Look at That Little White Girl!

A full week after receiving them, I'm finally posting Emily's emails from last week. She as Sister Costilla and getting more used to working together and she continues to be excited about being a missionary and sharing the gospel. Enjoy!

Hey Everyone! 

This week was a week full of hard work and miracles. 

We have been on square the past few days from 7:30am to 9pm and we are just in constant motion. It has been a little crazy but we have seen some awesome things happen because of it. 

One of those things is that we have not one, not two, but THREE PEOPLE ON DATE!!!!! And somehow, all three of them are people we have met on square... that never happens. One is named Richard and he came into the SVC and was like "when is the soonest that I can be baptized?" And we were like well we have to teach you a few things but then you're good to go! So we had the first lesson with him and he will be getting baptized on June 15! The other two are some Spanish ladies named Julliana and Mari and they came into the SVC and Sister Costilla explained the temple model to them and then invited them to be baptized because they were REALLY feeling it. They are on date for June 1 and hopefully, they stay that way! 

Sometimes it can be hard to be with someone that speaks Spanish because teaching together is hard and then we are still working on the whole I need to be a part of the teaching and the tours and it feels like I am doing nothing half the time which really frustrates me but I know that this is just a learning experience and that I am with her for a reason! 

Also, we took a Spanish tour of a half member half nonmember family and when they first saw us and asked for a tour the mom apparently said something along the lines of wow look at that little white girl (she was talking about me in case you didn't guess that already). Sister Costilla said that it does mean anything bad so I'm going to roll with it and consider it a compliment. 

Love and miss you all and I hope you all have a great week! 

Sister Moran 

*********************

Mom and Dad,

Things are great. Sister Costilla and I get along really well and we have fun together. The language barrier is killing me though. I have to repeat everything like 12 times. It is a struggle. But Sister Costilla is easy to train. She is obedient and she is hardworking and kind and helpful and a million more amazing things. Despite all that, I just don't like training. It isn't fun for me it is just stressful. Hopefully, because she served two transfers in Mexico she can just have one transfer of training and then go be someone else's companion and be a normal missionary. Please. 

The best part about being a missionary is getting to eat sleep and breathe the gospel. It is so nice to not focus on anything else but Christ and I feel like I've learned a lot while I've been out here. And I haven't even been out very long! Just four months! 

For Temple Square, I like that people are coming to us. Like I taught someone the restoration the other day at the temple model and all I had to do was ask if they had questions and twenty minutes later they left with a Book of Mormon. It is so cool because they just come in curious and wanting to know more... well most of them. What's hard is if you don't get contact information then you are done with their journey. It makes me have a lot of faith so that I can know that I just started them on their path:) 

We had our zone activity today and we went to the fun zone. It has like a bouncy area and roller skating and missionaries go free because the owner is a member and all of his kids served. He even got us free pizza and drinks. Say what you will about serving in Utah, but we get a lot of free stuff. 

Taijah has a lesson tomorrow and she is just scared of what her family will say if she gets baptized so we are trying to work past that. Andrew hasn't talked to us in over a week even though he said he would text us every day about reading and praying. Oh, Andrew. I think we might need to drop him because he won't keep commitments and he isn't progressing anymore. It breaks my heart but unless something changes quickly then oh well. 

Some other stuff that happened. I saw three apostles in two days!!!! I saw Elder Cook Thursday afternoon in the tunnels and Elder Soares in between the Tabernacle and the Assembly Hall. He was filming something with the President of the Seventy for almost two hours. That was around the time where we gave this super powerful tour and we only got one person's contact information but it was still really really good. And then Elder Rasband right before the tour started (the same really good tour) he walks around Temple Square pretty often and he was just going into the baptism entrance to the Temple by the giant flagpole and compass on the ground where dad proposed! Cool right?? I had to point them all out to Sister Costilla and our tour group. 

I started off today super healthy and now I am eating ice cream, I've had pizza twice, soda, pretzels, Twizzlers, and cookies and chocolate. I know. I'm super healthy. 

Are things with Abby improving? (yes and no) Are you excited for Germany next week? (100% yes! When will dad find out if he wins? (Sometime in the second half of June) Any fun plans for the summer? (Not really, just hoping to catch a Space A flight to the States) Where is Abby thinking of for college? (She has no clue yet...) Anyways, I love you! I wish we could call and I could just talk to you but I'll just see you next week. LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU SO MUCH!!! Have an amazing week:) 

Love 

Em