Pictures From Past Weeks...

These photos wouldn't download for the past couple of weeks. These are pictures Hermana Belliston sent on March 4 and March 11....

Mom's bread and jam!! Not to mention the salsa *tear* 

My word Heather, homemade food is the best!

Just Hna Dibble and I. Besties. For life. 

So we went to this cool Korean BBQ place where you cook your own food!! 

It was legit. And super tasty. And that's Josh, our 2nd counselor in the bishopric 

and the guardian of all missionaries ever.

We went to Monroe and saw the greenest grass you've ever

 seen in your life. Wow! It was amazing. 

Then my companion. Just being my companion. Rough day.

And Hna Dibble. I don't really remember why we had milk in our car, 

nor why she was drinking it. And now I wonder why she's sick... 

And a beautiful North Carolina sunset

We were practicing for a live video, and we didn't realize it kept taking pictures.

Niurka - she's a returning member from the Dominican. 

She's awesome and makes really good food.

Sisters, You are Historic!

Hola y'all,

We went to transfers this week, and the Assistants came up to us and said, "Well Sisters, you are historic.  You are the only Spanish Sister Training Leaders to be whitewashed in this mission." Well, what that means is that neither of us has been Sister Training Leaders before (usually there's always someone who is a Sister Training Leader who trains the new Sister Training Leader, but both of us have never done it before) and Spanish misioneras are not usually called as Sister Training Leaders.  Hence, why the Elders told us we're making history.

Enjoying the sun - 64 degrees yesterday!

Anyway, this week was pretty good! Not a ton happened, but we've been meeting with Tanya.  She was so funny this week! We took her Chick-Fil-A this week and she just about died.... oh man.  She'd never had it before.  She just kept saying "wow" over and over again.  It was so cute and funny! She's the funniest person.  She's doing so well and she loves learning about the Gospel.  We pray with her every night and she reads the scriptures every day.  It's awesome. 

TANYA!!!! We love her. She's so sweet.

We had a pretty awesome lesson with Francisco this week, too.  He just got home from a 13 hour day and he invited us right in, and we talked about the plan of Salvation.  He is so great.  We invited him to pray and ask Heavenly Father if the resurrection is a reality (he doesn't believe in it yet)  and he leaned back with a huge smile and said "me gusta eso mucho.  Muchisimo." I like that a lot, a LOT. It was so great.  Man, Hispanics are the best.

On Saturday we were able to play soccer with our ward.  Wow.  We got schooled.  Actually, not really because we had an even amount of Hispanics on either team, but it was a close close game.  Wow, it was awesome.  It was so fun!

So, this really awesome thing happened where we played soccer with our whole ward

 and Tanya came.  Update: Hna Dibble is terrifying when she plays any sport (she played 

lacrosse in college) and we were on opposite teams this time.  Ooohhhh boy, she's so intense.  

The whole ward agreed.  It was so fun. The assistants came with some people they're teaching 

and we played a pretty intense game.  Oh man would recommend to a friend.  Or just anyone.  

It's the best. And we have a bunch of professional retired futbol players. 

Well, y'all.  Missionary work is the best.  I love it.  We get to go on exchanges with a couple of our sisters this week, so it'll be awesome.  Sorry for this super long email.  I just like to rant ;)

...and loving it
Hermana Belliston

My Word, Heather!

Hola y'all,

THIS WEEK WAS NUTS! Where do I even start?!

Actually, at the end, it looked like nothing happened cuz Hna Dibble was dying with a cold.  And probably bronchitis.  So needless to say, I got to study a lot ;) But she's doing better yet, and I bleached the whole house (clothes, dishes, you name it, I bleached it) so I haven't gotten sick yet :) Woot.

Anyway, miracle person of the week.  Tanya came to church last week and was super cute.  She is a refugee and came with her case worker, a member who lives in Waxhaw (pretty far south of here). She is 18 years old, and just came from Guatemala a week ago.  She is SO great.  You would love her.  We went and visited her on Tuesday....and Thursday.....and Friday.....and Sunday.   Our first lesson, she brought up baptism, and told us she wants to be baptized, but maybe after she learns a little more.  AH. Then we were able to show her the Plan of Salvation and she was dumbfounded.  She'd never heard about basically any of it before.  She told us that she knows God has a plan for her, so this just helped her see how special it is.  She didn't know what the Atonement was, and we had a very sweet experience explaining what it could mean to her.  She is an orphan and has had an extremely hard life, but now she knows there's Someone who knows exactly how she feels and what she's been through.  She loves having us over, and she's been reading the Book of Mormon.  She is incredible and I really hope y'all get to meet her someday. We are probably going to put her on baptismal date this week.

Other than that, nothing crazy happened this week.  Random thing though, we got a call from elders in Baltimore, Maryland.  Hna Dibble and I both have companions or people from the MTC districts serving there.  The elders there called us about a referral they sent us, then we asked them if they knew Elder Featherstone, who was in Hna Dibbles district at the MTC.  They laughed and said of course! One of the elders just got finished being his companion! Then I asked if they knew Elder Randall, and they said he was serving in the same branch as them! Then I asked them about Hna Hunter, one of my MTC companions.  They died laughing.  All they could say was "She's crazy!" and I just thought, yep.  That's for sure.  But she's also the best and I miss her like crazy! So anyway, that was a fun experience.

OK, drumroll please!!! We got transfer news yesterday! First, background story.  So, we had dinner with Niurka and her husband yesterday night.  We knew we were going to be getting calls about transfers that night, but we weren't sure what time, so we weren't too worried about it.  Well, we got ready to go, getting shoes on, etc, and I look at the phone, and we've got 2 missed calls from President Adler! Oh goodness y'all, I don't think you understand what it feels like to have two missed calls from your German Mission President.  Oh boy.  Anyway, we flew out of that appointment and called him right back.  His wife answered and she was dying laughing and they were obviously in a car.  President was laughing as well and asked if they could call us back in a few minutes; they were parking the car.  After that, they called us 4 more times before they actually called us for real.  It was so stressful.  Ask Hna Dibble - I was shaking so bad.  Stress.  When they finally called us for real, President just sounded so happy! He said "My dear sisters (please say this in your head with a German accent), we have a crazy idea! but we feel very guided by the spirit to call you as the new Sister Training Leaders for this area." Woah.  Hna Dibble and I were not expecting that, but we accepted.  Mostly we were just so excited to be together for another transfer, but now we get to be Sister Training Leaders! Basically it just means more meetings, but we also get to go on exchanges with all the other sisters in the zone, so it will be so great.  Didn't see it coming, but I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve, and with a phenomenal companion with me.  I'm really excited.  If you have any ideas of what I can do to help the sisters here, let me know.

Anyway, that was this week.  Sorry for a super long email.  I absolutely love being a missionary and am having the time of my life.  Life is so good.

...and loving it
Hermana Belliston

Short Week

Hola y'all,

This week FLEW by.  It's crazy that it's already March! wow.  Time is a crazy thing.

The highlight of the week was definitely Zone Conference.  President Adler had some pretty strong things to say and he basically roasted us.  My eyebrows felt pretty singed by his German wrath.  It was so good.  He just kept pleading with us to stay focused and to not have any contention between anyone in the mission.  He talked a lot about commitments, and how the Lord always does what He says He'll do.  I have seen that so vividly on my mission.  The Lord always comes through on His end if we just do what He asks us to do.  It really is that simple folks.  President promised us that if we would teach repentance and forgiveness to someone that night, we would receive answers to all the questions we had that morning.

So after zone conference,  Hna Dibble and I knew we had to teach Santos, so we went over to his house and quite honestly, had the most horrible lesson I've ever had in my life.  It was basura.  Santos and his wife just kept going off in random directions and not answering and not being cooperative to the lesson.  Hna Dibble and I didn't know what to do, so we ended the lesson, pretty bummed out.  Then we chatted with them for a little while, and suddenly Santos just started opening up.  EVERYTHING.  He told us his doubts and worries and everything that is holding him back from being baptized.  It was so great.  So even though it didn't go as planned (Hna Dibble and I imagined him leaping to his feet, declaring he wished to be baptized yesterday, but that didn't happen), all the blessings President promised us through Heavenly Father were realized.  It was an awesome experience and a great learning experience.

We also had the valentines day activity in our ward (yes, we do everything late here), and it was so fun.  We just ate a bunch of delicious food and danced all night.  Good times! I have missed dancing so much, but I got to do it and learn some Mexican line dances which were awesome! Hurrah for Israel!!

We went and played top golf last Monday and it was a blast.  Would recommend to anyone who hasn't played before.

Anyway, gotta go.  Everything is great.  I love you. God is good, y'all ;)

....and loving it
Hermana Belliston

Wet Week

Hola Y'all,

This week was long and very, very wet. And super cold. But it was awesome! Most of the pictures will explain.  We're on our way to play Top Golf with some members! It's going to be a lot of fun :)

Mostly we just saw a lot of miracles. So that's awesome. Mauricio brought out a pad and pencil and literally took notes while we told him about the Book of Mormon. We have a lot of fun getting roasted by 5 year old Hispanic Chicas,  but we laugh a lot and work hard :)

At dinner with the Dominicana. They made us American tacos....

It's been a long time since I've had those!

Weekly planning - popcorn, hot chocolate, and el agua. Nailed it.

So, my companion is Italian y'all. It's the best. 

Apple swans

Not a lot of notable things happened this week. Just knocking and changing car tires. Yes, Hna Belliston popped and changed her second tire. We did it all by ourselves so we're pretty proud of that ;)  It was just a good week.

This is when Hna Belliston ran over a screw and when we put the tire on. 

By ourselves. Save the applause.

Well, sorry for this short and kind of lame email.... Hopefully I'll have something juicy next week ;) Love y'all lots!

  .....and loving it
Hermana Belliston

Changes

Hola y'all,

Wow let's talk about changes!! I just talked to mom and dad for a little while this morning..... just chatting ;) it was super fun! At first when we heard the news, I wasn't excited. Kind of takes the fun out of it! But now I can see that it can be such a blessing to missionaries. I told mom and dad a bunch of the miracles that happened this week, so if you have any questions, just ask them ;) Haha jk, I'll tell y'all, no se preocupen.

We went to south Carolina and decided to take pictures.

I hit nine months this week! Time is flying and it's really crazy.  I hope it starts to calm down soon. It's going way too fast for me. But things are going really well. We get a lot of things done and we have had some of the best lessons I've experienced.

I saw Hna Coleman at Spanish Conference. 

She goes home soon so we had one more picture!

We had a great lesson with Santos this week and he is doing well. The spirit was so strong. As Hna Dibble says "we fuegoed him." Yep, we just told him how it is and he responded really well.  Lets just say that his 15 year old son, Javi, is going to baptize him.

 With our goal to be instruments in the hands of Heavenly Father, we both really felt like the Spirit was able to work through us to help him. One of the things I've been asking myself at night (as kind of an accountability exercise is "what has Heavenly Father been able to do through me?" I think it's a great question, and it's really fun when you know He would be proud of you :) I would recommend doing that ;)

A huge miracle happened with a referral named Francisco. We stopped by his house and he rescheduled with us for this past Saturday. Never in my life have I met someone who will keep a return appointment, so we were like great, whoopie. But we always have to try at least! Well, we tried and boy am I glad we did. He was there, and we got to know him. He told us that he's been searching for churches, but never feels right and always hears a voice saying that it's not quite right. So he has stopped going to church and has stuck to reading the Bible (does he sound a little like Joseph Smith?).  He was very sorry he couldn't come to church yesterday because he was working,  but he literally told us "me voy a arrepentirme" I am going to repent. Wow. So he promised to come next week, and the weeks that follow as well! He's very excited to come and learn more about what we believe.  As we were leaving, he started telling us that he was about to leave before we came over because we were a little late (um, excuse me sir, Hispanics are never on time) but he kept hearing that little voice telling him that he needed to stay and wait a little longer.  Wow.  He is so in tune with the spirit.  More on him next week.  We are seeing him on Tuesday :)

Ok, funny story.  We were going to go see Norma, a potential in our area.  She is an old Dominican lady who is super nice (and a little crazy).  We stopped by, but there were a whole bunch of cars, so we knew something was happening.  We knocked, and someone I didn't know told us they were kind of busy and to maybe come back another day.  Ok! So we started to leave, and Norma's daughter comes flying to the door "VENGASE!" COME BACK! So we went back and they heaped plates full of rice and chicken.  Then they gave us this Dominican drink.  It was pureed (I'm sorry I can't spell) black beans, sweet potato, raisins, 4 different types of milk, and cinnamon.  It was weird.  Not bad, but very weird.  Good stuff.  Anyway, then they totally adopted us into their family (we literally took family pictures with them).  Then Dante (Norma's son) was like, hey! you should bear your testimony to me! That is the best thing anyone can say to me right now.  We got all excited, then he invited us into the living room, then his sister started FILMING! He totally went all announcer and said "Here we are with the missionaries from the Mormon church (we both cringed so bad), now tell me..." then he asked us where we were from and how long we serve and what we do, etc.  It was so funny. My Spanish went out the window.  It was so funny though! good stuff :)

And that's my new Dominican family.

Sorry this email is a millennium long, but one more story.  We went over to see Sandra and fam, and they were so happy to have us.  They wanted to teach us how to dance (chiste, your hermana already knows how ;) and so we danced bachata and salsa with some Columbians :) It was awesome to dance again, but to dance with real Latinos was even better :)

Anyway, I love y'all.  Sorry for this long, long email.  Have a great week!

...and loving it
Hermana Belliston

Chick-fil-a is the Lord's Calories

Hola a Everybody

So the subject line comes from our dear Zone Leader,  Elder Healey. I'm not sure why I thought it was so funny, but I did.  That's all :)

This week was good! Biking in 75 degrees in February seems to work really well by this hermana. Hna Dibble and I actually had a good time biking until her tire blew on Friday and we had to walk the next 3 days. No worries though. We still laughed and had a good time :)

We enjoyed biking in 75 degree weather this week (no coats needed until Sunday).

About our investigators:  Santos, so.... he's not really progressing.  We have a lesson with him this week and we're going to be very firm and if he won't commit to baptism, we will stop teaching him. Yep. I really don't like that. But when people who aren't progressing take time away from other people who need to hear the Gospel, then we need to change that. Sad day. 

FAM COLUMBIA!!! WOOT! I love them. They are Sandra, Martin, Daniella, and Natalia. They're from Columbia and therefore they ARE SO NICE. If it wasn't drug capital of the world, I would live there so fast. Every single person I've ever met from there is so nice. Bless them. This week I tried Columbian food for the first time!! Sandra made us Sudado de Pollo, literally interpreted meaning sweat of chicken. I have no idea why they call it that, but it was super delicious.  And we had guanavana agua which topped it off. I love this culture. Anyway, we haven't taught them much, but Sandra and Natalia both have some crazy deep questions that are super fun to answer in Spanish.  But they are awesome. We are going to visit them with Hna Caudillo this week, and we are going to offer them a softball baptism date :) Hermana Mattson (the older couple) told us that every investigator that she ate with was baptized on her mission. So now we have a goal to eat with one of our investigators every week. It'll be awesome. I love these Columbians. After we had dinner, we had an awesome lesson with Sandra and her step daughter, Natalia who is 17 and really has some deep questions about after this life. Wow. Her first one was why she had to be baptized as a baby. Hna Dibble and I got so excited to share about our knowledge about things like that. Sandra and Natalia drank it up. It was awesome. Natalia then asked where Satan is right now. We talked about the importance of listening to the good voices in the world. So good. Then they asked about if we have our memories after we die. I've thought a lot about that since we taught them. Some people really don't know these things, but when they hear the truth, they recognize it. Whether they choose to accept it or not is their choice. It was a really powerful lesson. I love teaching the Plan because they know it! We've all lived it since the beginning.  Its amazing:)

Those are the people we are focusing on hardest. we are hoping to find a lot more people soon so we can teach more. We have a new ward mission leader (Hno Martinez) and he is amazing. So hopefully the ward will be more involved. It'll be great. 

On Friday we were biking to an appointment with Christian 

(he didn't end up being home), and Hna Dibble's tire just blew. Kapoof. 

Good times. So we ended up walking on Sunday which was fine, just a little chilly ;)

Also, one day we got a referral for this guy named Mauricio. We were on bikes so we couldn't take him the Bible he wanted.  So we texted him and said if he wanted his bible, he could come get it from the church sometime. Honestly, we didn't expect to hear back from him. We were currently at the church, prepping for English class. He texts us, and he's literally in the parking lot of the church, here to get his Bible!! Haha so we walked out and gave it to him, invited him to church and English class, and he seemed so interested in it! Nothing has happened so far,  but he was interested enough to come get a Bible! It was pretty fun and just cool to know people really are interested in Heavenly Father and His ways in  their lives.

We ran every morning this week for exercise and it was awesome! 

That's where we saw that really beautiful sunrise :) Buenos días, Carolina del Norte! 

Another Food Update: Hna Belliston had Hispanic rice with bananas. It's a Mexican dish. Don't judge it until you've tried it. Its divine. The rice has to be made with tomatoes and garlic though or it isn't the same. 

 

Yesterday Hna Dibble and I were just greeting people at church, and both of us just look at each other and melted. We love these people so much together and we are so happy that we get to serve together in this place. The ward is awesome and we love them. It's a blessing:)

I love this Chica. We're best friends. We both love these people more than we can say 

and we have such a great time teaching and meeting people. Hispano tiendas love us ;)

Anyway, I sure love y'all :) thanks for everything. The mission's the best place ever. I love the people so much. There's nothing like it!!

Love y'all!

...and loving it
Hermana Belliston