week 19

so here we are almost 6 months into my mission. of course it does not feel like that long. and i just got transferred! found out yesterday and this morning packed my bags and moved out.

but im still in the same stake, still in villahermosa. my new area is Espejo 2. (2 bc theres 4 missionaries in the ward, we have half the area they have the other) and its probably a 10/15 minute taxi ride from the stake center. my companion is Hermana Magana! shes 26 and from El Salvador and shes the mission nurse! im completely honored to be her companion actually. shes incredibly hardworking and super Christ-like which is crazy bc she has so many things to worry about! so during the week we'll be working in the office and shes the one to call whenever theres a medical issue. Heavenly Father might be telling me i need to pay attention and learn a thing or two. or its just a sign that im about to get deathly ill and he knows ill need a lot of help. either one is alot to think about haha so its better to not!

so yesterday we went over to the Balboas, theyre the coordinators for efy in all of villahermosa, and in their efy a couple weeks ago they asked all 800 kids to give references of friends or family that the missionaries could visit or teach. so they asked us to go over and help separate everything. well we didnt realize how much work it would be. there were well over 300 names to separate into stakes and some had little notes attatched saying it was their best friend or their mom. so cool. all i know is that at least one of those references is gona change a life.

so we met a kid, Jose Daniel, 22 years old that sells fruit on the side of the road everyday all day. the first time we met him hes a little shy cuz his right arm is missing right below his elbow and he just tries to hide it whenever people talk to him. and we gave him a plan of salvation pamphlet after talking to him for a bit and went on. a couple days later we passed by again. he said he read the pámphlet and wanted to learn more. so we invited him to church and he said sure ill come! oh and i asked him what happened and told him he shouldnt be shy about it. he said when he was 18 he was cutting down pineapples with his uncle to sell and he chopped off his own arm. and he still isnt used to it so its tough for him. first of all cant even IMAGINE and how grateful am I that the Lord let us find him. so we took him to church and he really liked it. i probably wont see him again but its still good to know that we can be examples to people in small moments. we always should be ready to share something even simple about the gospel. everyone is searching for something. and if you arent ready and worthy to testify of truth at any moment of your day, then you arent living the way God has asked. follow every commandment. look for opportunities to serve other people in any form. People are put in our paths DAILY because God knows that only we can help them.

also something funny. this sunday hna romero and i were asked to give talks. i went second and still had a lot of time left so i was like well i guess i fill it up so i dont look dumb. (sidenote, when people are asked to give talks they dont sit on the stand. they come up from the congregation when its their turn) so the 1st counselor in the bishopric passes me a NOTE during my ending testimony that said "TIME IS OVER." and i almost started laughing cuz he knows a little english and everyone that knows a little english likes to use it. so im like anndddd thats all. so i finish up and sit down and he announces that there are 2 MORE people that are going to speak. how embarrrassing. anyway. just a little something to let you know im still dumb and do dumb things. but people think im funny so that keeps me going. love you all. keep working hard wherever you are. sorry my letters are so long. theres a lot that happens in one week of a mission!!!

love,

hna zimmerman

this is a picture of the family perez vasquez! karla, dulce, and isolina.y family! dulce is getting baptized may 10!

This fruit is called guaya. its little and its so sweet and yummy! and it takes away thirst pretty fast. theres a seed in the middle so you just eat around it. but the fruit part is way soft and almost like jello. also look for ciruelas! prounounced seed-yewellas. i call theem cinderellas!! there is sooo many amazing types of fruit here!!! i loooove mangos!!

Our last day together as companions

 my old zone! villahermosa!! yea number 1! we lost. but at least the jerseys were super cool right 

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Is this sacriligious? our zone leaders made us sick jerseys for a baseball tournament between zones with this on our shoulders. 

week 18

oh my goodness so much has happened and continues to happen. the baptism went so well. we planned ahead to make sure we didnt stress ourselves out and actually could enjoy it with the rest of the people. and it was perfect!! except for the fact that when pamela was putting on the suit the zipper broke and we had to make her take it off and make manuel change so we could switch them and luckily a lady had a needle and thread so i panicked to get the zipper head back on and sew up the broken part and pass it on to manuel. so the other one fit pamela perfectly, but the broken one was too short for manuel so oh my goodness he had a white tshirt under so he wore that and zipped it up to his waist and tied his belt around his waist to keep it up. AND he had his prosthetic leg with its shoe and sock on still so it was all just classic mishaps but he was smiling and totally okay with it. even though when it was his turn to be baptized he was like nah ill just go in the font with the prosthetic. but we were like "manuel you still have the shoe on!!!" and he looks down and puts his hands on his head and says "oh no you're right!!!" so he takes it off all nervous and frantic and long story short he was baptized and now he and pamela are members of the church. and pamela wants to serve a mission and shes super bummed shes going to  have to wait a year. AND she wants us to go with her to be baptized in the temple for her mom!!!! AND ill be here next year when shes endowed to leave on her mission! that was one of my goals when i left the mtc, to be able to help someone get baptized and help them get to the temple so that i can be there with them before i go home. she is so sweet and smart and they both have a new spirit about them and when they talk its different and more profound and incredible.

yesterday church was amazing. first they dedicated the whole sacrament meeting to the testimonies of the youth that went to efy this past week. and the couple coordinator of the whole efy of villahermosa is in our ward as well. each one was so powerful and they all changed so much. 3 of them are sincerely preparing to go on missions. the bishops son said "now i dont feel the desire to go for my own reasons or what not, i feel the responsibility, the privilege and necessity to share what i know and what i feel." thats what its about. if you feel like you need to serve a mission or that its something you can do, you are qualified. it doesnt matter if we are scared or worried about or own circumstances or past life, because when youre on a mission NONE of that matters. not a single opinion of yours is necessary when you are teaching people truth and giving them what the Lord wants them to have. its like if a mom wants someone to help her child. obviously shes going to give that person every bit of information and help they need once she has trust in the person and knows that they can help her kid with something she cant. its the SAME with missionary work. we are all capable.

ANYWAY it was so spiritual and i was so happy for all of them. and during the gospel principles class with our investigator sarai, her 6 month old baby was super upset and wouldnt calm down so i told pamela to take it out in the hall so she could focus. (sarai is dating edgar, the less active that showed up to church after 5 years) and he wants us to help her get baptized. anyway she left a little after cuz the baby kept crying and when we left she was in the hall talking to pamela and crying. turns out she recently was diagnosed with leukemia, the same cancer pamelas mom died of. and she has 3 little kids, and none of them are edgars, hes just helping her out. the Lord puts everyone he needs in the right places at just the right time. JUST the right time. pamela is helping her and supporting her with us and shes the best missionary im so happy for her. she cant wait to go into the temple. she said "well obviously i cant wait, if you feel this good in the waiting room i cant imagine what its like in the rest of it." we are so blessed. im way over-blessed. today manuel was talking to us again about how sad he is going to be when we get transferred. and we cant sing hymns for him anymore bc it makes him think about how we wont do that for him when we leave. but today he started crying bc it makes him so sad!!!! oh my poor thing. so the work continues, im continually grateful and honored that our Heavenly Father trusts me to help his children. i didnt tell you guys but we dont knock on doors here. its dangerous. we only visit with references from members and other missionaries and we can talk to everyone in the street. everyone. so we really rely on members and on our own efforts. working everyday getting turned down countless times. im happy. dont worry about me. i love you all. whatever you are doing and whatever trial you are facing right now, stay strong. you wont be able to complete it without help from above. that all sounds very cheesy but im very serious!!! you are blessed beyond belief!!

love love love,

an extremely happy blessed and hopeful hermana zimmerman

Week 17

wow a lot has happened and continues to occur. 

we have an investigator named Pamela that we have been visiting with for almost 2 months. ever since the beginning she has been super interested. her mom passed away 4 years ago and she just wants to know that she can be with her family and thats all she cares about. every time we taught her she understood and had the best questions and completed all the commitments that we asked her to keep, going to church, reading the book of mormon, praying to know what we are saying is even true, etc. she even said she started to have some sort of hunger to read the book of mormon, when she didnt read or felt like she needed to read she couldnt get rid of the feeling without reading it!! and shes been mad at God for a while because of what happened to her mom, and she didnt feel like God was answering her prayers or even listening. we taught her the correct way to pray, which is theres no right or wrong way! as long as you say everything that you feel. a prayer isnt something thats memorized or something we do without even thinking out of habit. we are literally talking with our Father in Heaven, the only person that knows everything we feel and everything we think, whether we can comprehend our own issues or not. she said she prayed and felt an incredible feeling of comfort and protection all around her. perfect! but she was nervous about a baptism bc she doesnt want to disappoint her family (all catholics) BUT we took her to conference and to the temple. at the temple we watched the old video of the life of Christ, i dont even remember what its called but its way old. whenever i watch videos of Jesus Christ when he had to suffer i always just dont want to watch because its terrible, but believe me or not i felt the spirit so strongly when we were watching it. truly testifying to me that it was true and that it really happened. He really is the son of God, the only person who was capáble of dying for our cause and giving us the opportunity to live and mess up and come back to Him again. usually we imgaine how great it will feel to be ushered into Heavenly Father and Jesus Christs presence and feel their love and feel protected and whole and comforted, but at this point i just wanted to comfort Him for everything He had to suffer for my poor sake. and for all of us!! and theres still countless people that dont understand this and dont realize how blessed they are to even be on earth in the first place. ANYWAY Pamela decided she wants to be baptized. 

long story short (after the really long story) we have two baptisms scheduled this friday, for Pamela and for Manuel. And they are both way excited and more ready than ever. its all in the Lord´s hands, we just play a small piece. we watched The Restoration with them and when people were doing horrible things and saying horrible things to Joseph Smith, Manuel asked "all this just because he started talking about the word of God?" and he was so confused as to why anyone would treat a person that way when they have done nothing remotely wrong or offensive. we will never understand the pain the Christ suffered, we can never match it. And we will always be in debt to Him, so we had better start now with being the best we can be to show him that everything He did was something we actually appreciate. Im so grateful for this time. Every minute. i have been gone for almost half a year, and its going by way fast. This church is so true and once someone comes to know its truthfulness, they are never able to doubt or forget or search for something more, because this is everything. i know that it is all true. and if people mess up, its a good thing. thats the purpose of your life right now. who are we to chastize a person for their lack of understanding?? HELP THEM UNDERSTAND. 

sorry this is way long! read Mosiah 23:21-22

all my love and faith in each of you,

hermana zimmerman

p.s. incredible president of the villahermosa temple said to manuel, "here in the temple, we save the living and the dead."

this is manuels picture for his baptismal invites!

week 16

so conference was awesome, as expected. i was super nervous about watching it entirely in spanish because its alot of hours of spanish haha and i was praying hard before that i would be able to understand and receive the revelation i needed to receive. i was so nervous i actually felt sick before we left the house like i had to give a talk or something!! but it was the most powerful conference ever. i understood what they were saying for the majority and i had to focus so hard on the spirit and i had so many amazing thoughts come into my mind and i learned so much. for the second session the american elders set it up in english and said hna lowe and i could go watch with them if we wanted cuz its way better so we went and it wasnt way better! haha it was hard to focus and understand things for myself and i wanted to go back to the chapel to watch it in spanish with hna romero! so on sunday i was the only american in there watching it in spanish, even though all the other americans know spanish better! whatever. it was awesome. and manuel oh my goodness you wont believe this guy.

so he came with us saturday morning and he looooved it and so he came again sunday. after the first session hes like i think i want to stay for the second too and we told him ok you can wait here with us if you want! and he was thinking about it and said he loved it all so much and loooved what the prophet said and loved how the choir made him feel and loooved that everything was focused on Christ and the bible and hes like i think ill get baptized. WHAT. hes like well ya i know its all true so i just need a little time to tell the jehovahs witnesses to stop visitng me. bc he loves talking about the bible and religion, he always lets people come talk to him bc somewhere in the bible it says whoever comes preaching the word of God let them in and share with them. but anyway he recently got mad at the jehovahs witnesses cuz there isnt evidence of what they were saying and hes like "you guys arent witnesses of anything! theres no evidence! look at the mormons! they leave their house and their family and their country for God!" sounds worse than it was but i hope they werent too upset. sooo yea. hes awesome. and hopefully he continues to feel the truth of it all. 

im out of time but its okay! you just have to read the book of mormon and watch conference to find out how im doing! and i got a letter from lexi sanchez!! shes the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love you all!!! thanks for your letters and your support!!

hz

week 15

so theres a lot of ugly stuff going on around here. the whole police force is on strike right now cuz they want higher pay and safer weapons or something i dont know. so theres not many people in the streets cuz its not safe at all. and eeevvverrryyonne tells us we should be careful and we are crazy to be walking around alone. but we havent seen nor experienced anything bad happen. and we arent too scared either! even though people are getting robbed and assaulted and the stake relief society president was kidnapped and held for ransom last month. they recently let her go though and didnt do anything too bad to her. but thats villa at the moment!

but dont worry mom! im fine! we are being smart about everything and we know we are always protected. seriously dont worry. haha even though it sounds sketchy nothing bad will happen. and if it does then we´ll take it cuz we know nothing is going to happen that we cant handle. so enough of that.

this week we visited a less active kid. he lives with his mom but hes 29 and hes divorced and hes always out with his friends and stuff. but we finally caught him at home and he started talking to us saying yea yea ive been inactive since 2005. but actually i was planning on going to church this sunday. so we looked at each other like oh sure, what a coincidence of course he´ll be there. but then he actually showed up!! so that was a slap in the face with our disbelief. 

another thing, remember manuel with one foot? so the day after he came to church with us that sunday he loooved it. he loved everything about it and the bishop said perfect things and it was great but then he says yea it was all beautiful and so great and i felt so different and peaceful in your church! but yea im never gona get baptized. he believes everything we tell him and believes the book of mormon is true and all this, but he doesnt believe in joseph smith cuz he was white and young. so we showed him pictures of all the other ollldd first prophets of this dispensation with their beards and they look old and he says yea i believe in them, i believe they were prophets, its this jose smith i dont like. soooo thats the kind of stuff we try to explain to people! it can be something so simple. if you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe in the book of Mormon because it has His words and teachings. and if you believe in the book of Mormon, you believe in joseph smith because he translated all of it. and if you believe that, then you believe the church is true. and in the end youre happier in all that you do because you have that personal knowledge. and all people have to do is ask God is what we say is true, and Hes going to respond. and if you want an answer, youll always be looking for it and youll find it. but by the way we keep visiting him occasionally and hes understanding more and more and he agreed to go to conference with us. and he really wanted us to say hi to our parents for him. he loves us like children and always makes us food or something when we go over. and he says our parents must be pretty great people and he wishes he could meet you. so good work guys;)

so i am literally serving right now in the place where Lehi and his family first came to live. these people are descendants of the people in the book of mormon. right here where i am right now. we ask people if they knew that Jesus Christ visited the americas as well and we have the book with all the records of what happened?! 

basically we have everything we need right now to be happy. just have to accept and take advantage of all of it. watch general conference. youll find answers to any question and you find the peace you look for every single day. i cant even wait to watch it!! its going to be incredible. love you all. please be happy all the time. bye!

. 

 my favorite little chubby 8 year old. his name is alexis and hes SO FUNNY my favorite little thing omg. his mom makes the best tamales

 activity with the relief society! our awesome investigator pamela was there

week 14

let me tell you one thing, its literally 100 times easier to be a better person and make good decisions when you regularly read the book of mormon. whether youre a member of the church or not, that book can literally change youre whole outlook on so many things, if not everything. the missionaries and people in the church can tell us so many wonderful things about life and about Christ, but we can never learn as much as we can when we are READING actual words of God and experiences of prophets of God. we are able to gain our own testimony of things that so many people feel so strongly about. i know the book is true. theres no way i can deny because i have seen it change people as it has changed me. and nobody can deny what they are capable of feeling when they read it. i could go on and on, but it wont matter because its my own experience. i can only invite people to try it for themselves. obviously then its a million times stronger. im just the messenger, i cant give people my testimony, just help them have theirs. 

the other night we passed by this lil skinny dude that has a bit of an ego and a huge truck and he was drinking a bit all happy and giddy and he started talking to us and he was saying yea youre mormons right? my wifes a mormon! then he yells up to the second floor of the building behind him to get his wives attention and hes yellin at her and he says "hey! come down here! its the elders! the elders are here!" i didnt have the heart to correct him hahah but anyway. we asked if he ever went to church and that he can change and stuff and he says nah i dont believe all that stuff. and he asks us how old we are and i say 19 and he says youre still a little girl, what can you tell me about changing my life; im 35, my lifes already decided! and hna romero says "well dont you have faith? you can do anything you want to" and he says "whats faith, faith doesnt exist." even though he had previously told us he believes in God and Christ and the Virgin Mary, so hermana romero says "well have you seen them? do you realize that faith is believing things without seeing them?" and he goes "wow. no i honestly didnt know." and he was speechless. thats just one small thing that happens almost every day. people here are SO confused, and so used to tradition and dont realize that they can think and feel and gain a testimony for themselves throught their OWN efforts. 

the Lord is pushing me and hermana romero reaaaalll far right now. we have great investigators and we know we teach with the spirit and then they change their minds or realize they dont have a desire. or they find "answers" in the wrong pllaces. really pushing our faith. we have had over 11 baptismal dates, and so far every one has fallen. but we are still working hard as we can. the baptisms dont matter as much as the people do. they can get baptized for our sake but what good does it do them if they havent gained a testimony and really dont care about the opportunities they can recieve. 

im still so happy, and i have come to realize so many wonderful things that i cant even explain because the spirit works within each of us to our own understanding. everything is so personal and incredible. i love this church. its the only true church on the face of the earth. and it will never change. i see miracles every day, i know if the spirit is with us our efforts are never in vain. 

love love love every person that is reading this letter! dont give up on yourselves even when you make mistakes. its a good thing.

con carino 

hermana zimmerman

some of my favorite youth!! literally some of my best friends theyre incredible. left to right is Daniela, Brenda, me, hna romero, Yasmin, Lehi, Fanny, Iris.

week 13

well this week was long and a bit stressful! tomorrow is transfer day and we had to wait til today to find out what would happen. everyone was betting that id leave or have to train an american! but neither happened and all 4 of us are staying here again. its hermana romeros bday tomorrow so ive been telling everyone in the ward and that we are teaching that its her birthday so theyll all give us cake. super clever i know. we have a ton of new investigators to teach and a lot of work to do and we are motivated and ever changing and growing. so many spiritual experiences every day i wish i could tell you every single one! but everythings great! love you! stay strong in all you do! read your scriptures and let the spirit talk to you!  love you lovelies!!!! 

me and hermana romero!! the greatest companion and mexican version of me!

All the sisters in my zone

Zone