Indiana is wonderful. The weather is so nice right now. Last week was rainy, but we survived and made it to the glorious 75 degree weather. It's a matter of time before the weather turns into humid, hot heck. We are enjoying it while it lasts! We spent two days with President Cleveland and the Zone leaders doing interviews, planner checks, and role plays. It was so fun! Busy!! It's the last week of the transfer so we will know what is happening in the zone this Saturday! EXCITING!!! We taught Carla, our Italian beauty again this week! She is so solid. She can't be baptized while she is on her exchange here, so we will pray she follows through when she returns to Italy! We got in touch with Lorain again! It was a miracle because she had just gotten home when we showed up! She needed time to think and feel the desire to learn again. It worked out perfectly! Missionary work is the best. It isn't just for full time missionaries though! Member missionary work is crucial for the work! Our stake has set a goal for every family to fast and pray about a friend of theirs to share the gospel with and eventually refer to the missionaries. We taught the lesson of the Restoration to the Mia Maids this last Sunday. We were talking about Joseph Smith and how he was prepared over time to fulfill his calling. It took a lot of effort and sacrifice to accomplish what God asked of him. He was willing to give all he had to for his God. He knew it was important, otherwise God wouldn't ask it of him. He also knew God would provide a way if he was obedient. This prompted a question in me, and Sister Williams and I have since discussed it. What wouldn't you give up to live with God forever? Think about that. Answer it for yourself. Is there anything in this world so precious to you that you would choose it over eternal life and joy with your Heavenly Father? I know Heavenly Father would choose us before anything else. I know this gospel is true. It may not be easy always, but the sacrifices I make are worth it. I want you all too know that I love my Heavenly Father. I love the Savior, Jesus Christ. And I love my family. Have a great week! Love, Sister Mondragon Photos: A&W with President and Sister Cleveland after Columbus Interviews Mrs. Curls Ice cream - AKA Artsy, hipster pictures (check out those angles) Just some pictures this week. 1. Exchanges with Sister Zschokke (shaw-key) 2&3. Alfred the neighborhood Shelbyville cat 4. Williams and Eralie joined us (: Exchanges with sister Porter (: This week was awesome! We had our first Mission Leadership Council meeting as sister training leaders. It was so amazing. President Cleveland is so inspired. It will be sad when he and Sister Cleveland leave in June. I am privileged to be serving while they are still in leadership of this mission! Other than General conference and the pictures below, there's not much to report. I love you all! Have a great week! Love, Sister Mondragon <3 Exchanges with Sister Pugmire (: Call me Chef Mondragon Lucas Oil Stadium... Colts.... Sorry Dad Okay, I might have freaked out when I saw the HORSE POLICE in Indianapolis. Unfortunately I was driving so there wasn't much opportunity to freak out like a child. Oops. Sister Williams was kind enough to take these for me though (: So in Indiana.. there are stone or plastic geese everywhere. They have been called Hoosier Geese. We have noticed, in our time knocking doors and driving around neighborhoods, that there are other animals that claim to be in the same family of stone lawn decor. So.. here is a Hoosier Goose and a Hoosier Brontosaurus! I don't even know why I sent the bumper of the car.. oops. haha sister Williams dislikes geese STRONGLY. She has made it a goal to not hate them, but to have charity (pure love of Christ) for them.. So we went to watch General Conference at the church and they were on the roof. She had to take a photo to have proof and "take them to court". hahahaha She also wanted to have a companionship plant.. so we are growing an avocado! "You know you're a missionary when someone is talking about their family and says 'sister' and you respond." This actually happened like 30 minutes ago. It was hilarious. Sister Williams and I have the best time together. There are very few times we are not laughing.. other than when we are teaching haha. This week we confirmed that Kellie is getting baptized on April 16! At church yesterday, we divided and conquered to get everything set up for the week. I was talking to the senior couple missionaries and Sister Williams was talking with Kellie and Monica, her mom. She was on date to be baptized on April 16 too, but got nervous and wanted to push it back. She decided she wants to be baptized on April 16 again and is committed to work for that! We were so excited! We stopped by Rebecca's house to visit and see if she was coming to church yesterday. The family wasn't home, so we had an Easter Story egg hunt set up for them. She texted us during Sunday school and thanked us for it! Her youngest son, Brennan (whom we LOVE), enjoyed it very much! The Milton's took us out to dinner at El Meson, aka the best Mexican food I've eaten on my mission. It was so good. Mark, I got tacos! Like carne asada and chorizo tacos! They were so good, but I couldn't finish them because I had eaten like two baskets of chips and salsa... Oops. We saw a less active member who tried showing us ALL of her family history in a matter of 20 minutes.. She was working on showing us her connection to Adam and Eve, but we didn't have enough time for that. It was insane how excited she was about it! Ha. Miracle of the week: We tracted into Melissa on our way to a less-active members home. They are neighbors. We talked to her about her family, faith and Easter for 40 minutes. We invited her to read the Book of Mormon, specifically Alma 32. She was really open to what we were saying. We are seeing her tomorrow! Diligence, obedience, and faith bring forth miracles! I hope you are all excited about General Conference this weekend! I am! The Woman's broadcast was awesome! I hope you spend some time preparing questions you have and want answers to before GC. I know you will receive those answers! I love you all! Happy Easter! Love, Sister Mondragon <3 Photos: 1. "Utah" in sign language (minus the pouty lips) 2-4. Popcorn night at Elder and Sister Cox's apartment <3 Most of our missionaries in the Zone. Good morning! This week has blown by so quickly! Time flies when you're having fun! First off, Sister Mondragon got a hair cut last Preparation Day. Probably cut 2 inches off... No more blonde. I've been battling the Love-Hate emotions of a new hair style. It's been a riot! Here's our week: - Monica and Kellie Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity lesson... learned lots about my companions testimony and Kellie's testimony. She is so solid. - Took Kellie out on a full day of missionary work on Wednesday. She loved it and was EXHAUSTED by the end. We are going to talk to her about going on a mission after she graduates and is baptized. She would be a great missionary! - We have the most adorable investigator(Carla) from Italy. She is a foreign exchange student. She lives with a member family in the ward and comes to church every week! She returns in June so we are sad about that, but when she goes home she can be baptized! - Thursday was my halfway mark, so we had early dinner with the Gosbins (a recent convert family) and they wrote a letter so I could have something to burn. HAHA Funny video involved, but I almost killed my companion by fire.. - We spent a long time with a set of sisters from Estonia. They are members of our ward. They are so cute. We helped move boxes and then talked about their family history and their humanitarian work. - EXCHANGES WITH SIS HUNTER IN INDY FIRST WARD: We did service all morning, then went to an appointment to teach English to a woman who speaks Chin/Burmese. It was so cool! I love foreign languages! We went to the library to check for referrals from Salt Lake and taught an Atheist man. After that we went to a girl's house to watch her open her mission call (Posadas, Argentina)! Then to dinner with a member where we shared Luke 22:42-44 about Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. GO READ IT! It is so good and then think of something you can sacrifice for the next week leading up to Easter Sunday! Also, it helps get in tune with the Spirit for General Conference coming up! - Little miracle of exchanges.. we talked to a guy whom Sister Williams and I had tracted into 4 days earlier in our area. It was so cool. I think he was really surprised and recognized that it wasn't just coincidence. That's why we talk to everybody, right? Everyone needs the gospel! -Sunday we spent the day from 11:30AM-6:15PM in structured meetings. We got to hear from President Cleveland though. He's so great! - Why I Believe Fireside was also on Sunday at 6:30. We had Kellie speak about her conversion story. The spirit was so strong as we heard from her and other recent converts/returned to activity members! It's a testimony that it's never to late to turn around and start walking towards Christ. We are all prodigal sons and daughters, but we can return and will be welcomed with OPEN ARMS. It's never too late. Turn to Him. I love you all. Again, thanks for all the prayers and support. The past 9 months have been unbelievable. I can't imagine my life without this amazing experience! Stay strong and close to Christ! Love, Sister Mondragon <3 PPS this is a beautiful picture that shows Christ is waiting for us to return so he can hug us with the biggest "Big Brother Bear Hug" Doesn't that sound wonderful?? (Thanks Elder Clark Smith for showing this to me many moons ago!) (Picture by David Bowman named "Home") Week one in Greenwood, Indiana! It's been a great one! Just a little about our first day... It was BEAUTIFUL. Way nicer than Elkhart weather. We got home and realized Sister Williams left half of her luggage at the mission office. So that required another trip to Fishers on Wednesday. Our goal for the week was simply to SURVIVE. We achieved that by the skin of our teeth. haha. It's been a whirlwind of crazy and stressful and LOLing through the pain. I love this place though. "No place I'd rather be!" Pray that we will be good at our job and not ruin any sister missionaries! Love, Sister Mondragon (Still DragonLady here in Indiana) So we got transfer calls on Saturday. I will be going to Greenwood, Indiana with Sister Williams. She is in my current zone, so we will be double transferred in again! We will also be serving as Sister Training leaders. I'm so excited to go to Greenwood! It's about 45 minutes southeast of Indianapolis. However, there is some sadness associated with leaving this area. I've loved Elkhart and Sister Price! This week we met a family next to our investigator and invited them to learn! His name is Alfredo and he has 4 kids. We've taught them twice this week! He was meeting with the elders like 4 years ago and is so kind. His 14 year old daughter is like a bible rockstar. She is so sweet! We gave them a church tour with the bishop. The spirit was so strong. I love introducing the gospel to people who are searching for something to help them. I read the First Presidency Message by Uchtdorf in the February Ensign. The line I've taken for this week is "Trust God and Make Staying on the Track of Discipleship the FOCUS of our efforts." (Also, Matthew 6:33 is a great one!) Seek first the kingdom of God. Another is "Find evidences of God's love in the Good and the Bad, the Joy and the suffering." I love you all! Have a great week! (: Love, Sister Mondragon Here I am! Finally getting to email... Monday was a holiday so the library wasn't open and yesterday we had district meeting so we weren't able to get to the library. The life of a missionary. Never a dull moment. We helped with two funeral luncheons this weekend, our car got grounded so we couldn't go anywhere for a couple of hours, we shoveled sidewalks like crazy on Saturday just to get snow as we walked back to our car.. It's a good life Hazel Grace. Do you want to know something I realized today and this week? When we are doing the Lord's work and will, we are so much more worthy of the attention of the adversary. That is why when we are going to church, reading the scriptures, following the commandments, etc. we are bombarded with the worst trials. So is the case with Matt and Chrissy. Chrissy is so strong. She believes everything we have taught her. It makes sense. Matt on the other hand is tough. He doesn't have much of a religious background. We are building him up from the fundamentals. It seems that everything was going fine when we first met them. They were seeing the blessings from God because they wanted to be closer to him, but about a week after we met them, they started experiencing the worst trials. Serious things with their family! It's been hard to catch them and have solid appointments. Sometimes I feel it is not worth the time, but then I remember it isn't my time to spend on them. It is the Lord's time. If he wants us to stop by their house every day to try to see them, we will. It is so critical that we remember this life is about preparing to meet God and this mission is about helping others prepare to meet God. Alma 34:32-34 says it perfectly. We cannot waste a single minute on something other than our Faith in Christ. When we do get distracted, we need to focus ourselves on that spirit which leads us to do good things, instead of bad. Another gem I learned from this week is from Mosiah 20. This is where the Lamanite daughters are kidnapped by the priests in the wilderness and the Lamanite King takes his people to battle against the people of Limhi. After the fighting, they capture the king and take him to Limhi. He explains why he was fighting against them.. "I have broken the oath because thy people did carry away the daughters of my people; therefore, in my anger I did cause my people to come up to war against thy people." Limhi puts out a search among the people, but is stopped because someone explains that perhaps the priests in the wilderness had kidnapped them. They have that "Ah-hah" moment and change their plans to find them instead. The reason this story stuck out to me so much is because the king of the Lamanites was so quick to anger. He jumped to conclusions before thinking of all the possibilities, actions, and consequences. In Proverbs 16:32, it told "he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty". We are empowered when we slow down to think before attaching feelings to something. It is a practice of our own self-control. We are happier and, like in the story from Mosiah 20, we can avoid much heart ache and agony if we are slow to anger. Anyway! That is my advice for the week! (: I've had a lot of humbling experiences to bring me back to what truly matters in this life and in my mission. Take a minute to think about the good things in life. Even when everything seems bad, there is always some silver lining waiting for you to see it! CHOOSE HAPPINESS. Love, Sister Mondragon <3 Photos: Gave my first hair cuts, not too shabby. Guys... I have a problem... Babies. Babies everywhere. To be honest, I don't know how we got this far in the 18 months, but it's already February, which means I've been out for 7 months and 22 days, aka 236 days! HAHA I promise I'm not counting, I looked it up. Elder Howlett knows the number every day! It's insane. This week was so crazy. We had so many cancelled appointments! Why are people so flakey, sometimes? Maybe it's the weather. IDK. We had a lot of time to scramble through our back up plans and figure out what to do. Something we discovered is that when we are stressed or fighting, we go tracting. It's amazing what just getting out and sharing the gospel with people does to your spirit. It's such a strange stress relieved, but it works! Matt and Chrissy are doing okay. They came to church and had a pretty good time! We struggle to have set appointments with them, but we always see them several times a week! Paula dropped us. It was the worst. She didn't even call or let us come over. She texted us to tell us she wanted to stay where she is at (which is nowhere). We've done a lot of working with Less Active/Inactive members. I like it because it's part of building up the kingdom by lifting those we already have instead of trying to find new members toreplace them. Strengthening from within. We helped with the Relief Society lesson on Sunday. It was about fellowshipping. We shared our thoughts and feelings on how it affects missionary work. When we got to the front of the room, we both just started crying. It was ridiculous. We gathered ourselves and expressed how precious and special our investigators are to us and how they need to be taken care of by the members. The members need to feel how delicate and precious they are. I ask each of you, if the missionaries ask for your help, do it! We need you! We need the member support! The investigators need you! I read Mosiah 4 this week: Mosiah 4:19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both 20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy. 21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another. food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind? Share the gospel. In every way you can. Help the missionaries. Serve each other. Love each other. Just be kind. It makes life so much easier. Read the scriptures. Go to church. God has promised us so much if we will keep his commandments. Rely on him and you can handle anything! I love you all! Have a wonderful week! We are supposed to get some bad weather this week (I'm still not sure what that means, but we will find out I guess!) Love, Sister Mondragon P.S. THE BRONCOS WON THE SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Anderson's and I wore our Bronco attire for the occasion. (: |
AuthorThis blog is to share the experiences of Meagan Lynnae Mondragon as she serves an LDS mission in the Indiana Indianapolis Mission. Archives
September 2016
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