Becoming

Manalo's Wedding

Manalo's Baptism

8/3/15

This week was such a good one! We had an awesome Multi-Zones on Tuesday.  The highlight of it was a class that President Mullen gave on Becoming.  It had a big impact on me. He talked about becoming a true disciple of Jesus Christ and what that entails. A big part of it goes along with the hymn "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go."  We need to go where the Lord wants us to go, say what the Lord wants us to say, and be who the Lord wants us to be. Therefore, align our will with God's. 

Something that we talked about with this is that the greatest TEST in life is to obey God.  The greatest TASK in life is to learn the will of God and do it.  And the greatest COMMANDMENT in life is to love God.  

I've been thinking a lot about that this past week and the idea of loving God. As Moroni 10:32 tells us, truly loving God requires all our might, mind and strength.  It's not something that we can give a half effort to. In the words of President Mullen, "It's all-consuming and all-encompassing." So what are we willing to do, what are we willing to give us to truly love God with all of our heart, might, mind and strength? 

Anyways, we were also able to attend the wedding of our investigator, Manolo this week! He is absolutely awesome.  He's quite an example of making changes in order to know God, in order to truly love God. While the wedding this week was just a civil wedding, done by our bishop, their end goal is to be sealed in the temple a year from now. 

And Manolo entered into the waters of baptism on Sunday.  It was such a nice service (we had to move to the chapel because there were so many people there) and Manolo was SO HAPPY afterwards.  This is something that he's been working really hard towards and I have no doubt that he's going to be a strong leader in the church.  

I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to be a part of teaching him and that I could learn from his example. Missionary work is so great! 

I love you all! I hope you have an excellent week and are able to find ways that you can show your love for God and others.  

Les quiero mucho, 

Hermana Horne 

God Works in Mysterious Ways

All the new trainers and trainees

New trainee, Hm. Visick

7/20/15

It has truly been a week of miracles, in so many ways.  I know now, more than ever, that Heavenly Father knows each of us, individually, and He hears our prayers. I can't begin to describe the joy that I feel in having that knowledge. I'll share an experience that I had here in the mission field that was a testimony of that to me...

This last week was transfers and I was called to be a trainer, but we were also doubled-in to an area, so neither myself, nor my companion, Hermana Visick knew any investigators or really who we should work with.  We decided to try to visit some former investigators.  Before our day started, we pulled some names of former investigators out of our area book and started to look through them and find the people that we thought we should visit.  I had picked out some names that I felt good about and put the rest of the names back into the area book.  But when I came back to where I had been sitting there was one name that had been left out.  I intended to put it back in the book, but as I picked it up, I felt that we needed to visit that person, Sergio. As I read his record, nothing really stood out to me, but I still felt that we needed to visit him.  So I put his record with the rest of the names we were going to visit, figuring we'd get to it.  

We planned to visit a couple of other people first, but when we got in the car I again felt like we needed to go visit this Sergio guy.  So we went.  We pulled up and the house looked empty, but we decided to try anyways.  As we walked up, the door opened.  A man walked out and asked if we were the renters.  We explained who we were and asked if Sergio was there.  He told us that the previous tenant had moved out a couple of days ago. I was a little bummed, but we asked him if we could share a video with him about Jesus Christ and he let us right in. As we talked to him a little more we found out that he had been sober for two years, but relapsed when we went to Vegas two days ago.  He was "racked with guilt" and beating himself up about it.  We testified to him of the power of repentance and that Jesus Christ is there to help us along the way, even if we do mess up.  The whole time we were there he kept talking about how amazing it was that we were there.  We testified to him the God knows him and is aware of his needs, and that's why we were there.  And I too know that that's why we were there.  Heavenly Father was aware of this man and his feelings of defeat.  He sent us there to answer this man's prayer.  At the end of our lesson with him we knelt in prayer, but before he offered the prayer, He looked at us and said, "God works in mysterious ways." 

I know, without a doubt, that there is a God.  He knows us and loves us.  Every single one of us.  The saint, the sinner, and the in-between.  It doesn't matter who were are or what we've done.  We're all children of a loving Heavenly Father and he's there for us.  

I know that us showing up at this man's house was an answer to his prayers.  And Heavenly Father has answered my own personal prayers in ways that I never would have expected.  It's incredible how He works.... in mysterious ways. 

I love you all so much! Never forget that you have a Heavenly Father who loves you and hears your prayers. 

Les querio mucho, 

Hermana Horne 

Pictures

6/29/15

Temple w/ Hm Gomez

 Pet taranchala at a member's home

Tamales!  Can't wait to make them at home!

Sista's!

Hike up Robidoux Mtn.

Dustin, a friend from "the old life" crashed the mish!

It's all in the Lord's Time

Janelly's Baptism

6/8/15

What an incredible week it has been! Man, Heavenly Father loves us.  

We had a baptism on Sunday and it was great.  Janelly, our 12 year old investigator got baptized and she was so happy.  Her mom is a member and part of her family came up from Mexico for the baptism.  And the rest of Janelly's family and friends came as well.  It was so great to see them all there, supporting her, along with all of the ward members. She's going to be a great addition to this ward! 

We also had another investigator come to church, which is really exciting because she's beginning to progress and work towards baptism.  And we found two new investigators last night. Yesterday really was a day of miracles.  We went downtown to visit a potential investigator and while we were parking there was a guy watching us.  He was outside playing with his puppies so we stopped to talked to him.  He said he'd be interested in hearing more so we got his number and planned on talking to him later and went on our way.  But then the people we were going to teach were busy and didn't let us in.  As we were walking back to our car, the man we had talked to was still there so we ended up sitting down and having a lesson with him right then.  He had a lot of really good questions and seems pretty open.  He even accepted a baptismal date, although he definitely wants to make sure he's ready to be baptized by then.

Everything that happened this week was really a testimony to me of working diligently until the end.  The beginning of this week was pretty slow for us.  We had several days where we didn't get very many lessons and we were having a hard time finding people to teach.  But we kept the faith and kept working hard. And our hard work paid off because we saw so many miracles on the last day of the week! I think sometimes I forget that it's not about what I want when I want it.  The Lord has a plan.  When we trust in the Lord and his timing, and work until the end, so many miracles come. 

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve Him and learn and grow from the things He has to teach me.  I love you all! I hope you're all doing well. 

Les quiero mucho,

Hermana Horne 

Lessons Learned

5/18/15 (Oops.  Out of order)

So I definitely learned some lessons in following the Spirit this week... good and bad. But we'll start with the good...

Yesterday we went to contact a referral downtown and we knocked on the door and the people weren't home.  But in the apartment building next door I saw a little boy who was maybe 2 years old and hispanic, looking out the window at us.  Usually I would have thought nothing of it, but I felt like we should try to visit them.  My companion wasn't sure about it but I thought that we really should so we went.  We knocked on the door and a guy named Rodolfo answered.  He was the little boy's dad.  He was super nice and we explained to him that we're missionaries and had a message of Jesus Christ that helps strengthen families and we talked about that a little bit.  I told him that we felt like we needed to knock on their door and it was probably God who guided us there.  He agreed and opened the door wide and said that we could come in! We were so surprised! Unfortunately, his wife wasn't home so we couldn't go in.  But he gave us his number so we can set up an appointment and he seems pretty open.  Whether or not anything comes of it, t was definitely a testimony builder of following the spirit! 

Now for the not so good... We have a super awesome who's preparing for baptism.  Her baptismal date was set for the 31st of May.  On Saturday and Sunday morning Hna.Gomez and I both had little feelings that we should call her just to make SURE that they were coming to church.  We didn't talk about it, but I brushed those feelings off because her and her mom are super solid and were like 100% committed to coming to church when we had our last lesson with them.  And they told the member that we took with us that they'd be coming as well. But they didn't come to church:( We called and called right before church but no one answered. We went by after church and the mom said she had been working so they couldn't go. We told them that now we have to move her date to the 7th of june and her mom was super sad. She was like man! If I had known I would have dropped her off. We were super sad too because we could have gotten her a ride! If only we had followed the prompting of the Spirit to call and find out we could have made sure she'd be at church. So it's definitely our fault that we didn't make SURE they had a way to church and everything.  Lessons learned... we're repenting. But we're still stoked about the baptism on the 7th, but it's the weekend right after the transfer so Hna.Gomez and I might not be companions still.  But it's okay because we'll still be able to come back for the baptism.  And our investigator is still getting baptized so it's all good! 

But it's been a really good week! I love being here.  I love being a missionary.  There are SO MANY good things about it! Love you all! Que tengan exito a donde vayan.

Les quiero mucho, 

Hermana Horne 

According to Our Faith

5/26/15

This last week was awesome! We've been trying really hard to get this one family to come to church.  They really have sincere desires to know if it's true, but they've always been Catholic and they don't want to "play games with God." Totally understandable.  But we were able to give them a tour of the church a week and a half ago and the Spirit was so strong in the chapel.  It was really great for them to be able to go and see what the building is like and feel the Spirit that's there. 

And then they came to church on Sunday! It was so great. They weren't able to stay for the full 3 hours because the little boy didn't want to go to nursery so they took him home, but they said they're going to stay next time.  But it was just great to see them there.  That was a big step for them and I know it will help them get closer to receiving their answer as to whether this church is true. 

We've definitely seen a lot of blessings in this area and in the last week.  

I'm absolutely loving serving in Riverside, but transfers are coming up next weekend so who knows what's going to happen! They could send me anywhere.  But I'm hoping to be staying for another transfer.  I love the people here.  There's some great members and we have some great investigators. But we'll see.  I'll go where the Lord wants me to go. 

                           

I was asked to give a training in District Meeting last week on finding effort and contacting people on the streets.  Even though I work at it, it's definitely something that I need to build my faith with.  I think the Lord knew that and that's the reason why I was asked to give the training. As I studied for it I definitely felt my faith increase. I shared Alma 5:11-13 as part of the training and we talked about how there was a mighty change wrought in the heart of Alma according to his faith. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, not just for the training on finding, but also as part of life in general.  So many blessings we see, so many experiences we have, so many things happen according to our faith. And if we're praying for a particular thing to happen, we need to have the faith that it can happen, if it be the will of God. 

I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to grow my faith every single day and to help others recognize the seed of faith that's already planted in their hearts.  I know that this church is true and that when we're living our life, striving to align our will with God's, we'll feel more peace and happiness in our lives. 

Love you guys.  Que tengan una buenisima semana! 

Con amor, 

Hermana Horne 

Birthday Celebrations

Birthday hike up Robidoux Mountain - April 27, 2015

More Birthday Celebrations!

Baby chicken in the kitchen!(?)

Marriachi Band at Ward Activity