Email #78 (Gilbert, AZ) LAST ONE!

February 16, 2015

Familia!!!!

What the weird... I can't even believe this is real.

I guess before I get all sentimental I should probably tell all of you what you are wanting to hear about Tim:) We had a miracle, but not in the way we expected. All last week we were meeting with Tim and encouraging him to make a decision. We went over there on Thursday after we had invited him to pray to see what he decided. He said he had prayed and asked direct questions but he didn't feel like he had received an answer, but when we asked him what he felt, he said that after he prayed he felt peace and that everything was going to be okay. He felt like he needed to pray again but we tried our best to help him see that the peace and calm was an answer about baptism. We invited him again, and he sat there for about 5 minutes and just agonized over the decision. I had never seen Tim like this before. He was so conflicted. As we sat in silence the Spirit strongly prompted me that he needed a blessing. So I asked him if he would want one and he said yes. So Shane, his friend, gave him one of the most powerful blessings I've ever heard. Afterward, we all looked at him and he had a big grin on his face. He said "During the blessing, a date popped into my head... the 28th of February. It wasn't there before." We then invited him to prepare to be baptized on the 28th of February and with more confidence and faith than ever, he said "Yes!". It was seriously one of the HAPPIEST days of my life. He seems so happy and so ready, because he finally found his answer. I know it is right after I leave, but it just feels so right. TIM IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!:D 

So yep, that's the scoop on Tim!:) And Beatriz was at church and came to a baptism on Saturday. She's not quite ready for baptism yet, but she will be for sure soon. It will be a great experience for Sister Haycock and her new greenie to teach her and help her prepare for baptism.

So yeah, this week was a good one. A really good one. Sister Haycock and I spoke in Mission Bay! It went pretty well. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone yesterday at church. I love the Gilbert branch and the Mission Bay ward so much. I feel so blessed to have served around so many amazing people. That's how I've felt my whole mission. The people I have met and the experiences I've had in serving them have changed me. 

I guess this is it. I can't believe this year and a half is coming to an end. I love my mission. Every bit of it. I know that where I've been, and what I've been doing is exactly what my Heavenly Father wanted for me. I thought, before my mission, that I was coming to change the lives and baptize all the hispanic people I could find, I thought they needed me. But, the humbling reality I have found is that God called me to serve because I needed a mission. I needed this to change and to become closer to the person God wants me to be. I know I still have a long way to go, but I will forever be grateful for my mission because it pulled me out of where I was and got me going on the path that leads to true and everlasting happiness. God is our loving Heavenly Father. He is real, He is perfect. He loves me perfectly, knows me perfectly and has a perfect plan for me. I have no reason not to trust God. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ to show me the way, to make it possible for me to make it back home. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He is my Savior and Redeemer. Without Him, I would have no hope. I would be stuck the way I was a year and a half ago. But because of Him, because of His Atonement, His love and mercy I am changed and I will continue to change so I can be worthy to enter into my Father's Kingdom with my eternal family. The reason I know all of these things is because a 14 year-old boy had the courage to ask God a question. And because he did, he was able to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness back to the Earth today. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I know that he translated the Book of Mormon and that that book changes lives because it testifies of our Savior and His power to redeem all mankind. Priesthood power is real and it is on the earth today. I have seen it change the lives of others and change my life too many times to ever deny that it is real. We have a living day prophet, Thomas S. Monson who leads us and guides us to know what we need to do to get back to our Heavenly home. These are all things that I was taught before, but all it really was was information in my head. This mission has put these things into my heart. I know these things are true with all of my heart because I asked God and He answered me. This knowledge brings me so much hope, peace and joy. I feel so blessed to have dedicated a year and a half of my life to the cause of helping others know of that same joy through the Restored Gospel. I am so grateful for the people I've met and come to love, and the experiences that brought me joy and refined me into who I am now. My mission means everything to me and I know that it will bless my life for the rest of eternity! And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

Okay, just you wait until I get back, you'll get an earful about how my mission was the BEST. I can't wait to tell you about it in person and give all of you ABRAZOS GRANDISIMOS!!!:) Thank you for all your support, love and prayers. One of the greatest strengths I have had on my mission is my amazing family. You guys are the best and it will be one of the greatest days to see you all tomorrow!

Les quiero muchísimo y nos vemos mañana:)

Con todo mi corazón,

Hermana Lattin 

Happy Valentines Day from Los Hermanas

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Email #77 (Gilbert, AZ)

February 9, 2015

Hola, mi querida familia!!!
No, this is not my last email. I'll be able to get on next week because my companion will still have to email, so I might as well send one last one next Monday :)

Goodness, I don't even know what to say right now. My heart is full of too many emotions that I'm trying to push away because if I let them out in the middle of the library, they probably wouldn't let missionaries email here anymore... so for the sake of future P-Days for future missionaries AGM, I will keep them in. But they are bound to come out sometime, and I feel sorry for Hermana Haycock when they do!

Speaking of Sister Haycock, she's been doing great. I'm so proud of her and how much she has grown and become. It's so funny because something I have realized as her trainer is that a majority of the things she has learned in the past 11 weeks have not come from the moments I have taught her one on one, but rather from the application of the things that we learn as missionaries. Most of her progress has come from her own personal efforts, not from me teaching her or training her. Even though we've had moments of struggle and occasional sass, we've grown close in both of our individual and collective efforts to invite others to come unto Christ. It's just the best. I'm going to miss her a lot come next week, but I know she is going to be just fine, because God will help her and lift her as she puts her full trust in Him. Out of all the things I've tried to help her understand, the things I hope that stick the most are 1) that God is perfect and He has a perfect plan, so we have no reason not to put our full and complete trust in Him and 2) Our Savior is ALWAYS there for us, as long as we seek Him and His help.She'll do great, I know it!

This week was great, a much better week than two weeks ago. We taught a lot and were able to continue to help both Tim and Beatriz to progress. We are praying that Tim got his answer this past weekend about the Church being true and that he chooses to get baptized this coming Saturday. It will be the best day of my life if he does! But even if he doesn't, I feel strongly that one day he will join the church when he is ready. A ver lo que pasa con el esta semana. 

I also just wanted to tell y'all that the week before was rough because God wanted me to learn a difficult lesson and get rid of my pride, but that lesson has refined me to be a little bit better than I was before, so I needed it. Thank you for your letters and emails of support, fam:) they helped me a lot. I am so blessed to have the best family in the world. I think one of my favorite things was Max's sticky note that said "You are beautiful in your mission clothes". That just melted my heart:)

And don't you worry, I will definitely be "Enjoying to the End"! I can't believe there is only a week left of my mission. In all honesty, it isn't real yet. I don't think it will be until next Tuesday when I'm on that plane and I am flying home to you. I have so little time and still so much I feel like Heavenly Father wants me to do! This week is going to be hard, but great. I want to ensure that I come home ready to keep on changing, progressing and sharing the Gospel by giving it my all this week!

A strong, comforting thought from the Holy Ghost came to me yesterday: "It is NEVER over". Yes, my mission may be ending and yes, I will not be able to wear my tag forever. But this past year and a half has changed me because I have come to know my Savior Jesus Christ much better than before. I am a different person because now I know my Savior. And just because I'll be released and have to take my tag off, does not mean my life as a faithful disciple of Christ is over. In fact, it has only just begun:) Just like Elder Holland says in his talk The First Great Commandment, "After an encounter with the living Son of the living God, nothing is ever again to be as it was before." Nothing will ever be the same, in the best way possible. I know it is going to be really hard coming home, but I also am confident in God's plan for me. Everything is going to be alright.

And, don't worry Mom, we can definitely talk about the fact that I am coming home, because I cannot lie about being SUPER excited about seeing the best familia in the entire world!!! I can't wait to see you all and give you all a big hug:) My one rule for next Tuesday is that Mom gets the first hug, okay? haha

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SOOOOOO MUCH!!!

Nos vemos bien pronto!

Hermana Lattin

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Email #76 (Gilbert, AZ)

February 2, 2015

Hola Hola Familia!!!:)

Sounds like everyone had a pretty good week! Ours was good. A few rocky days, but overall it was good. And yesterday was an AWESOME day. Fasting brings so many miracles. Beatriz, Tim AND Chris all came to chruch!!! It was so great!

Beatriz is progressing really well. She loves church and she really loves having us over to teach her. She told us this past week that she doesn't feel ready or worthy to be baptized yet, but that's okay because she definitely has a sincere desire and real intent. I have no doubt in my mind that once she receives an answer from God, she will do everything she can to follow what He directs her to do. She is amazing and I love her so much!

And Tim is great. I am so proud of him. Yesterday he came to church and stayed all three hours. He was chatting and sticking with his friends, and at Break the Fast he didn't even sit with us! He is progressing so much now that he is coming to church and it is awesome. We are planning to invite him to be baptized again this week!:) Pray that he'll accept a date!

And Chris Mendez came as well! It was so awesome because he promised us he would and he came!!!! It was so cool. And all the testimonies were exactly what he needed. The problem was that I think the Spirit was too much for him to handle, because in the middle of testimony meeting he said he had to get a drink of water, so he left and never came back. He texted us later and said that he was sorry, but he just didn't feel worthy to be at church:( it was so sad. But he did make the step of actually coming. He'll get there someday, I know it!

Also, because it was fast and testimony meeting, I was able to bear my testimony for the last time in both the Branch and YSA. I bore one in Spanish and one in English. Ironically enough, I think the one in Spanish was easier for me! Haha.

It was a weird feeling. Honestly, it's still not really real to me that I'm going home. I think one thing that scares me the most is that there isn't enough time to still change and get rid of the faults and weaknesses that I still have. The days that were rocky this week were rocky because of the realization of my many weaknesses, and I was extremely frustrated with myself that I still have so many. I was trying really hard to get over it and just be happy, but it seemed like every day presented a new weakness of something I still needed to change. But that's where the Atonement and my Savior's love for me became very apparent again to me in my life. I know I'm not perfect, but I also know that if I have changed as much as I have over the past year and a half, there is still hope for continued change for the better, whether I am on my mission or not. Ether 12:27 tells us that God shows us our weaknesses so that we can be humble, and this week was very humbling. It also says that God can make those weaknesses strong, but only under the condition that we humble ourselves and have faith in Jesus Christ. I do have faith and I know that my Savior makes it possible for me to change and become better every day. How grateful I am for the knowledge of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and His love for us. Yesterday I was able to testify to both congregations that I know that my Savior lives. And each time I did, His love filled me up and I knew that what I was saying was absolutely and completely true:)

Anyways, this week was hard, but good. I was refined and changed for the better!

I hope you all have an AMAZING week!!! I love you all SO MUCH.

Hermana Lattin

Oh, y nos vemos bien pronto:)

Answers to your questions Mamita:

1. Yes, Michelle emailed me and Cec. She seemed good! Is she happy?

2. I have not gotten your letters yet! I'll probably get them today.

3. I guess I forgot to tell you about being a sister training leader. 

We are part of the mission leadership council so we have a few more meetings and then we help and go on exchanges with other sisters. I was specifically assigned over the Spanish sisters.

4. Yep! We write the mission president every Monday. He is the best.

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Email #75 (Gilbert, AZ)

January 26, 2015

Familia!!!

Hi there:) HOLD UP. Can we just talk about the fact that Michelle get's home TOMORROW. How is this even possible??? Time has gone by way too fast. I can't believe she is getting back. So weird. When you see her, give her a big hug for me!:) Crazy.

Anyways. Sorry for the little rant. But this week was a good one! We didn't have anything overly exciting happen, but it was solid nonetheless. We went to the temple (the BEST!), had an exchange with the hermanas in Queen Creek, had Family Home Afternoon with the zone and taught people the gospel! What's better than that?? Nothing.

We taught Tim and Beatriz! We taught Beatriz the Restauracion, and it went really well! It was almost as though everything already made sense to her, like she had already heard it before:)  It was funny because when we invited her to be baptized she told us she wanted to read more of the Book of Mormon first and then asked us what will be required of her when she's baptized. We kept trying to tell her that she would just be required (by God) to keep all of the commandments, and that we would be able to teach her all of that in time, but she kept on asking it. Finally, I told her that she wouldn't be asked to do anything she didn't want to do, because baptism was completely her choice. Nobody would force her to be baptized, to go to church, to follow the Word of Wisdom or any other thing that she didn't want to do. But I promised her that as she learned more and as she read and prayed and put in her own efforts to finding the truth, she would develop a desire to do these things on her own, by her own will and choice. She kind of stopped and nodded her head and said "Oh, okay."

It was funny to me that she thought we were going to force her to do things that she didn't want to do, and she was resisting something before she even knew what it was. But once she realized that it was her choice, and she understood that the desire would come by her own efforts in receiving an answer, she calmed down. And I'm realizing now that so often that's exactly what we do to God. We resist His will because we are so scared of the things that will be required of us, before we fully comprehend that we have our agency and the blessings that will come if we do choose His will. So we freak out a little and panic, automatically fighting and thinking "I can't do that! Don't make me do that!". But that is the beautiful thing about Heavenly Father and His perfect wisdom in giving us the gift of agency, because once we do choose, then we can more fully appreciate the blessings that come from our obedience and His mercy. And once we recognize that God loves us perfectly, that He has a perfect plan for us and that the choice is really between Him and Satan, between everlasting life and everlasting death, the choice becomes that much easier.

Anyways, Beatriz is doing well:) she is a firecracker! She is really smart and has a ton of faith. She will get there for sure as she reads the Book of Mormon, and I know she will WANT to get baptized and she will exercise her agency to do so because she'll know it's what God wants her to do, and she will enjoy so many blessings because of it!

Sorry, I went off again on another tangent haha, I always do that! But yes, Beatriz is good and progressing. Tim is doing so good as well! His job has made a huge difference with his progress spiritually. It is awesome! We're going to give him a baptismal date this week! We'll let you know how it goes:)

Yesterday was interesting because it was one of those days where just about everything fell through... haha…we had 4 investigators who were supposed to come to church and didn't show and two lessons that both fell through. But that is okay! Next week will be better. Just pray specifically that Tim, Chris and Beatriz will come to church!

Oh and we found a new investigator whose name is Patsy! She is really nice and her son just got baptized in our zone leaders' YSA ward! We're excited for that:)

LES QUIERO MUCHO!!!! Have an amazing week:)

Moroni 8:3

Hermana Lattin

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Email #74 (Gilbert, AZ)

January 19, 2015
Hola mi familia!!!

Hey, so this email might be relatively short, because I have to send a whole bunch of pictures to someone for our departing slide show...:( haha but I have a lot to tell you so sorry if it's a little jumbled!

First of all, CHRIS! Chris is our new investigator who is amazing. He speaks both spanish and english perfectly. He was a hand off from the sisters in a family ward, and he actually ended up being a former we have in our area book! He has been taught before and they oymed him on the way to an appt and he said he had been taught before and he was supposed to be baptized. We had two lessons with him this past week. We taught him the Restoration and we had a church tour with him. We also put him on date to be baptized for the 7th of February. He is so awesome and really open and willing to change. His issue is that he is struggling to forgive himself for the things he has done in the past, and he feels like he isn't worthy of forgiveness from God. From that, he also said that he feels like every time he tries to get close to God, everything in his life goes wrong and he just feels angry and frustrated. I honestly think that comes from his inability to forgive himself and his feelings of unworthiness because he wants God, he wants light and truth in his life but he doesn't feel like he deserves it because of his past. Which isn't true at all. We are going to focus on repentance and the Atonement with him a lot. That being said, he didn't come to church yesterday and he hasn't contacted us today at all, despite our texts and calls. A ver...

Also! TIM CAME TO CHURCH!!! WHOOOOOOOO!!! He started his new job and he came to all three hours and he loved it! He is also going to FHE tonight so hopefully we see a lot of progress from his efforts to be involved:) He is awesome.

ALSO. We had a miracle in the branch this past week. The elders were knocking doors on their way over to dinner (which was in our area) and they came across one of the sweetest ladies ever. Her name is Beatriz and she loved what the elders taught her so she came to church yesterday and LOVED it. We are going to go by this week and start teaching her! MILAGROS.

The last thing I want to tell you about is the revelation I received this morning. In the past few weeks I've been doing a lot of reflecting (obviously). I've been striving to avoid trunkiness and thoughts of going home, but sometimes they still come. Something that has been difficult for me the past few weeks is having the fear of losing all I've become when I get home. I just have these little freak outs that not being a missionary anymore, not having the mantle, not having the schedule or a companion, or worrying about the salvation of my investigators is going to lead me to losing all that I've gained on my mission. I've become a very different person in the last year and a half. A much happier, more obedient, more spiritually and emotionally sound person who has a real and strong relationship with her Savior and with her Heavenly Father. I am far from perfect still, but I am really scared that I'll lose all that I've become. I want to continue to progress instead of reverting to the same person I was before. Does that make sense?

So anyways, I've had this fear in the back of my mind for the past little bit and this morning we were reading some of "The Fourth Missionary" in comp study and we read a part that hit my heart hard. It says 

"If you want light, intelligence, strength, capacity, peace, contentment, grace, knowledge, power, happiness, mercy, joy and every other good thing, then you may have those too. It is up to you. Whatever you want. You cannot be spiritually changed against your will. It is contrary to agency. It is also contrary to the nature of things. It just can't happen". Hearing that took a great burden off of my shoulders. I can CHOOSE to progress. I can CHOOSE to continue to apply the things I've learned on my mission to continue to become the person God wants me to be. Becoming who I was before cannot happen against my will. So empowering. 

Anyways, that was a big eye-opener for me.

HAVE AN AMAZING WEEK, FAMILIA!!! I love you so so so much!

Hermana Lattin

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Email #73 (Gilbert, AZ)

January 12, 2015

Buenos Dias!!!

Hola mi querida familia, como estan toditos?

Well all is well in Gilbert, AZ. It's quite cloudy right now but we've got a little bit of rain the past few days so that's good. This past week was transfers and we had an AWESOME transfer meeting. Man, I just love President and Sister Nattress. They are the best. They are always so good at inspiring us missionaries and giving us the animo to be better, more effective and sanctified missionaries, while at the same time expressing so much love for all of us:)

Anyways, this week was a good one. We found some new investigators! We had an amazing experience with following the promptings of the Spirit. We were on our way to visit the Arlandiz (a cute couple of viejitos that got baptized last year) and we drove past two older women working outside. I immediately knew we had to go talk to them, and then Sister Haycock said "We should go talk to them." So we parked the car in front of the Arlandiz' house (which is right around the corner) grabbed some copies of the Book of Mormon and walked over to them. We started talking to the younger of the two, who in broken English told us that her name was Carmen. We asked her where she was from and she said "Sinaloa, Mexico"! Naturally, we started speaking to her in Spanish. She is very religious and has a firm testimony of Jesus Christ so we had a great gospel discussion and invited her to read the Book of Mormon. As we were about to leave, the other older lady we had seen with Carmen earlier came out from the house. So, we went to introduce ourselves to her and (thinking she was American) started talking to her in English. But she didn't speak very much English either and we found out she is from Guadalajara! I could not suppress the grin on my face as we started to speak to her in Spanish:) Her name is Victoria and she is 87, and she is suffering from the beginning stages of dementia, and she recently lost her husband. She invited us inside so she could show us her house... haha it was so cute! We sat down at their kitchen table and chatted for a while and I told Carmen I had been to Mazatlan before and we chatted about that and other things for a bit, and then we gave Victoria a Book of Mormon as well and shared a scripture and invited both of them to read it!:) They were SO sweet and willing to listen to us. And then later in that week we went by again, this time with the Arlandiz, who live super close. We went by and they weren't home, but their daughter and her husband were there cleaning the carpets. We talked to the daughter for a little bit and she opened up about the difficulty of losing her dad. She new he was older and he had lived a good life, but it was still very hard for her to say goodbye to him. We were able to testify of eternal families and invite her to watch "He is the Gift". She kept on thanking us for coming by and seemed really surprised that we had showed up again because Victoria had told her all about us after we had stopped by the first time:) It was a very cool experience, and I know we were led to go to the Arlandiz that day so we could meet that family. I don't know what will happen with them, but I know that because the Spirit guided us to talk to them, and we followed it, a seed has been planted:) I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY.

We were also able to find a new friend from the UK! He is at the flight school and was very interested in reading the Book of Mormon and very willing to hear our message. He was actually a street contact. We talked to him and gave him a pass along card and he gave us his number and address, then last week we went to see him and we gave him a Book of Mormon:) He is a cool guy and says "Cheers" in a british accent whenever we say bye to him. It's the best! haha

So, yep! Our week was a good one:)

Here are the answers to your preguntas, Mamita:)

1. see above for new investigators!

2. Ricardo is doing well, we still haven't seen him but we've been in contact with him via text for the past little bit. He went to a fireside in the Mesa mission a few weeks ago and got in contact with the missionaries there! He is also reading the Book of Mormon and he loves it! He wants to be taught with the Jensens still so we will continue to teach him over there as soon as things calm down with his wife:) He is awesome!

3. Tim is awesome!!! We gave him a little break this past week but we saw him on Saturday and a miracle happened! He got a new job offer! And it's one that pays better, he'll be doing something he loves AND the schedule is way more flexible so he'll be able to come to church on Sundays!!:D GO TIM! So when that job starts, I'm sure he'll be progressing a lot faster than he is now. Max’s prayers have been answered (thanks Max for not giving up on TimJ).

4. I didn’t realize I never explained the T-shirts we had on New Years Day! The Giraffe is our Mascot because we are the Gilbert Zone:) haha it started out with our Zone Leader, Elder Hoffman saying that we were the giraffes and it has escalated to a giraffe with a snapback on a t-shirt:) GO GILBERT GIRAFFES!!! Haha #

LES QUIERO MUCHOOOOO!!! Have an awesome week!

Moroni 8:3

Hermana Lattin

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Email #72 (Gilbert, AZ)

January 5, 2014

Holy cow, familia, FELIZ ANO NUEVO!!!:)

I can't believe it is 2015. That is so weird to me. 2014 literally se fue corriendo. And I cannot believe it's my last transfer. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE??? I just got here! It's hard to describe the feelings I'll have in a given day- they're all over the place because one minute I won't be thinking about it and I'll just be normal and having a party being a missionary, then the next minute I'll remember that it's my last transfer, and then I'll start to have an inward freakout and the hyperventilation starts and I get really scared, and then I think of seeing you all and I smile and am really excited, and then I think of saying goodbye to all these people and this place and not being a missionary anymore and I get teary and hold tight onto my tag and then I say to myself, "NO. I still have six weeks, it's all good." This happens every day... multiple times. It doesn't help that every person we talk to asks how long we've been out and I just say "a long time" and they say "cuando regresa a casa?" and I choke out "Me voy en febrero." And then with out fail they say something like "OH WOW, you're pretty much done!" And then yesterday in the Gilbert Spanish Speaking Branch our Sunday School class was about eternal marriage and then in Young Single Adult Ward, the lesson was about dating... that's when I got really scared. Haha but all is well:)

Anyways, yes, I am staying here in Gilbert for my last transfer! I'm happy about that. It will be a good time:) Thank you for fasting for us and for our investigators! I know that our faith combined will make miracles happen in this area this transfer. We've still been struggling to find new solid investigators, but this past week we really focused on our less actives and recent converts, which was pretty cool because we had a lot of success with that! We are also working to build member trust by getting to know them better. It's definitely a blessing that Mission Bay just got changed to 1:00, so we get to go to both the branch and YSA, and we don't have to choose between the two! That's the first time that won't be a major stressor since this past June:) That will definitely help us to see member trust increase because they'll see us more. What about for you all? As members of the Orchard ward, what builds or tears down the trust that you have in the missionaries?

So yep! Our week was good and we visited a lot of less actives and recent converts. We hope to do some major finding this week, both through our members and qualifying for miracles by our own finding efforts:) New Year's Eve was fun, we got to have a little zone activity and then we went home at 8 and got to go to bed early! That was the best.

Sounds like Eliana's birthday/New Years Eve was fun for you all! Hahaha

I can't believe Elle is 1... she is SO cute!!! Thanks for the pics and videos!

Answers to questions:

1. YES!!!! OH MY GOODNESS THEY ARE SO CUTE. Shelby sent me an email telling me all about it. She is the best. I can't believe she is getting married!!!! The first of the 3 Musketeers to go... #loco

2. HOLY CAT, Olivia is a sunbeam? She is so old! Tell her to stop growing up until I get home:) Does she like Sunbeams?

3. Our investigators are good! Tim is hopefully going to get a new job pretty soon so he can come to church every Sunday!!! Go Tim!:) Rafael is still scared of us... haha but we'll see if any progress is made within this next week. I think Rafael's sister goes back to Recife next week but I don't remember.

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!

Have an amazing first week back at school:)

Moroni 8:3

Hermana Lattin

Arizona Christmas

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Email #71 (Gilbert, AZ)

December 29, 2014

Hi querida familia!!!!

Oh man, it was the best thing in the world to see all your beautiful faces via Skype last week. Thank you all for just being the BEST. It was the spiritual recharge I needed to gear up for the next month and a half to finish strong!!:) I've been reading the conference talks you gave to me for Christmas and I LOVE them. I've read one per personal study that I've had for the past few days and it's amazing the personal revelation I've been receiving from each one of them. I needed all of their messages and they have helped me see the changes and improvements I need to make so I can become who God wants me to be. I know each of you were inspired to choose the talks that you did, because all of them have helped me A TON!

So after we skyped, which definitely was the highlight of the entire week/month, we had a good rest of our Christmas and visited with the Bowler family from the Mission Bay ward, ate some tamales with the Gaytan family (claro) then we got to watch the Lion King (one of the greatest movies EVER) and then we got to go work at the Mesa Temple Lights for the last time!!! It was such a great Christmas. Both of my Christmases on the mission have been ones that I'll never forget!:)

The rest of the week went well. Teaching lately has been a little rough, because we have yet to find some solid new investigators since Vanessa and Valeria were baptized. Ricardo, the new investigator who is super golden, texted us the day of his lesson and told us that his wife was really angry about him reading the Book of Mormon and meeting with us, and so he was going to have to wait until she calmed down about it until he continued to be taught. He said he would keep reading though, so we're just going to pray that his wife's heart softens and that she allows him to learn. That was sad for us, but I know that God has a plan and that everything will work out. As for finding new investigators, I know that there are people out there that are just waiting to listen to and accept the message of the restored Gospel they just "know not where to find it" (D&C 123:12). So, we've got to find them and bring it to them. Pray for us this week that we can find those that are searching for the truth!:)

One cool experience that happened on Saturday night was when we passed by Rafael (the Brazilian YSA [young single adult] investigator) and he was HOME! He is still scared of us because he's gotten a lot of information from anti friends and the internet, but he asked some questions and we were able to dispel some myths which was good. BUT the coolest part was that his sister was visiting from Recife and she doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so there was a slight language barrier... Her mom was there and when Rafael left to go to the grocery store, their mom (who speaks a little English) came and sat down and started talking to us too. I told them that I had a Brazilian companion who taught me a little bit of Portuguese and that I could speak Spanish so I could understand a little bit of it as well and they said they could understand Spanish pretty well. So with that we had an amazing conversation about the Church and they asked a lot of questions, and the entire conversation was a mixture of English, Portuguese and Spanish. And I was so proud of myself because I understood everything they were saying in Portuguese! And I even spoke a tiny bit of Portuguese to them:) My compi would've been so proud! It was awesome. That was definitely an experience that reminded me that gift of tongues is real:) Portuguese is definitely the next language I am going to learn. And that experience also made me remember how much I love Brazilians!:) #vaibrasil

Anyways, life is good and we are just going to work todo lo major que podamos para encontrar nuevos investigadores! I am happy and having a blast with Hermana Haycock. Training is refining, and Hermana Haycock has definitely helped me become a better missionary and person, so I am so grateful for her.

Answers to questions:

1. answers are in email above:)

2. Christmas dinner--Tamales, of course:)

3. Christmas was our last night for the Mesa Temple light tours!

 It was so fun:) Definitely a huge blessing and privilege to be part of that this year. We met so many amazing people!

4. See above about our new investigator, Ricardo

5. Pray for Tim, Rafael and for us to find new investigators in both the YSA ward and the Branch!

6. Vanessa and Valeria both LOVED your baptism gifts! Vanessa cried while reading your notes and she looooved the journal and necklace. Valeria was so cute too because she was so excited about the scripture study journal. They both say "THANK YOU!!!" They are super excited to meet you all.

7. Hermana Haycock did well on Christmas. She had a few moments of bad homesickness, but I've been really proud of her, because she has been doing so good within the past week of really striving to lose herself in the work and be positive and happy. She is awesome!

9. We don't know the plans yet for New Years Eve!

Alrighty, there you go! I love you all so so so so soooooo much! You are the BEST familia a missionary could ever ask for. Have an amazing week! Feliz Ano Nuevo!!!!

Y FELIZ CUMPLEANOS, on Dec 31^st ELIANA!!!!:)

I'm making her a card today, hopefully she'll get it in time!

Les quiero muchisimo!!!

Hermana Lattin

Gilbert, AZ missionaries
Can you find me?! Front row left side

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