Vestel, Lauren P

It has been a rollercoaster if emotions this week! But the lows didn't stay long so that's  good. I don't know why time goes super fast when you want to enjoy the moment but this week went by way too fast! But we also worked super hard too.  I was on the ground for english class because I got some severe back pain again. I'm actually getting kind of worried about it. Literally all of my workouts are stil my back exercises since my injury back over a year ago and sometimes I fear I will have chronic back pain for the rest of my life. But i'm sure I won't, but I hope that it'll be well enough for my plane ride on Wednesday So I just wanted to give a super fast run down with a few highlights: ☆ Brother Kaufman is making great strides to come back to Church! He gave me Fettucine alfredo on my last Sunday.  ☆ Said goodbye to Fernando, he got the aaronic priesthood this week. He gave me a flash drive full of mexican music (I can't wait to listen them) as a goi...

Hola! This coming up week will be my last normal week! Our area is on fire right now and it helps me a lot to keep being focused.  I was talking to an elder (because he saw my painted book of mormon in Spanish) and he said that at the end of his mission he will paint the flags of all of the people who he has baptized. And so I decided to draw them on the last page of my book. And it gave me a different perspective on "baptizing nations".  Just a fair warning to all of those who are missionaries (but I also think this applies to people in general) you will never be able to be perfect at anything, and that actually has given me a good perspective this week.  This week has had a lot of different attacks of the adversary. The lord has shown me that I need to get better at my technology habits and for me it's like "oh man why didn't I know this earlier? I could have more time to get better at it" but who says that I have to stop practicing it when I get home? It...

My Last Zone Conference  The fact that my missionary service was coming to an end hit me at zone conference. I just looked around and realized that it came in full circle.  I was asked to give the closing prayer and I had to pray that I wouldn't start sobbing during the prayer. I made it out with a shaky voice. I got a lot of hugs after.  Halloween inside was a blast  Sister Holley let us watch "the witnesses", we bleached t-shirts and put cool designs on them, and then we slept. It was fun!  My Compy's Birthday!!  She's 20 now! It was so much fun how she got surprise after surprise. I hope that she knows that she is loved and appreciated. Fernando went above and beyond, making us quesadillas and a good sauce and gave her 3 birthday cards and a nice shirt feom goodwill that’s good to proselyte with. Fernando is so cool.  Speaking of Fernando, we had 2 lessons with him trying to show him that he is ready for the priesthood. He eventually accepted the ch...

DOC I was talking to a friend on Monday and he kept using the word "The Gospel" a lot and in my head I still hadn't figured out how the gospel applies into my life. I had been teaching it, and I know that I use the steps, but I didn't know what the effects of using the Gospel looks like in my life. But then I realized that if programs fail, if life is falling apart, the Gospel is the one true for us to return to our Heavenly Father and Beco9me like him. And THEN, I read something aomewhere that the Holy Ghost is the messenger of Grace! And that's why we srrive to hear it and follow it. You would think that would be an easy thing to recognize but it's alright, it finally *clicks* in my head now.  They had sent out a message on Tuesday saying that I was going to give my departing testimony the next day and I was a bit shocked that they would have me go so early in the transfer. Since I started my mission, I had watched all of the old missionaries baar their test...

Hola Hola! Como ha estado??  We had a crazy baptism for Fernando. We had taught him pretty much everything to get him ready for his interview, and he passed with Flying Colors. His Fellowship and my companion were doubting that he was ready and in my prayers I hoped that they could see that he was ready. Eventually they saw and knew that he was ready. PHEW! Thank goodness that our mission meetings didn't start until next week because it wouldn't have been possible to baptize him without that miracle.  As we were trying to fill the font, the plug was leaking... 1 hour before the baptism. So we got a plastic trash bag and filled a trashcan of  rocks from the front of the Church and all of us started running with buckets, hoses and pitchers to fill up the font on time. It's one of my mose memorable baptisms so far.  We went to a Quinceñera for our friend Tiffany that we are teaching and it was a cool experience. No, we were not silently singing the lyrics to all of the ...

Transfer News: I'm Staying! And now I'm organizing a lot of things so that I can get ready to put all of my stuff in Suitcases. 5 weeks left!  Also Shoutout to my sister she is going to Mongolia speaking Mongolian for her mission! I am so proud of her!  I said Goodbye to Hermana Groves. I didn't cry because I know that I will see her again. #Missiontrip2024  We went to a sign language class because we found some latinos there. It was really fun! We also saw a cool solar eclipse  We got a message from our friends the Lopez and what happened was they told this that "Hey, my focus is finding an apartment right now. And I've been waiting for you this whole time. But I can't keep waiting anymore. And I just want to be with my family right now. I can't have you come over. Please don't contact us anymore." And so it was really heartbreaking because I wanted to help them progress. But they just didn't want to anymore. And it sucks because they had a ba...