America the Beautiful

Family and Friends!! This week has been such a success. I love my new companion Hna Ogden. We get along so well and we have a lot of fun together. I know we will be doing a lot of good work together here in Graficos! I have been a lot happier now and I feel more animated about the work. Hna Bazan was good for me but I am realizing now that it took a lot out of me to be with her so I am blessed to be with someone that is always excited about the work and that wants to work hard. I am really so happy. Tuesday. Today was a success. I feel a lot more happy about doing the work here in Graficos. We had such great lessons tonight and I’m just full of excitement for the work. I know Hermana Ogden and I will do so much work together. Wednesday. I feel blessed to have Hermana Ogden as my companion. Tonight we taught a 17 year old boy named, Enzo. He has more confidence with us after we taught him the Restauracion and answered some of his questions. The Spirit was strong in the lesson and we ended up setting a baptismal date. Unfortunately he will be going home for a month so in August he will hopefully get baptized! Then we visited more people to have Hermana Ogden get to know more members in the ward. At night, Hermana Ogden got stuck in the bathroom haha When she called for me to help, I couldnt open the door either so of course I went and got my camera and filmed her haha Thursday. Happy 4 years of my family being sealed in the temple! It feels like just yesterday. In the morning we had weekly planning with the zone and met all the new people in our zone. There are three new greenies in the zone. Im so happy to have some new ones in the zone and also to have Hna Smith in my zone! Its unreal. Smith is training one of the new missionaries, Im so proud of her! President Zobrist came to our zone, its always good to see President. One thing that I liked that he said about me was that I am always happy. Im glad to hear this from President. Im not always as happy as I would like to be at times, but to hear him say that he thinks Im always happy made me feel better. He doesnt even know how happy I can really get haha At night we visited with Enzo before he left to visit his family for the month. The lesson went really well and we are both a little sad that hes leaving, but we look forward to the progress he will have when he gets back! FOURTH OF JULY!! Hermana Ogden and I did all the possible to make this day the most 4th of Julyish we possibly could. In the morning we went on a little run to the park in red, white, and blue clothes. Then for the day we wore red white and blue as well. And everyone we talked to we told that today was our Independence Day. I was full of energy all day. During the day we went to visit Juan Condori in the hospital. He had a bad fall and needs to get surgery. The surgery costs a lot of money and they dont have enough to pay for it. We have been praying for them and doing all that we possibly can as missionaries to help them. They have a lot of faith in God and know that everything will work out. Juan even told us that he wants to get baptized! This is good news! We are praying for the best possible. I hope that he recovers soon and finds a way to pay for the surgery. At the hospital with Juan he thanked us for teaching him how to pray, he said hes not perfect yet but hes trying. He is super humble and loves reading the book of Mormon. At night we met up as a zone and had a little Fourth of July celebration. We have a lot of North Americans in our zone so it was fun getting together and eating PIZZA! Yummy!! I was so pumped haha Then we talked about why we loved America! Let freedom ring. It was the best way we could have celebrated Fourth of July as missionaries. Then while we were planning we heard a few fireworks go off, so we called it good! Happy Fourth of July! Towards the end of the week Hermana Ogden and I were feeling tired because we have been utilizing our time wisely and visiting a lot of people. She told me that this was the hardest week shes ever worked on her mission, I feel the same, so we will be doing lots of work together. We both have desires to work hard and efficiently. Im soooo excited! Saturday we started our fast. We wrote down names of our investigators, less actives, and other people we wanted to fast for. We prayed for everyone individually and by name. I liked doing this and having many specific reasons to fast. Fasting has been hard for me on the mission since we fast for 24 hours and we are out working and walking all day. Its always a struggle at the beginning for me, but then I always see the blessings of our fast afterwards. Saturday night we went and taught a less active, he served a mission but has become less active ever since he came home early from his mission which is super sad. His name is Edwin. We started teaching him about baptism with D y C 20.37 and reminding him about his covenants he made when he got baptized and that baptism is not just a one time thing. Then we taught Alma 5.26 which talks about feeling a change in your heart and asks if you can feel that change now. We asked him this question to ponder on. At the end of the lesson I was testifying on what we taught then I felt the Spirit helping me on what to say. He has problems with the Word of Wisdom and I told him that the church is for people that want to change. Tomorrow is a new day. As long as we are trying everyday to be better the Lord will be happy with us. Then I asked him to pray for strength in his temptations and the Lord will help him. The Spirit was super strong in the lesson and I really hope this helped him! Fast Sunday! I can feel the blessings of our fast. I love the blessings that come when we are diligent and obedient to the commandments. Hermana Ogden and I both got up and bore our testimonies in front of the ward. The Spirit was definitely helping me out. Its crazy how much Spanish I can speak now. I feel blessed to be able to learn Spanish so fast. Then when Sacrament finished we saw DIANA AND JAIME!!! I was so excited because I thought thy would start attending another ward since they temporarily moved to another area, but they said they want to assist with us and Diana said she wants to get baptized AS SOON AS POOSIBLE! We said, okay, how about this saturday?! YAY! Shes finally getting baptized and they are both so happy about it! So this week we have a baptism with Diana! The other blessing from this week was that we were planning on rescuing a less active this week but when we went to visit him, Juan Diego, he said he couldnt come to church. We insisted and hoped he would come. During sacrament meeting he ended up coming! All he needed was an interview with the bishop, we tried talking to him after the meeting to get him to go to an interview with bishop to set goals on his progress but he said he would come back on Tuesday...but he said that last week and never came so we were bummed when he ended up leaving. Thankful for our blessings....after second hour we saw him in church and he said I had an interview with the bishop!! WHAT!? No way! We ended up teaching him after church and he seems like he will start being active and trying to come back to church and do what he should! At night Hermana Ogden and I made COOKIES! We had an American filled week because this morning with our district we also made French Toast for the Elders! It was super fun! I look forward to the work that Hermana Ogden and I will be doing together! Shes awesome! You can call us Hermana Flogden haha Thank you for all your love and support! I love all of you!!! Love always, Hermana Flora xoxoxo