Transfers and Greenies

Boys and girls wanna hear a true story? Saturday night I was at a real stressful transfer call. There was stress and anxiety over flowing the apartment when the Zone leaders finally called. He said, "a whole lot will change since we called you last." I am staying in Cornwall and I am training!!!!!!!! AHAHAHH!!!!! I am so humbled by this call to be a trainer. At the same time I am so excited to get a new sister! Sister Heninger is leaving and going to the Mission Office so she will be in Montreal. We were both a bit shocked since she has only been here for two transfers but it is all what the Lord wants.

We had a really good week this week. We were both committed to not stress or think about transfer calls so we got busy and got to work. We had some really great lessons with our less active members and recent converts. We were able to visit Loretta twice this week! She is doing so much better! On Thursday when we visited her we had a member with us that she was really close with and after we said the closing prayer she walked us to the door and was like, "thank you for loving me so much." I just felt so happy to know that she does feel our love for her and that we are making a difference in her life. Loretta is making so much progress.

We tried Bison burgers on Monday. We don't like Bison. I don't know what inspired us to buy/try them but we did and it was weird. Then, later on in the week, we made Poutine because most gravies have gluten in them we had to make a gluten free gravy to make our poutine and it tasted legit. So I can make Poutine for you when I get home :) On Saturday we went to kirkland to go to Lasalle to go do service with the stake. We had to wake up at 5:00 to get there on time. It felt like I was working at Life Touch again hahah. But we got to see the beautiful Canadian sunrise. Then we went and collected cans for the food drive; it was really fun and we got to speak French! Sunday we visited so many people so sister Heninger could say bye. It was a really good day. That's basically all that happened this week but it was a really good week! I am grateful that I get to stay in Cornwall for another two transfers! I am so excited for Wednesday to go get my greenie!

 

Love, Sister Gonzalez 

 

Funny moment this week; We went out on two trips to collect food and the second time took longer so everyone was really worried that we were gone for so long so when we came back the Zone leaders were like Hermanas what happened where did you go? Did you go back to Cornwall and take a nap and then come back? hahah it was pretty funny.  Also I was speaking French to this lady and she calls her son and is like "tradusca me mijo por que no le entiendo nada" hahah I felt really bad I was like man my French must be awful! But I was able to speak to her in Spanish which was good.

Succcess!

This week was such a good week! We have a new investigator! His name is Johnny! We had met him at a member's home when we accidentally crashed her Canada Day party! Hahaha! We had been trying to get in contact with him for a month and we finally had a lesson with him and it went so well! He accepted the Book of Mormon and said that he would read it! He also had a 13 year old daughter that he wants involved! So that was so amazing! We were passing by a less active member that we haven't seen for a month and her daughter answered the door and she was having a bible study with the Jehovah's witnesses and we crashed their study hahaha! We stayed and talked to the Jehovahs a bit and then her kids stared to cry and she had a friend over and her kids were crying too so the Jehovahs left. We don't mind crying children, though, so we took the opportunity to stay and talk with them and we might have a potential for her friend!  They also noticed that the Jehovahs didn't pray when they left and that they never pray with them and I thought that that was cool that they were able to see a difference between us and the Jehovahs. We had some really great lessons this week! I gave the training this week in district meeting! We have a new Elder in our district and he is from Guatemala and Texas so that is really cool he is really funny! I love our district it is so awesome!

We had to go to Montreal to go get our car fixed and we had to be there at 8 am on Friday so we had a sleep over with the sister training leaders; that was fun! It was also cool being back at a dealer ;) but that just killed us with our kliks! We had a crazy weekend so we are short on our kliks this month so we were trying to use them wisely and then we are trying to go do service at the less active members house and we cant find it and we get super lost and we waste a ton of kliks and I had left our phone at home and so we go back to get the phone and cancel and I am feeling really sick like my stomach hurts and my head hurts and I just feel really bad so we stay in for a bit so I can take a nap and feel better. So later on that night we catch a bus to go visit a less active member and so we catch her just as she is leaving so we talk to her for a few minutes and then we go back to get on the bus because it will take forever to get back home using the bus. So then we are walking back to the bus stop and this guy form his open window starts talking to us and like hitting on us it was really funny and we just keep on walking. So while we are waiting at the bus stop this lady who is totally drunk asks us if we have a light we tell her no and she leaves and then she come back and asks if she can borrow our phone so we let her make a call and then the person she trying to call doesn't answer. So she asks us if we have an extra bus ticket we tell her we don't so she leaves and then we see our bus so we go get on it and this guy gets on it as well. So this guy comes and sits down next to sister Heninger and he gives her his number and was like you look like someone I could engage in conversation with! Then he got off the bus. So we are going to call him and engage in conversation about Jesus Christ! Sunday was a good day I love going to Church and being with our members!

 

This week was so good! The Lord has been really blessing us here in Cornwall! 

 

Love, Sister Gonzalez 

Arret

I made a full blown homemade Guatemalan meal for my companion and me!

This week was pretty good. We had a great week teaching our recent converts/ less active members so that was great! By the time Monday rolls around I can never remember what I did during the week! Haha! :) We went to the soup kitchen this week and it was great! So many people were asking us questions about who we are and what we do as missionaries; it was so great! On Sunday the Mahafees, a senior couple who severed here in Cornwall, came up for a visit and it was great! We got some people out to church to see them! We have been looking for people to teach and we had some really great things happen. We had lunch with Sister Mcdonell after district meeting and we asked her if she knew anyone we could teach. She was like, "Not off the top of my head". Later in the week at church, though, she told us she thought of someone and that she was going to invite her to the ward picnic! Tthat was a huge miracle!

I thought this chocolate's wrapper was pretty funny!

We went knocking on this street that the Hynes helped us find and we found this guy, Kyle, and he remembered some missionaries from like 5 years ago! Hopefully something good comes out of that! Yesterday was the first time someone ever yelled at us while knocking! Haha, boy, that was an experience. A good lesson in having charity and loving those that despise you. This week I really learned the importance of dating/marrying someone who is a member. While there are great people out there who aren't members, dating/marrying someone who doesn't have the same beliefs as you is just something that hardly works out well and a lot of the time they end up taking you away from the church. This week I really felt that it is in the small and simple things that great things come to pass. Missionary work is just so amazing, it can be hard but it is so worth it.

 

Love, Sister Gonzalez

Baptism

Jennifer got baptized on Saturday! It was so amazing; it was such a beautiful service! SO many of the members came to show their love and support for her! She had to be baptized twice because Bishop Hynes didn't say her complete name! It was so amazing to see her get baptized, though! Sister Heninger and I did a musical number for her baptism! I sang in front of people, aaaaand it wasn't my usual whisper singing either! I actually sang! I was so nervous; I was praying that people would feel the spirit and not pay attention to how I can't sing and just feel the Spirit! They all said we did a good job and I think they were mainly listening to Sister Heninger; she has the voice of an angle:) We sang a melody thay was the music of "come thou fountain of every blessing" but we sang the lyrics to "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" and then at the end the song changed to "If you could hie to Kolob". It was really cool.

This week we mainly focused on Jennifer and making sure that she was ready and that there would be no opposition. It was funny, on Friday morning I was thinking "hey this week has gone really smoothly for Jennifer" and then we get a call during weekly planning from her sister and she was like, "Why is Jennifer getting baptized?" We explained to her why Jennifer was getting baptized and that it was her choice, that she was interviewed before hand, and that baptism was free. That seemed to calm her down but I was a bit worried that she would try and convince Jennifer to not get baptized but she didn't so it all worked out well :)

 

On Wednesday, at district study, they had a cake for me! Elder Mena made it for me and it was really good and it was gluten free so that was good. It was super sweet of the Elders to do that for me! We had some really amazing visits with Brother Holland from the stake high council with some of our less active members it was really awesome we always have really good lessons when brother Holland comes down. We did some knocking this week and we found some potentials so we are going to follow up on that this week. We did service at the Agape center at the food bank and the guy that was volunteering with us did not want to talk to us! It was so awkward we would ask him questions and he would like give us one word responses it was bad! That is all that happened this week! We had a great week:) 

 

Love Sister Gonzalez 

 

Funny moments this week: We were visiting this family and the daughter was telling us that she could read minds and it was just so funny i couldn't control myself I started laughing! I felt terrible but it was just to funny.

Whelp, I Turned 20!

 First off, one of our investigators is getting baptized on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are so happy that she is getting baptized! When the scriptures say that your heart will be full of joy by bringing someone unto Christ they aren't lying! My heart is so full of joy! She had her interview on Tuesday and she was deemed as worthy and ready for baptism and we set up her program on Saturday!! We are really hoping for a large turn out for her baptism! I really cant wait till Saturday! We had exchanges and the sisters who came to pick up Sister Heninger got stuck in traffic. They got there late so we had a sleep over with them which was super fun! Then we had exchanges and the amazing Sister Cutler bought me tacos for my birthday! It was so sweet of her! Then we slept over at their house and went to zone training meeting on Friday. It was an amazing training, they really focused on how we need to teach by the Spirit and there is this quote from "how to be a Preach my gospel missionary" by Elder Bednar that says that if you aren't teaching by the spirit you are just talking to yourself in front of an investigator. It's super powerful! They also taught about how we need to use the Book of Mormon in our teaching and how essential it is to conversion. 

The Bradys invited us over for the "American rebellion", which is what they call the Fourth of July hahaha!  Now, on to my birthday celebrations! On Saturday we went out with the money Mom and Dad gave me. We went to Schnitzels and had an entire gluten free meal! It was really delicious! I opened my presents in the morning in my pjs and I loved everything I got! Thank you so much for everything! On Sunday everyone in the ward was wishing me a happy birthday and I just felt some much love from the members here in Cornwall! I am so blessed that I got to celebrate my birthday here! I bore my testimony about how back home I would have had an existential crisis on my birthday but since I am on the mission and doing the Lords work I am ok and how much I love being a missionary. At church sister Hynes was like, "Sister, stop by my house after church", so we did. She gave me the flowers that you sent me and I almost cried! I was so happy and it was such an amazing surprise! Then we went and had my birthday dinner at Sister Sheedy's house and she made me lasagna and gluten free chocolate cupcakes! It was so amazing! Her daughter Erin bought my flowers and she picked them because of the colors of clothes I wear! It was super sweet of her! Then tonight the Hynes are having us over to celebrate my birthday! 

I had an amazing birthday and I just felt so loved! I know that there is nothing better than being a missionary and dedicating my entire 20th year of life to being a representative of the Lord is the best thing that I could be doing! I love the Lord and I love serving Him!

Love, Sister Gonzalez

Photo Bombed!

(This is Sister Landen. She was in the missionary program that I watched that helped me decide to go on a mission.)

This week was such a great week! We had zone conference on Friday and it was just so amazing! I learned so much. We learned that we don't need to just be doing missionary things and how the means should not become the end, so that was super powerful. There was also a training about how we need to talk WITH people not AT people. It was just so amazing and powerful. It was my first Zone Conference! At the end there was time for testimonies and a lot of the missionaries that are going home, bore their testimonies and it was just so great to hear them. One elder talked about obedience and how it is key in missionary work. All of the testimonies were just so great.

(This is St. Joseph's Cathedral)

We had such a good week with our investigators! One of our investigators came to church! She is the one who had issues with women and the priesthood. We had a lesson with her on Saturday which went well and then we had another lesson with her on Sunday with Brother Holland, a high council man from the stake. She got a blessing and it was just such a powerful lesson, we read her the family a proclamation to the world and that really helped her. At the end she said, "I don't even know why I cared about that. I am just going to let it go." I know that it was the Spirit confirming to her that the Priesthood is the authority of God and it is not men they just get to hold it. We also had a really great lesson with Lois last night. We taught her about prophets again and she totally accepts that we have a living prophet today! Lois is so golden! The work here in Cornwall is going great! Transfer calls are this Saturday! I can't believe that this transfer is almost over! For Zone Conference we stayed the night at the sister training leader's apartment so we wouldn't have to drive there really early in the morning and that was super fun! We didn't get much sleep because it was so hot in the room. Sister Rios had a nightmare and she woke us up and then told us about her dream which creeped me out but over all it was super fun being with the sisters! This week was so great! I love being a missionary! I hope that all is well with everyone!

 

Love, Sister Gonzalez 

2 Weeks in 1!

(Week 1) Oh man is it May already! Time just flies when you are on a mission! I am done with training this week! I am no longer green! We get to go to the Temple again because Sister Sheedy, a Recent convert, is going to get her endowments! We are so excited for her and that we get to be with her! We have a new investigator, her name is Louis and she is so awesome and so ready to hear the gospel! She accepted the invitation to be baptized! She doesn't have a date because she didn't let me finish the whole question but the important thing is that she said yes! Whooooo! This week was just so good we felt so good and motivated we had zone training meeting this week and it was so good they talked about our purpose, the restoration and the doctrine of Jesus Christ and how they are all tied together; it was so awesome. I love zone training meeting! They also talked about how if our investigators aren't keeping commitments it's because we aren't helping them enough; that was so powerful and eye opening.

Also this whole no bread and no sugar challenge is so hard! I have done really well in the no bread department but the sugar is so hard! Sister Rios started to cry and was really upset so we went and got ice cream. Then at this family's house we had cookies, and yesterday I had pie. So you see I am not doing very well with the sugar and once you fall off the bandwagon it is easy to stay off. So it has been such an eye opener for me about how hard it must be to give up addictive substances and live the word of wisdom and how easy it is to fall. But this week no sugar! Also we got on the bikes this week and it was fun but it is also so scary! I am so happy and I am doing well! I hope every one has a good week I love you and i pray for you!

Love sister Gonzalez 

P.S. I got English tags! So now very one will stop thinking Hermana is my first name! (Week 2) Also, Louis set a date for her baptism! July 5th! The day before my birthday!!! We are just so excited and happy to be teaching her, she is truly ready for the gospel! Last week Loretta was M.I.A. Well, on Tuesday she called us and asked for scriptures to read and to set up a time to see her! It was so great, we saw her on Thursday at Kelly's house. It was his birthday so we sang happy birthday to him and Sister Rios gave him some chocolates. He looked really sad but I think we helped cheer him up.