March 24th, 2025 - 83rd Email - Time is flying

Hey

This week was pretty normal

So basically we were just chillin and had some cool lessons

Then on tuesday a guy in my district in the colton ward was like "ayo im tryna exchange w u tmrrw cuz i need a break from my area" so we exchanged on wednesday which was cool cuz he was in his last week as a missionary which is wild but it was way cool to learn some junk from him

Thursday had our last zone council of the transfer it was pretty weird and we ate lunch at this place called blaze pizza it was pretty good

And we also did another exchange with the people in the rialto 3rd ward (the spanish area in colton) and they on bike so i went on bike but we only biked the very beginning (which took us on some sketchy bridges lemme tell ya) there was one with like 1 lane with a teeny sidewalk so i just hopped on there and walked most of it especially since it was windy too the other two were chill tho no problems and the cars were nice for the most part

The worst part was we saw other missionaries that they live with drive by us on the bridge like they totally couldve offered a ride before we left lol

But then we didnt ride our bikes the rest of the day, we left em at a member's house and went tracting with a teenager just walking around different neighborhoods and then the member that fed us just gave us a ride to his house in his car and drove us back and we picked up our bikes and walked to the church building for their volleyball night which was fun so a pretty chill exchange overall

Friday and saturday were normal inviting people to church but unfortunately not that many people came rip

BUT we had hecka recent converts there it was really good and our recent convert Oscar brought his kids to church and they were really sweet

Then i played piano at a baptism in colton so that was cool i do that a lot

We had dinner with some members that evening and they said they were gonna do a family home evening and invite some people so we invited oscar to come with (hes dope) but first we had a lesson so we left for the lesson with a guy named Bryan hes going through it man but hes a really cool guy ready to learn more and change his life

And then we went back to the members house but not after scouring for a parking space in this mobile home park we ended up parking in a spot that had a crudely set up sign saying it was reserved but it was so unofficial and none of the other spots next to it (there were a lot along this wall) said they were reserved so we parked there anyway lol because there were no other options and our car did not get towed so that sign is cap

But anyway we watched a cool church movie on youtube about Jesus Christ coming to the americas it was sick amd we ate more food lol everybody loved it

Yeah that was my week basically lol this is the last week of the transfer so we'll see what happens on thursday but yeah love you guys talk to you next week

Poctures

-turtles

-motorcycle

-me and barlow

Maria's talk in the Sunday session of the Orlando South Stake Conference, Presiding Elder Nathan Emerey, Area Seventy

Note: The morning after I found out Brent and I were to give a talk in Stake Conference, I was in Utah, I woke up early before 7 am, I had exactly what it was that I was supposed to say. I could not go back to sleep so I wrote my talk. When I came back to Florida, I typed up the talk and just added the quotes. We were only given 15 minutes between the two of us and then shortened to 12 minutes. I tried to fix my talk a few times but I felt I had to share both of these stories. After my talk one sister, Sister Dalton, texted me and said that she knew that this talk was going to help many people. Others also thanked me. I know it wasn't me and it was God who wanted me to share this message.

Good morning brothers and sisters. I am grateful to be here today and to be able to share a message with you.

In the October 2021 General Conference, Elder Gary E. Stevenson said: “To receive eternal life, we must “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.” As we come unto Christ and help others do the same, we participate in God’s work of salvation and exaltation.”

I am so grateful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and for missionaries and members who help others come unto Christ.  

I am a member of the church, because two missionaries made the decision to go on a mission to Puerto Rico, and share the gospel with my family. When I was a little girl, my dad was not in a good place. My family was not going in the right direction and at one point my mom was ready to leave my dad. In 1970 two missionaries knocked on our door and gave my dad the Book of Mormon. The missionaries never came back, and it was probably because my dad had been drinking. Four years passed and my dad was desperate to change his life, but he didn’t know where to turn for help. He was addicted to alcohol and nicotine and suffered from anxiety and depression. My mom gave him the Bible to read, and he felt the desire to pray. After praying for two weeks, the missionaries knocked on our door.  When he opened the door, he knew the missionaries were the answer to his prayers. When they asked him if he knew about the Book of Mormon, he told them, he had read enough of it, to know that it was true. 

 I was only 8 years old when the missionaries taught my family, but I do remember them teaching us about the plan of salvation. I remember learning that I am a daughter of a Heavenly Father, who loves me and wants me to return to live with Him. Knowing this truth, has given me strength during the difficult times in my life. 

After learning about the gospel, and exercising faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, my dad was able to stop drinking and smoking. The day my family was baptized, my dad became a different person. He wrote that, as soon as he was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and received the Holy Ghost, the sadness that he had felt his whole life, disappeared. The Gospel of Jesus Christ saved my family, and I’m grateful that I have memories of growing up, in a very happy family.  

My dad began to actively share the gospel with everyone he met. My friend Vilma shared with me how her family joined the church because of him. In 1964 her family went to the World Fair in New York City where they saw the church’s pavilion. They loved it and asked many questions. They returned to Puerto Rico and 11 years later, in 1975, Vilma’s mother, Graciela, was working at a hospital where my dad often volunteered. One day he was sharing the gospel with a patient and Graciela was the nurse attending to the other patient in the same room. She was listening to what my dad was saying and recognized it as the same church that she had seen at the pavilion years before. She spoke with my dad and asked him about the church. Shortly after the missionaries started teaching them and after taking the discussions, Graciela’s family joined the church.

There are many people in the world like my dad, who don’t know where to turn to find the truth. They don’t know they are children of a Heavenly Father who loves them and has a plan for them. 

At the 2024 Seminar for new mission leaders Elder Bassett said: “The world desperately needs to access Christ’s redeeming power. People need the doctrine of Christ. They need baptism and confirmation and all that these ordinances can offer them. And what a blessing it is to be involved in this great and marvelous work, which allows us to offer exactly what God’s children need.”

We have been blessed through prophets to know the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. With this revealed knowledge the Lord needs us to gather Israel. As we participate in the work of salvation we follow the covenant path and inspire others to do the same. We were prepared for this day and the Lord is counting on us to help in His glorious work that is happening on both sides of the veil. 

It is our privilege and responsibility to do the temple work for our ancestors so they can receive important saving ordinances and covenants. As I have been gathering information, learning about my ancestors and doing their temple work, I have seen many miracles. 

In Jacob Chapter 5 verse 72 we read:  And it came to pass that the servants did go and labor with their mights; and the Lord of the vineyard labored also with them; and they did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things. This is the Lord's work. As we faithfully assist God in fulfilling His work of Salvation and exaltation, He will be by our side directing us through the promptings of the Holy Ghost. May we have the desire to labor in His vineyard and bring our brothers and sisters to Christ, is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

March 17th, 2025 - 82nd Email - Pretty uneventful week

 Hey

As the title suggests

Not very much happened this week

Monday evening the sisters called us about this dude named alex who was super cool we invited him to english class and he came the next day and then came to church on sunday so that was pretty dope

Cool lesson with a family that was found tracting that were long lost members and their son isnt baptized

Uhhhh

It rained hecka this week it was lowkey nice cuz of how hot it had been and it cooled down a ton

On thursday we exchanged and i ended up being with the other district leader it was chill he dont speak spanish tho so we watched a movie about joseph smith with a recent convert and he was just totally lost the entire time

We did a cool service that morning too for salvation army doing a big ol food drive and it was chill

Friday i stepped in doodoo outside a walmart that was great took forever to clean ill spare you guys the details on that one but we were literally so confused we opened the car hood to find out where that smell was coming from  but we had to do some snoopin round our apartment complex to find a hose but it ended up all coming off

Ive been doing a lot of baptismal interviews for my district which has been pretty awesome lowkey

Saturday there was a relief society activity and we went after to help clean up but it turns out there were tons of dudes there too so it was basically just a ward activity but it was really cool cuz all three spanish units in the stake were there and there was tons of food and our recent convert was there and the theme of the activity was dressing up like old frontier pioneers so they were all doin that and the second counselor in the mission presidency who lives in the stake was the dj playing epic hispanic music as always (i think thats his job)

Sunday was cool we went to a baptism after church and then at 6 pm we went to a devotional for recent converts in redlands (ive gone to redlands so much bruh) but it was dope and our recent convert went and we sang it was chill

Aight that was my week

Pix

-rubber duck

-lunar eclipse on thursday (lowkey surprised my phone captured it these things are dooky)

-me and elder barlow

March 10th, 2025 - 81st Email - It's cold outside

Hi

So uh

The week was cool but im currently exercising all my brain power to even figure out what i did

Monday evening we got a text from one of our friends Oscar who attended the baptism of that epic family last sunday asking what he needed to do to get baptized so we were like "yooooooo" and we started meeting with him like for real ath is houseand he got baptized the next Sunday. He's such a cool guy and was eating everything up and really opened up to us and told us his whole life story (which is pretty sadge) but he's already seen hecka miracles since he got baptized so yeah this guy is awesome and we'd known him barely two weeks when he got baptized so lowkey its like if you want it you can work hard and get it I mean this guy learned all the lessons in a heartbeat

Granted he's had experience with churches before but still most of the stuff we taught him was pretty knew and he was at a really low point in his life so it was nice to see someone really be humble and want to learn.

Also also also

Our friend Daniel was baptized too with oscar he's dope he's only 17 years old but he's been taught for a while and he finally got work off (bro is working like a mega ton for a 17 year old) and we had already pushed his baptism off twice but he still really wanted it and was able to get baptized so that was a great baptism full of miracles to get to this point

As for me i was lowkey sick all week i had a massive headache at the baptism but we were chillin i mostly just had a runny nose that just would not go away and im lowkey still feeling it just some kinda lingering cpld idrk what it is but we chillin it still kinda sucks tho ive been exhausted and resting a lot

It rained a ton this week it was kinda crazy after the baptism there was thunder and lightning outside and theyre saying its gonna rain even more this week it'll be nice ngl ive missed having lots of rain it rained hecka at the beginning of the transfer for like one day and since then its been pretty dry but its funny knocking on peoples doors and them being like "ayo whatchu doin here its pouring" and that usually starts a good conversation although i cant imagine the rain helped with my cold but the weather was super nice afterwards so i aint complaining considering it was like 80 degrees last week

The whole week the ward council (the leadership in the ward) was tryna plan some kinda meeting on saturday and lowkey we were in the dark basically the entire time nobody was telling us what this meeting was about and i dont think we even asked if im being honest lol so we were expecting it to be a thingy for members to come out to lessons with us but then it ended up being just a regular meeting about missionary work lol it was good and the ward hasnt done these in a while (we really should be) so its cool the ward is being proactive about getting missionary work done

We had a cool devotional in redlands on thursday a member of the area presidency (we're in the north america west area) elder wada (he's from japan) speak to us he had some way cool stories but the meeting wasnt for missionaries it was for stake and ward leaders to pull up to learn how to improve missionary work in their wards and some missionaries (including me and elder barlow) were invited to sing a musical number and it was chill but there was mega traffic cuz of the rain that day so it took twice as long as normal to actually get to redlands (like 40 minutes)

We also did a zone exchange that day where we just had everyone exchange with a random person but we kinda had to format it so we didnt have to reexchange and make everything confusing for us to go to redlands so we had me go with someone from another companionship that was also going to the redlands thing so i was with elder luna while barlow was with a housemate of ours so that later he met up with elder luna's companion so they drove to redlands and then afterwards we got popsicles which are pretty dope ngl

Also i felt like a terrible person after the devotional

So basically

They were giving out cookies for the people that attended and it was just sister missionaries giving out the cookies so i was like "can i have a cookie" and they were like "nah bruh its for the leaders of the wards and stakes" so i was like bruh and then i waited a second until the number of people started to die down a little bit and then i asked again and the other sister was like yeah sure whatever and the other one who originally said no was like aight i dont really care so i took a cookie and started eating it and then a little boy like 5 years old came up and the sisters gave him the very last cookie and i was like dang thats cool there was just enough for the boy to get a cookie but then little did i expect the boy's younger sister (probably like 2 or 3) came up and was like "i want a cookie!" and i was like crap and i felt so bad because if i hadnt taken a cookie there wouldve been enough so elder crawford (who is elder luna's companion) who was right next to me immediately covers my cookie that i had in front of my face (i mean i was eating it) with his sheet music he used and i start slowly walking off but the boy caught on and was like "he has a cookie!" but i dont think his sister heard him so we chillin and THEN i found out barlow took a cookie too so it's not entirely my fault its only like half my fault

That was mostly my week a lot of people just dont answer their doors and we spent way too long planning the baptism because our ward wants us to approve the programs and stuff through them and the printer is still being a pain but everything worked out and overall a really good week

Ok bye lol

Pictures

-snow on san gorgonio after the rain

-baptism pics (my tie was crooked on the pic with oscar )

March 3rd, 2025 - 80th Email - There's still ants in our bathroom

Hey

Dont worry the ants arent nearly as bad as they were last week theyve definitely dwindled in numbers but every once in a while youll find one on the toilet seat or the sink so we just gotta remain constantly on the alert

Anyway

This last week definitely happened it really just blew by lowkey

We had a baptism on sunday that was really cool so basically this fam (dad, mom, and two kids but the younger daughter is too young to get baptized) has been taught for a while and the missionaries kinda pushed them to get baptized but they were like "nah we tryna get baptized when we feel ready" and yknow usually that means theyre never getting baptized but last week they walked up to us and were like "ayo wassup we tryna get baptized at the end of this month" and we interpreted "end of this month" to mean March 2nd because february 28th was a friday and thats kinda awkward and then halfway through the week they called us up and were like "ey our son is 9 years old that means he can get baptized too right" and we were like "yeah" and so we had the three baptisms on sunday

So we met with the guy that provides the baptism suits (he lives in colton) on tuesday and then we got the call that the son wanted to get baptized too like that evening and on friday we had to meet with the guy again to get the extra suit lol this week was full of sidequests

Even tho the whole thing felt like it was kinda falling apart last minute cuz our other friend daniel was supposed to get baptized too but his boss was being an opp and wouldnt let him get off work to get baptized so he couldnt and then we had to change the program and the lady who we asked to give the talk on baptism and the holy ghost was out sick on sunday so we had to get somebody else to do it

The program was a whole other thing the printer in the church building like doesnt work or something so we were stuck in the church building on thursday dealing with it for like an hour and then it finally printed only to find out on sunday we needed to change everything but we just used a different building's printer since the guy with the keys to that one was with us at the time but the program literally printed upside down on the inside so we just gave up and said yeah they can flip it over themselves lol

Then we left the programs at home (idk why we took them out of the car in the first place lol) so we had to call our housemates to bring them to us (we are geniuses)

The baptism ended up being really interesting because at church the program said the baptism was at 5 pm when it was actually at 6 pm so we had to go early to fill the baptismal font (it takes like an hour) and we had people coming in at 5 and they had to just wait

(The funniest thing was when a family walked in at 5:30 asking if the baptism was at 5)

And we might have filled the font with blazing hot water that the room started filling with steam slightly and the son who was supposed to get baptized wouldnt get in the water because it was too hot so we had to take like 5 minutes and use the cold handle to fill the font and elder barlow baptized them and he said when he was changing his clothes that the water was so hot hit legs were pink

When the kid got baptized it was funny cuz afterwards he said it made him less afraid of swimming pools lol

I confirmed the mom and the kid (my first time doing it) and our bishop confirmed the dad and i played the piano as always

But yeah that was a very chaotic baptism

What else happened this week

My uncle took us to texas roadhouse on monday that was fun

Also now that its march i only have 5 more months left on the mission which is crazy

We played volleyball with some friends tuesday night was chill they were all venezuelan and theyre crazy bruh venezuelans are hilarious

We also had zone conference on thursday i forgot about that thats pretty important it was honestly nice to see everyone as always but also it was a good change of pace because usually we get thrown in breakout rooms just to get trainings by the aps or president and stuff but this time pres just invited a few of his friends (his own mission buddies and people living around here) to just talk to us in the breakout rooms and it was super chill they were really down to earth and just focused on us growing our testimony so i liked it a lot

Wednesday night we also exchanged with the elders in colton and boy that city has absolutely terrible roads theyre all windy around the mountains the freeway makes no sense at all im surprised people dont get in accidents all the time and theres just so many roads too its all cramped, I mean bruh the church building is on a 6-way intersection and i mean my area has a 6 way intersection too and its pretty bad but that one is next level because the diagonal road isnt even straight it curves a little bit mid intersection like what were these city planners thinking who thought this was a good idea

It was a good exchange tho elder fuhriman is a cool guy from west virginia and its his first transfer

While stopped at an intersection the other day we saw some guys that were totally high messing around at the corner in front of a 7/11 and this sprinkler was broken so one of them was stomping on the sprinkler to get it to stop or something idk what goes through these guys brains but then he gave up and walks over to the sign that tells you all the gas prices and turns it off so the numbers all disappear and then bro just walks away and that wouldve been pretty funny on its own but then the next guy pulls up and turns it back on but the numbers didnt come back it literally looked like someone banged their head on a keyboard all sorts of random characters appeared on this sign like letters numbers and punctuation i wonder how they fixed it lol

Saturday morning we did a cool service helping out presidente luna from the mission presidency to remove grass from their branch president's front yard because theyre planning on making it a garden we didnt finish but we did a lot it was fun and it took all morning lol

Anyway that was my week we have a friend named oscar whos looking super solid too so we're excited to see him progress he came to the baptism and stuff so he cool

Alright pictures

-Ladybugs

-we should start our own lawncare business

-baptizm pics