Oct. 10- Zoofari Adventures!

Dear Family,

Well, it was a wonderful week! Hermana Dent and I are seeing so many blessings and awesome things happen for us here in Alpuyeca, we are loving our time here! We have a baptism this week, our investigator Eduardo (the one who has one eye) was able to overcome many habits and find strength through the atonement of Christ and is ready to enter into the waters of baptism:) Pray mucho for him.

This week we had this one day of adventure looking for this one colonia we had never seen or heard of but had a reference in. We walked for quite some time before we found civilization again but were blessed with finding a super chosen new investigator Maria who was practically just waiting for us to come walking up, she is now working towards a baptism as well:) On the way looking for her we passed lots of what seemed like wilderness and I took another 'look for the iguana' pic :) 

All the way walking and looking for this funny colonia I was tripping all over the place, I even almost fell into this baby ravine, but Hermana Dent caught me- that is companionship love;) (it is bigger in person)

After all that walking when we finally came to Hermana Orfa's house to eat she just let us lay down in front of the fan for a bit, haha. #suchaprincess #lookatthattan

Orfa's daughter Michelle (one of my best 7 year old friends ever) took a funny picture of us eating. I have no table manners anymore, I just eat everything with my hands, haha. This is one of my favorite meals ever: small friend chicken tacos with chipotle caldo. 

Something weird has been going on in the colonia where we live lately, it is part of Catholic traditions. Where we live/work is a very small pueblo and it has alot of weird traditions. I told you a little bit about it a few weeks ago- they have been getting together in large groups of people and they carry around a large Virgin Guadalupe statue and candles and flowers and leave flower petals behind while walking through the streets. There are kids that dress up like animals and weird beasts with masks that dance to a flute song while walking.. it is a sight to see but always scares me a bit when we hear the music and then accidentally have to walk on the same street they are on, haha. I am going to attach a video i took, too. 

This is us with Hermana Sak, She is so cool! Her name is actually Sak-nicte which is mayan for white flower:) She just graduated college and I am so sad because she just got her first job and now she wont be able to accompany us for visits every week. 

This is one of THE COOLEST investigators I have ever had the privilege of teaching. His name is Ricardo and he is truly a prepared and chosen son of God. We found him by accident looking for a direction- at first he thought he 'knew everything' and didn't need what we had to teach him but when he listened to the first lesson he realized there was a lot more God had in store for him:) We see him almost everyday because he wants to learn everything so fast- we met him 2 and a half weeks ago but he has already went to almost all the sessions of general conference, takes notes while he reads his scriptures, fasted with us yesterday for Fast Sunday, and loves to serve and help all the members of the ward. We are going to ask permission so he can be baptized next week:) 

So... today! We went on the coolest adventure I have ever been on in the mission so far! There are some members, Ana and Nestor, who always spoil us and love to do visits with us. They invited us to go with them to a zoo-fari today and it was honestly SO COOL! There are parts where you just walk among the animals and they eat the food from your bowl- even giraffes! I took about a thousand pictures, I hope you enjoy (Tommy- I will take you here when we come back;)) I feel like it was way cooler than the US zoos that have too many rules and 'safety precautions' ;) 

I wasnt scared about the animals- they all act just like goats, but Hermana Dent was pretty hilarious trying to feed them, haha. 

They are Ana and Nestor:) That animal eye-balling them from behind literally followed us for a half an hour, haha. 

I have no idea what these are called but they were just these like giant guinea pig things that were laying all over the place, haha. 

Nestor was in-love with this baby donkey in the exhibit by the buffaloes, haha. 

This monkey took the food right from my hands and held my fingers:)

So, that was cool:) I am a happy camper here. I love serving God's children and I am grateful for every second I have to serve Him. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Oct. 3- Missionaries are that they might have JOY!

Hey Everybody!

It was an awesome week! WHAT AN AMAZING CONFERENCE!! I had an amazing time watching conference, I felt strength come from every speaker and I received the answers I was seeking:) I especially loved all of the talks on Missionary work and the session with the missionary choir:) The last song of ''Hope of Israel'' really got me- I heard the words 'Soon the battle will be over...'' and I realized that I am determined to finish it well these last two changes:) 

We had our leadership council for the month of October early this month and we found out that President had called a new sister training leader- who is it? HERMANA RODRIGUEZ! My trainee (hija)! I am so proud of her- she has 9 months in the mission now. It will be really awesome seeing her in the trainings every month:) 

We went and did Divisions with some sisters in the Burgos ward and I met this really awesome family, Familia Aguirre:) He is the Bishop of their ward and I fell in love with them- we will probably be life-long friends:) 

These are the sisters in Burgos that we were doing the divisions with, Hermana Aguilar and Hermana Avila:) They are both pretty new to the mission so it was really fun teaching and learning with them. 

Haha, in the morning of the divisions I was with Hermana Aguilar contacting people on the street when I saw these mama horse with her baby. I handed Hermana Aguilar my camera to get a cool pic of me feeding it grass- but I have yet to find out how all the Princesses in the movies make friends with the animals;) I ran away frightened.

So, here in Mexico they dont really abide any 'traffic' laws. We were getting a ride from a sister in a ward to an appointment and she was just driving with her baby on her lap! As missionaries we are not allowed to hold babies but I was stressed in the back seat so I asked if Sassy (the baby) could just sit by me, haha. She doesnt trust me too much but I felt at least a little safer;)

We have a new investigator named Carlos who is a banana farmer, so I will now give you a fun lesson on Bananas:) 

They grow on these cute little trees with HUGE leaves that are all plastic-y:) Sometimes the people use the leaves to make tamales. One banana tree grows one bunch of bananas and then when you cut the bunch of bananas off the tree dies. 

There are weird purple bananas, I have never tried them but Carlos says they are good. 

He told us that bananas never ripen or turn yellow while on the tree, so they take them off and have to hang them on this creepy banana-hanging pole;)

We had this awesome lesson with our investigators that should be getting baptized in the coming weeks:) A member of our ward, Hermana Vero, came with us and was KEY to the lesson:) Our investigator has a problem with taking drugs, and Hermana Vero has a son with the same problem. She also has a son who is dying from Cancer. When she shared her testimony with our investigator he started crying and promised he would stop wasting his life away while she is watching two of her sons struggle. It was AMAZING! MEMBERS ARE KEY TO EVERYTHING!

We found this really large toad and took a pic of Hermana Dents tag with it, haha. 

So changes were this week and there was talk of me and Hermana Dent getting in a trio, but they decided to keep us the same. Just me and Dent for another change:) We are happy and ready to keep working hard and keep focusing on our amazing Alpuyeca!

I love you all! If you missed a session of conference- go and re-watch it because it was amazing!! Love you!

Hermana Swallow

sept. 26- Hermana Sualita y Hermana Dentista :)

Hey Everybody!

It was a pretty stressful week, but me and Hermana Dentista were able to handle it together:) We went on three different divisions with the sisters, and we learned so much with them!

The first divisiones that we went on was with Hermana Rees!!!! President re-assigned the groups of hermanas that we were in charge of doing divisions with and randomly put her and her companion in our group and we were so excited! It was so funny just thinking about how we were walking around Mexico teaching people about the gospel when just 5 years ago we were jumping hurdles in track together and playing the flute together in the band :) 

This is us with Hermana Rees and her trainer Hermana Morales:) 

So its kinda hard to keep track of Mexican culture because it pretty much changes for whatever pueblo you go to. Here in Alpuyeca they had a fiesta day this week about some virgin that the catholics worship and there were these random groups of people dancing with chinese man masks on the faces and a few dressed up like jaguars. They dance along with this flute music and then when the music stops they get to run around and do 'males' , like bad things, to whoever is in the proximity. People get pushed to the ground, stores get robbed, I heard that one kid got thrown in a garbage can. So, we usually just tried to steer clear of these groups.

We did some more divisiones with Hermana Santos and her trainee Hermana Lima :) It was my first time working with them, and it was a lot of fun. They are both really good missionaries. 

The third and final divisiones that we went on were with Hermana Olivares and Hermana Martinez. It is really funny in the mission because everyone has their own home-made recipes and secrets for beauty, haha. Hermana Martinez has these rocks that she went to a cave by her house and found that she rubs together and then rubs the paste on her face. Hermana Olivares likes to mix oatmeal, lime juice, and sugar into a paste to put on her face. So me and Hermana Dent joined in the fun and I did a mixture of both remedies, haha. 

Sorry that I don't have that many pictures this week, we were super busy running around with everything. We are still helping and teaching our awesome investigators, thanks for all of your prayers for them:) We ended up having to wait for a little bit for their baptisms, so keep the prayers coming:) 

I hope everyone has a wonderful time watching General Conference!! Remember to take notes and to listen to the spirit whisper as he tells you how you can improve to be a better disciple of Christ. I love you all so much! 

Love, Hermana Swallow​