Well another week has come and gone, and now tomorrow is transfers. As usual we

won't know who is leaving until later today or tonight. This morning I started packing since it's a lot easier to unpack than to flash pack in an hour.

This week a lot happened, but one of the highlights was working in a trio with two greenies over two areas. We did quite a bit of knocking doors but it payed off when we knocked the door of a girl and her boyfriend, Raul and Sylvia, who happen to be really good friends with one of the members in ysa and they asked some really good questions about the Book of Mormon. 

I love the Book of Mormon; if I know anything it is that the Book of Mormon is true. It's easy to come up with questions and doubts about Joseph Smith, but none of that really matters when you come to know that the Book of Mormon is true. 

Everyone should read, Moroni 10: 3-5 and then just pray again, or pray for the first time if you haven't already. The simpler the better and Heavenly Father won't withhold information if we genuinely ask, over and over. 

....I am sounding like such a missionary; but the Book of Mormon really is my favorite part of the gospel to share.

Hopefully the pictures will suffice for the summary of this past weeks events.

I love you. Laredo Loves U. 

H mckenna Crawford

     All right the most exciting part of this last week happened 2 days ago-HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!  It feels like, just last week were skyping home for Christmas.  This was extra special because I was able to see two extra special moms that I love, grandma Crawford and Jami were there with the whole crew. 

     

     Since it was Mothers Day none of the people we are working with came to church.  Our district leader gave us a commitment this last week to make plans to find a new investigator and present the plan to Heavenly Father in prayer and then do it. 

    

     Monday morning we said a prayer and told Heavenly Father that we would go to the street “Don Beto” and walk around the block twice, after we contacted all our referrals, and we would talk to everyone.  The second lap we met a man outside who told us to go talk to the old mexican woman at the end of the block.  We met Teresa Ramirez and a couple of her grand children.  She invited us in (which rarely happens) and we taught her about faith, repentance, hope/charity, baptism and the holy ghost.  As we talked we found out that she is good friends with some members in south Laredo and she’s been to church before.  We are now teaching the grandma, her daughter and the oldest grand-daughter. 

     In the bible dictionary under “prayer “ it says, “to align our will with God’s will and secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them.”  Nothing is to small to pray for and Heavenly Father is waiting and willing to help us when we ask for His help. 

     I went on an exchange with Sister Tippets and it seemed everyone we met or talked to from members, investigators, less actives, even the ice cream man driving the streets gave us treats: watermelon, popsicles, blended ‘sandra water’, fruit etc.  Sounds silly, but I sort of feel like Heavenly Father gave me a day of my favorite foods.

     Thanks for all the love and support, Happy Mother’s Day to all my favorite moms, and a shout out to my mom cause she is simply the BEST!

Laredo Loves You, x0x0

H. McKenna Crawford

We made it to the month of May! And as a result our car and money cards are full of fuel and we are good to go for another month of missionary work, #blessings. 

Tuesday (April 29th) Presidente Maluenda came up to Laredo and all the Laredo missionaries had their interviews. During these interviews we watched the video 'Spiritual Crocodiles' by E. Packer (its on YouTube and Mormon Channel, definitely watch it). 

FLASHBACK: the lesson about spiritual crocodiles was my favorite family home evening growing up and it's one of few that I really remember. 

The jist of the lesson is that we are surrounded by things that are extrememly dangerous to our spirits ( - small things that are subconcious. Often we don't recognize the danger of these things, until we've already become victim to the consequence.

I loved this lesson growing up and so we decided to share it with all the members who live in our area. I realized my whole cute life, I had missed the message - the Atonement is Real. 

Crocodiles in Africa when they capture their prey, they pull them under water into something called a 'death roll' and same with sins, they pull us down and give us no hope of escape. 

...but unlike the inevitable death of the african crocodiles victims, we can escape from sin. We have to turn to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and let them heal us. We have to be humble and willing to pull ourselves out of the crocodiles jaws. Its all a choice. That is a blessing, but we have to use it. 

Mini missionaries arrived this weekend! All the youth, 16 and older from Laredo seperated out and worked with us as our new companions for the weekend and it was so much fun! We had the cutest little chika, Adriana Pantoja. We visited some members with her, had a few lessons, a couple doors slammed in our faces and she just got to tag along with S. Hortal and I doing the day-to-day missionary routine. 

The best part of the mini-missionary experiences was that S. Pantoja was there when Jannet got confirmed a member of the church on Sunday and recieved the gift of the holy ghost! Pretty special moment, and it was fun to see S. Hortal explain things to our mini-missionary that I had to explain to her just 3 weeks ago. Time is going fast, and mother's day is this Sunday!

Hope this find you well, and remember to stay alert for those crocodiles!

Laredo loves You

H. mckenna Crawford

It's officially beginning to be summer here in Texas, and the heat is unbelievably real. Here in Laredo, it's suppose to be like a desert climate but we've had some major storms recently which has made the air extrememly humid, like the minute we walk outside we're sweating...after our hour bike ride to the top of our area, we're drenched. 

Our investigator and now recent convert, Jannet lives at the bottom of our area on the TAMI-U Laredo Campus and then we had appointments with members every night, who live 5 miles in the opposite direction of the campus from our house...my leg muscles have grown in just two weeks, its rough. 

Our investigator Jannet got baptized this weekend. She is the cutest college girl in the world. She had been to church for over a month and we had her baptismal date set for May 10th. Well tuesday, during an exchange with S. Tovar (a sister missionary who lived with me in the Edinburg home) were teaching and Jannet stopped us and asked what was left for her to do before she could become a member of the church. We explained she needed to hear all the lessons. 

We went back Friday and Saturday to finish teaching the rest of the lessons and she had her baptismal interview and was baptized on Sunday. The whole Young Single Adult branch attended her baptism.  

Sunday was rather stressful in planning and organizing the baptism's details, we may have forgotten to tell Jannet to bring an extra towel, so she had to dry off with an extra baptismal suite and paper towels. 

Immediately after Jannet was baptized we rushed to the bathroom to greet her at the top of the stairs and she started to cry, which spiraled into S. Hortal crying (btw S. Hortal hit her one month mark in the mission on saturday) and we all exchanged wet hugs!

Love love love, that is really the only thing that we are suppose to spread here on earth. When we know how to truly LOVE everyone, we will be perfect.

Love someone today, tomorrow, the next day.....etc 

Happy Earth Day (from wednesday), hope you did something to 'grow your faith'! ...we handed out packets of seeds to our members and an  invitation to plant with love and faith.

 Just like gardening, it all takes work - don't stop!

Laredo Loves U

H mckenna Crawford

Biking brings miracles, and good thing, since we will be biking for the rest of April. As a result of the 'missionary-hunt' those first three days of the month, we ran out of miles. The mission office called and told our leaders that our whole zone will be responsible to stay within our monthly limit, which just means all of Laredo is on bikes for the next two weeks. 

Training is the greatest! 

Being a trainer is a lot like being a mom. I love S. Hortal so much, she is the absolute cutest - but it's exhausting being so on-guard all the time. I am constantly checking up on her to see if she is okay, and every time she just laughs and says yes. Especially now as we are riding bikes. 

I see her struggling with biking or talking to people and I just want to step in and help but than I know that the only way for her to learn is to just keep working at it. 

S. Hortal invited her first family to be baptized.  I could see that she was struggling to invite them. I just waited along with the family, who then rejected the invitation. But when we left I asked her how she was feeling and laughing she replied that it took her so long because she was translating the baptismal invitation from spanish to english in her head. We both got a good laugh about the whole thing.

We had a meeting at the church which was 7 miles away and mostly downhill and cross a highway without an intersection.  S. Hortai rides over a screw and we're done -the tire went instantly flat.  We realize we'll have to walk the rest of the way so we go to lock the bikes (we are using S. Hortal's lock) her key jams and the lock breaks. Not an easy week for her first week in the mission field.  Good news, we now know how to fix a tire.  Time is going so fast and yet so slow. But I am learning to enjoy both the good moments and the bad. And that is one of the best lessons that you can learn in life! 

Eat a special treat in celebration of what brings you happiness and let that treat set the tone for the coming week!

Laredo Lovin'

Hermana Crawford

I am a new training mom! And my new missionary chika is from Argentina.

Sister Hortal is adorable; I'm super excited to be her first companion.

Tuesday morning, 4:50am we got up and packed up S. Barton to drive over to the church and join the caravan down to McAllen. When we got there they had all the trainers sit on one side of the chapel and then the greenies walked in and sat on the first two rows. One by One they called us up as the trainers and announced where we were serving then called up our greenies. 

Also, no one knew about transfers until there at the meeting so we found out that S. Barton was off to serve in Edinburg!! 

We got back to Laredo at about 5pm, and then went grocery shopping and got S. Hortal situated. We were able to knock a couple of doors at the very end of the night and first one we knocked - a Jehovah Witness opened the door and told us to go google, 'easter' because we were extremely misguided in our celebration of a pagan holiday, she ended the encounter in telling us to go home. We walked away from the door and I looked at S. Hortal and said, "welcome to the life of a missionary."

The rest of the week, I was just showing S. Hortal around our area in Laredo and introducing her to all the people we visit on a regular basis. 

Through this whole process I realized how much I love the people here. After this transfer, I will have served in Laredo for 6 months! That is a long time! Throughout that time, I've set specific goals for different people. Before we meet someone, I sit and give a run-down of our plans and how we are working to be a blessing to that specific family. Basically I am just flooding, poor S. Hortal's mind with information, but its all important. Heavenly Father has unique goals and understands our unique backgrounds perfectly! As a result, He blesses us in the ways that we need - perfect to help us reach our goals and potential.

Okay so the rest of the week, one of my favorite members moved away - the Quintanilla family is now residing in Virginia. We got all of their extra food though, that was fun. 

We were also able to get Raspas this week from Penquinos (basically happiness in a cup), as an introduction to Laredo. Then as a bonus - there has been flash flooding these last couple days - so we've been working in the rain! 

Overall life is looking pretty good from little missionary Hortal and I. 

Lots of Laredo Love

H mckenna Crawford

April Fools. 

We were doing studies as usual and got a call to go and search for a missing elder. This caused everyone alarm, and debate arose as to whether we should go out and search or the leaders were just pulling a prank on all of us. 

I give myself credit for being the voice of reason that we should, whether a prank or not, still go out and look for the dude. So we left. We met up with the other zone and it was real. We then broke into search parties and searched until about 2pm that day. My search party led us to the border, and naturally I took the wrong exit and had a moment of panic when we all thought that we were accidentally crossing the border (we ended up being escorted out of the border area, right before we had to cross the bridge - this may be the closest any missionary has come to mexico without breaking mission rules.)

The first day was called off with the assumption that the elder was on a flight home. Wrong.

April 2. Again the day started as usual, we were even able to have a lesson with Carlos Martinez about the book of mormon. But then another call comes that they found the hotel where the elder had been staying and we were off to join another full day search. 

We orchestrated the search parties to cover all the hotels, pawn shops, bus stations and most fast food places in laredo - it was incredible. We spent all day driving and walking, showing his picture everywhere that we went. The mission curfew of 9pm was even extended to 10pm for Laredo in order to help find him. 

April 3. The mission held a fast, that the elder would be found and was safe. Our man-hunt started at 6:48am and didn't end until the middle of the day - 4pm, when President Maluenda had received word that the elder was safe and had finally contacted his family.

The happiness of the day continued with a lesson with Bro. Carlos Martinez about the plan of salvation - at the end of the lesson he just said, "Toda via yo necesito el espiritu, no puedo lograr esta gloria sin la ayuda del don del espiritu santo."

We all need to be more appreciative of the guidance of the holy ghost in our lives; daily. The help from our heavenly father only comes when we're are worthy to have the companionship of the holy ghost. If we do our part, then Heavenly Father can do His. We have to do the little things to remain worthy, just like Bro. Carlos Martinez is working to receive his confirmation and the gift of the holy ghost.

General Conference - April 4th and 5th. Maravillosa!

One of my favorites quotes, "Average is the enemy of excellence." 

Right before the afternoon session of general conference, I got a call from the Assistants to the President - I am going to be a trainer! 

I had to drive down, 3 hours, to McAllen and I spent the night at the other sister's apartment. Today was spent in a meeting with the other new trainers and new district leaders and President Maluenda as he gave us a pep-talk for our new callings. I am so excited to meet the cute new missionary chika, so there will be an update on her in my next email. I just arrived back in Laredo, we came straight to the library to write this email. 

Almost 6 months of Laredo Lovin'

H. mckenna Crawford