Hermana Mariah Young

This week was very good. Elder Valenzuela came for our zone conference, it was cool, he is a Seventy. One thing he talked about that stuck with me was about Christ´s life...how we served and performed miracles one by one, he took the time to serve individually. And when he suffered for our sins, our trials, our temptations...it was individual. We are all different people, with different strengths and weaknesses, and different personalities. But each one of us individually are important to our Heavenly Father and Christ loved each one of us enough to suffer the punishment for our sins and personal pains. And I know that as a missionary we represent Christ, we should also serve and love each investigator and pray for them individually.

Hey, I don´t know about you but I'm feeling 22...

SO I turned the big 22 this week. I feel the same. But It was a great birthday. In the morning we had another leaders meeting with Elder Valenzuela and talked about how we can help the other missionaries (hermanas) better. And then, on the way home on the mexibus, my companion announced to the entire bus that it was my birthday and the whole bus sang Las Mañanitas to me! haha and then some people gave me hugs (they were all women...its an all women's bus..cool huh) And of course I was slightly embarrassed but mostly I thought it was really nice and cool to be sung too by a whole bus of strangers. One family of investigators that are going to get baptized gave me a little gift, and another family in our ward gave me a gift too. And the Regino family in our ward surprised us with a little party with pizza and ice cream! And the Miranda family also made us cake (I say us because it was also Elder Treu´s Bday on the 7th...one of the elders in our ward). Although I was far from home and of course missed my friends and family on my bday, it was definitely one of my best bdays because several people that don't even know me that well took the time to do something nice for me, and that means a lot.

And today, we had a zone activity, we played volleyball and the zone leaders and a few hermanas from their ward surprised us all with a thanksgiving dinner....well it wasn't thanksgiving food but its the thought that counts. :)

Miranda just turned 8! and she had her baptism! Our investigator family, the Fragoza family went and the mom and daughter Ali were already sure they wanted to get baptized...but Emiliano and Sara the other two kids still weren't sure. Miranda was kind of nervous and the water was a little cold for her, and she started crying and shaking in the water...I was worried that the kids were going to change their mind about wanting to be baptized. But after Emiliano said yes he wanted to and Sara´s only concern was that she doesn't have white clothes haha.