Bautismo!!

This week was great.  Hermana Wilkinson and I worked super hard in the hot hot sun, and were super exhausted at the end of every day. But that is the best feeling.  Yesterday the Guridi family got baptized.  We met the mom (Claudia) through a sister in the ward and she introduced us to her family and they all progressed together and were baptized as a family.  And soon they will be sealed in the temple together for eternity.  It was such a special experience.  

 Jemima (like the pancakes) she was so happy to be getting baptized...and we were happy too!

 The Guridi Family! and the elders in our ward..Elder Winters and Hermano Vilchis 

baptized them. 

Hermana Lovell came for their baptism too :)

This week was great, we had a lot of investigators go to conference and they really enjoyed it, and so did I, but I am excited to hear it in English.  I hope everyone had a great Easter and if you haven't seen the ¨Because He Lives¨ video, go watch it now! :) My companion Hermana Lovell had transfers, and my new companion and I are working super hard.  Here´s the last 2 weeks in pictures...

 Alicia got baptized! I love her so much, and that is the Bishop, he´s great

 Went for ice cream with Vianney and Evelyn

 Hermana Lovell had transfers :(

 Our last district meeting of the cycle...we celebrated with krispy kreme

My new companion Hermana Wilkinson, she is from Oklahoma. We plan on baptizing the whole area this cycle :)

 We visited the Vasilica de Guadalupe a couple weeks ago, this was a shrine to the Virgin Mary

​

 All of the hermanas!! :) making pteradactyl faces...how cute 

Hermana Lovell saying goodbye to Andy and Evelyn

Carlos got baptized!

Carlos Got baptized after teaching him for 6 months, we met him in October. He 

said he would  never get baptized... never say never :)

He shared his testimony in his baptism and I think everyone teared up.  He said

ever since he met us he would pray every night and thank God for the opportunity 

he had to meet us.  He had a lot of doubts at first and for a long time, but through

fasting and sincere prayer he finally found his answer.  He says he knows without

a shadow of a doubt that this is the true church of Jesus Christ.  I love baptisms

because its almost tangible the feeling of the spirit, that testifies to all that God is well pleased.

  

 Carlos and mostly ysa :) I love this ward, I'm never leaving.  

 my face...

 The Guridi Family, they are a golden investigator family.  We met Claudia, the mom, 

in a zumba class that a sister in our ward teaches (yes, our pres let us go to zumba)

and they have come to church for 2 weeks now and all want to get baptized.  And 

they always feed us yummy food, they are the best :) 

Jemima is my favorite niña

More Pics!

Sebastian turned 8!!!

 We visited my companions old area, this is the De la Peña family

 ​The martinez family, they took us to mcdonalds....my first hamburger in mexico haha

Isabel Got baptized!!! and her family came :)

 The familia Guerrero :)

 Isabel´s Baptism

exchanges with hermanas Eyre and Brasga :)

pics

I only have time to send pics, but Evelyn got baptized!!

Another busy week, with lots of meetings and lessons and exchanges haha.  It was good.  Adriano, a little boy who is 8 who´s family were less active that we have been teaching just got baptized on saturday  :).  It has been a week full of miracles.  Two of our investigators who are going to get baptized this month shared their testimonies in sacrament meeting on Sunday, Evelyn who is 16 told about how she knew that the book of Mormon is true and Isabel who is 60 shared how she has been to so many different churches and never found the truth until she came to church with us.  Also, another family who said they weren´t going to be able to come to church, surprised us when they showed up right before sacrament! Im really excited for a lot of our investigators that are progressing a lot and are going to get baptzed this month.  It has been difficult for us in this area for a few months but we have been working really really hard and now we are finally seeing to fruits! 

I know that this is the work of the Lord, that He lives and through faith in Him, miracles happen everyday! 

Have a Great week :)

Love Hermana Young

 Adriano´s baptism

 I think its about time for some new shoes...evidence that we work hard 

 This is Kiev, he is doing a report on mormons for his psychology class, we are his subjects and 

he is going to write a 160 page paper about us :) how cool huh lol

and he drew that naked artwork on his bedroom wall 

 My sister in the zone...awkward fam foto

 Valeria who is going to be baptized the end of this month, she is soo great :) 

 Evelyn :) 

 this man just comes to all of our missionary activities...we don't really know where he came from 

our zone activity

This week was  great! We have had a lot of work, they removed the elders that were in our ward out, so now we have the whole ward, which is very big. So, a lot of walking.   But its been very fun, I think its the busiest I've been on my whole mission. And sadly Carlos didn't decide to get baptized yesterday, but we are still going to teach him, he´s still going to church and all of the YSA activites.  We fasted with him, and he feels like he didn't receive his answer. We brought the bishop with us to teach him and what the bishop said was just what Carlos needed to hear.  Although he hasn't decided to get baptized yet, I don´t feel too sad because he is progressing a lot and although his steps are small they are steps towards Christ.

And...today we got to see Meet the Mormons!! It´s coming to theaters in mexico in a few weeks, and so they let us see it...not in the movie theaters though. But it was so good, I cried.  I encourage everyone who hasn´t seen it to gooo see it! 

 Have a wonderful week!! 

Love Hermana Young

​

Pics sent by Mariah's Companion Hermana Lovell

 We are not really sure why we look like midgets in this photo but these elders were taken out of our ward and we were given there area also...which is like 40 minutes walking distance (missionary pace) and it is a night and day difference from our area so we are really excited for the challenge!

This is Valeria! We found her outside of her house and she is a peach! She will be getting baptized in two weeks. We had a great lesson with her this week about repentance and we realized how prepared she really is. 

The missionaries are now visiting abbies mom! Yippi! 

pics

Note from Mariah's mom:  Some Pictures from Mariah's awesome companion Hermana Lovell

Your daughters laugh attack, it happens every night...

I love this girl so much! 

update

Note from Jana, Mariah's mom:  Mariah hasn't written a separate weekly email for her blog lately so I'm just taking parts from her email's to me and updating her blog.

 January 7th 

our new transfer just started yesterday, we didn't have changes....I'm still with hermana Lovell in valle and we´re still sister training leaders.  That's why we had pday today and not Monday though because of transfers. 

any new stories....hmm 

well they moved our ward to a new chapel which is way further away so that's hard for getting investigators to come to church.  But I like the new chapel because its a little bit bigger, well there's more rooms, and the sacramental is a little smaller and they have pews instead of just chairs so everyone is a little more close and cozy which is nice.  But there were a few less people because of the change, so people are mad according to the bishop and refuse to come to the new chapel.  

This area has been hard just because no one seems to be progressing and its exhausting.  But we have a couple potential progressors, and we are going to try and visit more members and less actives.  

One young girl we are teaching named Johanna was going to be baptized this week.  But she went and stayed with her gma for the new years for 3 days and her gma told her a bunch of lies about Mormons and that she is catholic and isn't going to change. And now she is just confused and well shes only 9, so we don't want to pressure her of course, because she's very impressionable but we don't want her to do it either if she isn't going to have the support of her family, her mom isn't married so she still cant get baptized although we are teaching her, but we may have to stop visiting them. 

And on Sunday we sang I am a child of god in sacrament with a less active girl who is 16 named Vianey. She is so cute and we found out she likes to sing so we jumped on the chance to sing with her and her whole family came to church including her non member dad, who we are going to start teaching.  

I feel like we have a lot of work to do, and that's probably why we didn't have transfers, so after all the trials I hope some big blessings happen this transfer. 

January 26th

Oh how great, sounds like you had a good bday week :) And I'm so excited about the Seahawks! That's so crazy haha. 

Well these past few days have been terrible.  My companion and I have been really sick. 

On friday night my companion started feeling sick, and had a fever and everything. Then On Saturday it hit me as well.  I just felt sooo tired and achy and also had a fever of 101.2, all i wanted to do was sleep. Then on sunday at church, I was just shivering and I guess it was really obvious that I was sick, because everyone was like omgosh are you ok? I think I just looked really pale and sickly.  But I got a blessing, and I actually felt much better for the rest of that day, that we were able to work and everything, but last night felt sick again and I still had a fever. So we finally called the misión presidents wife today and she said we needed to go to the doctors.  And we live really far from the misión doctor and basically the only way to get there is mexibus, metro, and another small bus, but our bishop called in the morning to check on us and offered us a ride to the doctors...we were so grateful!

And anyway, turns out we have a stomach infection and we have antibiotics and a diet to follow for a few days. 

What fun :(

but anyways, looks like  Jill's fam had a fun time in Hawaii, Lexi is so cute haha.  And That's great that Angelina's getting baptized.

February 9th,

Hello darling Mother, :) 

My week was good, we had exchanges twice. It was great fun, and this week we have exchanges, I get to go to zaragoza and see my converts, Yipee! We haven't had any baptisms since the family in nov, but the elders had a baptism this last Sunday, so that was exciting. And our investigator Carlos went and brought his friend. We've been finding a lot of new people lately, like ones that just come up to us and say ¨hey, where´s your church?¨ haha I love it when that happens. 

Well, the story with our investigator Carlos, is that he has been to church a lot and we've been teaching him for a while, but he doesn't want to commit to baptism. So we left him, we talked with him this week and agreed that we weren't going to visit him anymore but he was still invited to come to church and that he should pray to find his answer, but more sincerely. And this we just sent him a text on saturday inviting him to the baptism, and he went! we were so happy, so hopefully a miracle will happen there and he will get baptized this week.  But yeah it was a good week. this week is our last before transfers, but I hope we don't have transfers because we are now starting to see so many miracles. 

And yes I got the package from the high priest group, Lots and Lots of candy, haha my companion and I were very happy. Tell them all I say THANK YOU and GRACIAS!

I still haven't gotten the package from Jill. 

For Jayda¨: 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jayda bear! I love you and miss you.  I realized that you were turning fifteen and that makes me feel really old.  I hope you have  wonderful day!! LOVE Mariah

Also, can you change my facebook so that people can find me and add me as friends, so many members and converts have searched for me but I have a block on it that wont let anyone add me or find me haha 

Love you and miss you too! 

Have a good week 

Mariah

 ​The guerrero family made us ribs, yum

 We´ve been making a lot of banana bread, and we give it to investigators and members, so that they love us more haha

 In the metro, exchanges with hermana Fowler and Campbell