So much sun...
We had a service activity in the blazing sun this Saturday, it was roughly 105 degrees...and there was no shade. I think I feel for all missionaries in other countries who don't have cars with A/C's and have to proselyte all day in the sun. I could not do it. In the five hours we were outside I got extremely burnt and who knows how much water I drank in that time. It was relatively uncanny. :) But so fun! The service activity was a family festival celebrating family roots for all religions put on by the city of Phoenix for spanish speakers. We just helped set up chairs, fill balloons, and direct traffic, it was overall pretty great!
In other news, slash the thing that made my week today is this: so we were walking in these super sketch apartments and this guy was on his back porch and he was like "hey who are you ladies?" So we went over to him and my companion started talking to him and asked if he would be interested in the gospel, he asked if we were mormons and when she said yes he went all rude and stiff. Ha so me.. being my awkward self... said, "welp that's a bummer, we're missionaries and we're teaching the gospel. Are you from around here?" And then he got all nice again and I found out he was from Colorado. When I told him I was born in Aurora he got all excited and called his friend over and they had this little colorado people are awesome thing. And then I told him we had to go, and he complimented me by saying I look like I'm from an Ivory Soap commercial. :) So ha I made a friend and also felt pretty good about the ivory soap thing so yay:)
We had this really cool lesson with this 15 year old girl this week. Her grandma died a few years ago and she is just really confused. Her mom is a super religious christian, however doesn't attend any specific church. We had this lesson with her teaching about the restoration and she didn't really understand very much. My companion got this inspired question and asked her if she believed in God. She paused for a super long time and then said no... and her Mom just started bawling. It was really sad. She said she doesn't believe their is a God because when her Grandma was dying she prayed for God to leave her here and he didn't. It was a really cool experience because I was able to completely empathize with her, because I have had the same prayers and still know with a surety that their is a God. By the end all of us were crying except my companion was crying ( She was totally tearing up though ;)) I think sometimes God puts people together for a reason, this girl wouldn't have been able to understand the same concepts I think if there had been a different missionary who didn't understand what she had gone through. Hopefully we were able to help her, we don't know yet, but she is willing to try and build a relationship with God, and so that's a start. :)
Anyways that was my week! I love all your emails and support!
Con Amor,
Hermana Conrad
5/09/16 Porque fiestas son las mejores :)
Hola! We had a great week, but like always I can't actually remember what we did! We taught Guadalupe a lot , she's an awesome progressing investigator, but is moving to Mexico before we'll be done with the lessons. So our hope is to send her to the elders in Mexico and pray
for her to continue her conversion. :) but she's so sweet! We also had a lesson with this recent convert family and in the middle of the lesson... I don't really know... But the topic got changed to how Hermana Conrad likes to party and how we are all going to go to Cancun for spring break after the mission. And go to bailas together... I think my lack of Spanish didn't help because I honestly have no idea how we got on the topic! Like we were seriously talking about temples and the blessings of it, and then the next minute the whole family is talking about Hermana Conrad needs to teach her companion how to have fun. Haha oh man, crazy family right there. We teach them so often that we pretty much know all the neighbors and everyone in the complex. It's like our second home :)
Hmm what else happened... Well we Skyped our families and that was cool, oh so learned a cool thing about the parable of the good samaritan! Ok so in Luke chapter ten we have the story of the Good Samaritan, I always thought the thing we could take out of it was to always serve your fellow an, and not pass anyone no matter what. Which is a pretty great thing to take from the parable, however there is also another viewpoint we can take from it. So in the story the man
descended into Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers on the roadside. This descent can be comparable to all of leaving premortal life and descending so to speak into mortal life. Here we get beat up by the temptations and acts of the devil and can sometimes fall into
sin. We are left as sinners, bruised and hurt. The Levite and the Priest saw this man on the road and passed by (in this time the Levites were known for laws and justice and the priests were more holy people and followed religious laws like the law of Moses. One of the laws was not to touch the dead... I don't know all the details but it was unclean to do so in this area.) So in a different manner of speaking even the men of justice and religion were unable to help this
man. Often times we are this man, we have descended into sin and can't be helped because of the demands of justice in Alma 42:13, our only help is the Good Samaritan. In this parable form, Jesus Christ. In Luke 10:34 the Good Samaritan saw this man and stopped, he poured in
oil and wine into his wounds to heal them (signifying the blood of his atonement) he then took him to an inn and paid for the mans stay (signifying that Christ has already atoned for us and has paid the price).
Anyways I liked that comparison, some missionaries shared it with me the oh her day. It's totally not like doctrine as far as this synopsis goes. But I can totally see the comparison, so maybe some of you will find that interesting. I love that Christ's parables can be understood differently to all. The book, "Jesus the Christ," states:
"To the chosen and devoted followers who came asking the Master why He had changed from direct exposition to parables, He explained that while it was their privilege to receive and understand the deeper truths of the gospel, “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” as He
expressed it, with people in general, who were unreceptive and unprepared, such fulness of understanding was impossible."
I've been studying a lot about the parables of Christ they are super interesting. I would totally recommend reading Chapter 19 of Jesus the Christ. A lot of parables in the bible are explained and the dynamics of the times are analyzed as to the reasons for speaking in parables.
Aish I find it all so interesting. :) anyways that's a sister Conrad nerd out moment right there...
I love you all and hope you are doing great!
Con Amor,
Hermana Conrad
4/25/16 End of Transfer Two :)
Yay so this is my second transfer in the mission! Woot woot :) so for
those who don't know a transfer is six weeks, and every six weeks there
is a chance of being moved to different areas in the mission. Luckily
I will be staying here for the next transfer and get to keep working
with my little camelback branch :)
Sorry that my group email didn't work last week! We are so busy on
pdays that I didn't even get to send a huge one out:) but this week
has been so great! We had a lot of lessons fall through, with members
present, like twelve... But on the good side that meant we had twelve
lessons set up with members... So it all depends on how you look at it
:)
We also had a fun evening with gateway ward on Saturday night called
circle your wagons. So pretty much it was just a fun cowboy activity
where we served chili and had a dessert contest... Which the
missionaries were the judges of :) #yesss ha so delicious :) I think
being a judge is the best because you aren't obligated to eat a lot,
just one bite of each! Ha I think I found my new future occupation ;)
We've seen a lot of little miracles within the branch, it's very
unorganized which causes a lot of stress, because everyone turns to
the missionaries. However we've seen some awesome leadership and super
strong members who are beginning to help out. The hope is that we can
help the branch become a Ward, but currently, it needs a lot of work.
We had a fireside this Sunday night where the stake president spoke
about being active in your calling, especially as home and visiting
teachers. Hopefully this will help our Ward especially. However we
have a great relief society president who just got called and is
fantastic. :)
The heat is starting to come... Oh boy is it starting. I saved all my
water bottles this whole transfer and then took a picture today, I
didn't count how many water bottles we had. But there were Aton!
Anyways that was the week, super great, I love you all! Sorry I'm kind
of super exhausted, so I can't ink of too many stories even though
every day is full of crazy and miraculous events :)
Love you all!
Con amor,
Hermana Conrad
4/18/16 No Time
Aish I have exactly like thirty seconds to write this email :) we had
to send our emails with our iPads today and it wouldn't really let me
send this via group email. But we had a great week! We got to go to
the temple which was awesome with some of the recent converts in the
branch. :) my knees have started going back to their terrible state of
existence so prayers towards that are appreciated ;) I love you all
and know that the gospel is amazingly important if you need to feel
gods love, find a way to serve someone else! We painted a trailer this
week for the city of Phoenix which was way fun and I felt so relaxed
after wards (probably because I love the smell of paint plus being in
the sun) but it was fantastic! Anyways I love you all;) if you see
that someone who is usually on the group email is t on it this time
please forward or don't whichever I still love you either way:)
Con amor,
Hermana Conrad :)
4/11/16 One for the Books
Well this week we had a lot of meetings with the President and our Zone and so we didn't get to much time to teach and contact. Because of this I only have two stories!
Both of my stories pertain to food.. because that's just my life pretty much. My companion doesn't like fruit.. I have no idea why bit literally cannot eat fruit, like any kind. So after a meal with a member where we ate ATON of food, like literally it felt like 2,000 lbs of food. After the meal the member brought out a pint sized Ben and Jerrys for each of us. Which just so you all know is like 900 calories. Phew! Luckily my companion and I talked the member down to letting us share one. However little did I know, my companion couldn't eat the cherry garcia flavor because of the fruit... so sneakily while the members talked to us, I quickly ate a little from my side of the container and then she would twist the container abit and I would eat her side and she just kept pretending to get icecream out but it was always the same spoonful! Ha well in fifteen minutes I somehow ate the entire pint without the members noticing that my companion hadn't eaten any of it. That goes down for the books! It was hilarious and after my companion just kept telling me how sorry she was that I had to do it! Oh man the things we do to keep our members content :)
My next story is a bit gross.. so .... sorry...
So these last few weeks we've only had two or three member meals every week, so when we get a member meal we are super stoked! Additionally, I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, but latinos get really offended if you don't have at least two plates of their food, usually we have to eat more than that to make them love us! Hahaha... so anyways.... thursday night we had our second member meal of the week! Woot woot :) So we go and the lady sister curay, is alittle bit ill looking. We asked how she was feeling and she responded with "terrible, I hope you don't mind if I go rest while you all eat."... so it's us and the Elders and a huge meal filled the table.... we prayed and started eating. I wasn't hungry anyways, but because we had to eat our share I had a second plate. After two I was done.. my companion and another Elder were on their thirds when we heard Sister Curay go into the bathroom, close the door, and then it began... probably five minutes of her just throwing up. Anyways.. sorry for those weak stomachs out there, but we all just stopped eating immediately. Welp... the next two days my companion and I and the other Elder were at home with seriously terrible food poisoning. So that has just made the week fantastic!
As far as the mission work goes... well it's going.. ha it really is great! We met a mother this week who was literally 9 months pregnant and a little bit. We found her when we were knocking and she said her and her BF were actually just talking about how they wanted their kids to grow up in a church, but they had no idea where to look. So hey awesome:) However we didn't really want to set up an appointment on a day she may be giving birth, so we are planning on returning next week sometime!
Anyways it was a good week, we really do see miracles every day! I love you all:)
Con amor, Hermana
Estes somos nosotras. Somos bonitas. Este es después de la noche de
enfermada. Jajaja :) les amo:)
Con amor
Hermanita Conrad
Ok so A) this place is so cool! I love my area :)
We were tracting last week in this apartment complex that was kind of shaped like a C, so all the houses open up this little square meeting area, with like picnic tables and all that. It's really cute. So as we walk into this apartment complex we see five cats. (There are like four hundred on each street I swear! I think Pheonix is the land of ferrel cats!). Anyways usually they aren't so nice, so we just walked past them all and started knocking doors. We talked to a few of the residents, inviting them to these new english classes and such. And then we got to this door, knocked, and it was my turn to TTI (Teach, testify, and invite). Anyways I hadn't yet had someone just full out close the door on me in the middle of a sentence yet, but this lucky apartment got to be my first! In the middle of, "oh well we're the new missionaries in the area and---"... ha yep and the door shuts in front of me. Now some of you may think I would be dissapointed after this, my first experience where someone is not relatively polite... however nope. I turned around and lo and behold six ferrell cats from around the street had gatherered around us and were just sitting there waiting to administer love! It's like I was in heaven, against the judgements of my companion I pet all these friendly cats and forgot my previous TTI experience! Ha oh it was so great, pretty much like heaven. I may stay in this area forever! So that was great this week!
General conferance was also fantastic! I think every talk answered either a question of mine or of my investigators. I especially loved the focus on temples! It's so great because as a missionary our goal is for everyone to go to the temple. We especially have a lot of less-actives in our branch so I think a lot of these talks will be used in our lessons in the next few weeks! I also loved the talk about helping out refugees. Pretty much we just need to go to the temple and love everyone!
Woot Woot :) Spanish is coming along great, I love it! I don't think it loves me... but we were teaching a lesson with the elders the other day and along the way got invited to a party (long story) and ended up at some random latinos house eating ceviche and celebrating that this family's son didn't get baptized in the catholic religion... IDK actually my spanish might not be that great... but the whole party I was able to talk to all the latinos in spanish so hey thank you gift of tongues!:)
I love you all! Have a great first week of real spring! Shout out to everyone finishing finals these next few weeks, if I remember I'll pray for you ;)
Con Amor,
Hermana Conrad
3/28/16 Second Week in Camelback :)
Hola amigos:)
This week was super great and just way fast. We finally have a set schedule so I'll be getting emails every monday:) Just so you all know ;)
Hmmm this week... for starters I gave my first baptismal invitation to a real investigator! Hopefully that goes over well... I'm super excited!
We also had this fun experience Saturday with one of our recent-converts. SOOO, Saturday morning we got a call about a service project where this lady needed help moving her office and everything in her office to a storage unit. (Her office was in a third floor building and the elevator was broken.) So long story short we spent two hours helping this lady move boxes and tables down flights of stairs. Keep in mind we had previously also worked out at the gym! After the service project we had a lesson with this recent-convert. We were planning on doing an object lesson with chocolate-chips and pushups, where my companion would say that each chocolate chip had a price up one push up and so when our recent convert was offered a chocolate chip I had to do one pushup. Well we had also invited a senor missionary couple to come as a crossover lesson and before the lesson we had told them just to accept the chocolate chips. So we started this object lesson and at first you know everyones taking the chocolate chips and I'm whipping out the pushups. However remember that we had already worked out and done two hours of relatively heavy lifting! So there came a point where I was shaking all over the place. The object lesson was supposed to be about the atonement. And if they felt bad eating the chocolate and said no, my companion would eat the chocolate chips and still make me do pushups. Kind of showing that Christ still suffered wether we want the chocolate (atonement) or not. HOWEVER, because we had told the couple missionaries to just keep taking the chocolate, they never said no and declined the chocolate. So after 65 pushups (oh you know they were women pushups ha!) my companion just stopped the activity and explained it differently because they had no mercy!!
It was still a great experience but my arms were burning all day!! Oh heavens :)
Another great experience was going to the Mesa Temple Pageant Friday night. It was a super cool production:) Oh I also gave a surprise talk on sunday in spanish (thank you district leader for telling our branch president that I had prepared a talk when I totally hadn't, tsk tsk) :)
Overall though this week had been great. Every minute has been busy with no regrets! Easter was fabulous as well! If anyone wants my address its just our mission home address. We aren't supposed to have mail sent anywhere else! Thanks for all the letters and emails you all are the best!
Sister Emily Anne Conrad
6265 N 82nd St
Scottsdale AZ 85250
United States
Scottsdale AZ 85250
United States
Lots of love
Con Amor, Hermana Conrad:)
restaurant! Ha super fun also I'm the tallest companion she has had so
that's awesome for the both of us!:)
3/23/16 Week One in the Field
Week one in the field=AWESOME
My first area is the Camelback spanish speaking branch. I don't have much time to write-but I love it! My companion is super great and so is just everyone in the district! We had a district meeting with the president today and then went to this super sketchy fish place with the Elders. But it was way fun. Our branch is super great, and oh ya. This spanish language is not what they taught me in the MTC ;) haha jk, but really though its pretty different. WHen latinos speak fast.. well you either zone out or pick out a totally different story then they were telling you. It's kind of like the game of telephone! But ya life is good :)
Love you all!
Con Amor, Hermana Conrad
03/16/16 Last Week at CCM
Um pretty much yay!
Firstly we have Elder Cook coming to speak with us at a devotional this Friday so that is just awesome! And secondly we leave Monday so just more awesomeness!
This week was good! A little rough, but overall fantastic!
I have three experiences to share,
1. Lunch the other day was vegeterian lasagna. Oh how excited I was! I dont think I have ever been more ready for a meal in my life, well long story short. Vegeterian does not mean vegeterian like it does back home because there was a significant amount of bacon and ham in this lasagna and I was severly dissapointed. I mean it wasfilling and a good meal, but I am slowly learning to not get my hopes up over meals at the CCM, mainly to just expect straight up carne cada comida. Ha!
2. Secondly, we all know my spanish is still a work in progress. I have a fantastic example. So we are teaching a new investigator how to pray and I was telling her that if she isnt the one offering the pray to keep silent. Usually we say guardar silencia, pero I couldnt remember the word so I said cerra su boca, which I thought was synonymous. Welp cerra su boca is pretty much a sassy way of saying shut up so I taught our investigator if shes not saying the prayer to shut up.... hm... I cant remember which apostle said it, but they said the real miracle in missionary work is that converts get baptized and become members of the church despite the missionaries and their many mistakes. I am here to testify the truth of that. Bwahaha
3. The best spanish song is I need thee every hour, take a few minutes to listen to senor te necesito this week. It is just so good! I love it so much in spanish and you can really feel the spirit!
Thanks for all your letters and love! I love and miss you all and appreciate your examples!
Con Amor,
Hermana Conrad!
Attached is a lunch selfie because why not!
03/09/16 Haz Lo Justo
This week has been great, I dont have a whole lot that went on... But the spriti has just been presiding all the time which is always a plus.
Firstly, we got to go to the temple a second time last week and visit the vistors center. It really is beautiful all of what the church puts into for investigators and others. The pic attached is at the visitors center!
Secondly, our lessons have been going really well and spanish in general is a daily struggle but I think we manage! Our District last night had a deep convo with our favorite maestro about speaking in english and how bad it is for us and we made a rule that if one person speaks english at all in the day we cant have dinner. Welp... Tonight we will be going without dinner... on the upside this was a fantastic answer to my prayers because the food here is just so good that Im pretty sure Im gaining more weight than a pregnant walrus... anyways so ya we struggle but I think this new decision will really help us stay on track. Hahahaha
I cant think of anything else, this week has been great. Its currently raining super hard but still its a gorgous day! We leave next next monday so one week and a half left. So happy! Testimony meeting last week was soooo amazing, I dont know that Ive ever felt the spirit more strongly.
The church is true. If you dont believe it, read more about Gods Love, The atonement, and the testimony of Joseph Smith. I couldnt be in a better place right now, I miss you all but I know there isnt a better thing to do than invite people to come to christ.
Love you!
Con Amor
Hermana Conrad
03/02/16 Hijole
Ok so I have three things to talk about this week! I only have alittle bit of time and then we are headed to the temple for another session for the second time, yay! But I have three main headlines of the week...
First off my companion and I just got called to be training sisters last friday! Yay! Pretty much our job is just to watch out for all the sisters in the zone, help them with the language, go on splits if necessary, pretty much we just help out. It also includes helping the elders but we all know they don´t want help ha so its mainly just helping the sisters. But honestly I am so grateful for this assignment because its so fun! Also I got called to give a talk sunday and I only used three index cards with bulletpoints and some scrips and was able to talk about enduring to the end for like 8 minutes so yay that was cool!
Secondly I learned that a spanish term Ive been using for three years is not what I thought it meant... Bwahaha so the word Hijole is a spanish expression, I had thought it was equivelant with wow or fantastic but apparently its like an expression of more discouraging wow like wow thats a bummer, like If I told you a tree fell on my house or my bf broke up with me the correct response would be hijole. However my comp and I have been using hijole in place of wow or awesome bwaha so like at lunch when we get food we say hijole to the latino cooks or if someone tells us where they are from we say hijole... Anyways that pretty much is the reason we have no latino friends right now haha we told our teacher last night and he was laughing so hard about it he started crying, it was hilarious but also like whoops welp, ha this is why were learning the language haha oh man.
Lastly Im pretty much a bird whisperer... I wish we had taken a picture but last week we went outside to get some fresh air and there was just this green parrot chilling on the ground so my comp and I snuck up on it and caught it and the bird was super chill and just sat on my finger and let us pet it for a good fifteen minutes then I put my hand up a bove my head and it just flew off. Ha it wasnt hurt or anything it just wanted some love. Ha so fun, the random things we do here are just crazy.
Other than that though everything is swell!
Love you all!
Con amor,
Hermana Conrad
PS-I look like a nube but this is me shaking hands with President Oaks haha
2/23/16 Semana Dos
Week Two Yall:)
Well I don't have much time and honestly this week was like blinking and then it was gone. And because of my terrible memory I really can't think of too many huge things that happened.
So I'll add some brief things and then pics becuase they are way more interesting:)
1: My companion and I were talking in the bathroom yesterday *in spanish and we're just carrying on this convo for like a good five minutes and in the middle of her sentance she said tenemos, and we hear from a stall which we didnt think was occupied this latino say "tendremos and we were like excuse me, and the latino started giving this grammar to us while she was still in the stall. We left before she got out so we still have no idea who it was. But we were laughing so hard on the way back from the bathroom about the exoperience that I ran in to this glass door, like in the cartoons when they dont even see it coming and then BOOM, anyways I guess long story short I still totally have all my akward experiences in Mexico. ;) No worries Im still the exact same haha!
2: My CCM Mission President is better than yours, in sacrament we were supposed to all prepare a talk and then we get called on randomly so we prepare talks each week but dont actually know if we'll be giving them. Well in sacrament this week Presidente Tenorio decided to come to our sacrament and talk so a) we didnt have to give talks and b) he told us his life story, it didnt really even relate to the gospel, he told us about how when he came to the US for the first time they found drugs that someone had placed in his suitcase and how he couldnt explain in english that they werent his and then he was like I probably shouldnt even be telling this, I mean your missionaries and then would just keep talking. Ha such a great sacrament meeting, super fun.
3: God is real. Pretty much bottom line of this week. Everyone in my district had some kind of problem this week. I know the power of prayer is super true. Im pretty sure most my prayers in the evening incude just a long list of "please bless" but I know God listens to all our concerns even if they are long and lengthy!
Anyways I guess I did rememebr a bit about this week, thanks for all the emails and love! The pics that will hopefully send are of my comp and I and then our zone and district, ha if they send well see! Gracias y adios
Con Amor
Hermana Conrad
Week One 2/16/16
Hola all yall! Well I've made it. And I apologize for the terrible grammar in this letter. I have no idea how to use this keyboard plus my spanglish is right on target... Woot woot! The CCM has been pretty much everything missionaries say and more. I think Ive learned three valuable things this week!
1. Dont eat the red fruit. The first advice I got in the CCM was from my zone leader, so naturally my companion and I had it for breakfast... Were pretty sure its papaya, but all I can say is dont eat the red fruit and listen to your zone leaders cause they have good advice. That stuff is ratchet!
2. There is a pretty large difference between the spanish words pescadosand pecados. Dont tell an investigator they need to repent of their fish...it wont make them want to be baptized...
3. El don de languas es la verdad. Holy truth right there. The gift of tongues is the most awesome thing ever. Our lesson yesterday was with our investigator Roque, we only had time to prepare the lesson in english, but once we got in there he had a ton of questions about sacrament and so we answered his questions for 40 mins and comprehended 90 percent of what he was saying.. and then taught the lesson for a total of an hour visit all in espanol, also the visit was only supposed to be twenty minutes long. So I guess I talk too much in spanish too.
Well Ive learned a whole lot more, but I feel like this is a good summary...hopefully. If you have any specific questions email me! Ha if I have time I can respond ha Love you, I know Im where Im supposed to be. Its rough. No lies. Our teachers speak in spanish, we pray and sing in spanish, we teach in spanish. But with God all things are possible, I really believe that. A hermana in my district had her gma die yesterday so if you can send a prayer to the Ciarlante family that would be fantastic.
Love
Hermana Conrad
Oh also we have a devotional tonight with Dallin H Oaks, so be jealous!
Arrived 2/10/16
So we are supposed to send you an email saying we made it here safely...which we did. It´s really nice and warm. So ya, love you. My pday is tuesday. [:
My district number is 8A in the Joseph Smith Building 906.. I don´t really know why you need that but its supposed to be sent to you... so ya! I¨ll depart March 21. My companion is hermana patterson. she is pretty nice, shes also going to scottsdale and pretty much thinks the best thing about the mish is learning spanish. So were pretty similar I guess [: she¨s 21 so alittle older and an army kid so shes lived in germany and italy. Which is kind a nice cause she¨s not worried about adventuring the mexican culture. were hoping they let us go into the city for a pday, but we have to request it, idk exactly. So yup.
Love ya,
Love Em
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