White Christmas

hey family! :)

Happy new year!! :)

It was so awesome to get to talk to you on Sunday :) weee everyone sounds so much different on the phone then I remember. Mike you sound all grown up. its gonna be weird to you when I get home seeings how your way taller than me now.

Thank you so much to all and everyone that sent me Christmas cards and gifts! they were awesome. p.s. mom I'm wearing the sweater I love it.

 This Christmas was a good one especially because instead of having a white Christmas outside looks wise. We got to have one inside and soul salvation wise:) Luis got baptized and it was seriously an amazing baptism. The smoothest I have ever had. The font was filled with warm water. the copy machine worked. the programs were all done correctly, the people participating in the program showed up on time and even Luis did too! We even started the baptism pretty much on time. 10 minutes late which is saying something. the only thing that went wrong---Luis and Elder Allen (who was baptizing him) both forgot their towels and change of undies. But nonetheless the spirit was there and it was pretty sweet. Sunday he was confirmed and that was an amazing blessing he received. its so cool to be able to see the change in people take place. Luis is now preparing to serve a mission and is really excited about it :) his blessing even talked about that and yeah Luis is one special kid.

 For Christmas eve we got to spend the night with the Mather's a family in the English ward. it was nice to have an English Christmas :) we read the Christmas story and opened up presents. and then on Sunday we went to church and it ended up being an hour and a half with a meeting after. but then we went to the bishops house and had a cool little family home evening. we played taboo and talked about all of our conversion stories. after that we went and visited with Kiki and her husband Shane and then headed over to the Sarmientos and had Christmas dinner and a lesson about the B of M with their brother Roberto.

This week was a busy one. we were able to teach 28 lessons this week. pretty crazy-the highest amount Ive ever been able to do in a week maybe one day i can make it to 30! :)

WE had an awesome miracle happen on Monday :) God led us to 4 new investigators. Our first appt after district meeting was with this family that we felt the impression to knock their door the week earlier and they opened the door and told us they were busy and asked us if we could come by next week. so we did. they let us in and its this cute little family of 3 who have been searching for the truth and didn't even really recognize it. They had a lot of questions and told us a ton about all of their religious views which line up with a lot of our beliefs. They really do believe in the importance of hard work and families, and have already invited us over for next week and told us they want to feed us! but it was a really cool lesson and I look forward to teaching them some more. :)

Then later that day we had lesson with Miguel who is a recent convert and we were planning to talk about the Christlike attributes with him and we went in and all of his roommates were there which is kind of unusual unless they are just about to leave so we invited them to come and listen and they said sure. One of them was a woman named Alejandra and she is large with child and we taught the plan of salvation and oh man. I have never had the spirit so strong in a lesson before. it was tangible with how strong it was. we talked about the importance of being baptized and having the gift of the Holy Ghost and how they right now can feel the spirit in moments but that if they want that feeling with them always then they need to be baptized and receive the companionship of the Holy Ghost and towards the end of the lesson, Alejandra told us--I don't know much about the bible or anything but I love this plan. I felt really peaceful and relaxed--its like what you were explaining how I felt it but now its not there. So we invited her to be baptized so she could have that companionship and she said yes! we have a return appt with her next Monday and she's pretty excited to come to church!

Oh and we find out about transfers on Saturday if there are any. I don't know whats gonna happen but I could see president leaving us together for another transfer but no one ever knows! So next time I email it could be in a different place!

But yeah that's whats up here! Sure miss you guys! love you tons and wanna know something bien loco? 13 weeks and I'm home. crazy right?

I hope you all have a good week!

paz y amor, Hermana Maughan

Feliz Navidad!

AHHHH!!!! Christmas time already!!! I cant believe it!! :)

Feliz Navidad! I really really can't believe that it is here already. that I get to talk to my family and that its gonna be the last time till I go home. Idk it all feels super surreal to me. But nonetheless I am super excited to talk to my precious family.

And oh boy do I have some cool miracles to share this week. How these keep happening to me mind boggles me. But I have been able to be the witness of so many miracles during my mission and especially now here in Aurora.

Well the following miracle I am going to share is a very special.... But a couple of weeks ago I was praying and asking God where we needed to go that day to find someone who was prepared and waiting for us to talk to them. As I prayed I had the feeling that we needed to go to these certain apartments and we didn't need to knock any doors just walk around the parking lot. So I obeyed. we went and just started walking around the parking lot of these apt buildings when this lady walks out and she is SUPER prego. Like Ready to pop she is so big with child. So she starts talking to us telling us that this will be her first child and that she left her abusive boyfriend and is now living with her brother. she invited us to come over and talk to her more. so we had one appointment with her and it was a really awesome appt. and we set up a return day for us to come back and we went back and she wasn't there and didn't answer the phone and we were pretty sad. but nonetheless something felt different about her..her name is Maria and so we kept trying and trying to go back and see if she was home. well two weeks later Hermana Brown was on exchanges with Hermana Alvarez and they found her! Turns out the reason she wasn't home was because she was in the hospital having her sweet little girl. They set up an appt to come back and see her on Sunday and SOOOOOO on Sunday Hermana Brown and I went over to her house and taught her the plan of salvation. the spirit was there bearing testimony that the things we were teaching were true and we invited Maria to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and she accepted! She is now on date to be baptized for the 21st of January! :) So ultimately it comes down to one cool thing....We received a member referral-from GOD! the best member ever! :) We are teaching her again tomorrow!

So this week our bishop and his family are out of town-in Utah seeing the lights at the temple etc... and Bishops Mom is staying at the house watching the house while they are gone. and Bishops Mom is about 80 plus years old and so the bishop just asked if we wouldn't mind stopping by their house in the morning and in the night to make sure that his mom is doing OK and if she needs anything. so we had been going over there and just talking with her and sharing all the cool miracles that we have been seeing in our days and Sunday night we went over and were telling her about what happened with Maria and how we received this cool referral from God and after we finished the story she asks us "well would like another referral?" and we are like "of course Hermana!" She proceeds to tell us of how her granddaughter Rosa just came to the house this week to spend time with her and how they were talking and that Rosa had had all the charlas before and been to church a couple of times but that she said that now she wants to be baptized and talk to us...So we went back Monday morning before district meeting and got to meet Rosa. Talked about the Book of Mormon and invited her to be baptized and she accepted! and told us that she wants to be baptized as soon as she possibly can and so we have her on date to be baptized December 31st :) All that happened Monday morning before 10am :) really was quite awesome!

Earlier in the week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Hermana Hawes in Cicero and we had a really great day. We were going to an appt that ended up not being home and there was a lady across the street on her porch trying to hang up Christmas lights and so we ran over across the street and helped her put up her lights. Her name is Lily and she just started talking to us and telling us all her stories. how she is happily married to a man who doesn't smoke, drink or do drugs and that they have been married for 10 years, about how she wants to be closer to God and has been looking for a church and just through talking to her on the porch we ended up giving her a soft baptismal invitation and she accepted it and said that she would love to be baptized. then the next appt we had was with a family that Hermana Hawes and Alvarez had found the day before and we went back and had one of the most powerful lessons on the restoration invited Esmerelda and her two sons to be baptized on the 14th of January and they all accepted it and then with a little bit of a encouragement Esmerelda said the closing prayer and the spirit was soooo strong in the room. Its so interesting to me how I feel like the best prayers are given by people who have never prayed before So innocent and pure with real desire to know if God is really listening. So leaving Cicero there was 7 people with a date to be baptized! :)

My eye is back to normal and doing great! my companion doesn't have bronchitis anymore and we are hittin the pavement. :)  and biggest miracles of all: NO SNOW! :) wee!!! it can stay away as loooooooooooooooooong as it wants. I'm not missing it one stinkin bit. It snowed on Monday but it was only a little and its already gone. :) although the wind does make it feel like there should be snow with how windy and rainy its been. but still no snow! and that makes me happy! :)

Yeah  so its been a pretty miracle filled week!

Nana I got your package :) thank you so much. Ive been eating the stolen every morning with hot chocolate and it sure makes me miss you :) hope you all got my stuff or will be getting it soon! :) Sure love you all and hope you have a super merry Christmas :)

Con mucha paz y amor,

Hermana Maughan! :)

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! It is coming!!! Really fast! I'm so happy! The only thing that makes it feel not like Christmas is the fact that its only 61 degrees outside to day and we have not had rain for some time….. maybe its because I'm way south but it doesn’t look like its going to be a white Christmas for me this year but that’s OK because I'm still biking more than driving.

            This last week was good, we had our Christmas program on Saturday and it was really good but that was not because I was in it haha, we had 4 investigators there and it was a really good time this ward knows how to cook haha I may just have a heart attack jk. So it was a great night but then at church yesterday none of our investigators came L and we have to call them to find out why today. Besides that it was really good the last two young men gave there farewell talks so there was a lot of people that came and the Christmas spirit was there.

            Then last night we went Christmas Caroling which was different from back home for two reasons:

1)      There was almost no one there 6 sisters, Elder Yankton our ride (a brother) and me

2)      Because the ward is so spread out we went out for two hours and sung to 5 people for about 3 mins each, as the rest of the time was driving…..   

But it really helped it feel like Christmas!
We had a few lessons this week but the one that is progressing the most is Elizabeth the 10 year old, we were able to teach about the restoration and she was right in there learning and growing. This upcoming week are going to teach her about Christ birth and Christmas, we still have to think of a fun way to do it.

            O ya we had our Christmas zone conference and it was really good, I bet in that video I look like a big goof haha. It was really good and you know who is in my district now? Elder Moore….. do you remember him…. He was in the desert wells ward when we moved in, anyways its funny because he came out with Elder Town so I could have trained him haha, he was at the conference and we talked a lot. And Elder Koplen (the first elder I trained) and he is training now so I now have a “grandson”….. man I'm old haha that was what went through my head haha

            Well I got to go I’ll talk to you soon!!! I love you!!!!!!!!

YOUR ALL DA BEST!!!!!

ELDER MAUGHAN MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!            

Christmas is coming up so soon

Happy Christmas and a Merry New Years! :)

How’s this week going? can you believe Christmas is coming up so soon?! I sure cant! definitely not ready for it yet! Even Chicago isn’t ready for it since we have to have snow that sticks. it snowed for the first time this year on Thursday and then it all melted away and now its just wet and rainy... don’t even know if we will being having snow for Christmas this year.

 But this week has been a good one yet again! god just keeps pouring in these blessings and i have loved every minute of it....:)

So on Friday Sotero finally got baptized! Which you know what’s really cool about the date that he was baptized? is that a year before on the same day is when my first baptism took place. :) Jose Gonzales. So yeah that was pretty sweet! but what could go wrong for this baptism you might ask? Seeing as how at every baptism I have ever had something ALWAYS happens.....this time...wellllllllll They needed a ride to get from where they live to the church seeing how they didn’t have any other way of getting to the church and they live about a good 30 40 minutes away from the church. we had the ride and everything all set up and our baptism was supposed to take place at 7....its 6.45 and still no sotero. try calling the ride and no one is answering and called Sotero and he’s still at his apt and its 6.45 just waiting for the ride to pick him up......and we cant get a hold of anyone. 7.30 and still no one. font filled people waiting. even the bishop isn’t there. well finally we find out that the ride we had set up couldn’t take him last minute cause they got stuck in traffic so then the bishop went to go get him but got lost and didn’t know his address and ladlalalalsdklsdfjklsdhgjlsg so good news is that he finally made it to the baptism! at 8 is when we got started. :) and sotero is now the newest member of the Aurora Ward. :)

 Next cool thing is that Luis is just the most amazing person ever! He is seriously so excited to be baptized and we taught him the restoration on Sunday and the spirit was there so strong and we asked him how he felt and he told us...."well. its like this big feeling that i don’t know how to explain. but its really good. just this good big feeling. and I think that Joseph Smith was a prophet."  We gave him a chapter to read on Saturday that was about 10 pages long and he had it done by Sunday and had read the chapter 2 times so he could understand it better. AND he told us on Sunday that he really wants to go on a mission when he can :)

Lessons learned this week:

1.)If your eyes get big and swollen it’s a good idea to go to the doctor.

So for the past couple of weeks my eyes have been acting super weird. and actually it’s not even my eyes...just the eyelids. and every morning i wake up and my eyelids are just so swollen and puffy and red and itchy and burning hot and SUPER dry...like my eyelids were cracking and flaking....thought it might be just allergies so I was taking allergy medicine and Benadryl at night and using allergy eye drops and nope nothing. So then Saturday morning I woke up and couldn’t open my eyes because they were so swollen and told Hermana brown that that was it. we were going to the doctor. went over to Walgreen’s and the doctor...oh man you should have seen her face when she saw mine. if you have ever seen the movie Hitch-when he has that allergic reaction to the fish and his face blows up--yeah that’s what mine looked like. like I had two black swollen eyes without the black part. and she pulled out her little medical book and had to look it up cause it was so weird for her. turns out you know how lucky i am? Well eczema runs in our family and apparently I’m lucky enough to get it on my eyelids. add that along with a staph infection and you get the look of hitch minus the makeup artists. So attached is a photo of one of the days with my eyelid but it is nothing in comparison to how they were the day i went to doctor. super bad. so i got some nasty antibiotics and am now putting a steroid cream on my eyelids twice a day and not permitted to wear makeup for the next two weeks...get to show of the natural beauty from within. :)

2.) Never let me know it’s your birthday and you have confetti:)

well it was Hermana Browns birthday on Monday and her mom sent her a package filled with balloons and happy birthday confetti....while Hermana brown was sleeping :) I quietly took those balloons and blew them all up. took some ribbon and hung them from the ceiling, made a happy birthday sign and then took all the confetti and put it everywhere. she was finding it in her pockets, her boots, her toothpaste, her scriptures, her preach my gospel, her planner, her camera case....everywhere she went HAPPY BIRTHDAY was slammed in her face:) Then Hermana Brown gets all grossy josey on anything to do with eyeballs...so what does she get as a present from me? 4 plastic blue eyeballs is right! oh  man it was funny. So I sure hope that it was a good day for her :)

3.) Letting people know you play a musical instrument is a badddddd idea. especially when you have zone conference and the people that were supposed to do the special musical number get sick with the flu. So Zone conference was on Thursday. i get a call Wednesday night at about 9:40pm from the assistant. Asking me what my favorite color is and why. and then what my favorite musical instrument to play is. well I only play one. oh yeah. you play the flute. would you be willing to play a special musical number for our zone conference tomorrow. I found you a flute :) so seeing as I was cleverly tricked into that conversation I ended up playing some primary Christmas songs with assistant rogers on the piano. it didn’t turn out so bad considering that I only had 1 hour to practice. :)

And yeah. that’s pretty much what happened this week! :) Well I’m really looking forward to talking to my family on Christmas :) yayy!

love you a ton!

paz y amor,

Hermana Maughan

Fast email

Well I have to do a fast letter home today because the place we e-mail is closed so we had to scramble to find a public place that we could e-mail and we found one at the College and I have to be fast.

So this week has been good we had a lot of lessons fall through but we had 2 investigators at church yesterday and a lot of appointments set up for this week, a really big thing that is coming up this week is the Christmas program which we were drafted into haha but that is this Saturday and the ward is excited to be a part of it, they say that there is going to be a lot of non-members there. And then yesterday we had a young men give his fare well talk and then is leaving today and then the next two weeks both have someone leaving for their missions so its an exciting time for this ward.

I'm doing good, but just ready for Christmas, I got the package from mom and dad, so now there is something under our tree!  Yay haha, and this week we have our Christmas Zone conference which is all ways really spiritual. It’s a great time of the year but just a little weird being in a small town and now that school is done it got a lot smaller haha. The weather got all the sudden really cooled… which is funny because a few days ago it felt like an Arizona winter haha.

Well I'm sorry for the way short letter but that is really all the time I have today….. sorry but I'm doing good and loving it here!!!! Take care and be safe!!!!!!

LOVE

Elder Maughan

Already the 7th of December

Familia!

Man can you believe that is already the 7th of December?! Man I can’t. This is crazy!

I got the Christmas package and the nifty cute advent calendar that the Orr’s sent. :) thanks! Our tree this year is a little guy. goes to about my mid-calf and we have him sitting on the coffee table in our living room with all the presents we’ve gathered sitting around it :)

The weather here is getting colder and colder. We woke up this morning and it was below freezing: / man I tell you what. I do not miss the cold. But here it comes anyways :)

I cannot believe that you got the paper telling what airport I’m coming into already! that’s crazy man! I feel like I just got out here!

Things here this week have been really good. We’ve been working and working and working. Last week we were blessed to find 7 new investigators and they are awesome!

One of which is a man named Luis.....I don’t remember if I told you about him already or not but he’s 19 and his family is really inactive. The mom is the only one that was officially baptized in the church and idk I figured he was already a member and a brother to this other member that he is always with. but basically he came up to us and asked us what he needed to do to be baptized. So we had a lesson with him and at the very beginning of the lesson what did we do? Well we invited him to be baptized! Set him on date for the 24th of December :) and when we asked him what he thought about that date and he was silent for a bit almost to the point that we thought he didn’t like it and he looks up at and says "That would be.....so awesome!" He is seriously the most excited person i have ever seen for baptism. What a special Christmas this is going to be :) I feel so so so so blessed.

Another 3 of the new investigators that we found this week are this little family of 3. Reyna, Gustavo, and Isaac. And man oh man. They are amazing people. We actually found them on our lunch break and decided to go see if we could see one of our other investigators who works there (Cruz) at KFC and Reyna and them where in line and needed help ordering their food since they couldn’t speak English. and Reyna was so impressed with the fact that white girls are speaking Spanish that she started asking us questions and one thing led to next she invited us over to her place and as she was giving us her contact information Cruz came out and saw that we were talking to her and she comes over and starts talking to Reyna and Gustavo telling them how much we have helped her and her family how her family prays every night and all this stuff that when we finally got to go over there last week it was so comfortable in their home. They already felt like members to me. And we felt really impressed to talk about the Book of Mormon and Reyna got so excited about it that she invited herself to read it! So we get to see her and her family this Saturday :) I can’t wait! 

This Friday Sotero is gonna get baptized! yeah man!! :) I cannot wait for that! :) and the best part is that neither can he! He told us how excited he was. Sotero is an amazing man who reminds me a lot of a quiet shy child wrapped up in a big guy body. His baptism is gonna be so great! I love baptisms! 

We put Victor on date again for the 21 of January and I really am hoping that he will be able to get his butt to church. We have taught him everything and he knows it’s true and wants to be baptized so bad but due to his work schedule it prevents him from being able to come to church but he told us that in January work will be slowing down and hell have more time to come to church. the problem is that him and another recent convert (Carlos) have the same job. So whenever Carlos isn’t working victor is and visa versa. So in order for Carlos to be able to come to church Victor has to work...dilemma...but it will all work out. We talked about temples yesterday and he really wants to be able to enter there and one day be sealed with someone forever. Victor has not had an easy life and he is trying his best. I know that it’s gonna work out and I just hope that I get to see that brother get baptized! 

So this past week was a really good one. And this week well actually tomorrow we have zone conference :) 6 and a half hours of getting to learn how to be better people and teachers and missionaries and listeners and remotivated all over again! Super excited!  

Hope you all are staying happy and warm and I look forward to hearing from you!

Miss you tons! Have a great week!

paz y amor,

Hermana Maughan

As a Child

Well I’m in week 6 of this transfer and it doesn’t feel like I have been in Pembroke that long….. but here we are, and I have been able to feel like this area has really grown already. I’m finally getting everyone’s first name down, it has taken time to get use to calling people by their first name, instead of their last name. I really love these people and it’s so great to be with them!

            This week has been a really good week. We had a few powerful lessons this week one was with a man Earnest and his son Tray. We went to the appointment thinking that we were going to talk about the plan of salvation but as we started talking we felt the need to talk more about the Book of Mormon and its role in our conversion. The Spirit was really strong as we talked about how we must feel that it is true and strive to know if it’s true or not by reading it, and then taking it to God in prayer to ask if it is true. After the lesson we first invited Ernest to be baptized on the 14^th of next month and he was all for it! So then we invited his 14 year old son Tray and he told us that he will pray about it, but yes he would and then Ernest was like “Oh well I better pray about it too”

            Then we had a lesson with Elizabeth the 9 year old and for the lesson I made a puzzle to teach her of the Doctrine of Christ (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) Then she surprised us by teaching it back to us in only about 5 minutes when we had taken about 30 mins! It was great to hear how simple the gospel really is, and think of if we were all like a child in the way of learning and living the gospel that the world would be a lot better place. We then invited her to be baptized on the 7^th of next month and she really wants to. Yesterday she was able to go to primary for the first time and I’m excited because we have a lesson with her tonight and we are going to ask her what she thought of church.

            So in a nut shell the work is moving along here, and life is good. I’m excited about the Christmas season that is upon us (the weather has been really nice this week) and people are getting nicer haha! We even have had two people invite us over for Christmas this year! Yay for CHRISTmas (not CHIStmas haha) but I hope you all have a great season and a wonderful week!

LOVE ELDER MAUGHAN!!