Staying in Provo!

Well this morning we found out about transfers.  This past week I kept thinking that I was going to leave, for some reason I felt like my time was done in Provo.  But we found out this morning that I am staying in Provo, and that my companion, Hermana Bumstead is leaving.  We knew one of us was going to leave.  These next few days are going to be a little tough saying goodbye to each other.  We have grown so close.  I have learned on the mission that you get really attached with people especially your companion.  They are with you 24/7 and they know so much about you.  So saying goodbye is tough.  Hermana Bumstead said to me, I feel like we are breaking up/getting a divorce haha but its true it kind of feels like that.  We are going to make the best of it, our last 2 days together.  I don't know who my new companion will be but I know that it will be someone that i am meant to be with this time in my mission.

This week, we went to the temple twice!! The whole month of December the temple was closed.  So it was super nice to get to go again.  We went as a companionship and then we went as a district.  They showed a new video, not the new one that people talked about for awhile, they started showing this video over a week ago so its brand new.  It was soooooo good.  I got a lot of answers to my prayers this week when I went to the temple. 

This week I also went on exchanges.  It was a very good experience, I like going on exchanges to learn more from other sisters. 

Also this past week, we taught a family that is not super active these days, the Stancliffe Family.  They live on the other side of the area up this huge hill so it is always an adventure when we go visit them.  They had us over for dinner and we talked to them about the importance of attending church because they haven't been coming to church recently.  It was a really good lesson with them, Brother Stancliffe works for a vending machine company and he had all these vending machine snacks that were about to expire that he can't put in the machines anymore but they are still good.  He gave us this huge box of snacks, it was HUGE.  We had to walk with it down this hill and it is still pretty icy.  The box was super heavy and it seriously looked like we robbed a convenience store haha.  We kept laughing because we looked so ridiculous and it was so cold.  We realized that we wouldn't be able to carry this huge box all the way home walking so we called our zone leaders to come get us and they were like "Sisters what are you doing" haha.  They thought we looked pretty ridiculous.  Let me just say the mission is full of adventures haha. 

We are still working on trying to find more people to teach.  We are meeting with our Stake President this week to see how we can help more and get more involved. 

I am super excited to be staying in Provo, I know my work is not yet finished in this area.  Next week, I will tell you all who my new companion is! Today we are meeting as a district/zone and doing a journal signing because some other people are leaving too! It is super sad but the Lord knows where we need to go or if we should stay.

I love you all! Thanks for all the love and support!

Love,
Hermana Garces

Another great week!

This week was really great!!! It was full of a lot of miracles! First off thanks for all the letters this week, I really appreciate them and I will do my best to write back to all of you!!

Shout out to Mike, Cristen, and family....I LOVED your Christmas letter!!! It made me laugh a little haha you all are great!!

So funny story, there is an Elder Garces that came into our mission in December and he's a Visa waiter for his mission to Mexico.  And the mission office would call our phone a lot meaning to talk to Elder Garces and I would get some of his mail because you know we have the same last name.  So the other day when we were at the temple booth some Elders came by and one of them looked at me and was like "hey its my sister" and then I realized it was Elder Garces and I was like o haha i have been getting your mail and he was like haha that's funny because I have been getting your mail too! We actually took a picture together haha.  He already left to Mexico a few days ago.  He's from Sandy, Utah and he didn't really know Spanish before the mission either haha.  His parents are from Peru.  So yeah it was kind of funny...because a lot of people in the mission thought we were related and I was like haha no i have never met him.

This week we went to a Peruvian restaurant that a less active lady works at, her name is Karina and she invited us to go.  We went and the food was so delicious, she seemed so happy to see us.  She's a single mother with 5 kids.  After that we started walking home and it was snowing and then all of sudden it was snowing super hard and it was super windy.  We literally could not see anything when we were walking, it was crazy!!! Sister Bumstead and I just started laughing like crazy because the whole situation was ridiculous.  We came home and we looked like snow men, we were covered in snow haha.

This week we had a zone training meeting and it was really great.  We set goals for our zone, we talked about how we can be more successful missionaries and about what we can do to find more people to teach. 

This week we were able to find 3 new investigators!!!! We found a lady that the missionaries dropped before because she wasn't progressing but we found out she's interested again.  Her name is Sasha and she's from the Dominican Republic and o my goodness she is super hard to understand haha but she committed to go to church on Sunday! 

We also got a referral from our AP's about this family that was being taught for awhile and were dropped.  We went to visit them and they are on board and want the lessons again. 

There's this other investigator that we are teaching named Karina (haha we are teaching a less active Karina and investigator Karina).  We have been teaching her for awhile and she always wanted to come to church but she never went but since its the new year our Spanish ward got changed to 1pm and she came on Sunday!!! It was so good to see her.  Actually a lot of people go to church now because our church starts at 1.  It used to start at 9 am.  Also on Sunday we had to give a talk with our ward mission leader, in Spanish.  We weren't super nervous until we saw that a seventy was there.  All of us got super nervous.  He wasn't an area seventy, he was a legit seventy.  I never thought in my life I would be giving a talk in front of a seventy let alone Spanish.  It actually went pretty well and he came up to us and said we did a really good job. 

Well my time is up! Thanks again for everything, I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Garces

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ok first off I know its been awhile.  I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a happy New Year!

Christmas here was really great, spend some time at a lot of members houses.  The best was being able to Facetime with my family!!!

Family-It was so good to see you all, you all look great! I seriously have the best family ever!!!

Last week was super rough, we didn't teach a single lesson because first my companion got sick and then we had to move to a new place and then i got sick.....but I was like SUPER SICK....the sickest I have ever been.  I passed out twice in the bathroom and hit my head really bad and had the worst headache, had a fever, was super achy everywhere....and here comes the best part, my Mission President and his wife had to take me to urgent care to get an IV because I was so dehydrated.  Talk about crazy haha.  But don't worry I am doing so much better now :)

This past week we did a lot of catching up and came up with a lot of ideas to build our area back up.  Our main goal this week is to find more people to teach and to get our ward members involved.  Get them excited about missionary work.  We are going to invite families to have their own family mission plan and set goals as a family of what they can do to share the gospel and have missionary opportunities. 

Also this past week we had President Interviews.  I always come out of an interview with President McCune feeling so much better.  My interview with him went so well, we were able to talk about a lot of things that I needed to talk about.  He truly cares about each and everyone of us.

Well sorry this email is short but I am running short on time today!!

Mom and Dad, I am so happy you are both ward missionaries.  You are both amazing!!!

I love you all and thanks for everything!!


Love,
Hermana Garces