'Murica

Hey everyone! 

Life on the mission is great. We had zone conference this week and Sister Fisher (the mission president's wife) totally destroyed us because we were being disobedient and there were "secret combinations" in the mission. Nice. It was a good reminder to tighten up and do and be better. 

We are having our final lesson with Rodrigo tomorrow before he is baptized on Saturday! Plus, he lives here in Salt Lake so we will be able to go and we are so excited for him! Plus, he is just so excited himself. He keeps talking to us all about his baptism and what it will be like, too cute. 

This week was full of activities! We went on a hike for our zone activity, for the Fourth of July we had a barbeque for the mission, we had a zone service project where we picked apricots for 2 hours, and we had our district activity where we had a water balloon fight! It is so nice to be able to have these things to make life more fun, especially in the summer.

Also, for the 4th of July activity, Sister Costilla was so cute and she dressed up in red, white, and blue to match the holiday. She barely even looked Mexican... besides the flag;) 

I hope everyone has an awesome week! 

Sister Moran 

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Hey Mom and Dad! How are you? This week was good and more of the same though. 

Mari was confirmed, making our goal of 2 baptisms for this transfer complete! BUT we are going to exceed our goal because our man RODRIGO prayed and got his answer... twice! Idk if I told you last week but he had been taught like everything and we kept inviting him to pray because he would read and everything but never pray for like two weeks and finally he did two times! We are so pumped for him and he is so excited and wow. I love that Heavenly Father is preparing people not only online in the teaching center, but also on the square. What a huge blessing. He is getting baptized this Saturday and we are going to go (because he lives like 5 minutes away lol). We are baking another sick cake. People that we meet on square should really get baptized more often because we always bring a cake. It's like a 2 for 1 deal: making promises with God that will bless your life AND getting a sick cake. win-win. 

The English queue is dead on teaching center now which is a bummer but oh well. I just pick up any and everybody that I can ever see that pops up. I called this guy from Nigeria today who was a Bible request and we were talking about Job and he was so knowledgeable. I shared Helaman 5:12 with him because I thought that it went along pretty well with the story of Job and he was like wait I love that where is it from? So I really quick explained the Book of Mormon and he had never heard of it before (those are my favorite because they don't have any misconceptions) and he said that he would love a copy of that along with the Bible. He lives in an unassigned teaching area so I tried calling the mission office twice but no one picked up. I will try again tomorrow but I am low key scared that no one will pick up. How is he supposed to learn with no local missionaries?! I can teach him online and send him the address to the church but I kind of need the locals. That goes for all of my people. A lot of the people that are interested lately live in unassigned areas and live far away from missionaries and from church even though they live in America and it can be so hard. But hey, this is the Lord's work, not my work, so I know that He is preparing people and He is in charge so it might be hard, but it will all work out. I just need to pray a lot and have a lot of faith! 

We had our zone service project this week and we went to the This is the Place park and we picked unripe apricots off trees for almost two hours. It was actually super fun! I got a lot of scratches on my arms and more than on rock hard apricot fell on my head but it was fun to be outside and to work and to get a little bit dirty. Sometimes I feel kind of restrained in my skirt and on Temple Square in the middle of the city all the time, so it was nice to get out and about for a while. The next day, our zone leaders called us in for an emergency meeting for the zone so we show up and basically they tell us that they were disappointed with us. They said that a lot of people were complaining about the service project and that a lot of people were complaining about the Zone activity and everything and that "the attitude that we have towards our mission is a reflection of our attitude about the priesthood and Jesus Christ" (it says that it in PMG) and then they made us watch an inspiring video about being eagles and not turkeys. It made me think of dad when he gave me that pep talk Junior year. Anyways, it was interesting especially because after you could tell they were trying to be funny and diffuse any tension and it was just awkward. Good times. 

We had our district activity today and we had a water balloon fight! We were supposed to help fill them up but we kept breaking them so we only did five and everyone else did like five buckets. Oh well. But it was fun and it was nice to just mess around and have fun. Afterward, we all had this dish called "mango float" and Sister Thant (from Myanmar) made if for us and it was really good! I have the recipe so you know I will be making it when I get home! We are going to the Bountiful Temple tomorrow and it will be fun! Sister Guthrie and Sister Galvez from our district are going to drive us. I really like my district. I feel like the other transfers I've been here it has been okay but I feel like this transfer I want to hang out with my district and I know that I can go to them and ask them for help. I hope they feel the same way about Sister Costilla and me. 

Okay people we are down to the last ten days of the transfer and I am shook. This transfer was only five weeks so of course, it was going to be shorter than usual but the time really just flew by. Sister Costilla is almost done with training! It is exciting but also scary because I want her to be prepared for whoever her next companion is. She told me that she knows how to be a missionary and preach the gospel but that she still feels like she doesn't know enough to give a tour with all the history and she just doesn't feel like she knows everything yet and like she could be out of training. I have ten days to make her feel like she can so pray for us and wish us luck. We are about to be studying history like crazy so she can feel more confident. I feel like we could be together for a third transfer after this but I guess we will see. President is a mysterious man. Next pday I will know if we are staying together or if we are getting split and I will know my next companion *hyperventilates* #prayforme

That is about all I have for this week but I am so excited to hopefully see you both soon! What a blessing to be able to see our families while we are here at Temple Square. You for sure appreciate people more when you are far from them. Love you both so much and I miss you! Enjoy your time in the States! 

Love 

Em