Almost halfway there:)

Hola Familia! 

It is so crazy that this week is my 9 month mark!!! Time is going so fast! I really cant believe it! This week was a really good week!! On Tuesday we had our zone class and I really enjoyed it! I love zone classes because we learn so much! We talked a lot about Priesthood and the importance of everyone understanding that the power of God really has been restored on the earth! This week we were able to teach a lot of really good lessons and we are still finding a lot of new investigators! Some of the best things this week were, Hermana Ceron is reading every day in her Book of Mormon and is teaching the things she learns to Sergio! She is preparing to go to the temple on March 14th! (: She came to church yesterday and is doing so great! We have been working with her since I got to Vallarta so it is so great to finally see the progress(: This week we also were able to have a really fun day with Fernanda(: haha she is the daughter of one of our Investigators and she is 7 and wants to be a missionary. She is always telling her family the things the Book of Mormon says because it is the things they need to do(: haha so Berenice asked us if we could talke her to teach with us one day for a little bit so her dream to be a missionary could come true and on Friday, with a sister from the ward, we helped Fer be a missionary(: Her mom even printed a little missionary tag for her from the Church website! It was so cute(: She shared her testimony in the lessons we taught and it was a really great experience! I really love seeing how much this little girl loves our savior! She doesnt even have anyone in her family that is a member but she just wants to share everything she is reading in the Book of Mormon with everyone and I really hope that one day soon her mom will be baptized! This week we also had splits with our Sister Training leader and her companion! I worked with Hermana Martinez and it was really good! We had a lot of fun and were able to teach some good lessons however, something really weird happened! We were teaching a lesson and one of the people we were teaching started acting really weird and saying there was something behind us and then when we finished the lesson we asked her if she would read the book of mormon and she started crying and left.. We felt horrible. Her friends then explained to us that they believe she has some type of spirit in her and that she needs someone to remove it. I honestly cant even explain what I was thinking at that moment but it led to a lot of learning and understanding because the next day we asked Brother Rodriguez, what we as women can do when this happens. And he taught us a lot about the power of being set apart as a Servant of the Lord. And he explained that once we are baptized we literally take the name of Jesus Christ upon ourselves, and through this, if we have faith and are worthy we will always have more power than any bad spirit that could be here! It was a really interesting experience but I really did learn a lot, and he gave us lots of scriptures to study as well! haha I hope you guys can understand all that because I feel like I cant explain very well! But anyway, other than that this week was pretty normal! We have a lot of goals for this week and for February! Time is going so fast and i really just cant believe it! It is so crazy that everyone is starting to finish their missions and that i am at the halfway mark! It is such a bitter sweet feeling because I miss you all like crazy but I absolutely love being a missionary!! But I am glad to know that you guys had a good week and that the birtdhays went well! I love you guys so much!! (: 

Love always,

Hermana Searle 

Another short update

Hola Familia!

First off, Happy birthday Mav and Books! I hope you guys both have a great birthday week! and I love you both so much! But anyway! This week has been pretty good! It is starting to get really hot again here but other than that things are going well! Berenice is now active in the church and even participates in all the classes! Her little kids love primary and we can really see the blessings in her life for living the gospel(: Also, I dont know if you guys remember the picture I sent awhile back with Sergio the little kid, but him and his mom went to church yesterday for the first time in a really long time and it was really great! They really enjoyed it and it was so great seeing them there! This week we have had a lot of really good lessons and have found some great investigators! We have an investigator who is also named Berenice and her and her little kids are awesome! Her daughter, Fernanda, will turn 8 this year and loves everything about the church and the gospel and she is one of the smartest little kids I have ever met. Her other kid is 5 years old and his name is Alfonso. He is a little stud haha. Yesterday we had a family home evening with them and they really are so great! We also are still working with Jose Luis and he goes to church almost every sunday the only hard thing is with his work hours we cant teach him very often but his wife is a member and she is really helping us so that he can recieve all the lessons and an answer about the church! Things also have been really fun this week. Hermana Santana and I are always laughing and we have had a lot of help from the members this week as well! We are still working on setting baptism dates for all of our investigators but we have seen a big approvement here in this area and I absolutley love being here, I am glad to hear that you guys are doing well! I cant believe Books burnt the crockpots in the oven!! But I am so glad it didnt catch the house on fire or anything like that! I hope that you guys have a great week! Thank you for all your love and support! You guys are the best! I love you all so much! 

Love always,

Hermana Searle 

Another Great Week :)

Hola Familia!! 

This week was so great!!! I love working with Hermana Santana! On Tuesday we had our district class and our new district leaders was in our zone when we were all in Manzanillo so that is really cool! It is fun being with some people I know from my first zone. This week we taught almost every person we saw! We found 17 new investigators and had a member to teach with us every day! Normall we only have a member a couple days a week and only about 2 or 3 hours each day so to have a member almost all day everyday was great! We had such a good time and were able to teach so many people! One of the days we were with Nayheli(a sister in the ward) and we seriously were laughing all day haha. She just got her mission call and will be going to Brazil in April and she is super excited! we made mission videos and told her that in the mission you always get "anotjos misionales" (mission cravings) because we always want weird junk food haha and then on Sunday she gave a talk and quoted us hahaha it was really funny. but this week we also were able to gain the confidence of a lot more members. Im not sure why but this week they were all so much nicer and loving towards us! Each member we saw signed up to teach with us for this upcoming week and each of them also offered to take us to do stuff on our pdays! It was really awesome! Im not sure what the difference was but Hna.Santana and I are both happy people so I think they all just felt happy when we were talking to them so they as well decided to be happy and invite us to do things! haha it was a really good week! Of our new investigators we found this week they are all so great! They all seem ready to at least listen to the gospel and 6 of them accepted a baptismal date! It was really great! Also this week I gained a greater appreciacion for the Gospel. A couple members were talking to us about how a lot of bad things happen in the world and we were talking to them about the peace the gospel can bring. And it is so true. Something I love so much about this gospel is that it can bring so much peace to each and everyone of our lives. Through the gospel we can be strengthened and we can know that everything will be okay as long as we live the way the Lord would have us live. It is such a great blessing in my life to be able to share this message with othersand to see the way it can change their lives! Im really glad you guys are doing well and that everyone is enjoying the new year! I love you guys so much and am so thankful for you all(: I hope you guys have a great week!! 

Love always,

Hermana Searle

 

 

She loves these kids :)

 

New companion, Hermana Santana :)

 

My beautiful girl :)

 

CAMBIOS !!!

Hola Familia!! 

Well this week was seriously one of the best weeks I have had out here on my mission. It started off normal but we decided to go to a part of our area that is really small where we noramally dont have anyone to teach and we went there and found a lot of new investigators and met some less active members. As we were looking for the address of a less active we were able to contact almost the entire town and set dates to go back and teach them! On Tuesday we had a really great district class and we talked alot about faith and how with faith and obedience we can see miracles here as missionaries! It was really good! On Friday we found 4 new investigators and taught a lot of really good lessons! and on Saturday we had a meeting with all the missionaries in our ward and our ward mission leaders and we will be planning a lot of really good mission activites for this year! We also had a lesson with a newer investigator named Berenice, her and her daughter are so great! Her daughter has 10000 questions and she is only 7 but her questions are awesome because they make her mom think a lot as well! They came to church with us on Sunday(: We also had some really good lessons with less active members this week! On New Years we didnt do anything special haha we had to be in the house at 9 and I was sound asleep by like 10:15 haha. But it is crazy that we are in 2015! Time is FLYING! This week in church we had 5 Investigators there! and we had 6 less active members come! It was a really good start to the year! We have an investigator here named Jose Luis and his wife is a member and he has like 5 years that he has been going to church but the missionaries have never taught him but we taught him this week and as of right now his baptism will be on Brooklyns birthday(: haha overall it was a great week! Yesterday we got the transfer calls and I am staying here in Vallarta!!(: And will be working with HERMANA SANTANA!!!!!!!! (: We are stoked! haha it will be a really great transfer(: I am glad all is going well back home and that you guys are doing so great! I love you guys so much and hope you guys had a great new years!! 

Love always,

Hermana Searle 

Pics:)

 

This is the American Family that fed Kylie on Christmas:)

 

This is Berniece and her cute family

 

This cute little guy is Diego and Kylie said he should be Boston's best friend

 

Here's a pic of what she received from us for Christmas (there seem to be things missing so I'm not sure she received everthing that we sent)

 

Hermana Searle and Hermana Mills!!  They were happy to serve together for one day:)

Skype was awesome!

Hola Familia!
> I am so so so happy I was able to skype you guys on Thursday!! You all looked so happy and it was just so great seeing you guys(: I loved it so much! I cant believe how big all the little kids are getting and how Grown up Books is!! But it was so great seeing you all(: I hope that you guys had a really great Christmas! I hope you guys enjoyed your day and I hope you guys had a good rest of the week! The rest of our week was pretty good! After we skyped we stayed with the Najera Family for a little bit and then on Friday we had splits with Sister Mills and Sister Martinez! Sister Mills was in my mission prep. class so that was SO fun working with her!!(: We had such a blast on Friday! We were speaking in Spanglish all day haha and decided its really good we dont have American companions but it was a great day! Then Saturday when we were waiting for our companions we bought cheese fries and coca-cola that were too die for!!(: haha but yesterday was really good and I really just had a great week! Thank you guys so much for all the Christmas gifts! I absolutley loved everything!!! It all was so cute and perfect! Thank you (: I know this is super short but I dont have much more for this week! But I love you guys so much and am so thankful we got to skype! I hope you guys have an amazing week and a Happy New Year!!!(: I love you all so much!
> Love always,
> Hermana Searle