when I opened my eyes to see why...there were ants all over her face!

Hola! Another week of craziness! I love it so much :)

Answers

1. I email at the family history center that is attached to the church. They have super nice computers!

2. my trainer, Hna Day has been out for 9 months!

3. Can you send me a copy of my patriarchal blessing. I forget my copy. I think i left it in my laptop case...

4. My missionary scripture is Ether 12:4 - 

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

5. Yep Presidente has one daughter that has down's syndrome, but she is able to go to college, so she is spending time in Idaho with family and then she will go to Utah State! She is awesome!

   

So San Fernando is very religious. Churches everywhere. Everyone is pretty much Catholic! I love that everyone is so focused on God. We have had a lot of cool conversations with people as we knock doors. They usually are not interested in hearing our message, but at least God is a part of their lives. The other day our bike lock jammed, so our bikes were stuck around a stop sign. We pulled at it for a while, but it would not budge. All of the sudden this man emerged from some bushes hahaha it was pretty funny, but he asked if we needed any help. He looked at the lock and said, "Do you believe in God?" Si. "Do you believe God can do all things?" Si. "Then lets says a prayer!" He grabbed our hands and boy did he pray! He prayed for a solid 8 minutes about faith to move mountains, how God created this lock and he can fix it, he was raising his voice and praising God! It was awesome. The bad thing was Hermana Day was standing on an anthill. She ripped her hand out of mine and when I opened my eyes to see why...there were ants all over her face! Hahah I was trying so hard not to laugh. There we were, standing in a circle, with some random guy, praying over a bike lock, and Hna Day has ants all over her! I love my life. Finally he was done praying, and I asked if I could also say a quick prayer. My prayer was about 30 seconds because I do not know much spanish vocab about bikes, but it was sincere. I wish I could tell you the bike lock came undone, but it was still stuck. The guy seemed a little discouraged, so we told him that we are going to put our faith into action, and we got a hammer and smashed the lock to pieces. We thanked the man for his faith and kindness, and biked to our next appointment and just laughed and laughed!

 Here is my other funny story for the week! Most of the people in our area live in little apartments that just have one room, so the kitchen, bedroom, and living room is all packed into one. So we ate at a members house the other day and she has a HUGE tv on her dining table, and she really wanted to watch this Spanish interview with Jake Gyllenhaal. Confession: I love Jake Gyllenhaal. He is in some boxing movie i guess, so every clip they showed of him he was shirtless. There I was...eating my chicken, tortillas, mango, and rice (yummmm) and if I turned my head 90 degrees I would be nose-to-six pack with Hermano Gyllenhaal. hahaha I was trying really hard to focus on our dinner. #temptation

 Ok enough of that :) we have seen so many miracle this week! I love the words of Morticai to Esther where he basically says, "Get out of the way! This is a lot bigger than you. You need to do this for the sons and daughters of God!"  We found one family who was super prepared to hear our message! Read Alma 16:16-17. The Lord is always preparing people to hear and accept that gospel. Our job is to get out of the way, and follow the spirit to find these people! This family asked so many good questions. We are teaching them about the plan of salvacion tonight and I cannot wait! They have one little daughter and I know families can live together forever! We will also get to teach about the atonement. The atonement is so powerful. All that is unjust in our lives will be made right through the atonement. Everything is possible through the atonement!

 I met one of the members in our ward this week. His sister is in the hospital right now because her liver pretty much exploded because of how much alcohol she has been drinking. He used to drink as much as her, but he learned about the gospel with his wife and they promised to never drink again! Through the enabling power of the atonement and baptism he hasn't had a drink since! It takes a lot of courage to stop drinking or smoking or using drugs, but Christ is there for us every step of the way! And it is great when members can get involved and be friends with those who are investigating. It is so awesome what you are doing mom. Our ward is split up into 3 areas and my area does not have many active members, so we have a hard time finding members to come with us. I wish I could bring you along :)

I love you all so so so much! This week is going to be great. Remember the Lord is in the details of your lives. Always be looking for the small miracles and tender mercies that happen so often throughout the day!

Hermana Moo

"This looks like the backyard of the Sandlot."

Here we go! I have sooo much to tell everyone.

Ok I am alive and well in San Fernando. The flights went really well. They were long and I had a hard time sleeping, but thankfully i got to travel with 3 missionaries, so we figured everything out together. We stopped in San Fran and got some sour dough sandwiches. What else would we get!? No one told us if we could call, so we decided not to...now that i think about it, we should have just called, but that's in the past! We will talk soon :)

You are talking to the new El Camino Real ward pianist. The first question they asked was, "Do you play the piano?" They were sooo happy when i said yes! The glory goes to Mama Barfuss. All those piano lessons are paying off :). My trainer is Sister Day from Boston. I got the one white trainer, but her spanish is great and she likes to work hard! I am in El Camino in the El Camino Real Ward! Here is the best news. I am a biking missionary. There is one area for spanish sisters that has bikes and it is El Camino! Hahahaha I have had so many adventures on my bike. I am 100 percent positive that they put me on bike because i am from Idaho. Idaho missionaries have a good reputation. I am borrowing a bike from the mission office. Basically if anything happens to the bike i have to pay for it, but if not I will just return it to the office when I am done. So just picture this...Hermana Barfuss on a bike, sweating like crazy, skirt flapping in the wind...we get a lot of weird looks hahaha. Our area is very small. We pretty much just bike up and down Sherman Way all day. It takes us about 25 minutes to bike to church. My legs and bum and pretty sore. #ElCaminoBikers. My trainer has had her bike stolen twice so we have two locks for our bikes and we keep our bikes in our apartment at night.

  The first day we got to the mission office at 4ish and they talked with us for a couple hours and took us to a hotel! I could not believe it! We went to bed at 7:30. It was glorious. There is not much progress in El Camino right now. Mostly we work with less active members, but it is difficult to find members when they are home. Most days our plans and our back up plans fall through so we knock a lot of doors, which means we have met a bunch of really cool people. Some do not want to listen, but some people are kind and let us in. About 70 percent of the doors we knock the people speak spanish. It is difficult to know when to speak in spanish or in english. There are a lot of Armenians who look Latino, but when you start speaking spanish get super confused, and some of the Latinos prefer to speak in English, some prefer spanglish, and some only know spanish! But my trainer's spanish is awesome, so i know i will be able to learn the language.

  We had dinner at a member's house and it was the most humbling experience for me. Her house is one room proabably the size of the craft room in the house. She doesn't have a bed or any tables. She has a little fan and a big stack of blankets for when she sleeps, BUT she is ALWAYS willing to feed the missionaries. We sat on the ground and she fed us tortillas with some beans and meat (oh and some 7-up) I wanted to cry. She is a perfect example of humility and charity. She is so kind and devoted to the church. I pray that we can all be a little more like her!

  Another less active member that lives in a little apartment with 4 other ladies. It was chaos in her house. They were having a BBQ so they had raw meat all over the apartment and other fiesta necessities. She is about 60 and only has one leg and cannot afford glasses so cannot see very well. We read her some scriptures and she testified to us about angels and the miracles she has seen in her life. Again, I felt honored and humbled to be with her. 

  It randomly rained the other day which was such a blessing. California needs rain. And Hermana Barfuss needed some rain to cool things down :) The rain was a little tricky because we are on bikes. Thankfully I packed a rain jacket. We were out knocking doors, and a lady let us into her house because she felt bad we were in the rain. She even gave us hot chocolate (secretly...i am from Idaho so i was still super hot, but i acted like i was cold and drank all the hot chocolate) We were teaching lesson 1 and i was struggling with my spanish, and i accidentally hit my spoon and splattered hot chocolate everywhere. FacePalm! She laughed and helped me clean it up. 

  All in all, i am very happy. I learn so much everyday, and i love the people in San Fernando. I learn so much everyday!

Fun Things

1. Everyone was watching the USA v. Cuba futbol game the other day. I wanted to watch!

2. We accidentally walked into someone backyard the other day, and i commented, "This looks like the backyard of the Sandlot." and on cue these two huge dogs came running at us. hahahah it was hilarious. Everyone here has like 6 dogs, so we have to be careful :)

3. Our neighbors are Armenian and they blast this tv show that sounds like Armenian Idol every night!

   

I love you all so much! Thank you for the support!

  Hermana Moo   (oh and i do not need an ipad...and i will think about a scripture this week)

  Here is my favorite quote of the week,

"The Lord is in the details of our lives!" Never forget it!

San Fernando - I'm Here!

"Why you not smiling? Missions are beautiful. Go get 'em, Tiger!"

I cannot believe my time at the CCM is almost up! I am feeling a lot of emotions, but I am ready to leave. I sit on my bum too much! I saw a bunch of workers mowing the lawn, and all i wanted was to grab a mower and help! I will leave the CCM at 3:30 am and my flight is at 6:50 am. They have not said if i will be able to call home! So it may or may not happen. Sorry i wish i had more info. Our in field orientation is all day tomorrow, so that is when i will get the details. 

 It was sad to hear that Presidente Packer passed away. Crazy that i watched a funeral my first week here and will watch a funeral my last week here! I was so emotion about Presidente Packer passing away, and i am not sure why. I have felt a connection to the apostles that I have never felt before! They really are my grandpas and my heroes! I am definitely praying for those men being prepared to be called as apostoles. What a calling!

  You would not believe what the CCM workers did for us on the Fourth of July. They put tablecloths on the tables and made burgers, fries, corn on the cob, apple pie..etc..i really was humbled by their kindness. I mean, we are in Mexicó, but they were all so kind! we got to help Estaban and the other cooks in the kitchen which was way fun! We were in charge of the burgers. Everyone should go follow Estaban on Instagram. He always wants the missionaries to pose with the food he cooks so he can put it on his Insta haha.

This week for TRC we taught a 16 year old girl and an 18 year old guy and BOY DID THEY TALK FAST! Holy cow. I really did not understand much of what they said, but we taught them for a whole 45 minutes! It was a struggle, but thankfully they were very patient. This week for sacrament meeting I bore my testimony. It was cool to get up after 5 weeks of hard work and be able to share my thoughts without my notebook. I really love the spanish language! The past weeks have stretched me so much and have made me so happy. So so happy. I cannot wait to see what will happen in the next 17 months! 

 So a worker named Gabriele randomly walked up to my district and pretty much gave the best pep talk ever! He said in broken English, "Why you not smiling. Missions are beautiful. Go get them, Tiger!" He is so right! Why are we not all smiling? Life is beautiful. People are beautiful, so go get them, Tiger!

  Have a beautiful week!

A few fun things...

1. I saw Lauren Kamalu yesterday (my roommate) I was waiting all day to see her!

2. This week i learned the true meaning of snot rocket. Me and another elder have been sick with colds this week. Dont worry i feel like a million bucks now! But during our language study he sneezed and it exploded all over his face. I mean ALL over his face. He was moping his forehead and his neck. Anyway i was laughing so hard. I was weeping from laughing so hard. Thankfully he was not embarrassed, but i could not get ahold of myself. I laughed for a solid 10 minutes. I am not sure why i am sharing this story, but i am laughing now as I write it!

3. I accidentally swore in Spanish this week. It was bound to happen with my track record of saying crazy things. I was trying to memorize the parts of the body, and the bum is an important part of the body, right? Turns out the dictionary gave me the most vulgar word for bum. My teachers heard me practicing and they got a good laugh out of it hhahaha. 

     Con amor,

         Hermana Moo

Hola! Happy month-aversary!

Hola! Happy month-aversary! I cannot believe it has been a month. So much to learn! This week we got 2 new investigadors. So now we teach three people everyday! Our teachers are our investigadors, but they characters they play are always real. Like someone they knew from their mission or one of their friends. This week we taught Sarahi. She is a woman in one of our teachers ward. She stopped going to church because her husband came out as gay. The ward and the opisbo (Bishop)did not handle it very well so she hasn't been to church in a few months. It will be an interesting experience teaching her. I pray that the Lord will bless Sarahi and her ward to be filled with love and compassion! It is weird how I am teaching my teachers, but i know my prayers and my studying will bless the real Sarahi!

  This week we read a message about how each missionary always has two angels with them. I felt so strongly that Grandpa Preece and Grandpa Barfuss were standing behind me. During our closing prayer i had to peek to make sure they werent kneeling beside me. I know this is true for everyone! The Lord always gives us help. Always be sensitive to help coming from heaven!

  Here is my espanol mess up for the week. we got another investigador named Marycruz. I still struggle understanding the language so I thought her sister had died, so i bore a very sincere testimony about how her sister was in heaven, very happy and blah blah blah. Marycruz looked at me with a confused face and said,"My sister is not dead." Whoops! Facepalm. Turns out she had a grandaughter that died. Everyone had a good laugh afterwards. The Lord has blessed me to be more patient with myself. Learning one step at a time, one mess up at a time!

 Fears about death and resurreccion -  During one of our lessons, our investigador had a lot of questions and fears about death and resurreccion, and i was able to remember a scripture that was shared in my seminary class when the Parrish family passed away. The scripture is in Alma 40, verse 11 i believe. The Holy Ghost really can bring information to our rememberance. I know this is cliche, but pay attention in every meeting and class because it will come in handy!

  All of my teachers drive or take a bus for 2 hours to get to the CCM. The cool thing is, they are always happy. I mean ALWAYS. They are always there to give me a hug, a high five, or just a smile. They stay late with us when we have questions with the language and they pray and study for us when they are not at the CCM. They are all in their 20s so they are going to school and dating, but they are always so willing to help. I feel so blessed to be in Mexico learning from their examples.

 Fun Things

1. I have decided that the US needs to get their panties out of a wad. I give the latinas a hug and a kiss everytime i see them! We all just need to show everyone a little more love! Smile at people when you're in the grocery store. Tell your family you love them!

2. We are friends with the lunch workers, so Estaban, the cook, said we could make cookies for our service project on saturday! Yummmmm

3.The best decision i ever made was to not eat refried beans for 2 meals a day.....TMI? hahahha

4. I have eaten so much flan (.an open pastry or sponge cake containing a sweet or savoury filling. A typical flan of this sort is round, with shortcrust pastry, usually coated with sweet syrup. It is similar to a custard tart )Soooooo much. Noone seems to like it but me!

5. we got 104 new missionaries yesterday! 

6. We have had some awesome rainstorms. Every night at about 5 the rain comes a tumblin down.

I love you all so much!

 I hope everyone has a great week.

 Prayers are coming your way!

   LOVE,

      Hermana Moo