Alright well this week has been absolutely jammed-packed. There has been no time to sit, we've also happened to have a bike week - in honor of it being the end of the month.

The beginning of the week...

Monday and Tuesday we were able to do some service - 'picture hanging' at Sister Gardiner's home, and I found out that I may be allergic to goat cheese. My consumption of mexican food has stayed pretty consistent throughout my time here in south texas. I love mexican food but tuesday night I had one of the fanciest and most delicious meals thus far - goat cheese and grilled veggie sandwiches...well then I got sick so either I am allergic to goat cheese or my intestines aren't use to breaking down real food anymore; hopefully the former.

Wednesday, we had exchanges. I was working in our area of north Laredo and Sis. Barton headed down to work in the south. Alright so a fun part of this exchange is I got to work with my 'mission grandma' - Sis. Hunt. Sis. Hunt was the trainer 'mom' for Sis. Bentz who trained me. 

Thursday and Friday, well we were able to organize our plans for our investigators but little did we know that most of them would go out the window. Life is so funny that way, we plan and plan and those plans are essential for Heavenly Father to be able to redirect our plans and make them better...even if they may not seem 'better' at first. Mostly the days were spent just contacting doors (10+ hours) and dropping over invitations for the General Women's Broadcast: everyone needs to watch that by the way, families are forever. 

Now for this weekend... 

Remember when we got popsicles in the Walmart parking lot about 3 weeks ago. And talked to a family and invited them to church and they came to church. 

Well, Saturday afternoon we got a text from Hermano Carlos Martinez and he said he was having some family trouble and wondered if we could talk. So we said yes and told him we could meet him at the church. So, we show up at the church and he was upset. He runs over to us and we ask what is wrong. he explains that he found out that his wife is cheating on him with another man, they are seperating and he doesn't know what will happen to their 5 kids.  It was heartbreaking. When they came to church they had an adorable family. This man LOVES his kids and his family. and it just fell apart. So, we took him inside and there was a member there that sat down and talked with him ...It was a huge blessing that the branch president from South Laredo was there to help us with the lesson and communicate our thoughts in spanish and share his testimony. Then the Elders came and gave him a blessing. That night we got a voicemail from him, he just couldn't express his gratitude enough.

Then, Sunday Morning at about 9:30 I am preparing my talk for church when the other sisters tell us that they got a text from the elders that Hno Martinez is at church. He had gone to the branch that was at 8:30 in the morning. So we rush out the door and show up just in time to talk to him after sacrament meeting. They didn't have a gospel principles class so we took him into a classroom and taught the restoration to him. The lesson went wonderful! I felt like sister Barton and I taught everything clearly and he felt the spirit. It was fun.... we showed him the picture of Joseph Smith recieving the preisthood and the hands are on his head he said, "i know this is true. I had that yesterday. it works"...he remembered his blessing. It was a special moment as he felt the spirit, we shared our testimonies, and his heart was touched. 

Ok. Now this is where things get crazy. 

We come out of the lesson and the zone leaders start talking to him. They tell him that because he came to church earlier he could actually be baptized today....so things started happening, a baptism was set up, and the zone leaders interviewed him. And 1 hour later we were having his baptism. It was mass chaos and confusion.  But, I think the most important part was that he felt the spirit . I loved seeing the hope in his eyes as he realized that there was hope and he could rise above the challenges in his family and use all of his experiences to strengthen his faith. 

Sunday also included, three of our less active girls that we're working with from the college, TAMI-U coming to the young single adult branch for the first time and a new investigator coming out of the blue. 

I'm grateful to be busy it's  happiness......this week has left me with the understanding that nothing is ever truly finished, we will have work to do for the rest of our lives, and then after that as well. Heavenly Father truly never gets a break, but life is more fulfilling that way!

Laredo Lovin' xoxo

H. mckenna Crawford

Because of Him

This was my spiritual uplift for this last week....so HAPPY it will make you cry.
                                            "Because of Him"
then I read these talks as I continued to listen to the music in the background.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng

 

My first attempt at sewing/repairing my good leather shoes ----hoping for another 9 months use:) 

and https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/as-many-as-i-love-i-rebuke-and-chasten?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/the-divine-gift-of-repentance?lang=eng

After reading Todd Christofferson's talks I felt ......It's all about agency. we choose good and we're happy. end of story. 

quick update from my week:

Mon. (March 16) - The Quintanilla family is moving to Virginia so we helped them pack.

Tues. (March 17) - Happy St. Patrick's Day! We had a zone meeting wearing leprechaun hats and mustaches.

Wed. (March 18) - knocked doors for 6 hours...I don't recommend it.  I realized I'm half way through my mission.

Thurs. (March 19) -walked a 1 1/2 miles on the hi-way to get to a lesson....border patrol asked if we were stranded.

Fri. (March 20) - Met Polo who's wife passed 4 years ago and he's raising 3 kids on his own, we had the best lesson with him this morning (23 March)

Sat. (March 21) - I learned how to make 'Empenadas, Pina-postre' (pineapple dessert flavored) from Sis. Pluma -she was obligated to make 60, so we helped.  Win/Win

LOVE YOU LOVE You LOVE YOU!! con mucho amor y aprecio

H mckenna Crawford

stay safe and have a good week

Monday - we visited Br. Willie Garcia, with special permission to travel outside of our zone's area. He now lives in a care facility, that is located basically right on the border of mexico. The retirement care system down here is rather jankey - the facility was not well kept and the people down there are just waiting to pass away. But Willie was in good spirits. During the visit we were also approached by two other less active members of the church who were visiting their parents - in both cases we were able to say a prayer and just get to know the families, it was definitely a highlight. This week we also came up with some awesome new games and scripture stories to act out. We created our own full armor of god attire, super adorable to see the kids put it all on. One of our members gave me a recipe for scripture cookies and cakes - like you have to look up in the scriptures each ingredient to see what it is, super funny as a missionary. Big news came this week, on thursday we had a companionship study with our district leader and he told us that our 'unity' was not at its full potential and "the windows of heaven were closed to us, until we resolved the issue". This resulted in a full heart-to-heart with Sis. Barton later that day, while riding our bikes we stopped in a flood drain gutter and talked about any frustrations we had been dealing with. We decided we were co-senior companions and needed to do some better counseling before we made decisions...problem solved, or so we thought. Saturday we had 'interviews' with the district leader and he told us that Sis. Barton was senior companion and I was suppose to be junior this whole time. News to us. Well, its clear that Heavenly Father wants me to learn more about humility and love. Challenge accepted, I love being the happy support system, the hard part is staying involved and invested in the decisions that are made, but its a good lesson to learn. The fact of the matter is, Heavenly Father knows who each one of us are and where we are going to shine. The correction may come in different ways but it always still comes. We can chose to learn and grow or be stuck in a rut and silently miserable - not fun. On the teaching front, we found an awesome new family, the Ortiz, in our apartment complex last night. As well, yesterday we had a lesson with one of our less actives, the McHugh family. For the first time yesterday, Bro. McHugh sat in for the closing prayer of our visit. There were key blessings that I wanted to have said for Bro. McHugh but Sis. Barton was asked to say the prayer. I panicked and began frantically praying for her to think of those specific things in her prayer - well those key phrases I was thinking of, she quoted word for word. This was a miracle afterwards when she said those phrases came to her mind in the middle of her prayer. I learned that telepathy is possible via Heavenly Father.

In closing, I hope all my math friends (and everyone else as well) had a wonderful 'pie' day (3.1415...) and if anyone is ever in Laredo we recently found a great place to get raspas. A raspa is a mexican version of shaved ice with ice cream, pure happiness.If you can't make it all the way to Laredo, I still recommend everyone find their own happiness treat and spoil themselves this week.

Laredo Love xoxox H. mckenna Crawford

I didn't transfer and happy to be with Sister Barton.

Sister Trevort, Sister Barton and me Transfers - numero 6; Laredo, TX with Sis. Barton! Well this last week I still had no idea if I would be staying in Laredo or headed somewhere new, but the possibility of being here with my same favorite companion seemed far too good to be true. As a result of my lack of faith, I completely packed all my belongings in preparation for the call to find out who was going to where. Monday (feb. 23) at 10:48pm we got the transfer call. Anyone getting transferred had to be completely packed and ready to leave by tuesday morning at 5:30am at the church. I had already laid down to go to the sleep with all my luggage packed in preparation but then I found out that I got to stay. Tuesday (feb. 24) consisted of cleaning the apartment, un-packing my belongings and working for a couple of hours before our newbie missionary arrived, sis. tervort. We planned a group dinner at the Martinez's home. Watching sis. tervort piece together the spanglish conversation just brought me back to when I first arrived in Edinburg. Having a greenie has made me realize all the things that have changed within my time on the mission - and bonus on understanding and being able to communicate my thoughts in spanish! Wednesday (feb. 25) we got to weed one of our members yards, the Mejia's and it left me thinking a lot about faith and repentance. A seed isn't able to grow until you are willing to put it in the ground with the potential of it dying. Developing faith requires us to be ready and willing to sacrifice in order to grow ourselves. Weeds and other destructive things have no fear of dying which is why they so easily grow in the most unexpected places. ...our goals can never be reached if we aren't willing and ready to sacrifice things and pay the price in order to grow...

Out of time but still working on growing, and so ready for another week. All my love and the love from Laredo! xoxooxx hermana m. crawford