Pics from Nov. 15 - Sis Holladay!

Brittany with her new companion, Sister Holladay, by the Indian Reservation sign.

Sister Holladay, Brittany and Sister Tejada inside Brother White's home. Brittany lives in the White's basement apartment.

Email from Nov. 15

Hello familia!

Thank you for all your letters and emails and everything. Mom, I got the package...thanks so much! Funny, Sis Holladay and I are actually heading to H&M in Scottsdale today...what kind of missionaries are we? But we need to get some new clothes, and she needs some nice shoes, for Christmas lights. So I will just tell you about Christmas lights...it's gonna be intense! Had our first training this past Friday. So we're gonna be in the VC almost every night, which means our areas will be basically in hibernation during this time. They go from Thanksgiving to New Years, with concerts outside from Dec 1 to 25th. And Dave Blasucci is playing indoors a few days after Thanksgiving. Us sisters all need to be looking real put together...our hair has to be down and styled, we have to wear blazers or sweaters, have to look really professional, have to wear makeup, the whole pizazz. So every night we will be rotating through posts for 1 hour at each post. We'll rotate through the nativity display (hundred+ nativities from all over the world), the Luke II movie, the Christus, Savior of the World, God's Plan, and the outside steps to welcome people in. We'll be working indoors the whole time, with a few missionaries working outside collecting referrals. We get 40% of our annual visitors at Christmas time, crazy no? I'm really excited. So basically at each post we have to give super short presentations, like 30 seconds each. I'll be paired w/ a diff English sister each night, and I'll talk in Spanish, while she talks in English. So it'll be really good! That's about the extent of the Christmas festivities we have, there are lots and lots of lights!

Okayo soooo this week was a good one! It's always unbelievable to me to see just how much happens in one week, so much to tell you about. Anywhozle, so 2 days this past week were Leadership Training Meetings that I went to in Scottsdale. All teh trainers, zone leaders, district leaders, assistants get together for 2 days and just learn lots and do lots of roleplaying. And I LOVED it. It was such a spiritually charged event. It was crazy how much revelation I could get from it, and just how much the spirit could play such a big role in the role playing. We would all take turns being our own investigators and see how other missionaries would handle their situations, and so we got lots of good ideas. That also meant SIs Holladay was with other sisters or in the VC for two days, so we didn't get much done in our area then. Anyways, so I loved LTM...I felt such a stronger desire to just go out and do the work afterwards, it was great.

What else...on Wednesday morning I think it was, Sis Holladay and I were jogging and she tripped on the sidewalk and totally fell and scraped up her face and knees! I felt so bad. She just had one bad scrape under her eye. Anyways, moral of the story...I feel like it TOTALLY turned into a blessing in disguise! Because we had a Thanksgiving dinner w/ the branch on Friday, and them being the latinos they are, they were all like "what happened to your face? did sister fors hit you again?" and then it became this total ice breaker. Haha it was funny, but it was really cool because Sis Holladay was able to just joke around with them right off the bat, and she was just able to feel a lot more comfortable and just friendly with them because of it. So, yes...blessing in disguise haha.

Que mas...things with Ana are going well! She has been like our one shining hope. She is so prepared, SIster Holladay and I joke about how we feel like we're cheating or something with her lessons, just because she's so ready. It's like Sis Holladay and I teach a principle for 5 minutes, and Ana then bears her testimony of it for 30. Haha. It really has been a blessing, just because it gives Sis Holladay hope that investigators can and indeed do progress, and it gives me hope that this area hasn't completely fallen to shambles under our control. So we're all set for December 3rd. ALSO...if you remember Jorge, the awesome investigator who we had to hand over to the English elders...he is set for a baptism December 3rd also! SO EXCITED! I was so happy, I hope I can make it to both baptisms. It feel really good to finally see some baptisms close in sight.

Speaking of baptisms, we set a date with Jose again! If you remember, he had told us to come to his apartment one day before church, and if he wasn't there, he told us we could stop coming. So we came, he wasn't there, so we dropped him. Sis Holladay and I stopped by last night, and he was like "I was at the car wash across the street! I could see you knocking on my door when you came! I was just kidding!" hahaha...then he told us he's missed us, his daughter has been asking about us. All of that. So, we went ahead and set a date with him again..>Dec 24th! This time around, we're gonna work really hard to make sure he is 100% focused on this change. SO that was good news too!

Rodrigo and Edgar are also doing well...they're the 13 yr old and 11 yr old brothers that have come to church for forever. They have all their hoodlum friends that come to church with them and wreak havoc. We see them almost every day because we're always in their neighborhood, and they always like to do things like pretend to drive our car, or throw smoke bombs at us. Hahaha...we very much have a love-hate relationship with that entire neighborhood I feel like haha. But I love those boys SO much...and I really want them to get baptized. We have the parents permission now and we're trying to figure out the best timing.

Sad news...David and Guadalupe have to wait til January to get married now :( NOt entirely sure how we can help them in the meantime.

Also...I wrote this in the pres letter, but I had this crazy dream last week that came true...it was a total miracle. Had a dream about Jonathan Baez, whos fam we used to teach, and that we gave him a ride and told us all that had been holding his family back. Was w/ sis holladay in the car, saw him walk by and I was like "get out of the car!" we talked with him and because of that convo, we found his family again! It was a miracle that I hope leads to something really big.

Yesterday we had a really weird experience. Drove up for a lesson, and as we were parking we saw this guy riding away on this bike, with this lady trying to pull him off. He started hitting her and all this stuff, and he drove off and she was furious. Everyone in the neighborhood was just sitting there staring as he like assaulted her. We got out and were like "hey!" (hahaha I'm such a tough little sister missionary) and he was gone. The lady was screaming and cussing and going crazy and called the cops, and her little 4 yr old daughter was just sitting there crying. We gave her daughter a sticker and they lady yelled at us to go away, and it just broke my heart...the little girl just had tears down her cheeks. I was really shooken up, and moral of the story...sometimes I forget just how much this world needs our message. People put their trials under wraps around us, but there is so much hurt and hate that only the gospel can fix! gottago, love sister fors

Email from Nov. 7

Well this letter will be short, because I just spent forever and a half writing to the President, and then it all got deleted :) Hahahhaa nooooooo! But hi family! I am alive and well and trying not to stress out :) Thanks for all of your love and support! Really though, every time you write back insights and all of that, I assure you they're just what I need.

Ok so as for this week...introducing you to SISTER HOLLADAY! Woooooooo! Well she's from Lindon, UT, studying art at UVU, and we have lots of similarities. She's pretty chill and laidback and has a funny, sarcastic sense of humor. It's hard to not just chat away in English. I can tell we'll work really well together. I just get nervous that just the stress of both of us being so inexperienced doesn't stress us out against eachother, you know? But she definitely totally has the greenie spirit, and I feel like I still kinda got that greenie spirit so our greenie spirits combined will just be unstoppable. Hahahhaa kidding, but really...she's very effective, a really good planner, wants to be diligent, and really knows the scriptures. So now it's just a matter of teaching obedience and Spanish! Haha. She definitely is humble and has a desire to be obedient, which makes it easy for me. Eric, I really liked what you said about being a content communicator, and how we need to be honest, but not disclose everythign...so true. It's hard to know the balance between teaching by example while still correcting things, you know? That's hard for me, so I hope she is patient with me as I am still figuring things out 100%. It can be challenging when I realize how inexperienced I am, and how much I fall short...but Sister White reminded me that in this work, we can work 24/7 and will always fall short...so we just need to learn how to use the Atonement!

So yes, this week was definitely a transition week...transfers, then weekly planning, all of that. No investigators at church :( But a family of less actives was there for the first time in a long time! And a lady who accompanied us to a lesson last week bore her testimony about it this week!! It made me so happy! She did a great job and talked about what a great experience it was for her, so hopefully that'll get the members excited. I'm trying to figure out the best way to teach her Spanish. It's funny, because of course now in just the last week MY spanish has improved like 100%, but I need to give her the opportunity to take initiative now.

So...Rocio is a less active that now really seems ready to come back to church. She asked us for a book of mormon and wants to come to the thanksgiving dinner this friday, as well as the primary program on sunday. We handed out the invites for the primary program, the kids got really excited so we will see how it goes! I'm excited. Found one new investigator this week..Magali who's really sweet and has a great family. Berenice and Jose we thought were off the list, then they randomly showed up at the VC this week...a mini miracle! So we'll see, they still seem like they have desires to learn.

One thing...it's getting COLD here in AZ! So Mom, if I have any jackets or long sleeved sweaters, maybe would you want to send them soon? Also, Dad, a "confirmed appointment" is when I called them up, and they accepted to have missionaries come to their home and teach them.

Ok, I'm sorry I don't have more to write. I'll send pics next week. This transfer will be a challenge, but also a big blessing. I love you all! Love, Sister Fors

Email from Nov. 1

Helloooo family,

Thanks for all the emails! Sounds like you're doing good. CRAZY that Dave Blasucci will be doing one of the concerts...I'm pretty sure I'll be there that night. I saw the schedule of concerts, and didn't even realize he was one of them. That'll be fun!

Anyways...so this week. Alright, well I think it was last Tuesday, it was a really memorable day. So I'm in the VC and within 3 minutes of us opening the doors that morning, this lady walks in and I take her to the exhibit. She had said someone had told her a picture in there looked like her daughter. I felt like I should start the music in there while she was walking around, so I went and started it. Then she came to me with tears in her eyes and said taht it was her daughter playing the cello in the song on the CD...she had been contracted out for the CD we were using. Anyways, and then she starts talking about some of the issues her daughter is going through right now, and then she tells me that her own husband died 2 months ago. I don't know what it was, but she started crying and I just flat out started crying with her! And then she had to go...and we had this awesome moment in the exhibit, and 2 minutes later she was gone. So, then...about 40 minutes later i'm at the front greet, and this lady walks in and I just immediately walk up to her, and I go "how's your day going?" and she just flat out breaks down in tears! And so I sit with her, and we end up talking for a while too, and she tells me how she's going through an ugly ugly divorce, and she had just come from the courtroom, where they told her she wouldn't have custody over her 3 year old daughter. Anyways, so I talk with her for a long time. Then about an hour later, I go up to this guy and he begins to tell me about how he's going thruogh the process of a divorce and also getting rebaptized, after 20 years of inactivity. So I talk with him for a  long time and he cries to me also. And then later that day I went up to a girl about my age in the exhibit, and I could tell she was having a hard time. (She was just staring at this one picture of Christ with a kid in jeans on the beach. Chances are, I've found, if someone is looking at that picture for a long time, they're going through a really hard time...haha) Anyways, started talking with her and she starts crying to me about how she's lost her temple recommend for some things and all of that. Anyways, so basically, it was like my 6 hour shift was completely filled with people going thruogh incredibly hard things. And I feel like I just realized that day that I felt like that was a big part of my individual purpose as a missionary...helping those that are mourning. I've found that it's with those visitors that I feel the Spirit guiding my words the most. I've also found that often the people with whom I have the most memorable visits with are those I'm immediately drawn to...like the lady that walked in the front greet, sister tejada later told me that it just looked like me and that lady were drawn to eachother like magnets. Craziness. Don't know if any of taht makes sense to any of you, but it was definitely a day in which I realized that each of us has a very specific purpose, and our happiness will come from when we magnify that individual purpose.

Alright, so...other miracle of the week. So Sister Tejada and I on Saturday stopped by to visit Jorge. He's the 17 yr old guy who we tracted out then saw at Walmart. So we get there, and he was just driving up! He's in the ROTC and just came back from like 8 hours of intense training. BUt he told us he had been waiting for us, so we sat down on the front porch and started talking. We started talking about the BOok of Mormon. And he told us how he really wants to learn more about the church just because he sees how all of the LDS people he knows live better lives overall, he feels like. And he says he has a lot more respect for his LDS friends. Anyways, so he's liek "I want to learn but I just get so confused...there's so much information and I don't understandit all." So we read the intro to the BOM with him and start talking to him about how he can find out if it's true. Then he asks Sister Tejada how she made the change in her life, because she was his same age. Then she bore this awesome testimony about how she fuond out that the Book of Mormon was true. And so we told him he could only find out through study and prayer. And he was liek "well how do I pray?" so we showed him how, the little instructions in a pamphlet. And then we invited him to pray, and he just started right then and there...99% of investigators are really hesitant to do so. So he starts giving this INCREDIBLE prayer! seriuosly, it was so beautiful...asking God for guidance and everything. Afterwards, we were just silent. And he goes "Woah, I just got the chills." And then he starts crying, and he was still in his ROTC uniform and he was like "i don't know why I'm doing this, I'm not supposed to be crying in uniform." And we just sat there for a while, letting him feel that Spirit. And he was just like "I'm taking this as a hint taht I definitely need to go to church next Sunday." hahahhaa. And then he was liek "That was so weird, it was like I wasn't even the one saying those words...something was guiding me right off the bat to say those things." CRAZINESS! It was incredible how quickly the Spirit hit him, and I know it's because he has such an open, open heart. Anyways, it was definitely one of the best lessons I've had. But...heartbreaker: we have to give him to the English elders :( For some reason, all of our awesome investigators are outside of our area or like English! Ahhh! Anyways, so yes, he prefers English, so they get to have him. Anyways, so yes...Jorge is awesome, so great. And I will be praying for him, even if I won't be the one teaching him.

Ok sooooo after that incredible lesson with Jorge, we headed over to the Moran's home for a bday party/dinner for their daughter. We were there talking to their nonmember family members when I looked down and saw we had a missed call from the mission office. I showed SIster Tejada and she goes "You're training." Soooo...there you have it folks. I called back and President Ellsworth answered and proceeded to tell me that I will be training a new sister this transfer. !!! Bah! So, since then, I have been all over the place thinking about how in the world these next 2 transfers will go. I'll probably meet her tonight. She's from Utah, and doesn't know much Spanish I don't think. So Sis Tejada's getting transferred out and is gonna be Sister Lamb's comp now! Anyways, so yeah. I think President Ellsworth wants to try out to see if a missionary can train after 12 weeks liek the program intends...hence why I am here, training after so so so little time. I still feel really really new, and what's funny is sister tejada and I hardly even used the training program...because of time, we probably only did like a third of it. So now I have to teach it to this girl, and also teach her spanish, and also try to do all these things myself! Hahaha. Basically, I don't know what to expect. I'm excited, because I know that sometimes I work best under pressure, but I know this is gonna be really hard to know how to do all these things at once. So...this is a plea for you to pray for me haha. I really am excited, but I also am so nervous. We will see...starts tomorrow!

What else....mmm halloween! So yesterday was halloween. Sis Tejada and I got pizza for lunch, then the VC was totally dead when we were there in the afternoon. There I said goodbye to some of the awesome sisters that are leaving. Then at 5:30 we had a halloween social! because street contacting is highly discouraged on halloween, for obvious reasons haha. So all the VC sisters got together at the white's house and had dinner, carved pumpkins, and watched the Emma Smith movie. It was really fun! And I did dress up for Halloween :) Sister Tejada and I dressed up as twins haha...we had similar skirt, shirt, sweater going on. I'll send pics of all the festivities later. So that was fun! I felt like a normal person, which always throws me off.

So yes...there are the highlights. I had some really really great experiences this past week, which I'm so grateful for. Sister Tejada and I ended really strong I felt like, which I'm also grateful for. I'm excited for the challenges ahead. The thing that comforts me the most is knowing that this assignment comes from the Lord...perhaps President Ellsworth doesn't know me and all my weaknesses perfectly, but the Lord does...and He's the one that extended the call, so that's comforting to me. I love you all so much! I love being a missionary so much...I love that I get to be in this area for 3 more months and that christmas lights and all that are coming up soon in the VC. Lots of fun things to look forward to! Love, Sister Fors