love you so much!  This week has been quite the week, I'm not quite sure where to start.  Today is my two month mark!  It's been the longest two months of my life.

 On Tuesday we had a mission conference with Elder Packer.  Not to be confused with President Boyd K. Packer.  It's his son. It was really good.  Of course.  He talked a lot about learning the language of the Spirit and teaching by the Spirit.  We also talked a lot about personal conversion and how we need to be converted so we can help our investigators be converted.  There's a difference between a testimony and conversion and we want our people to be truly converted so when the trials come, they will be strong.  I'm also trying to become a more converted missionary.  Before I came on a mission I thought I was a pretty good at being pretty good.  Wrong!  The scripture in Ether about the Lord making known our weaknesses is so true.  It's very humbling to be a missionary, and I'm trying to do what I can so that the Lord can turn my weaknesses into strengths.  I wish it would happen overnight though, because it's not exactly the most pleasant process of realizing you're not quite as good as you thought you were.  I have faith though that the Lord will keep working on me and hopefully by the end of these 18 months I will have learned what I needed to come here to learn and be refined enough to continue not missionary life.  I think both Hermana Stewart and I are going through this right now.  We're working so hard and we're not seeing a lot of success--our progressing investigators are going down, not up.  But we keep trying.  We're really trying to depend on the Lord.  

We had kind of a neat experience this week.  In our mission conference President Riggs talked a lot about Moroni 10:3-5 and what we really need to be doing to get an answer to know if the Book of Mormon is true.  We then did some practice teaching using these principles.  To be completely honest, I really don't like practice teaching.  This time though, we did it with another set of sisters and they played the role of one of their investigators.  Later that night we  had an appointment with Maruja and Victor.  This was the first time I had met them, but apparently they're eternigators.  Or in other words, eternal investigators.  Victor was talking to me, and told me that he's been the frustration of many a missionary because he just can't bring himself to be baptized.  Then he went into the kitchen to help Maruja finish making dinner (This was also the night we ended up eating two whole Peruvian dinners.  It's a miracle our tummies didn't explode!).  Hermana Stewart and I just looked at each other and we both said Moroni 10 and the same time.  So we started talking about the Book of Mormon.  We read Moroni 10 and went through the steps with him.  And everything we had talked about during practice teaching earlier today was said!  The same questions with the same answers!  It was a miracle!  We talked so in depth about real intent and how to receive an answer and to really know and when he really knew, that he would know that he needed to get baptized and he would feel at peace with that.  So we asked him to read the Book of Mormon, to make the time to read it for only five minutes every night, and if he would do that, he would know.  His eyes got a little watery, and when we invited him to be baptized, he said he would!  This made me so excited.  And our efforts in practice teaching really payed off.  It's seeing tender mercies like these that make me think I can survive another day.

On Friday we had the mission Christmas party.  It was great fun!  It's been very weird being a missionary at Christmas time, because we're so busy working that sometimes it's hard to feel like it's Christmas.  Especially because all the things that usually come with Christmas like being home and wearing sweat pants all day every day of break and eating yummy Christmas treats are not part of Christmas this year.  I've been trying very hard to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and on the gift Jesus gave to us and what I can give to him, but it's really hard not to miss you guys.  

I have some sad news.  Next week since Pday is on Christmas Eve, the library will be closed.  We're going to try and email, but I'm not sure if we're going to be able to find somewhere.  So it might just have to wait until Tuesday.  By the way, I'm so excited about that!  

I loved the story from Perry's letter.  It made me cry.  But it seems like everything makes me cry these days.  I don't really know what's going on with me.  I'm either super spiritual or just super hormonal.  Probably the latter.  

I do have a super funny story for you though!  On Friday, we went out to eat with Fredy and Marta and Kamila (who is 9).  They're recent converts and they have a 19 year old son name Jean Paul that reminds me a lot of Cameron that we're teaching.  He didn't go with us though.  All of a sudden as we were in the car driving home, Kamila tooted.  We just looked at here, pretending to be shocked, and she says,  " Well Jean Paul farts all the time!"  We died laughing.  She said, "What?  He does!"  And her mom is sitting up front saying "What did she say?!"  Kamila then proceeded to ask us if we ever toot.  We both told her no.  And she thought we were lying.  We told her that missionaries don't lie.  Hermana Stewart isn't used to farty talk, but I felt right at home.

I love you so much and I can't wait to see you on Christmas!  You're the best!

xoxo

Hermana Simpson

p.s. Kelley, isn't it about time for me to get another letter?

I COULDN'T HELP BUT PICTURE PRESIDENT MONSON WITH LONG HAIR AND BELL BOTTOMS

Hola Familia!

I love you soooooooo much!  It sounds like it's been a pretty exciting week for you!  And thanks for sharing all that exciting news with me.  Brooke is so lucky to be going to Seattle and I'm so jealous of Brittan going to Jerusalem.  Lucky girl!  I'm glad to hear that Cam looks good wrestling.  Is he still cutting weight? Mostly though, I'm super happy for you that you're done with school!  I'm so jealous that you get Christmas break!  I was thinking about that this week too, that I would be home right now if I had been at school.  I tried not to think about that too long though because it made me a little bit sad to not be home for Christmas.  What was I thinking being gone for two?!  The good news is, we found a family that we can go to for Christmas that has internet so we can Skype!  We're thinking about sometime in the afternoon because of the time difference so that you will have time to wake up and do all that Christmas morning stuff.  So let me know what time works best and if we'll be able to do it with Brady too.  

We get our packages forwarded to our apartments, so you don't have to worry about me not getting it until zone conference.  We usually get it a day or two after it gets to the mission office.  And the weather this last week has been so weird.  It's hit 70 at least once and hasn't been that cold, just wet and rainy.  But everyone keeps talking about how January and February are the worst.  And I'm sure this nice little heat wave won't last too much longer.  My bedding isn't too bad, I bought a fleece blanket from Target a couple of weeks ago, and we got the heat to work a little better in our apartment, so I'm not sleeping in twelve layers anymore.  We also put our Christmas tree up last week as well! Not as much work as the one at home.  It's a little baby one we found at Target.  We were really tempted to just cut down someone's bush outside their house, but we figured that wouldn't be very Christlike.  So we didn't.

To answer the companion question, yes.  I love my companion.  I can't believe we get along as well as we do.  We balance each other out in lessons and we laugh all the time.  I'm scared for when we're not companions because now I have really high expectations.  I just showed her the story about Nathan and Santa and we got some dirty looks for not being reverent enough in the library.  Oops.  We laugh so hard we cry probably on a daily basis.  The Spanish is coming amazing.  I don't know how it's happened, but I can speak Spanish!  It's a great feeling to know that people understand what I'm trying to say.

The best part of the week...hmmm.  It was a pretty hard week, we didn't feel too successful.  But, a kind of neat thing happened yesterday.  Saturday night we stopped by a recent convert, Ana's house.  She the one with the three terrifyingly naughty little kids.  When we pulled up we saw a man walking into their apartment and we were worried that she wouldn't want to talk to us.  But she did.  I started talking to the man, Cristobal, right as we were getting ready to leave.  I didn't really want to, but I felt like I needed to invite him to church on Sunday.  So I asked him what he was doing tomorrow and invited him.  We invite a lot of people to church and hardly anyone ever comes.  But he came!  I was so excited.  He couldn't stay for the whole thing, but he stayed for sacrament meeting and Sunday school.  And he's going to let us teach him some more!  It felt really good to have followed that prompting and seen the fruits of it.  We also have started teaching a lady named Priscilla and she's come to church a couple times and wants to know how to become a member! 

This is probably the funniest part of the week though.  The mission just started doing a new thing called Walk About Wednesday, where don't use our cars at all on Wednesday.  It's kind of terrible when your area covers an entire zone and you can't use your car, but we're doing the best we can.  We had walked for not even half a mile when we ran into this guy who let us start teaching him.  We ended up going into a restaurant because we were standing in the parking lot and it was really windy.  We started teaching him.  He was so weird and maybe a little drunk.  He smelled like alcohol.  But he told us that he wanted to change but that he didn't think he could.  He said a lot of things that were kind of weird.  And then he just kept staring into my companion's eyes and saying "Your eyes.  There's just something about them."  I just thought, yeah, they're blue.  And you can probably see the light of Christ in them.  So we kept trying to teach him, and he kept commenting on her eyes.  One time he told me that I was pretty too, but that I just didn't have eyes like Hermana Stewart.  At the end we exchanged numbers so we could try to teach him more.  Except we actually gave him the district leader's number.  Hermana Stewart was kind of creeped out by him and that it would be better for the Elders to have a stalker than us.  

Our other story is that we were teaching one of our recent converts, Sebastian, and we asked him what the role of a prophet is.  He said, "A prophet brings peace and balance to the world."  I couldn't help but picture President Monson with long hair and bell bottoms because it just sounded like such a hippie thing to say.  But I guess he's kind of right.  Ish.  

For Pday today we went into DC.  It was so fun!  We went to almost all the memorials and the White House and we went to the Natural History Museum.  We loved it.  I wish we could go more than every other transfer.

I also started driving this week.  Driving in downtown Alexandria during rush hour is the worst thing I've ever done in my life.  I've never been so stressed out.  And Hermana Stewart even told me that I'm not as funny when I'm driving.  Duh!  It takes all me energy to keep us from dying.  I can't be witty too!  It's been so scary, but hopefully by the end of 18 months I might turn into a good driver.  Maybe.  

As for Christmas list, I think I might like a yoga mat.  We've started doing yoga every morning because it's way better than walking to the gym.  I don't know if you could send one of those in the mail, but maybe I could just buy one here?  Really though, it's not like I really need anything.  Our needs are pretty well taken care of.  Maybe some chocolate?  

I also want to tell you that you're email about Sister Gubler made me cry.  Please tell Sister Graff thank you for me.  I've always loved Sister Gubler and I've been thankful for her example as I've grown up.  I know that she's on the other side of the veil with Brother Gubler and they're working together to accomplish the work Heavenly Father needs them to do there.  How thankful I am for the plan of Salvation.

Well family, I wish I had time to write more, but that's about it.  Please tell Grandma and Grandpa I love them and I love getting their emails and I'll try to write them a letter soon.  I love you so much!

xoxo

Hermana Simpson

Justin Beiber or Taylor Lautner? They're Both So Cute!‏

Hola Familia!

I love you, I love you, I love you!  It sounds like you've had a pretty busy week!  I'm glad to hear that the kids seem to be doing pretty well with sports.  Yay Cameron.  Maybe you should just stay at 170 so you're not grumpy!  And Kelley, sorry that you lost, but I'm glad you scored some points!  Keep up the good work.  Mom, you're life is crazy.  That doesn't surprise me, but I'm really happy that you are almost done.  The end is in sight!  What day are you done for Christmas break?

As for the mustard down east skirt I have, I'm pretty sure I don't have a mustard down east skirt...But if I do, go ahead and send it I guess.  And maybe the denim looking one with the buttons?  If you send my camera, can you make sure you send it with the cords so I can connect it to the computer to send pictures.  Or I guess I could find a card reader here too. I'm so glad you loved my pictures!  And I am so happy to have brown boots!  

I'm sorry hear that Sister Gubler died.  That must be so hard.  I too, am so grateful for the Plan of Salvation, and I'm so grateful that I have the chance to teach it to people that really need to hear it.  Life would be so different if we thought that death was the end.  I'm coming to understand more about temples and I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father has made it possible for us to be sealed to our families forever!  What a blessing that is.  

Thanks for getting Laura's address.  I'll try and resend her card.  Also, I got a letter from Alena this week.  She got her mission call!  Ft. Lauderdale, Spanish!  I'm so excited for her!  And kind of jealous because she's never going to be cold!

We had kind of a rough week this week.  A lot of our appointments fell through, and we didn't really find that many new investigators.  And then on Saturday, our investigator Moises had his baptismal interview with the district leader.  He did great!  But then, when it came time for his mom to sign the paperwork, she wouldn't do it.  She doesn't believe that he's ready and his grandma doesn't either.  The thing is, we've taught Moises all the lessons and he knows everything.  He's so ready, but without the support of his mom, he's not going to believe it or say that he is.  He needs to know that this is something that his mom wants for him, and he doesn't.  She just keeps saying that she only wants it if he does.  We talked a lot about faith and having the faith the make the decision, but we didn't get anything.  It was maybe the saddest moments of my entire life.  And that's no exaggeration.  I felt so awful.  I felt so sad for Moises, because really, there's only two choices, to take the steps towards salvation or not.  And right now, he's stuck.  He can't move forward.  And I know how much baptism would help him.  I've seen such a change in him since we started teaching him.  This is a kid who wouldn't even make eye contact, let alone talk to you before.  Now he's laughing with us and joking with us, and he's praying.  Out loud!  He told us he's never prayed before in his life!  And all of that is coming to a stop, at least temporarily.  He's confused because we're telling him one thing, that he's ready, and his mom and grandma are telling him something else, that he's not.  Hopefully we can continue to move forward, and help his mom understand why it's so important that she's not the only person that is baptized in the family, and that Moises is indeed ready.  But right now, it's so heartbreaking.  Hermana Stewart and I have shed more than a few tears over this.  But we keep praying for him and we'll keep trying.  At a time like this it feels like it would be so easy to just give up, because it feels like it's impossible to make progress from here, but we can't do that.  Jesus never gives up on us, and as His representatives, we can't give up on Moises either.  

Saturday night was a little bit better.  We went with one of our recent convert families to the temple!  It was so beautiful!  And I got to see one of my good friends from the MTC there too.  Also, they're doing concerts every night of December and the night we went Jenny Oaks Baker was performing!  It was only about 45 minutes, but it was so good.  On the way back home we were playing would you rather with Kamila, she's nine.  My question: "Would you rather eat a worm or a booger?"  Her question: "Would you rather marry Justin Beiber or Taylor Lautner?"  Obviously she doesn't have younger brothers.  I said "What would you choose?" And she said, "Oh that's so hard!! They're both soooooo cute!"  It was super funny.  She proceeded to tell us that we should probably marry Taylor Lautner because he's closer to our age.  She loves to keep us up to date all the pop culture we're missing out on.  I'm not exactly sure how reliable it is though, coming from a nine year old. 

Yesterday we didn't get to go to the Christmas devotional because we had to take a recent convert, less active, or investigator and none of ours could go.  We were really sad about that, but I guess Heavenly Father had other plans for us.  We decided to knock doors for the hour and a half before it was time to go home.  We knocked three entire apartment buildings and not a single person let us in.  Not one!  I was getting so discouraged, and we still had about 30 minutes until it was time to leave.  So we started on building number four.  At this point, I wasn't really hoping for anything, but then someone answered!  We could barely even say that we were missionaries before we were being invited in.  The woman knew exactly who we were!  It turns out that her mom and brother are actually members and they were baptized years ago.  She went to church a few times with them in Peru, and went to family night and all sorts of activities.  She had only met the missionaries once since living here, and they were English missionaries that said they would send Spanish missionaries, but no one ever came.  That was about two years ago. Her son still remembers going to church and they have a Book of Mormon and everything!  So we taught them the sweetened condensed version of the Restoration and we have a return appointment for Friday!  This woman's boyfriend was also there and he had never heard of the Book of Mormon before and he's really excited for us to come back and to learn more.  Maybe they're finally ready to hear the gospel and apply it.  And their Peruvian.  Peruvians are some of my favorite people to teach! So we had a good end to a kind of bummer weekend.  And now it's P-day!  We don't have very big plans this week, other than to get a Christmas tree!  We're really excited about it though.  I love this time of year.  It's been really fun to see the all the lights and decorations that have been going up around here!

I think that's about all I have to say for this week.  I'll start thinking about Christmas.  It's kind of hard because in order to skype we have to go to a members house and almost no one has internet here, so we're trying to find a way.  Figure out what's going on with Brady and we can try and coordinate.  Also, I have exactly two things that I've already added to my Christmas list:  A body warmer and a water bottle.       I just get so cold in the morning doing personal study and I'm thirsty all the time.  

I also have a question for you mom.  You were a ward missionary like a million years ago, right?  Well what could we do to work better with the ward, do you think?  We're kind of having a hard time communicating with them and working well with them in our correlation meetings.  I know that we could be doing much better, and I'm just wondering if you had any good ideas?  

I think that's about all I have to say this week.  I love you so much and I miss you.  It's almost Christmas!  

xoxo

Hermana Simpson

p.s. The Spanish is really come along, according to Hermana Stewart. This morning she told me I was talking in my sleep in Spanish! Success!

WE HAVE BEEN EATING THE MOST AWFUL FOOD

Hola Familia!

I love you so so much!  It sounds like you had a good Thanksgiving!  I'm glad to hear that.  And so fun that you got to see Brad and Karen and Bro. Fowler!  The bishop ended up inviting us to his house, so we got a traditional Thanksgiving dinner!  The bishop and his wife are both super gringo.  That was really nice though.  But no green bean casserole.  I ended up making a little dish of it for myself on Friday. She did fry the turkey though, and that was delicious.  

I have no idea where my old ipod is.  But if you can find it, he's welcome to it.  Also, I have no idea where the camera charger could be.  Maybe in the top desk drawer? Do you have any extra memory cards?  Could you maybe also send a copy of the First Noel in the David Lanz book and my Paul Cardall book.  I'm thinking about doing a musical number here for Christmas.  And if there's room, maybe my old man sweater might fit?  Our apartment is so cold in the mornings while we're studying.  I don't think it has any insulation.  But we're surviving.  With lots of layers and lots of hot chocolate.  

I'm so happy you got the pictures from Michelle's mom!  It was so fun to see her.  If you have time, I would love it if you could print those and send them to me!  

I was so sad to hear about Josh's wife.  I will remember to keep his family in my prayers.  It's really heartbreaking to hear that though.  Thanks for sharing her words to live by.  I am so thankful for the Plan of Salvation and for the knowledge that we have about Heavenly Father's plan for us.  

Just this week we were teaching it to one of our investigators, Ana.  After teaching it, we found out that her daughter's husband was killed by a gang in Honduras just a few months ago.  When we taught her the first lesson she asked what we believe about after death and it lead perfectly into this lesson.  She lives here with her 14 and 16 year old sons and her husband and daughter and granddaughter are still in Honduras because their papers didn't go through.  It's so sad to see.  But Ana is so special.  After we taught the first lesson, she called us to have us come back!  When we got there, she told us that she didn't know why, but she felt like she needed to call us.  So she did.  And then we taught her the plan of salvation.  And then we put her on date to be baptized on December 30th!  We called her on Sunday and invited her to church and she wanted to come!  She called us back about five minutes and asked what she needed to wear.  We told her a skirt and she said that she didn't have one.  So we grabbed a few out of the discarded clothes basket and ran them over to her so she could have something to wear to church.  This woman is a miracle.  She really liked church and wants to keep coming.  The Lord truly has people prepared for us.  

We also have another investigator named Santo.  We call him Scary Santo, because we're both terrified of him.  He's Seventh Day Adventist. I think.  And he asks really hard questions.  But we've invited him to church.  And he also wants to come, but he's a truck driver and he couldn't come this Sunday because he was driving to Texas and back.  The funny thing is, we got this phone call on Thanksgiving night from a number that we didn't recognize.  Hermana Stewart answered it on speaker and someone started talking to us on English.  It was Santo!  He said, I'm just calling to tell you Happy Thanksgiving!  It was so sweet!  Maybe he's not so scary after all.  Maybe.  We'll see what questions he has to ask this week. 

We also are teaching the son of one of the families that was baptized about three months ago.  He's 19.  He's really good, but he doesn't want to go to church because it's always when the Redskins are playing.  We went over last night and taught him the first lesson.  Hopefully he reads the Book of Mormon.  We're going back over on Wednesday to watch The Testaments with his family for a family movie night!  

Just so you know, Brady and I email each other every week.  I get a little paragraph from him.  So I send him a little paragraph or two back. He sounds like he's maybe doing better this week?  I hope so.  I think about him a lot.  There's a woman in our ward from Brazil.  She only speaks Portuguese.

We have a baptism lined up for Sunday, so we're really excited about that. 

Last Pday we went to Mt. Vernon.  It was really neat.  I'll send pictures!  George Washington was quite an interesting fellow.  

I hope you all are doing well.  I love you so so much and I miss you.  Keep being good.

xoxo,

Hermana Simpson

p.s. Kelley, why haven't you written me a letter yet?!

I have another quick story though.  We have been eating the most awful food this week!  Last Saturday we ate eggs fried in oil with tomatoes and broccoli over them.  Both Hermana Stewart and I were so sick for the rest of the day.  And then last night we were fed fish and onions.  I think I've brushed my teeth about seven times since then.  And I think I can still taste it.  Thank you for being such a good cook.  But maybe if you weren't, I wouldn't have such high expectations.  I'm more of a picky eater than I thought!