Week 3

Greetings from California J

Hi everyone!  Sorry that I didn't write last week, I was traveling and we weren't given time to send emails.

So, I’m in California and I love it.  My companion is Hermana Rubow, she is from North Carolina and this is her last transfer!  So, she is going home in 5 weeks and will be leaving me :(  But I am happy that I can be with her in her last area.  We are serving in the Arroyo Grande area and we are here with 4 other companionships.  We are teaching in Spanish and English!  Everyone is so nice and are all great missionaries.  Yesterday we went to church and the ward is so loving and kind.  They love us and take very good care of us.

This week we met Shane and his mother.  They are less active and we visit them every day and we have been reading the scriptures with him.  His mother went to church yesterday by herself without us going to get her so we were so happy.  We are going to start teaching Shane the discussions again this week.

Yesterday we went to see Alejandra for the first time this week.  She was my first visit and I was so nervous and Hermana Rubow said that if I didn't want to say anything I didn't have to.  But when we got to her house and started asking her what she believes I couldn't hold back and I started to talk to her.  I asked her if she believes in God and if He loves her and she said yes.  She said she knows that everything that happens to us here in this life happens because God wants to make us better and so we can become better.  We started to teach her the first discussion and she had lots of questions.  We are going to go back tomorrow to ask if she has read the Book of Mormon.

We also visited Juan and Blanca.  Juan was baptized 3 weeks ago and we are teaching him the discussions again.  He is going to have an interview with the bishop to get a limited use temple recommend so he can go and do baptisms for the dead with the stake.  He is really excited to be able to be baptized for his parents.

We also found a woman, Jendy who was meeting with the Elders but when they were transferred they lost contact with her.  We are going to see her and her family this week to teach them.

The other day we visited Shane’s mom (Hermana Pettite) and she really put us to work the whole day!  We helped her clean her house and her yard.

We have been able to visit many families and there have also been some people who have canceled visits with us.  The other day we went to knock on doors and there were a lot of people that told us that they were not interested, but we didn't get frustrated!  We will keep knocking and once in a while someone will be ready to listen.

I am so happy and excited to be serving.  I have only been here a week and I am already falling in love with all of our investigators.

Thank you for all your love and all your support.  I love you all.

Hermana Cuevas DaSilva

P.S. My address is 1385 Atlantic City #102, Grover Beach, CA 93433

MTC Pictures

My companion and I

Zone Leaders & Sister Training Leaders

The Elders, my companion, and I

The Sisters

My District

California Pictures

Week 1

Hi!!

It’s me, Hermana Cuevas DaSilva J  I’m alive.  

I love being here at the MTC and I’m learning and growing so much every day.  There are 5 companionship's in my District.  There are two elder companionship's and three sister companionship's.  We all already speak Spanish so we have to speak Spanish all the time.  My companion’s name is Sister Stevenson and she is from Reno, NV and she is going to serve in Chile, Concepcion.  We work well together and we get along well.  Since we all already speak Spanish, we don’t live at the main MTC campus, we live in some apartments about 10 minutes from the MTC and we spend all our time there.  We spend all our time in classes and then we eat.  Here is what I do every day: Wake up, eat, class, teach, eat, gym, class, dinner, class, and sleep.  But I love it!  The only thing is that I think I’m eating a lot.  Now I know why they say missionaries gain weight at the MTC, it’s because you can eat anything you want and if you want more of something all you have to do is ask.  But don’t worry, I weighed myself yesterday and I haven’t gained any weight!

My district is incredible.  All the elders are 18 year old but they are really mature and responsible.  Elder White is our district leader and he is from Wyoming and he will be serving in Argentina Mendoza.  He is very patient with all the sisters.  Oh Yeah!  My companion and I are Sister Training Leaders for our zone.  So we are in charge of all the sisters in our zone and we get to go to the zone leader meetings with our zone leader and give a report on how the sisters are doing.  We also get to welcome all the new missionaries with the zone leaders.  Tomorrow we are going to get 32 new missionaries for the advanced Spanish program!  We are going to have 4 more new districts, plus the three districts that we already have.  Oh boy.  We’ll see how it goes. 

Our first day here we met some investigators and we got to talk to them as a group.  One of them was talking to one of the elders about the Holy Ghost and how it can help us.  Then the elder turned to me and asked me, “Hermana Cuevas, how has the Holy Ghost helped you?”  I was so nervous!  I real investigator…I told about how one time I was with some friends in the mountains and then I had got a feeling that we shouldn't be there.  The investigator started to cry and thanked me for sharing that experience and told us that he had felt something similar but he never knew it was the Holy Ghost protecting him. 

We have had a ton of amazing classes and we have heard lots of super good talks.  Sunday was fast Sunday and in sacrament meeting almost everyone in our zone bore their testimonies.  Then for the devotional the president of BYU, Kevin Worthen spoke and it was so good!!  He talked about how missionaries have the power of God to teach others and that we should always use that power.  In his talk he said, “God has called each one of you because He trusts in you and He has faith that you will be successful.  If God believes so much in you, then you shouldn't have any reason to not believe in yourselves.”  Then we heard a talk by Elder Bednar that was given last Christmas called “Character of Christ” and it talks about how we should not only try to be like Christ in our actions but in our actions and our thoughts.  And that we should ALWAYS put others before ourselves.  This is something that I need to work on during my mission.

Today we went to the temple as a zone and it was so cool to be in a session all together.  I am so grateful to be here and to be a missionary and represent Jesus Christ.

I love you all so much and I hope that every day you can try to be more like Christ.  Take Care!

Love, Hermana Cuevas DaSilva

P.S. Thank you so much to the Reid Family and London for my package with food!  And Thank you to the Chacon family and Kayli for my package!!  I loved it.

P.P.S I can’t send pictures because the computers here can’t read memory cards, but I will keep trying to find a way!

P.P.P.S.  Oh! I forgot!  I leave for California next Monday in the morning!