Monday Emails

Te quiero Familia y amigos!

Hey hey! Well yet another week has flown by! Things are going wonderful. I continue to love and embrass each moment I get here at the MTC. Never again will I ever be in a place like this and I am lucky to have this opportunity.Wasn't conference AMAZING??? It probably was so good because I acutally stayed awake haha. I have realized how important it is that we listen to the words of the prophets and apostles. I have always known that but I didn't have firm testimony about it. Every sunday we get to watch a movie (usally The Restoration, Legacy, ect...) It is seriously a treat, we all love it. When watching the restoration I realized that Pres. Monson is a witness of God and Jesus Christ just like Joseph Smith was. HOW AMAZING IS THAT. And if you listen carefully to many of the apostles and quorm of the seventy when the bare their testimonies they say, "I am a witness of God and Jesus Christ." How COOL is that!? A WITNESS!! They don't just have faith, they KNOW! We need to lean on their testimonies. I especially enjoyed Elder Hollands address, he always speaks with power. A gift for sure. I think we have all felt alone in our lives. And we need to remember that when Christ suffered, he was completely alone and we dont need to be. Rely on him, know that his is there for you.I was studying in Mosiah today and I challenge all of you to read chapter 4 and apply it to your lives. Study out each verse and find ways in which you can improve your life. Will you do that? :) Me and my compainions are still going strong. We were talking about how weird it is going to be to only have one other person around. I have truly been blessed to have these girls as my companions. Sometimes I feel bad for them because I can be pretty crazy :) My district is still going strong too. We really have grown to love each other. I was having a rough time in the beginning of the week and asked for a blessing. All four of the elders joined in and it was a powerfull experience. The Power of the preisthood is REAL and it will heal you. Use it! Ask for it, if you ever feel like you need a blessing just ask! We are trully lucky to have this power and we need to utlize it.Thank you so much for all your support. Please know that I LOVE it and I am in the process of getting back to many of you.I want my family to know how much I love you. I am truly grateful for this exprience and hope that it will make me a better daughter, sister and aunt! I NEED pics...Whitneys ring...and I realized I dont ahve like any pics of steven and brooke...I wanna see her belly!

Love Hermana Redfern

Como les ha ido? SO this week was pretty awesome because conference is just the bomb, its so incredible that we have the opportunity to listen to modern day prophets, hear their words and just know that they are sent from God. Man conference was good. Priesthood was the bomb like usual. WE got to watch it in the conference center, and got to watch most of them in english actually in a lil room with a tv, and yes air conditioning. The general authorites just speak it like it is. A lot of temple talk this conference, and the same with the economy. A lot of good advice for everybody. And of course i loved the shout out of L Tom Perry about the members helping the missionaries, the only bad thing is well, casi no one came back from the morning session to watch the afternoon session. But hopefully they will read it in the ensign. We had some investigators come which was awesome that they got hear the words of the Lord through his prophets. Well this is supposedly my last week in this area, and if i´ll be travelling anywhere besides mante, which is the closest at like 1 hour and a half, than i´ll be writing next week on tuesday. Some areas take like 10 hours to get there, so yea. But hopefully even if i dont go to tampico i´ll probably swing through it to be able to pick up some mail and snag some fastfood. But i must tell you there is a mcdonalds here and we totally mcbreakfasted the saturday morning before the first session. It was pretty good stuff. Its expensive tho. But figured since i couldnt have SCONES and CLAM CHOWDER that i´d deal with this. Im kinda excited for a change, we´ll see how it is to change an area for the first time, people say its almost like arriving in Mexico again. So im glad we dont have to wear suits like..ever. besides general conference. Because it was burning hot when we walked at like 930 to pick up some investigators. They just keep sayin its only gettin hotter. How hot does it get in Ecuador? Pero Jose, en realmente tengo que decirte, esta foto esta con ganas cuate, bien chidisima, pero claro q tu tomarias una foto asi, el orgullo todavia mora en tu corazon haha jk. y voy a leer tu surgencia, gracias mi hermano. But thats about it for this week, thanks for everything everbody, i love you all.

Elder Redfern

New Missionary Letters

Hey hey!I can't believe that I am already on my fifth week! Time really does fly by here. I am really trying to soak it all in because I know I will never get another experience like this again. We did our first "English fast" this week and oh man, it was hard!!! I was really excited in the morning and doing pretty well but by dinner I wanted to scream! I hate not being able to speak whats on my mind. I am sure some of you are thinking it is a good thing I had to go a day without being able to say everything on my mind :) I have seen my language improve immensely since that day though. Stepping out of your comfort zone is a good thing. We taught our last lesson in English this week. It went well and our task in Spanish was good too (we taught about why we should pray and how we should pray. I am really feeling good about what I have learned. I didn't think it was possible to me to retain so much information in such a short time. I def still am a lil slower then most the class, it takes me longer to process but I am hanging in there! I know this week is going to push me much harder because we are starting to teach in Spanish! The lessons will be much shorter for sure haha. Me and my comps continue to get along well. I really got lucky. Everyday seems to get better with them and our relationship is really growing. Sis. Sybrowsky's dad came into our class the other day and said "It's not everyday you get a GA answer any question you have, so shoot." Everyone was a little shocked and didn't know what to say. It was really cool hearing some stories for his EVERDAY encounter with Pres. Monson. Oh, and we got Bajio later that night thanks to her mom, and we get it tomorrow...it pays to have connections. Well family and friends I am doing well. I love this work and I am grateful to be apart of something truly amazing. We heard in a talk yesterday about a women who was a philosophy professor in Munich Germany who wrote like 5 dif books on religion before she knew about church. She said at her baptism, "I don't think you people know what you have." It is so true so many of us forget. WE HAVE THE TRUTH and we NEED to share it! I love you. Thank you for everything! Keep me updated with everything. Letters are nice bc we don't get a lot of email time.
love hermana redfern

Chris Letter-

So hows everyone been? we had a pretty good week, which concluded with a baptism on Saturday! IT was awesome, like i said last week, she had been attending(si ustedes hablan español, apenas puse ¨asisted¨ hahaha como asistir, que bobo) the church for over a year, maybe even longer im not sure. People were surprised to here she was getting baptized ¨can you do that twice?¨ haha because they never knew she wasn't baptized. SO it was really awesome to be apart of that, to help her on the road to eternal life. You gotta love being a missionary, the fruits are always visible. So that was the highlight. So its kinda cool because a lot of people don't think I'm American now, just think I'm from some random country, one person thought i was Brazilian, which i was like yea cool they don't think I'm American because i don't sound horrible, haha until i remembered that Brazilians speak Portuguese, ooohhh, humbled, but in my defense the languages are a little related haha help me out Brandon. But I´ve also heard Argentinean a few times, but my comp says they talk funny, sorry Bree ha. But yea still have a long way to go with spanish always will, but its pretty cool to wake up in the morning have your comp tell you something in a different language, and you think, hey, that made complete sense. Its fun to think about that sometimes, or even to think, a couple months ago I would've had no idea what you said. So the work moves forward. Were having trouble getting to get our investigators to come to church, the promise us on saturday nights, and say oh you don't need to come we´ll be there for sure. And than they don't. You feel kinda shafted. But we just gotta find more creative ways to get them there, its so important they come. Its getting hot, and that's not like, very fun. And all the elders who have time in the mish just laugh, and say this is nothing. Victoria actually the most like, not cold place. in the mish at least. But its not by a lot, its just its not humid here like pretty much everywhere else. Esp tampico and Poza Rica. So this summer will be an interesting one. Time goes by fast on a mission, or maybe life is always like this. Life before the mish is just starting to roll into a ball. Sometimes i look back on certain memories, and think, man that was fun stuff. I KNOW I'm gonna look back on this mission, on this area, on this comp, with a certain family or convert, and just wish i could go back. So we just try to work hard now, so not to miss a beat. I love you all, hope you have a great week!.

Elder Redfern