Alice on a mission

  We can now visit in member's homes for twenty minutes and share a spiritual message so that has been amazing!! Technology is such a blessing, but nothing can fully replace being in the presence of people! My best moments this week were being with members and biking to and from their houses Breaking news: my companion doesn't think passing gas is funny. There I was thinking I was being a comedian but I guess not🤷🏼‍♀️ We had church in person this Sunday and it was fire . Literally, the bishop spoke and his talk consisted of calling families out by name, pointing to them in the congregation and telling them what they need to do for missionary work. Then, he told everyone that it is their duty to have the missionaries come to their house and teach them and their neighbors. I love my bishop. Church was also good because the girlfriend of one of the elder's we share the ward with surprised him at church! She brought gift bags for us and it was awesome. Me & sister hopkins...

  Things are really picking up in my area because people are responding to our text messages more regularly. It makes us really happy when people make an effort to text us back. The highlight of the week was doing a service project with my zone, which is about 20 people! We had to carry rolls of sod from pallets to two backyards. You can't tell from the pictures, but my biceps are huge now.  One wonderful resource the mission provides is therapy. I was not emotionally prepared to be a quarantine missionary, so I am going to meet with a therapist to develop the skills to be able to flourish in this environment. We are mortal, so we will all feel pain, but we do not need to suffer. Another highlight was biking. We bike to our church building often for a change of scenary and the wifi #pioneer47. For a few days, no one was allowed to enter the building, so we had to work under the pavillion. We did zoom calls as it was getting dark and cold. It was fun roughing it. The rules have...

We moved into a basement and it is really nice! It is an upgrade from our apartment. Super clean. We had a really great lesson with this nonmember guy and his member wife. We have had a lesson with him before, but he watched tv the whole time and you could tell that his wife dragged him into it. But this time, we opened it up with some really bad spanish and they both thought it was SO FUNNY. And from there on out we had a great lesson! I like to wear what I think is cute, but one elder looked at my outfit and said, "i cant tell if you are amish or a hipster." Elders always have a way of saying the right thing. I started reading the bible!! It is WILD stuff-- people are falling into slime pits and living till 900 years old.   But i feel the spirit when I read it:)) And it is beyond me how it works but I feel some sort of enduring joy and lightness from the scriptures. Give 'em a chance. I dont really have anything else to say besides that this is my mission and i dont fee...

  Mid-week companionship inventory! Yep, it was a rough week haha. High points: 1) yesterday we got permission to go stargazing in our backyard since we hadn't stepped a foot out of our apartment all day 2) we called a guy on tuesday and we shared about the gospel, invited him to pray, and asked if we could send him a spiritual message every day. We sent him stuff but he just left us on read, so we tried calling him on friday. I got as far as "hola!" And he hung up. Then, on sunday HE calles US! He was in dire need of a blessing of peace. We offered a prayer for peace and we felt the spirit. We testified and told him about the book of mormon. Our conversation went like this: "Us: the book of mormon is a source of peace in our lives- Him: i already have a book of mormon and I hate reading it Us: okay! We have videos on it, too. Can we call you again this week? Him: no, i will call you if I need you." I am super grateful for the opportunity we had to talk to him e...

  I had my first opportunity to teach in person!! It was a great experience because I was super nervous beforehand, but then I received peace that I was simply going to help my friend come closer to God. I then went into the lesson feeling joyful:) Service is basically our only opportunity to get out of our apartment. A member said that we could pick grapes in his backyard to give to the people we are teaching. We are not allowed to drop food off at the houses of people we are teaching, but we said yes anyways because we were desperate to get outside. So then we had we had three grocery bags of grapes in our house. They also happened to be the best grapes ever, so I ate three grocery bags of grapes this week and my digestive system is wrecked. Totally worth it. I finished my first complete transfer out in the field! My companion and I are staying together and I am really happy about that! I am mostly happy that I don't have to move. Our mission had a zoom devotional with Elder Rasb...