Hola! Soy la Hermana Catita!! November 25th 2013

This week has been great! I don't think I can explain enough how much I love being a missionary. This week I have survived my first Texas thunderstorm, eaten more beans than I ever have in my entire life, attended my first Hispanic baby shower and taught a whole Gospel Principles class in complete Spanish!!

Yesterday was so good! At first, I dreaded church because I can't really communicate with the members, but yesterday was great. My companion and I taught a whole class for recent converts and investigators in complete Espanol. It was so awesome but I was scared out of my mind. After the class, a man came up to me and told me that my Spanish was really good. That was a huge confidence booster. Yesterday, my district had its first baptism. It was interesting because people in Texas make a HUGE deal about cold weather and yesterday there was supposed to be an ice storm, so they decided to have the baptism for the 3rd hour of church. The whole ward watched it. It is such a cool experience to see how the gospel has changed someones life. They are the cutest couple, and they will just do amazing things in this church. Oh and about the weather, there was no ice storm, it is just REALLY cold. On one of the week nights it was pouring rain and there was some crazy thunder and lightening it was so exciting! The Boyds decided to take all of us out to dinner that night because we were soaking wet. My goal is to just smile and sing hymns at every situation because there are so many times where I just want to cry, but it really is all about your attitude!

       After church, we were knocking on doors and people were being rude, as normal, but then we ended up knocking into a family from Ecuador. The dad was baptized into the church but fell away. The man's dad was the Branch President down there. What was interesting is at the beginning he acted like he had never even heard of the church then as the lesson went on, we found out he was just inactive. He could tell us all this stuff about the temple and baptisms, it was really interesting, like how did we not know he was a member at one time. We are going to work with them this week and hopefully baptize the rest of the family and bring him back to activity. He seemed really excited to have us over again, so hopefully we can work with them.

Our investigators are great! The investigator that was jumping off of her seat with excitement couldn't say my last name so she came up with my name as Hermana Catita. Hispanics can't really pronounce the "ch" and the double t's is really hard for them too so they end up saying something really weird but esta bien. I love the little miracles everyday that I see. Even if it is a hard day, there is always something that I can laugh about. Everything is a new experience that is for sure.

My companion and I are eating with one of our investigators for Thanksgiving and her family and the English Elders. We are so excited. I don't know how Americanized it will be, or how many beans I will eat, but Hispanics just want to know that their food is good, so I just have to smile and eat it! We went to a baby shower of a less active lady that is in the English ward but speaks Spanish, so both the English and Spanish missionaries work with her. The English Elders were with us and she had made spaghetti. Well let me just say, that was not Spaghetti!! AT ALL!! That is just another thing where you have to just smile and eat it anyway. My companion laughs at me cause she knows I struggle with the food but the English Elders just chow it down. It is a great experience!

I love missionary work and it is so rewarding. Watching people change because of the gospel is amazing and it strengthens my testimony. Everyday there is something fun to look back on and realize that this day was wonderful! I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a missionary and to have a wonderful family that supports me. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, filled with great food and good memories.

Have a great week,

Te quiero,

Hermana Cattich!

COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT