The Isle of Longmont

Dear Missionary Moms,

As the news continues to show the horrible devastation in Colorado, I wanted to let you know your beautiful daughters are safe.  Both sets of sister missionaries are serving in the Ute Creek Ward- which is the highest elevation in a relatively flat city. Their ward had a few basements flood.  Unfortunately, Longmont is bordered on all sides by rivers and creeks that far overflowed their banks. For a brief time, Longmont was completely cut off from all access into and out of the city. My daughter at BYU said the news there called it the isle of Longmont. The sisters were at a shelter to help serve dinner to people that had been evacuated from lower lying areas in the city, and those areas close to the rivers and creeks.

There is still rain forecast through Sunday evening. Luckily, the neighborhood the sisters are in will remain flood free.  There will be many service opportunities for all the missionaries when the water recedes and the clean up truly begins.

What a blessing it is to have your beautiful daughters serving here.  Thank you!

Barbara A. Bade

Longmont Stake Relief Society President

These are pictures sent by Macy -

What a horrifying situation!

Missionaries are well, drying out and safe!

Serving lunch at the shelter to flood victims

Good morning missionary moms! 

With all the devastation on the news, please rest assured, your missionaries are well, drying out today, and safe. The flood waters have yet to recede, so Longmont is sort of an island. Who knew- beach front property in Colorado???

The missionaries are at the shelter in town to serve lunch currently. We are so grateful for their help, and all that they will do in the weeks to come.

Thank you,

Barbara A. Bade

Longmont Stake Relief Society President

My First Zone Conference

In class during zone conference ... I got to role play

lessons in front of the whole zone ...

It started raining SO hard outside!

We took pics but it doesn't do it justice!

Little did we know this was the first big

rain that started causing FLOODS! Crazy!

Basically the best P-Day Ever

It was so much fun! We played nerf wars with

PBC pipes and nurf gun bullets!

The Elders set up the battle field in the gym

with all the chairs and tables - 

We all had big welts from hitting each other so hard!

It was SO much fun!

The VonNederhouserns gave us some icecream -

Yes, that is their name :)

TEMPLE SIGHT!  Doesn't look like much now,

but it's going to be awesome!

The Gift of Tongues Is So Real

"Reunited and it feels so good!"

Hey FAM!

So It's been a pretty good week! Thanks for all the emails and love! Hearing from you guys makes my day! AND I got your package with all the letters from you guys! It was soo good to hear from each one of you individually! Send more of those! :) And thank you so much Mom and Dad for sending us some stuff from your Ireland trip! I loved everything! Sister Martinez and I especially love the rings! They are so cool! She said it was the second most special gift she has ever received! So thank you so much! You guys are amazing!

So this last week was good. We did lots of service at the YMCA shoveling poop so that was....pretty dang exciting. (Nacho) haha But seriously it was pretty fun because alot of us missionaries went and did it together. Who-da-thunk shoveling poo would be fun. My face got a bit red and my farmers tan is coming along nicely...I'm lookin good these days guys!

This week I was asked to do the district meeting training AGAIN! I was like WHAT??? haha We got a new district leader and he asked me right off the bat. I told him..."I actually just did a training but I can definelty do it again" (secretly hoping he would say...OH I didn't know you just did it, I'll ask someone else) But no...he was like...cool...and we sat there in silence for a moment. haha! Awkward. But I gladly took the assignment and got going. Clearly Heavenly Father knows I have much to learn! haha So this time my topic was Mighty Prayer. I used Enos ALOT! Actually most of the training was based out of Enos. That is such a good chapter! Actually such a good book in the Book of Mormon. Well I guess it is a good chapter because it's only a chapter long, yet still a good book...okay...ya okay you guys get it.... :l ....So anyway I learned alot from studying Enos more. As missionaries we say a million prayers a day!..In the morming, before each study, before each appointment, basically if we haven't said a prayer and it's been over 5 min we say another one for fun...just kidding...but we say ALOT of prayers! So I focused my training on how each and everyone one of those prayers can be mighty. It was fun look into that a little deeper. Secrectly I actually really like doing the trainings...well I like preparing for the trainings haha And actually this time I made it fun and threw some dorkey object lessons in there. Cheesy but fun...I'm turning into Mom! It was awesome too because I shared one of the emails in Ti Voglio Bene. It was so powerful. I'm so glad I have that. It's been fun to share snippets of it with other missionaries. But I love reading it mostly because it empowers me as a missionary. Riley's story is so empowering. It makes me feel like I can become the missionary I want to be. And even though I didn't know Riley super well when he was here I feel a closeness with him now. It's pretty cool. Like I said last week I feel the help of all of our family members that have passed on in this work! It's remarkale!

So we have this women we visit named Maria Bilon. She knows the church is true but she has a hard time acting on her faith because she doesn't want to leave the Cathlic church because of her family and everything. She's kind of a crazy lady! haha But we have hope for her. So every once in a while she will want to offer the closing prayer so we let her...but man her prayers are crazy! hahah Every time sister Marinez and I almost crack up. First of all she starts her prayer by saying...Mi tata Dios....which is super weird! I think for Mexican's tata is like saying daddy, so ya It's weird. Then she thanks him for us and for several things but it is so funny because she says it so dramatically and loud and repeats the word gracias a million times...rolling her r's alot! hahah It's like...grrrrracias Senorrrrrrrr grrrrrrraccccciassss Grrrrrracis GRRRRRACIAS! And she does this weird thing with her mouth. hahah I can't explain it in an email...I'll have to send a video of sister Martines and I imitating her because we are pretty dang good at it! hahaha OH Maria...she's only one of our Maria's....we have about a million...everyones name is Maria!

Anyway, alot of you asked how my spanish is coming. Well...It's coming. haha It is amazing how much I have learned since I've been in Colorado! I still don't understand alot but I understand enough. The Lord has a way of giving us what we need. I was talking to one of the other Sisters about this. I was telling her how the language is probably my greatest struggle on my mission...but I know why Heavenly father sent me Spanish speaking. When we go into lessons I can not do it on my own....I know that. I can not fully understand eveything they are saying nor can I put my words together perfectly. But because I know that, it gives me the opportunity to completely rely on the spirit. If I don't fully understand what someone said or asked I open my mouth with faith and answer in the best way I can. And maybe it had nothing to do with what they said sometimes. Maybe I make a fool of myself sometimes. But if I have faith then it does't matter. If I have faith that the spirit can work through me then maybe they need to hear my answer that didn't really make sence more that the actually answer to their question. haha It sounds silly but I believe in it....And sometimes I can understand so I'm not completely talking in jiberish. haha The gift of tongues is so real! But so competely different than I thought it would be. Before my mission I thought the gift of tongues was this thing that you automatically got when you were set apart as a missionary. And it made you super smart and made it super easy to learn what ever language you were learning. But I soon learned that I was so wrong. It's better than that. The gift of tongues is Heavenly Father helping you through the struggle of learning. The gift of tongues is the power to let the spirit be the teacher, let the spirit talk...not you. I am not the teacher the spirit is. If I was the teacher the people of Colorado would be doomed! haha  The spirit will teach what it needs to teach regardless of your language abilities. I just have to remember to have enough faith to let it work through me.

Well keep being amazing you guys! I miss you all dearly! It sounds like you guys had an awesome Labor Day and Dad killed it in the LOTOJA!...hehe my dad's cool! And Mom is going to be awesome in the stake YW too! You guys all inspire me. "I love our family" (incredibles)

Sorry this email was super scatter brained! haha I'm workin on it!

LOVE YOU ALL! I'll write you all letters soon!

Love, Hermana England

MTC District Reunion!

Oh how I have missed Elder McConeghey,

Hermana Vargah and Sister Johnson!

Stake Carnival!  iMi y mi compenera!

and...face painting!

We decided to walk down main street on P-Day!

Longmont has random ginormous geese everywhere!

A mexican market place in town...They have lots

of yummy pandulce!

Blisters from shoveling at the YMCA (I'm proud of thos babies)

My awesome tan line from doing service outside wearing my Toms :) 

Yes, I know it looks nice with my normal shoes! 

I saw a pair of shorts that Kenzie has! I started crying when I saw them!

 I MISS MY KENZ!

My sunburned face from lots of outside service! 

Most Rewarding, Joyful, Indescribable Experience

Lake at Estes Park

Mi Familia!

Hey everyone! So yesterday the library was closed because of Labor Day so It's Tuesday emailing for us! Sorry for the suspence...I better make this a good one haha.

So this last week was like highest of highs and lowest of lows....I'll start with the lows. One of our investigators named Mariana past away. This was really hard on me and sister Martinez. She was suffering from cancer and was really sick. We would try to teach her but she would just lay on the couch and listen when we were there because she was so sick and so tired. On our second visit she gladly accepted a Book Of Mormon and I think she read in it a bit before she died. The last lesson we were going to teach her and her husband was the Plan of Salvation. She was sleeping when we got there so we just left the pamphlet with her and her family. I hope they were able to read it. We are going to visit Alejandro (the husband) and their two kids this week and hopefully teach them more. It is such an incredible blessing to have the knowledge of the plan of salvation! I'm hoping they will be open to hearing it. As far as Mariana we know that she is accepting the gospel in the spirit world right now. She was really special and you could tell she wanted to accept it when she was here but her body was just too weak. It was hard because it brought back a lot of memories of Julie too. But it also made me happy to think that maybe Julie is one of the missionaries teaching Mariana the gospel right now. It's amazing how I can really feel the help of those in our family that have passed on in this work! Heavenly Father's plan is perfect. It is so beautiful!

Anyway the awesome part of the week is that one of our investigators named Bertina is just flippin amazing! So her daughter Marium who is my age is a recent convert and Bertina her mom decided to finally just look into the church to see why her daughter was baptized. We got in contact with her and it is just unbelievable! She had been to the singles ward with Marium a few times and said she just felt so loved and part of the ward family. She said she has never felt that at her Catholic church. So we have taught her the first few lessons and she has just been amazed. She was already reading in this tiny Book of Mormon Maruium gave her so we gave her a normal size one and she loves reading in it! When we taught her the plan of salvation she had a lot of questions because two of her nephews past away last year, and at the end of the lesson she said "All my questions are answered". She said she feels so much peace having this knowledge that she has never had before. It was such an amazing lesson! THEN! At church last sunday...her second time at church ever. She bore her testimony in fast and testimony meeting!!!! At the beginning of the meeting I explained how testimony meetings work and told her (half jokingly) that if she wanted she could get up and bare her testimony. And sure enough she did! It was such a beautiful testimony. She even said she knew Marium made the best choice of her life when she was baptized in the chruch! She also went on to say that the things Sister Martinez and I have taught her have brought her so much peace, and that she is so greatful for us and this gospel...Sister marinez and I were just crying we were so happy! haha It was probably the most rewarding, joyful, indescribable experience on my mission so far. I am so excited for her! On our next visit we are going to invite her to be baptized in a few weeks! The only thing I'm a little nervous about is that she lives with her boy friend (we think) so the Law of Chastity lesson will be interesting. haha wish us luck! I have so much faith that she will be accepting of all of the commandments though. She has seen the blessings of the gospel in her life already! Her daughter Marium is going back to college this week and at the end her testimony she said...you sisters can't forget about me when Marium goes back to college! haha we were like...trust us...we won't! hahah

Our Labor Day was SOOO much fun! As a zone we all went up to Estes Park (the city in the mountains where we hiked out of last time) And we all ate lunch by the lake. Then we went to this big field and played ultimate frizby....funnest game EVER! Especially because the field we were playing on had some muddy spots and we all kept slidding and slipping haha It was soo much fun!(and we all played in bare feet!) Then after...all of us slightly muddy...walked around all of the cute shops and stores in Estes! Oh my goodness it was such a fun day! We need to take a family trip to Estes Park after Davis and I get back!

Well I hope things are all going great at home! With all the exciting new callings and activities you guys have it sounds like you are staying busy!

Davis sounds amazing! I know he is already such an incredible missionary! I love reading your emails Elder England :) Keep up the good work! Knowing that we are doing the same work makes me so happy! Go! Fight! Baptize! :)

I love you all! Mom says you guys all wrote letters and they are on their way! I am sooo excited! Keep being amazing! Recognize all the blessing around you! Heavenly Father blesses us beyond belief! 

Love, Hermana England

Estes Park for P-day Fun!  Sister Deford and Sister Z 

(The new English speaking missionaries in our ward!)

and all the fun little shops in the park!

We all went to lunch by the lake as a zone!

I love Estes Park!

We did our part so the Lord did His

I live in such a beautiful place!

Hey Yall,

First of all Thank You so much for all your emails and mail! I love hearing from everyone :) Keep em coming!

This week was amazing! Sister Martinez and I really turned to the Lord for our weekly goals and man did he help us! We really wanted to find a lot of new Spanish investigators because starting today we get our English speaking sisters in our ward!!!! YAY! Sad because we have to give up all of our English investigators that were progressing so well....but awesome because we need to focus on Spanish! So anyway we watned to have investigators in Spanish for this transfer so we made some goals and started our week with a fast. Our fast was for Heavenly Father to help us find those Spanish investigators that needed the gospel in their lives right now. Well we did our part so the Lord did his...as always :). We tracted A TON!! Even in the rain! (Yes we are hard core missionaries) Aaaand....we have 5 new Spanish investigators! It was such an answer to our prayers and fasting. The Lord is amazing. We also made a goal to have 2 investigators at church on Sunday which is big becasue we have not had anyone come to church in a while. And guess what...2 of our investigators were at church! :) Another goal was to have 30 lessons this week. This was a big one. The standard of excellence here is 20 lessons a week but last week we got 28 so we said...hey we can do thirty! So all week we made sure we had enough lessons in each day to equal 30 at the end of the week! AND WE DID IT! 30 lesson even! Another goal that we saw the Lords had in was our member present lessons. We made a goal to have 3. So we tried to set up a bunch of member present lessons and they all fell through. Either we showed up with the member and the investigator flaked out, or the member canceled, or we couldn't find anyone to go with ect. BUT like I said the Lord helps us when we do our part....One of our investigators was a referal from her daughter who is a convert. We taught her twice this week and her daughter was able to participate in both. HELLO! Thank you Heavenly Father! Built in member present lesson WHAT WHAT!! THEN some members from another ward CALLED US with a referal and said...oh we're visiting her this Friday and we want to have a lesson, will you come with us?....we were like.....Alright Heavenly Father you are just too good to us! haha It was incredible! And I honestly think the whole reason we did so well was because we focused on our key indicator goals...and I wouldn't have focused on our key indicator goals if I didn't have to do that training last week! Heavenly Father new what He was doing when he asked a newby to do the training...haha so even if my training didn't help anyone else it helped our new investigators! :)

Well I hope school is going good guys! Bo how's your class and teacher and everything? Soph how's the big MIDDLE SCHOOL treatin ya? Mags hows JR year??? Freaks me out that you're a Junior! Davis sounds good! It keeps me goin knowing that he is out in the field workin hard! Kenna how are the crazy second graders doin? Dalt how's school and your fam? Write me letters fools! I need up dates on your lives. Mom and Dad are doing good at keeping me in the loop but ya'll are slackin :)

Well sorry this email is shorter than others. Computer time goes soooo fast! But know that I think about you guys all the time! I thank Heavenly Father in my prayers every night for such an amazing family! Keep being awesome! Be good member missionaries! Ask the missionaries if you can go out and teach with them! FIND PEOPLE FOR THEM TO TEACH! It is our responsiblitly as members of the church to share what we have with others! In "the standard of truth" it says..."The Truth of God will go forth boldy, nobly, and independant till it has penetratede every continent, visited every climb, swept every country, and sounded in every ear Till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the Great Jehova shall say the work is done." Do your part in letting the gospel sound in every ear! You guys are amazing!

Love you all sooo much!

Love, Hermana England

Lego man! He lives outside the library where

we email every week!

Awesome flan cake Hermena Marquartia Taylor made for us!

James - a boy in our ward!

I have to stop myself from kissing his face

because he reminds me so much of Bo!

Thanks for the package!

Enjoying all the awesome stuff from my package you sent!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Hermana Martinez enjoying some treats!

On our way to service!

I'm Staying In Longmont!

Depiction of the craziness of Sunday's...

Spanish & English area books, 

Spanish & English Scriptures,

notebooks, bag, keys, planner ...check!

Us freaking out ... we were at the

church waiting to find out about transfers!

Then...being happy because we're still companions!

FAMILY!!!

Ok so my first transfers are today AAAANDDDD....I'm staying in Longmont with Sister Martinez!!!!!! YAY!! I can not tell you how happy I am! I was convinced I was going to have to train someone! My first two interviews with Pres. Brown he said...we have 5 new Spanish sisters coming next transfer so you better be ready and learn as much as you can!...Clearly this gave me panic attacks because I do not know enough Spanish to be training someone in Spanish! haha I assume that because of the craziness of last transfer with sister Hill leaving and Sister Martinez and I already not having a trainer, Pres. Brown let us stay where we are. Man am I greatful!...AND....drum role please....We are getting English speaking sisters in our ward so we can focus all of our efforts on SPANISH!! BOOYA!!! I am so stoked! In dads email he asked if we were still teaching about 50 percent in Spanish...well the answer is no. The bishop really wants us to focus on less actives and most our less actives are in English. So we are teaching on average only one lesson is Spanish a day...ya no wonder my spanish stinks! haha So anyway there is a late group coming from the MTC next week. So in one week we should get a set of English sisters in our ward, and we will be teaching most - if not ALL in Spanish. Scary but awesome! Also pretty sad because all of our top progressing investigators are in English and we will probably have to hand all of them over to the other sisters:( Which is so hard because some of them are so close to being ready for baptism!!! Not to mention the relationships we have buit with them. But the Lord knows what is best. Maybe the new sisters will be able to touch their hearts in a way that we couldnt.

So anyway this next transfer is going to be awesome!

Well it sounds like Mom and Dad had a great trip!! Ireland sounds amazing! I'm excited to see all the pictures! Send a memory card of the trip soon! AND Bo, Soph, and Mags started school!!! You guys need to write me and tell me how it's going!! One in elementary - one in Middle and one in High school! CRAZY! haha I'm excited to hear about your teachers and everything!

This last week has been awesome! Crazy but awesome! For district meeting I was asked to give the training...which is super weird because they never ask a new missionary to do the training! But I agreed. It was on area books and the key indicators (all the numbers we have to report like...#of lessons, #of referals, #of new investigators ect.) It was good because one of our zone goals is to clean up our area books. And key indicators are always super important! I think the training went well...and if it didn't I brought cookies so I'm good. haha works every time! Also we had the Anguiano's baptisms/wedding! The Anguianos were a less active family that have been reactivated. The dad is a non member and Martha and the kids are now active. They have twin girls that are almost 9 and we worked really hard to get them baptized while they were still 8 and they DID:) AND Marta got married (they were living together) So she is no longer breaking the law of Chastity! WHAHOO! This was a HUGE step for them and the double baptism/wedding was beautiful! The baptisms were first and we showed up right before it starts and they say...oh you know you guys are giving a talk on faith right?...and me and sister Martinez are like....NO! So we whip up a talk (in Spanish I might add - we prepared during their grandpas little talk at the beginning). Then they were baptized and we were responsible for taking up all the time while they were changing. So we go and give our talk and they are still not out...so there happend to be two other Spanish speaking Elders from our zone there so I just say...now we will hear the Elder's testimony on faith! haha So the Elders gave awesome testimonies! They still weren't out by then (I have no idea what took them so long)so then we just sang a few hymns until they came out. It was a pretty crazy 15 min.  AND we also had to give a training at our ward corillation meeting with all of our ward missionaries! So - ya - we spoke and trained and did all kinds of crazy stuff this week!

Well anyway here is an AWESOME update on Christian. So if you remember Christian was the one we met in the park and he was already reading the Book of Mormon when we were leaving!...WELL we gave him our number but like idiots (I don't know if I'm allowed to say that)... we didn't get his address or phone number. So we prayed and said Heavenly Father please help Christian to be able to call us or read more in the Book of Mormon and ask his friend more (remember he had a Mormon friend) or something so that he can learn more about the gospel. WELL the Lord answeres prayers everyone! We were talking to the other sisters in our zone about how it's fun to eat lunch at the park because it's beautiful and you can talk to the people at the part about the gospel! And they were like....oh my gosh did you place a Book of Mormon at the park to a 15 year old boy?....and were like....YESSS WE DID!!!!!! So they go on to tell us that Christan's Mormon friend he had told us about is in their ward  And they had dinner with them the night before!!! Christian told his friend Ty about how the missionaries (US!!) gave him a Book of Mormon and talked to him in the park!! And he wants to learn more!!!! The other sisters said oh ya we will talk to his friend Ty and get you his address!!! If that Isn't a direct answer to prayer I dont know what is!! It's amazing how the Lord works in ways that we would never think of! We are so lucky to have a Heavenly Father who is looking out for us and leading us where we need to go!

Well that's about it for this week! I love you guys soooo much!

So excited to hear more about Davis in Uruguay!

Love, Hermana England

The Anguiano's big day!  The twins were baptized and

Martha & Ruben were married!

It was an awesome night!  

On our way to service - Hermana Martinez was

really excited about driving next to the train!

There are train tracks right in the middle

of our neighborhood - Sometimes it comes by at

5:30 or 6 in the morning and the horn wakes us up...

NOT cool!

Yard busters service! ...

Me bustin some hedges with my electric saw!