Vestel, Lauren P

Hey Guys! I have had a couple of things happen this week, but most of this email is going to be focused on something I have learned about the atonement and turning our will to God and less about the everyday missionary work because I really feel that this message is important for you guys to hear. So here are the small update I had this week before my message: 1. Madain came back to church and got a priesthood blessing! He had been MIA for 5 Sundays  2. I met David Archuletta's 3rd cousin 3. Marta gave us a heated conversation about saying she doesn't need to be baptized in our church becaise she is baptized in the catholic church (but we hugged it out in the end) 4. We are supposed to invite 1 person to be baptized every week and I'm so so scared because we have asked 4 already and every single one of them got scared off and has ghosted us  5. We said goodbye to Hermana Brown. She was the one that followed me and message me immediately after I got my mission call and she i...

Hello guys! I used to do this thing where when someone asks where I'm from I just name a different state that I lived (it's nice because I have 13 to choose from) but I'm getting tired of it and I think I'm going to stick to Virginia. We visited this house with a member family and she had this picture of a tree with a fresh blanket of snow on the ground and I immediately knew it was Virginia and in that moment, the only thing I could hear was the sound of the Virginia snow falling in the evening. It was really awesome. Virginia is definitely where my heart is (sorry Mom and Dad I love you!) Speaking of the house with the tree photo, every wall in the house had something that reminded you of christ. She wanted to make the home similar to the temple and you can feel the same spirit in the house as the temple. So, my invitation to you is to put a picture of christ on your bathroom mirror or your fridge to remind you of Jesus Christ and his love for you. Utah is so sketchy ...

Hola Hermanos, Hermanas y Elderes!  I hope you have seen sunshine in your week today! God loves you <3 Alright let's start with this title. 2 people were supposed to be baptized this transfer. Madain canceled his baptism because he had a lot of bad feelings about it and his family made him worry that the ward was going to abandon him after his baptism. The other man, Hernando, he doesn't have a stable job and goes to Colorado to work and comes back at 6am Saturday morning so he pushed his baptism to this week. Please pray for Hernando that he can get his interview and be baptized this week! So as we told this to a workshop mentor she shared a story from his mission where a man was supposed to be baptized one week and the day before he lost balance and fell of the roof and went to the hospital and was in a cast for a while. I think it's just a testament that the adversary will do anything in its power to stop people from taking the right steps to make the covenants so tha...

Hello friends! God loves you! I had my first zone conference this week and it was so awesome! I got to play a musical number with a cello that a family let me borrow! The owner of the cello is on his mission right now so they asked me if I can put it to good use. It was so awesome! But the coolest part about the zone conference was that we got to learn and go inside a life size replica of what the Tabernacle in the old testament looked like. It is crazy how similar it is to our Temples in the fact that all things point to christ, and you have to make higher covenants with the lord to be able to enter into the more sacred areas of both places. It's going to make a trip here to Ogden in september and it's going to be a great opportunity to invite everyone to come and see! I've been having this recurring thought that had been bugging me for a while and it was this: "Why do I need to repent? I haven't committed a serious sin" But in reality, I always need to repen...

Happy Monday everyone! I said that I may do 2 weeks at a time but I feel like there would be too much to put into an email so you may hear from me every week lo siento We had a week of scary things happen and then miracles following them after!  So at the beginning of a week we made a safe word to use when there is a dangerous situation, and we decided to use avocados because I somehow have a recent allergy to them. So we got to use it later in the day because there was a man that started to follow us. He had his hat down and was walking the same pace as us on the other side of the street, and then he crossed over to our side and stayed with us for a block or two. So I used the code word to tell her and so we decided to try to make a break for the church building, which worked out because we lost him. But then, 2 days later we had a different man under the influence of a concoction of things trying to get our attention and we made a super fast walk to a different street. Moral of t...