More Trees and More Meetings

Well there wasn’t much that went on here, I think everyone has power now and most of the trees are all cleaned up, and a lot of the week was cleaning that up and the rest of the week was a lot of meetings.  Like district meeting, and zone leader\district leader counsel (that is a meeting that all the leaders get together and talk about the mission in general and what we can do to help) then we had weekly planning and an exchange which I went up to Roanoke Rapides (we moved trees), then church and this week we have zone conference and then an exchange with the zone leaders and the week after that I have exchanges… I sure am learning a lot.

            Well guess what I did yesterday?...golf haha and it might look like we are going to start doing it every week haha and I'm slowly getting better and it's just fun, not too much stress unless I miss an easy putt or something haha then after we had a cook out (what you would know as a BBQ, but here BBQ is a type of food so when we have hamburgers and hotdogs its called a cook out) and it was a lot of fun we even might teaching someone soon because of it, his name is Nat and he has come to church once and has now gotten every Sunday off of work so he can go every week, and at the cook out we had a conversation about the plan of salvation. And he really enjoyed it and now wants to be taught. So that was really great.

            Um……. That was really all my week…. Haha sorry about the shorter letter but I would right more if I could think of something…….. well the church is still true haha and I love all of you still and I hope to have some great stories for you in my next letter…….I'm sorry haha

            I hope you all have a great week and are all safe!

LOVE FROM ELDER MAUGHAN    

1 Year Today!

HI FAMILY!!!!!!!!

So isn't it so crazy that 1 year ago today I left for the MTC? Actually I would be just about off the plane by now.....weird. I cannot believe that it has already been a year!  So today for the celebration of being 1 year old, Hermana Noyes and I are going to be going to this cute little cupcake shop down main street and having a cupcake. haha

And I'm sure you all are wondering how this week has been in a new area? Just hangin on by your finger tips with anticipation right? riiiiiiiiiight. well...if i could sum up this week into one verb it would be: Laughing. Hermana Noyes and I have had an awesome week....full of laughter as I just keep pulling "stupids" or retry moments as my mom likes to call them. Hermana Noyes is an awesome person who makes it really easy to be obedient and love the work. Idk. its like stress free and yet were busy busy at the same time.

Things I've learned this week:

        1. dont try to pull a U-turn when there are cars behind you. pretty obvious right? well i had to learn that one the hard way. No worries, no accidents and not even one honked horn. just i wish i could draw the picture of what i did and put it on here.....

         2. Its really smart to bring your preach my gospel, scriptures, suit coat and nylons to district meeting. Actually they re essential. How I didn't have those things I don't know. Here's the story: So every month our zone here gets together for a combined district meeting where we make our zone goals for the month on the things we want to accomplish. and its at the stake center which is about a 20 min drive from our apt to the stake center....So Hermana Noyes and I had a great morning, studying and working out and we were sure to leave the house on time so that we wouldn't be late for district meeting. We get all the way down to Naperville and Hermana Noyes looks down and goes "What?! I forgot my suit coat! instead I'm wearing this! (striped white and yellow sweater)" so the conversation goes on and I tell her you know I brought mine, its in the back I just wont wear it so that we are like unified. She tells me it's OK that I can and should wear it....So I go to get it, only to realized that I set my coat on the table to grab the keys and forgot it on the table. at the same time of remembering that I forgot that I also came to the sudden realization that I had NOTHING for district meeting. Not my english scriptures not my preach my gospel---nothing. And right as I was about to say something I hear Hermana Noyes go "I forgot allllllll my district meeting stuff!" Oh boy, where were our heads that morning? Idk. Needless to say lots of laughter followed due to the fact that we both forgot the same things and realized it at the same time-when we were already at the stake center. But good thing from this story? yes there is one good thing----at least it shows that we are a unified companionship.

As for the miracles seen this week:

           1. Well on Saturday we had been running around trying to stop by and see some of these referrals we had received and visiting with some less actives and other investigators, just a busy day. and We were leaving one appointment and I saw the mexican ice cream/ elote truck. and I had the biggest craving for elote----(what is that? well ready for this= corn, butter, mayonnaise and chile. padres get ready to have some when i get home! ) and I asked hermana noyes if she had ever had one before she said no and honestly you can't be in the spanish program and not have had elote. so we went and bought one and it was yummy. talked to man for a bit and then went off. but in literally every area we were in that day he was there! Like every different part of town he would just happen to be driving his little truck around the neighborhood. the last time was right before we were about the head home and he saw us again and we just all started laughing at how many times we had seen each other that day. and then he asked us if we were from a church and one thing led to the next and we have a new investigator! :) God sure is funny....giving me the craving to have an elote.

            2. Importance of talking to everyone you don't know......church on Sunday there was this younger female and turns out that she had just moved from Guatemala to take a nanny job here in the states for a year. not a member....her boyfriend had given her a BoM before she left and she went to church like once over there and when she came here that's the first thing she did was find where the church building was and she just showed up. we invited her to come to noche de hogar that night and she came and then we had a picnic on Monday with the ward for labor day and she came to that as well and we meet with her tomorrow. I'm really excited she is wanting to learn more and really likes the bom.

         3. We have 2 baptisms on Saturday! Rosa y Andrew, they are 14 and 12 and moved from Mexico to live with their aunt and uncle and they are truly super cool. their baptism is gonna be awesome. Hermana Noyes and I will be speaking at it and I'm really excited.

        4. We have another baptism coming up next week of a man named Carlos and he has one strong testimony in the church. He's a single father with 3 kids-two of which will be preparing to be baptized on October.

 Ultimately this all sums up to this area is awesome. I feel like I have already been here for a while and that I just get along with everyone here in this ward....like I already know them, Idk how to describe it but its like kind of like the feeling of when you've been gone on a long trip and then you get back and you see your friends that you haven't seen in a while and its like things just pick up where they left off when you left...kinda like that. so I'm so excited to be here. The members here even know how to say my name....something little to know but every other area besides the city didn't know how to say it....so estoy feliz

(the mission office, and home are in my area hahaha) and Ive had the opportunity to serve in 4 out of the 8 hermana areas in the mission. crazy huh?

Anywhooser I better get this off. gosh I feel like there is so much more I could tell. but I just want to say this work is awesome. I love being a missionary. It is hard but it also seriously the best and most funnest thing ever. This gospel brings more lasting joy than anything else can or will. and I feel so blessed to be able to be the Lords missionary. This year, my mission has taught me more about who I am, my relationship with God, my relationship and the importance of family, and more about marriage than I EVER imagined I would learn out here on my mission. So any of you that are questioning whether you should go or not I have 2 words for you: DO IT!!!!!!! high chances you'll regret not going, but you will NEVER regret going.

 Love you all! tengan un buen semana!

paz y amor

Hermanita Maughan

Earthquake and Hurricane

So this week there wasn’t anything really big going on…… just my first earthquake and hurricane, so you know nothing to big… haha

                But I'm safe and doing really good. The earthquake felt like I was in a vibrating chair for only 20 seconds so it wasn’t anything big but still it was my first one. Now everyone seems to have forgotten about that because of the hurricane that hit. So we kept getting both sides of the story before Irena hit some saying it was nothing others making it sound like it was going to be the end of the world so we didn’t really know what to think, but then on Thursday night we were told that 4 elders from Greensville where going to spend the weekend at our house. The next morning they came and throughout the day we would get sudden gusts of strong wind and rain then it would go away and in the evening there was just a little sprinkle nothing too much and we woke up the next morning to the same thing. But right at 8 in the morning it just hit and it was high winds with a lot of rain…. So we were stuck inside just waiting Irena outside, nothing really happened to our house only a little leaking from the back door and our power going out (for 7 hours) but besides that we we did play a few games like; if and then, and trash can basketball haha.

                Now the next day was a little different… there was no church because there was no power and all the damage that had happened. The 6 of us had our own sacrament meeting and it was really spiritual as we all shared our testimony’s but then we got into our work clothes. Can you guess were we went?....... If you guessed the golf course then your right!! Haha the member that owns it really needed help as you can see from the pics. But we were out there the past two days just doing all we could to move these trees. It was a lot of work and it felt so good to do service. What made this hurricane so bad and caused so many trees to come down was that this storm was so big and moved so slow through our area that the rain was making the ground so wet and then the wind was just blowing and blowing. So the trees just came down all over the place. There were a few trees that went into homes.  It looks a lot better today than it did a few days ago. We were also so blessed to get our power back so fast. There are still a some people without power, but something that has been cool to see is how neighbors and strangers just help all they can sharing generators and food it has been really cool.

                So that was my first hurricane and it was very interesting but I am safe and just looking forward to help even more people. But boy, I tell you I'm a little tired. And the only thing that happened to me was my camera decided it wanted to stop working…. So im back to old faithful haha    

                I love you all so much and thanks for the prayers they helped so much!!

ELDER MAUGHAN          

Birthday Cake and Ice Cream

Aug 30, 2011

Hey there family! :)
So so so another week has come and another week gone.....one year older and maybe a little be wiser too:)
My birthday was great! The ward members were awesome and included today in the email are pictures to follow. Got a couple birthday cakes, went to the cheesecake factory with other missionaries and had stake conference :) good weekend. Good way to end the transfer. Hermana Belmonte had us over to eat on sunday and we had taquitos y pisole and then ice cream cake for dessert:) Then on monday we went over to the familia padillas house and they made dinner and we had ice cream cake as well--either they knew I loved ice cream and birthday cake so they decided to put it in one or it just so happened to be ice cream cake....birthday cake and ice cream birthday cake and ice cream. And thank you to everyone for all your thoughts and birthday wishes. Mom and Dad and Nana I loved the presents. it was really fun to open all of them and I sure got a kick out of the orange scripture case;)

As for the investigators Arlington Heights is booming with them. Lupita still contines strong, Ligia todavia tiene su fecha y encontramos mas y mas gente that have been waiting. As for everything else Im sure youre all wondering what happened today for transfers......well Im the Roamer. Cause Ive been transfered! Im now serving in Aurora, which is another suburb that is really close to the mission office in naperville. My companion her name is Hermana Noyes (pronouced Noise) and she is from little farm town in Southern Utah with a population of about 200 people. I will be her third companion and shes been out for about 11 months now. There are four investigators here that are on date to baptized and a lot of work to be done! pues-este es la vida de misioneros! :) verdad? It should be good. Im looking forward to the change and the chance to meet more amazing people. This transfer im hoping is a good one :) If there is one thing Im learning is that God likes to make me feel uncomfortable and you know why? because it helps me grow. So im thankful for the feeling of uncomfortableness. :)

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes! Hope yall have a great week! miss you tons!! :)
Paz y Amor,
hermana Maughan

We almost got kicked out the library this last week!

Happy Monday! And that means another week of missionary work ya but you know what I did today? Well I went golfing again and I'm slowly getting better and slowly losing less balls ha ha but the member that we went with is a former Pro and I had to keep reminding him that the winner was the one that got the most points…. And because of that elder Towne was the winner of today ha ha. But it was really fun and not to to hot, and in the end the member told me to stick with basketball…. Ha ha it was a lot of fun might even compete with fishing….. 

            Well as missionary work goes this week it was a little slow and we didn’t teach as many lessons as we would have liked, but there is progress. We had dinner with a member one day and they invited Pete and Scooby over too, and I really enjoyed it but the boys wouldn’t eat, not even ice cream and I was just thinking that was crazy but the lesson was good we taught about the restoration and how the church is on the earth again. And they are very smart but they don’t have any support from home but I know that entire family will come around soon as the members just keep on showing their love and keep on inviting.

            The day after that I gave my first interview which I feel went good. I was more afraid about messing up the paper work than anything haha but it was great and the sister was truly ready. The missionary’s met  her when she just walked into church one day and she had lots of LDS friends and she really understood the things she needed to know, and it was a good spiritual experience to hear her testimony and the way the Lord has prepared her.

            Then we had a lesson with a less active member and her non-member nephew and we taught the restoration and Elder Towne did great, he even invited him to be baptized at the end of the lesson and the members after the lesson went and got them all new Sunday clothing and really want to help them, but they didn’t come to church yesterday L but we are going to teach them this week.

            O ya I almost forgot!  We almost got kicked out the library this last week! So let me tell you that story….. we went to the library to go on to Mormon.org and after I was done some older lady’s asked if I could help them with their computer and as I started to help them the man next to them starts asking for help as well, so the lady get done really fast all they wanted was to be able to print something and they had talked to missionary’s before but where very great full for the help. Then I start helping this other man and in the meantime Elder Towne is just standing there till one of the workers comes over and starts asking him if I would be able to come in on Friday to do service. I'm just helping away and then they start telling Elder Towne that we will need to fill out paper work and stuff. But as I'm helping this man just asks me questions like; what religion are you? why are you here? and if I'm going to vote for Mit Romney and as we are wraping up and giving each other our numbers this lady walks by and just says “NO!!” and walks away... the next thing I know this other man comes over  and asks if he can talk to us and he goes on to tell us that we will not be able to do service because we were handing out church stuff and proselyting….. we try to explain that we didn’t hand out anything and we were just answering questions that this man was asking us but he didn’t want to hear any of it and told us that if we try to help anyone or talk to anyone again he was going to kick us out……….. hahaha it was so crazy and funny so that is my story of this week.

 So... never help or talk to anyone in a library or they will get after you!!! haha

            But that was my week and my random thought of the day is that Elder Towne knows more video games then I ever knew about and has beaten them all…. Its crazy

Well take care

ELDER MAUGHAN             

He just had this big smile on his face,

 So my new companions name is Elder Towne and he is from Maryland (two states north, he is a Yankee haha but just barely) and it has been a good week, its just very interesting to be training again and on top of that im the district leader so I'm growing a lot and I find that I have even less free time then I have ever had before and it feels great because it all ways feels like……. I'm a missionary haha. But the beginning of the week was hot but the last few days we have had some nice rain and yesterday we had a appointment with a man and it was just a nice rain and we decided that we should go anyways so we start biking and as we bike it just starts coming down, but this time it was not a humid rain so it was nice and at first I think Elder Towne was not to sure about it all but after the lesson and as we biked home (25-30 mins) he just had this big smile on his face, I think he really enjoyed feeling like a missionary his first week out on his mission. Also we have had people coming out of the wood work, and the lord is just putting people and things in our path that just help so much. And I really think it’s the Lord blessing us for obedience and he really wants Elder Towne to have a great start! I just love the work!

Well a update about sister Crystal she has had a hard time with her dad and they came up with the deal that when she comes back from college and still wants to be baptized then she can and the past week he has been planning a lot of things to do with her to keep her from spending so much time with the members and us. Her thirst for knowledge has kind of died a little but she has committed to go to church up there and all the members have friends where she is going so they are going to make sure that she does. We hope to have one more lesson with her before she goes but I know that the Lord will take care of her.

Oh some other things with the new training we have 3 hours of study every day plus as a district leader I have to take another 30 mins and we also have DVD players now so we can watch training videos and it has been a lot of fun, I have learned so much doing all this teaching and I'm just so grateful to the Lord for all of it! So I got to go I have run out of time again but I love you all so much and I hope you all have a great week!! And don’t worry its going to be winter before you or I know it!!          

ELDER MAUGHAN!!

Anti-Nephi-Lehi's

Buenos Dias mi familia! :)
otro semana ya paso....no lo creo. pero todo esta bien aqui! :)
hows my good ol family doin? glad to hear you have both the puppies in hand and not down in some strangers garage this time ;) baxter learned a lesson maybe? but glad to hear that your all home safe and sound and little nana's in the HOWSE!  bet that will be fun! :) hows she enjoying the heat? I mean let me tell you...there has never been a time more in my life that I want to just jump in the pool than the time that I can't.... funny how that works isn't it?

As for the update the week:
Hermana Reyes and I have been working really hard at trying to find new investigators. we were blessed with 6 new investigators.

Good news is that we have an awesome investigator. Her name is Ligia We were looking through our Area Book and found her. She was being taught by Elder missionaries 2 years ago and when the sister missionaries came into the area something happened that they lost contact with her. So we decided we would stop by and see if she was home. and you know what? she was! She let us in and we talked for a bit--turns out she had a Book of Mormon and told us she would find it and we set up another appt to come back and see her. So we went back and you know what she told us? well she told us 2 things. one that she found the Book of Mormon and had started reading it. and 2 that she found out yesterday that her sister in mexico is mormon! she got baptized a year ago. (perfect timing right?!) her sister was an alcoholic and now she said her sister is a completely different person for the better and she loves that. Then she brought up cause her sister doesnt drink anymore..."So I heard you dont even drink coffee...why is that?" "Well Ligia its a commandment from God that we don't. He has told us that it's bad for our bodies. So thats why we don't drink it." "Oh. ok. Ill stop drinking it then. I have noticed that it makes me all shaky inside. I won't drink it anymore. what are the other things God has told us not to do?" did I mention that Ligia can't see out of one eye. It's a silicon eye. So does she use that as an excuse to not read? no. not at all. She told us that she was feeling sad last week and so she picked up the BoM and started reading it and she felt this peace and knowlege that she could do what she needed to. 

Then we also have Lupita on date to be baptized for the 27th of August.....she still needs to get the actua de nacimiento de su esposo so they can go get their marriage license but we are taking steps of faith that this will happen. Lupita is more than ready to enter the waters of baptism. She is already pariticpating in the Relief Society lessons and like loves reading the BoM. She is an amazing person. I'm praying and praying that I can see Lupita get baptized this month!

So on monday it was pouring rain and all the appts we had lined up for the day allllllllllll fell through. Life of a missionary right? So we tried finding some less actives and doing some other work when our dinner appt cancelled on us. so we had no where to eat and Hna Padilla found out and told us we could come over to her place for FHE. So...coming up with the lesson.....I was sitting at my desk earlier that morning looking at my pictures of my family...and when we were trying to come up with an idea for the lesson I thought back to those pictures on my wall---my indian family FHE---boom. that was it. that was our lesson. So we went to their house and we dressed up like anti-nefi-lehites...and told the story of the stripling warriors and how they stood up for their Dads so they didn't have to break the promise they made with God and how their Moms taught them if they had faith and prayed that God would save them and he did.....and then we took the popsicles sticks and talked about how as individuals we are easy to break but as a family we are strong....so thanks mom and dad for your awesome FHE lesson all those years back. its still stuck with me! and hopefully it will stick with the padilla kids for years to come. it was really fun.

Today for Preperation day we are heading to go fishing and try our hand at catching catfish. So dad if you have any good recipes I could really use them! we want to do some catfish fryin! :) :)
But sure hope you have a great week! :) Love you all! Read your Scriptures cause they're the word of God and they're true! :)

paz y amor,
Hermana Maughan