What a thrill!

WOW WOW WOW! This week has been a wave of emotions, and everything in the entire world, but it has honestly been one of the best weeks of my mission. I'll talk about all the emotions I felt on transfer day later on haha. But first, I have a new companion, her name is Hermana Walton and she if from Utah. She is awesome and just like me. We have found so many similarities and we get along great! We laugh all the time, and we are already seeing miracles. She loves to work hard and she is trying so hard to get right into the missionary "swing of things" and has made this transition for me so much easier! It has been great!

 

So here is how transfers went. I drove with Hermana Enriquez and we were screaming in the car because we both didn't have any idea who my companion would be. I don't think I was breathing normally that entire car ride to Dallas! So there is my emotion of "WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I DOING?!" When we got there, we saw some of the leaving missionaries, including Hermana McDaniel, and I started to cry. So there I felt sad! We talked for a few minutes and with other departing missionaries, and then we went into the transfer meeting and I saw Hermana Maxfield and she looked like a ghost. (She is the other trainier) We both started talking about how nervous we were! So now I was nervous. Then after the transfer meeting, I was pumped up (super happy) because of what President Taylor talked to us about. Then he came up to me and shook my hand and asked me if I was ready for this. Then I started to feel inadequate. He kindly told me that he knew that I could do this and he was so excited for me. The assistants then came up to Hermana Maxfield and I and told us that we could do it, but we needed to be in a meeting right then. I was rushed in saying my final goodbyes to Hermana McDaniel and to all the other missionaries at transfers. We had a trainers meeting and they were being pretty harsh with us telling us all that we needed to do, all I could think was, "What have a gotten myself into!" But all was good, with all the other trainers. The other trainers are awesome and we all get along great. Then the new missionaries came in, and my heart was pounding. 2 of the Elders had a training for all of us and then, President Taylor walks out with the Assistants and tell us that they are now going to choose who is going to be eachothers companion. THEY DIDNT EVEN KNOW BEFORE WE GOT THERE. I was freaking out. When them came back in, they paired up the english sisters and then it was mine and Hermana Maxfield turn. We went up to the front of the room, and then all of a sudden. I realized, President Taylor still didn't know who our companion was going to be, he was going to let the spirit tell us. SAY WHAT! Hermana Watts walked right up to Hermana Maxfield and Hermana Walton walked right up to me, and there we have it my new companion! CRAZY! We grabbed her stuff and went right off to work.

 

Sorry for my long story, but It was just an intense morning. But the rest of the week has been great. Heavenly Father has been helping me out so much this past week and has given me the strength to continue on and to wake up with energy. I have realized I know a lot more Spanish than I thought I did, and so that has been cool for me. Hermana Walton doesn't speak any Spanish, but she is trying so hard and I am so proud of her for that. We met some cool people this week, but I am just trying to work with her on the basics of contacting and of the lessons so we are talking to everyone we see. It has been fun, and tiring. We are both so tired at 10:30 at night, it is crazy! I have been so humbled this week and really have turned to my Heavenly Father for help. It has been amazing.

 

Sorry if you couldn't follow my story, but I thought I would try to tell it! I hope everyone has a great week and that you are all happy and healthy!

 

Love you all,

 

Hermana Cattich

 

COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT!

I AM HAVING A BABY!

Well family, transfer call night is always a little stressful here in the mission but this one was a call that I was not expecting. Elder Willams, one of the assistants, called me and told me that I will be training a new missionary straight from the MTC. In the mission training means "having a baby!" When I recieved the call, it was the last thing that I thought would happen and to be honest I am completely scared out of my mind, but thankfully another Hermana that came out with me, Hermana Maxfield, is training as well so we are able to cry together. Tomorrow morning we will go and pick up our new companions. I am so scared. I started to cry right when I recieved the call, I was just so overwhelmed with the feelings of inadequacy, but I know that this experiece will be for my benefit. If anything these next 12 weeks are going to humble me and really bring me to my knees to ask Heavenly Father for help. I am thankful for the trust that President Taylor and Heavenly Father have put in me to train a new missionary. If you want to see my real reaction, you can check out Sister Whitleys blog, she got it all on camera! http://moronitenfour.blogspot.com/

 

This week was slow and hot but we also had Zone Conference down in South Dallas, combined with 3 other zones. It was so good and President Taylor put me on the spot and had my email that I wrote him last week (we have to write an email to the mission president every week) and he read it infront of all the missionaries then made me get up and explain my letter about member missionary work, I was terrified. But other than that, the meeting was great. At the end of all the big meetings, if there are missionaries going home, we listen to their final testimonies and sing, "God Be With You T'ill We Meet Again!" This time, one of my best friends from the mission is going home, Hermana McDaniel, and she bore her testimony along with the other missionaries and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. I am going to miss her so much!

 

This week we had a miracle! We were knocking and sweating....what else is new....and we ended up knocking into a lady that we have talked to before, but this time she let us in! She asked us what the difference is from our church to others and we had an amazing lesson with her! She was crying during the first vision and everything made sense to her. We invited her to come to church and all the kids were screaming saying that they wanted to come to church, and she was smiling! I was so happy for them. It also turns out that there are members that live in the apartment right above them, and the Hermano has talked to them about the church before! It was amazing what the Lord does to prepare his children. They weren't able to come to church yesterday, but hopefully they will have the desire to come next week!

 

I am so excited, nervous, scared and just about every feeling that you can feel for this upcoming week but I am excited for the opportunity! Today I also hit my 11 month mark. This time is going crazy and I cant believe I will be home in 7 months. This time is just getting faster and faster! I hope everyone has a great week and that school is going well for everyone that just started! Love you all!

 

Hermana Cattich

 

COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT!

What am I going to do without this girl?!?

My Zone Leaders, we cant take a decent picture, but they are awesome anyways!

Just doing our normal missionary duties, going to miss her so much!

All the missionaries in my ward and only 3 of us are staying!

Peace out Elder Lynn! We came in the mission the same day and yet I go home 6 months before him :)

Do I hear wedding bells?!?

This week has been an amazing week! I was able to go back and see Lily Rojel get married and baptized! She was so prepared from the moment that Hermana McDaniel and I met her. This is a day that we had been waiting for for a long time! We had a wedding ceremony for them and the bishop was able to marry them. Then after the wedding, practically the whole ward came for the baptism. The missionaries that are serving there now, set up the gym and made it a really fun reception with decorations and everything. It was so awesome and a party! There was good food and company and it was just a night that I will always remember on my mission, even though we still had to be home by 9:30! (Good ole mission rules!!) I got to go back with my old companion, Hermana McDaniel, and we had so much fun. The gospel is changing lives!

This is Sebastian Putz! He was my first baptism on the mission!

 

This week we also had Zone Meeting! I love my zone, especially my Zone Leaders! They do so much for the missionaries and they are just wonderful. Their companionship slogan is, "What a thrill." They say it all the time and I swear it just makes everyone laugh.They wanted to do a Zone Meeting, "that had never been done before" and it was probably the most fun missionary meeting I have ever been too. All of the companionships were asked to train and everyone was laughing and crying and there just wasn't a dull moment! It was so fun! My companion and I were asked to train on love and charity, I think we did a pretty good job. Some of the other trainings were on following the prophet, patience, having fun, and working out in the mornings! There is a trio of Elders in our Zone and they did and interpretive dance as well. Oh goodness, life is just too much fun. But to end all of the chaos and laughs, Elder Day, one of the Zone Leaders, started to bear his testimony and we had a little testimony meeting. Everyone was in tears and the spirit was so strong! Ahhhh I love being a missionary.

 

This week was hot, YES, but I am not going to complain about it anymore because everyday I wake up, I am just more grateful for another day here in Texas! Although I will never live here, I sure love the people and serving them! Concepcion is doing so great! She loved the temple and continues to talk about it. Right now she is in Utah touring Temple Square and also going through the Ogden Temple Open house. Not going to lie, I am a little bit jealous, but that is okay! Transfer calls are this week, I cannot believe it. I only have 5 transfers left, it's not even fair. I am interested to see what is going to happen this transfer, even though I am pretty positive that I am staying and going to get a new companion, we will see though! Transfer call night never ceases to amaze me! I love Texas and the Texas bugs! I love the spanish people and all the interesting food that they give us! love this area, the ward and all the miracles that we are seeing everyday! I love being a missionary and a representative of my Savior, Jesus Christ! What a thrill!

 

I hope everyone has a great week!

 

Love you all,

 

Hermana Cattich

 

COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT

WEDDING TIME!

All the sisters that have taught her and her husband!

We were having way to much fun!

I love her!

Some of the missionaries that taught her. The elder, Elder Valdez taught her over a year ago with some other elders that are home now but he got to come see her before he leaves his mission is a week!

The after party!

The original Dallas/ Lakewood Missionaries!

Original Dalls 1st Missionaries (except Elder Ludlow!)

False Alarm!

Well this has been a week of ups and downs, but there is a reason to celebrate for all the hardships and this week we celebrated because we set a baptismal date with Concepcion! Hardwork really does pay off. She is going to get baptized on September 7th, her birthday! She bore her testimony this week in sacrament meeting, and my companion and I were in tears! She told us that we needed to book our plane tickets for the next year so that we can return and be with her when she goes through the temple. AHHH!! What a blessing! The ward has been wonderful. The ward really does make the difference, we need all the help we can get as missionaries. We are just counting our blessings everyday.

 

On Wednesday night, we recieved a text from our Zone Leaders at about 6:30pm, saying that we all needed to meet at the church at 8:30 because they had something they needed to give all of us. They had Mission Leadership Meetings earlier that day with the mission president and so we all knew that it was something the President Taylor wanted them to give us. Everyone was freaking out. We all thought that they were finally going to give us iPads! We were all calling and screaming with all the zone members about how excited we were to finally get iPads! (I think my mission is the last States mission that doesn't have iPads!) We all got to the church and we were sitting waiting for the zone leaders to show up. We were all high fiving eachother and talking about all the benefits of iPads and how we needed to take "Zone Selfies" But the first thing that the Zone Leaders said to us when they walked in was, "Stop, it's not iPad's". Then they just laughed. Everyone's dreams were crushed and it was a giant false alarm. Instead, they had to give us pages of the Book of Mormon. President Taylor wanted all of the missioaries to have one page of the Book of Mormon and the next day we were going to read it, study it and underline parts that we liked. Then he was going to bind the Book of Mormon back together so we could have a mission Book of Mormon. He wanted the whole mission to read the Book of Mormon together in 30 minutes. It was a cool idea, but not what we were expecting at all!

In the van, on the way to the temple!

 

On Thursday night, all the missionaries in my ward and I planned to do a temple trip. There is a brother that is in another stake that told us that he would be willing to drive his 15 seater van to wherever we were if we wanted to go to the temple with our investigators. So we planned a trip and each of the companionships got to bring investigators to the temple. He picked us up at the church building and we all jumped in! It was super fun! He was playing Primary music the whole way to the temple. When we got there, we each split up and took tours of the grounds with our investigators and then we all came back together and went in the visitors waiting room right in the inside. One of the temple sealers, that spoke Spanish, came and talked to all of us about the blessings of the temple and we had a little testimony meeting! It was a really cool experience, and Concepcion loved it!

 

I love the temple. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else right now! One thing that I really liked this week from my studies, was a quote that says, "Love is spelled like TIME." If we give our time and efforts into someone or something it is because we love them. That is what missionary work is all about. I love missionary work so I am giving my time, I love the people I meet so I take time to listen to them and most importantly I love my Savior Jesus Christ, so I am giving him my time to pay him back for what he did for me. Although it will never be enough, I just have to give my time fully to him and work with all my heart, might, mind and strength!

 

I hope you all have a great week!

 

Hermana Cattich

 

COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT