best week ever!

Dear everyone I love,

Thanks for reading this. Just thought I should say that. If you want to send me a tiny little message to say hi just email me at emily.hurley@myldsmail.net.

This week in my new area was amazing. I didn't even have to say goodbye to anyone in my old area. My first day here we added 4 new investigators and commited 4 people to a baptismal date!!! We live with a member family in a straight up mansion with huge beds that are the comfiest place I've ever been in my life. The church is crazy close and all the ward leaders live in my area (in my last area It was like 20 min drive to church). My companion is super fun and sweet and amazing and born here but parents are Colombian and she speaks great Spanish and I have no complaints!!!! I am livin the life! 

I know things can't stay perfect forever but it's a nice little moment of paradise. 

Then just when I start missing everyone in my old area, the ward had a baptism and so I got to see everyone and then the next day church rolls around and I'm in the ward I've always been in and everything is back to normal. Best of both worlds!!!!!

So that was awesome! Then today we raided the 99 cent store, they even had groceries!

I'm loving doing missionary work so much! It's practically easy right now. My companion and I teach so well together it's practically effortless. I'm so excited to be here!

Love,

Hermana Hurley

Easter week

Easter was great! we went to a really amazing house of a lady in the english ward. Her house is the hugest i've ever been in. She has a white room with all white furniture, pics of jesus and a white baby grand piano! The living room is a jungle motif and the back yard is a huge zoo! they have a macaw, bunnies, bull dogs, and chickens. Then we watched the Easter Video "Because of Him" (mormon.org) on their projector in their movie room. It was amazing. If you haven't seen that video: Go watch it right now. It's a 2 minute video about Jesus Christ and everything that is possible because of Him. We showed it to everyone we met this week and even after 20 times of watching, I cried watching it yesterday, on Easter afternoon. This video changed my life. It truly helped me to realize the hope and peace we have in knowing about the Savior's sacrifice for us. I love Him. He died for us, but more importantly, He lives for us. If He were to come to you and ask Him to change something in your life, or leave something behind in order to follow Him, what would it be. Invite a friend to Church? Be baptized? Break a habit that is keeping you from progressing on His path? Whatever it is- do it. We have the beautiful opportunity to move forward and change and repent because of Him.

Meanwhile- today is transfers and I'M GETTING TRANSFERRED! This is so crazy because I have been in the same area my entire mission. 6 months in Manteca! 

But the craziest part is where I'm getting transferred to-

Tracy East

This is just a different area, in the same zone and in the same ward as I've always been in! Everyone is dying laughing but I'm super excited! It's the best of both worlds- I get to stay in the ward I love and see my favorite people but also I get to change things up a little bit. I'm going to be serving with Hermana Cuesta, who I love! I've already been serving with her for two transfers and she's great!!!! She's brand new, I will be her first companion after her trainer (which is called a follow-up trainer) and that means I'll be senior companion! I'm sooo excited!!!!!!

I love you all!

Hermana Hurley

Week of April 12

Ok so much to say: SO LITTLE TIME!!!!!

My birthday was the BEST!!!!!! Started the morning opening all the presents my family had sent me! So much fun stuff! Perfume, nail polish, makeup, a beautiful sweater and more! I loved it all- all my favorite things!

Then my comp made me pancakes with caramel cashew syrup for breakfast! Too delicious!

Then we went to lunch with a member family who I love so much!!!! They had bought a cake and balloons and made my favorite food (flautas!)

Then worked in the afternoon and then went to my other favorite families for dinner and they had also made cake and tacos and tortas and all deliciousness and I was fuller than I've ever been in my life. They had also decorated and bought me presents! A cardigan and a scarf that matched the sweater my mom sent!!!!

Best birthday ever.

Then next day we had a miracle!

We found at Church that there was a musical fireside that night but as missionaries we can't go to activities like that unless we have an investigator there. We hadn't planned to go but for some reason we felt like it was really important that we find an investigator to take with us and that we go. We couldn't find anyone and 30 min before we were having dinner at a member's house and still hadn't found anyone and I can't really explain why but I felt desperate to find someone. I just felt like there was someone who needed to be there. The member suggested a prayer and we kneeled down and prayed. We decided to try a couple more people but they didn't work out. The member left to pick up someone else who needed a ride and we decided to try driving by one of our investigator's houses. We got there and basically said: there is a thing that started 5 min ago with music and stuff. PLEASE COME! And he said he didn't have a ride so the member dropped off his carload and came back and got our investigator and we were there for the last half of it. Afterwards we ahd a lesson with him right there at the Church. the Spirit was incredibly strong and he committed to get BAPTIZED!!!!!! he set a date for may!!!!!!!!! PS- this is Ramon! The man we met drinking in his garage!!!! Miracles by the crazy!

I have 3 minutes to write the rest of this so I hope it makes sense. These are some of the things I studied this week.

matthew 11:28-30 PUT THE LORD FIRST AND HE WILL GIVE YOU REST. I hear all day everyday: I didn't read the Scriptures or come to Church because I was tired and I was busy and I worked all day. The Savior promises to give you rest.Come to Him. Lay down your burdens at His feet. And He will help you carry them. It's not going to be easy, but because of Him we can overcome all the mistakes we've made and become clean again.

Alma 56:29

This Scripture is talking about a bunch of war stuff going on and it says that they increased their forces daily and their enemy began to get scared. We are in a war against Satan.  He is real, he hates happiness and he is fighting to take that away from you. You must increase your forces daily. Fortify yourself everyday against him. He is waiting for you to miss Church once, to miss your Scripture study one time and he will attack you. He doesn't get tired. He's never too busy. This is his full-time job. Put the Lord first daily. Read at least ONE verse in the Scriptures everyday and continue strengthening your forces daily. We are fighting against Satan and we want him to get more and more scared when he sees the things we do everyday without missing to strengthen our forces. Also- an addition from my favorite 10 year old Manuel: share the Gospel because we need more people on our side! We need more people fighting for what's right! Be recruiters!

Mosiah 24- read about these amazing missionaries who went through trials like you cannot even imagine! The Lord strengthed them to overcome their trials and he will strengthen you as you strive to better yourself everyday.

I love you all!!!!!!!! 

Hermana Hurley

Birthday with the Ramirez family!

March 31 this week's summary in 15 minutes

Challenge accepted.

This week was full of crazy miracles like I've never seen!!!!! Here are the highlights:

In an effort to reach our goal of contacting 20 people on the street every day and also because we are out of our allotted miles we are allowed to drive each month- we have been biking like crazy this week! That's been super fun and also it's key to a later story- so remember that.

Ok, here is another back story. In an effort to contact 20 people, a couple of weeks ago we met a guy on the street. He was busy (hence the reason he was walking to his car, and thus was on the street) so we left him with a pamphlet with our number on it and he said "Yeah you can come by on like Tuesday around 6 and I'll probably be here" (classic non-commital latino answer. This is not an offensive statement because I am Mexican)

We went on Tuesday for the "appointment" and he wasn't there. We talked to his mom and said we'd stop by another time. This kind of thing is a daily occurrence, so we thought nothing of it. As missionaries you brush off missed appointments since almost all of our appointments are no shows. But the miracle was a week later this man CALLED US!!!! He set up another appointment with us. I am not sure if you understand that this was truly a miracle. We give out our number to like 10 people a day. Everyday. For 6 months. Do the math of how many times people say they will call us to set up an appointment. First time this has ever happened! So we were very excited, and we figured he must be truly prepared by the Lord to hear our message. When we go for our appointment we find out he actually read the pamphlet he left! That also NEVER HAPPENS! And so did his kids and his mom!! We sit down and spend about 20 minutes sharing a little bit about Prophets and Jesus Christ and then we invite him to be baptized. He said "Yeah. I will try." Believe it or not, people say yes to baptism all of the time. They are often not really paying attention and as I mention, it is a cultural thing for Spanish speakers to pretty much say yes to everything. The real test is if they will set a date. But he did!!!! He agreed to be baptized on April 26!!!!! MILAGROS!!!!!!

Next miracle-

Yesterday was Sunday. Saturday night we planned our day for Sunday like we do every night. But Sunday morning all of our plans were falling through. We always set back ups but even those weren't enough, so when we got home from Church we sat down and decided our plans must not have been what God wanted us to do that day. So we erased our whole afternoon and started over, and replanned the day. Then we began our Scripture study, and our dinner called and said they wanted us to come over earlier and some other plans fell through again!!! So we just decided to bike to dinner, bike home, finish our studies and figure out our day. However, after dinner we kept "heading back home" and everytime we remembered someone that was close we should visit. We contacted people. We taught lessons in garages. We added investigators. We found people home who are never home. 4 hours later we still hadn't made it home!!! I didn't have my planner or any cards to give out or anything because we hadn't thought we were going out to work for the day! So we were FINALLY almost home when my companion says "I feel like we should go knock that house we tried earlier this week." I was like "Noooo I'm tired and we haven't even finished studying and that street was weird." But then we turned around and we went. When we knocked this door, we were looking for a Mexican man named adam. We had been told he lived next door but the address was wrong. We tried this house because it didn't even have a number but no one had been home the first time. This time a lady answered the door and said "Oh wow that was fast! Come in!" We were confused and she was too! She said "Didn't melissa talk to you?" Turns out, just the day before she had sent a facebook message to a mormon friend of her's who lives in a different city that she was ready to learn more about the Mormon Church!! And that she had been hoping it would be girl missionaries because she lives alone with her daughter! It was an incredible miracle. God knows every single one of us and everything that we need. He is taking care of you and is completely aware of your situation. He loves you.

I can promise you that.

Love,

Hermana Hurley  

And pictures!!

My new comp Hermana Fullerton and I!

And a very scary supposedly deadly bug we found. It looked like a huge yellow jacket- bigger than my thumb and had a terrifying face!!!!!!! The mexican man told us it's called "cara de ninos" which means face of the children. Scary!!!!!!!!!!! 

My investigator, me and Harry!!!!!!!!