Hope you had a Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am so grateful for the wonderful opportunity to serve a mission and I am so thankful for all the support from my family and friends. I wouldn't and couldn't do this without you! The testimonies you have shared with me have strengthened mine! I am truly blessed! :) 

I am especially grateful for the knowledge of the gospel and the influence of the spirit to testify of truth! I know Heavenly Father loves each and every one of us! He has provided a Savior for us to be able to return to live with him again. We are blessed to have the scriptures and a living prophet today. Now if that doesn't show you that he loves us, I don't know what else will!

The Spirit Guides or Binds

This week we were walking on the Sam Houston State University Campus after going to a piano recital for a member in the YSA branch and we stopped to talk to a girl and invite her to learn. I asked her if she was religious and she told us that she used to be until something really bad happened. I was filled with the spirit as I didn't really know what to say. So I just opened my mouth and started testifying of the Savior and Heavenly Father's love for us. I know that the spirit was guiding my words and I felt him confirm to me the same thing. Jesus Christ is the only one that knows what we are going through AND he loves us soooo much! We can turn to him during times of trial and strife. 

Then we were on campus again for an event. We went to talk to some guys and invite them to Journey Through Bethlehem. They asked if we were going to be there and we said yes. And he responds, "Well then we will DEFINITELY be there..." And i thought in my head, oh dear. In your dreams... Thank goodness that time it didn't come out of my mouth. :)

The Spirit Feels... Heart Glowing

So I don't know if I wrote about this earlier in my blog, but I was able to attend the baptism of Miguel from my last area this week. He asked me to speak about the Holy Ghost at his baptism. 

In one of our first lessons I asked him what the spirit felt like to him, and he said, "It feels Heart-glowing." I loved that description. It can be so hard to describe the spirit sometimes, but I loved the imagery to his response.

So I talked about the spirit being heart glowing and related it to a question Grandma Loo sent to me earlier, "When have you known that the gospel was written upon your heart?" 

I shared two scriptures that I absolutely love in relation to this. 

2 Nephi 16:10 - As you understand with your heart you are converted. You come to feel of the power of the Holy Ghost. 

"Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes—lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed."

The spirit testifies of truth. It testifies of Christ. As we remember the gospel written upon our hearts we will be changed. The spirit will continue to testify to us.

Mosiah 5:12- 

"I say unto you, I would that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts..."

So, When have you known that the gospel was written upon your heart? When have you had those "heart glowing" moments?

Love y'all! 

Hermana Loo

Ok... So I totally left out some awesome deets and miracles.

There is so much potential for Spanish here and building a spanish branch in Huntsville that we are going fully Spanish! I am so excited! We have been speaking a lot of spanish lately.

Also this week we went to go and check up on a potential investigator family, the Amanzas. They had family in town for the Thanksgiving weekend and so they weren't able to talk with us. We were able to give all of their cousins pictures of Jesus Christ with our phone number and the address and time of church. One of the girls, Jasmine was so excited and wanted to come sooo bad! Well, on Sunday Jasmine and her Grandma walk in the front doors! She had dragged her grandma to church because she wanted to come! It was the cutest thing. I sat next to her during sacrament meeting and sang songs with her and got to explain what the sacrament was to her. It was such a tender experience. Jasmine is just 7 years old... The power of little children is amazing!

Slap Yo Mama seasoning...delicious! 

Random Hog in someones yard on Thanksgiving... He got away this year! 

With Matt at the Missions President Fireside 

With Brother and Sister Harris

Houston Temple!

Goodbye's to Sister King. Love her!

On campus...

The random pin-head in Trinity...

Zone meeting

Look closely... BEWARE OF PITS... The joys of tracting trailers. 

Miguel Contreras Baptism 

Got to see Danielle again! 

Saying Goodbye to Sister Huber. Love her! 

Some random bales of hay on the side of the road :) 

Playing in the leaves... Miguel Cortez

The Aguilar Family came to Church! We were so excited when they walked into the chapel! :) 

Hermana Hoj is getting transferred tomorrow :( I am going to miss her a ton!

We taught the Cepeda kids the Plan of Salvation

and had them draw it out as we talked about it!

They loved it and learned so much! 

The bell at the Texas Prison Museum

The Bible AND the Book of Mormon are true!

Fireside

We had a Mission President's Why I Believe Fireside on Sunday. It was so powerful. We walked in at the very beginning singing Called to Serve and sung the EFY Medley at the end. I also accompanied a girl in the YSA branch on a musical number, Come Unto Him. 

Matt even shared his testimony and he did an amazing job! For only being a member for 2 months he has grown so much and shares his testimony with about everyone he can manage too. Language barrier isn't even an option for him. 

We got a call on Saturday night and he had talked to a man that just moved from El Salvador and only spoke English. He called us so that we could invite him to come to English classes! 

He is the Gift

Okay so look out for a new initiative the church is putting out for Christmas. We got to preview a sneak peak of the Mormon Message and it is SO good! 

The video is He is the Gift and comes out November 28th and is on YouTube and christmas.mormon.org

Watch it and share it with a friend! This is what this holiday season is all about! 

Rain, Drunks, and Trailers

So this week we continued to invite someone to be baptized each day... Well Saturday night comes around and we have about 3 hours left in the day and no baptismal invite. So we looked at our potentials and we had already asked all of them to be baptized... Oh and I should also add that we don't have many miles for the rest of the month, so we couldn't go anywhere far. 

We went in to have dinner hoping that the rain would pass. It didn't. So we put on our rain jackets and decided we were going to find someone to invite to be baptized. And the only thing that came to mind were some boys we had contacted and they told us we could share a message with their family. We went to the address and it was a huge trailer park in the middle of no where. By this time, it is POURING rain! Like a ton! 

We were determined though so we got out and started knocking. Needless to say we had quite a few weird looks and interesting experiences going through puddles and trying to talk loud enough over the rain about the Book of Mormon, oh and also make sure that the pages weren't getting wet. 

We didn't get an invite in, but we did meet a less active members son who has been to church and isn't a member! So he is a really good potential!

We were soaked through. My rain jacket worked, but my skirt was sooo wet! We decided that it might not be where we were supposed to be and decided to go back to the apartment and call people in our area book. 

We finally got ahold of someone after calling like 20 people and talked to a former investigator. As soon as Hermana Hoj invited him to be baptized, he cut out on his end! Ahhh it was so frustrating! 

Randoms

I got to go on exchanges in an only spanish area! It was awesome to be able to practice my Spanish. I was with Hermana Ordonez from Peru! We had an awesome time and got a baptismal invite in at 9:27 that night and then rushed home to get in on time!

We taught Johanna, Juan, and Breanna about Nephi getting the plates. We even acted it out after reading it with them and sang Nephi's Courage. I love teaching kids. They are so innocent and receptive. Johanna has matured so much over the last couple of times we have taught her. To think that we taught them how to pray a couple of weeks ago! Her prayers have improved so much and her and Juan want to be baptized! She even came to the Why I Believe Fireside last night! 

Had a pretty sweet lesson with a Messianic Jew, Obi. I'm pretty proud of Sister Hoj and I's ability to talk about the Bible. We were getting into the stick of Joseph and Judah and the 12 tribes of Israel! It was awesome!

He studies the Hebrew and Greek version of the Bible and is very technical about what words you use. To say that my patience was tested was an understatement. But in the end we commited him to pray and read about the Book of Mormon. Yay!

We had a lesson with Annie and Carmen Aguilar about Family History. Carmen was so excited to do family history and even studied about the plan of salvation this week so that she could show us the diagram and explain it to us. 

We asked her what her favorite part was about her readings this week and she loved in the Bible when Jesus Christ instituted the sacrament. She is so smart and receptive of the gospel at the age of 11!

Oh and Miguel from my last area is getting baptized this weekend!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am so thankful for the opportunity and blessing to be a missionary and daughter of a loving Heavenly Father. I am so thankful for my family and all o their support and love! I love this gospel and I know it's true!

Love y'all! Le Amo Mucho!

Hermana Loo

Texas A&M campus

Pimp my ride...

Country and Cows and of course... = TEXAS!!! 

Exchanges

Sister Aisea 

Chickens on campus 

In the rain...

Fireside with the Sisters and Krystin

A Week of Exchanges

This week we had the opportunity to go and do YSA exchanges and it was awesome! We went to Sam Houston 2nd on Tuesday on the LoneStar Campus and contacted students there with the other missionaries. Then on Wednesday we were able to go to Texas A&M with some other sisters and contact students! It was so awesome to learn from eachother the things that work and get some new contacting ideas for YSA's. 

Flashback

I also was able to go on exchanges with Sister Walker in Bryan. We had a great time together and had some great lessons. A couple experiences to share

Durda Family- The mom and daughter are working on a really cool YW Value project. They set up family history workshops for the ward and set a goal to find 73 names to go to the temple. Why 73? Because it is 73 miles from the church here in Bryan to the temple. And so they are going to do a relay race and run the names to the temple! They have far exceeded their goal and have over 200 names and so they are working to get 500 now!

Isaac- He is 60 something year old black man and investigator. One of the first things he said was, "I don't think I'm ready to get baptized (he has a date for baptism in a couple weeks)... I think I want to wait a couple more months. I don't know why these sisters are rushing me..." 

And so I said to him, "Let me explain to you why they are so excited and want you to be baptized soon." I pulled out a piece of paper and drew him the picture below. We talked about how baptism is the gate and how after we are baptized we receive the Holy Ghost. Right now he is doing all the right things; going to church, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying... so right now all he is doing is banging his head up against the wall!

I then asked him when he felt like he would be ready to be baptized... and he said, "I think I could do it in a month... nah lets do it in a couple weeks!"

Baptismal Invites

This week Hermana Hoj and I decided to invite someone to be baptized everyday! It was amazing to see the miracles. Sometimes we would invite one of our investigators and sometimes we would just invite random people off the street or on campus. We would introduce the Book of Mormon, ask them if they would read it, and then when they received an answer of the truthfulness of the gospel if they would be baptized! And everyone said yes! It was amazing! 

I think sometimes we are scared to invite people to be baptized, but I know that when we do it with the spirit and as we invite them to read the Book of Mormon, the spirit has touched them! Plus, here in the South aint nobody afraid to talk about baptism anyways!

We had a really cool experience with one guy, Jose. We went to visit a potential investigator, Dora because we had only about 30 minutes to find someone and invite them to be baptized on Monday. She seemed to be the fastest way for us to get an invite in. We went to her trailer, but when I got out of the car I saw this YSA standing outside.

So we went up to talk to him, Jose, and talked to him about the Book of Mormon and why he believes in Jesus Christ. How Christ has helped him in his life. We then invited him to be baptized, and he said YES! And afterwards he completely opened up to us about his concerns and problems he is having with his family. It was so great! And an even greater miracle is that 10 minutes afterwards we invited Dora's husband to be baptized too! 

Revelations

Went to Revelations Bible Study again this week... Can I just say how much I am blessed with the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and the priesthood Power! Gosh I just felt so sad that these people were not at all receptive to the messages we had for them.

They were asking a question in Revelation Chapter 3 verse 7 about what the key of david was. Well lucky for us there was a footnote on key... my eyes went to the bottom of the page and it says, Priesthood, Keys. A smile just cracked on my face and Sister Hassell and I just looked at eachother.... They completely didn't understand the full depth of the scriptures. 

Now how can we just help them to do so as well? We were able to comment a bit on what we thought, and of course they loved it. I just wish we could have talked about the restoration of the priesthood with them.

Love this church and love y'all!

Hermana Loo

Studies with Brazos Hermanas 

On Texas A&M Campus

Church for sale???

Sister Walker!

Making the S'mores for the YSA dance

Howdy Y'all...

Lesson with Isaac