August 10, 2015

MORDIDA

       

                                                

Happy Birthday to me. August 4th I turned 20!

    

Celebrated at Build A Bear on P-day of course.

 Birthday lunch at Olive Garden with Hermana Whitehead

Family Home Evening, It's a tradition, cake in your face on your Birthday!

Look what everyone did for me on Tuesday when we teach our English class!

Everyone at English class helped me celebrate. I love them!

More cake in the face!

It's pretty fun.

HELLO :)

This week is going to be a lot of pictures :)
LUCKY YOU!!!

My birthday week was a week of miracles!! 

In the Hispanic culture they have this tradition where they smash a cake in your face on your birthday.  It's for good luck! hahaha, so of course this happened a few times.. :)

they chant, "MORDIDA" which means bite, so you have to take a little bite out of the cake then someone just smashes your face into it, so fun!! (or you just do it yourself!!)  :)

So Monday night at FHE is the first time it happened.

Then Tuesday at English class, MY FAVORITE!  I walked in and they had  decorations and they all sad  "Happy Birthday",  I LOVE ENGLISH CLASS :)

My little favorite person, I call her Hermanaita, she brought lasagna and chocolate cake for my birthday, It made me feel so loved. She is amazing. hahaha ( I will send lots of pictures, don't even sweat it haha) ( speaking of sweat its supposed to be 107 today and tomorrow here in Houston. whoot) anyways. ENGLISH CLASS WAS AMAZING!! I even got some birthday hugs from the guys hahahahahahhahahaha and it was cute all the little cards they gave me said,  "Happy Birthday Hermana Widdingson!" haha close enough, right? :) hahaha

THANK YOU FOR ALL MY BIRTHDAY WISHES :) 

It was weird. It was just like any other day.

President Hall called me in the morning and even sang to me. That was a good way to start my day :)

AMAZING MIRACLE!
We made this new friend named Martin.  We always see him at the bus stop. So then on Tuesday we just asked him if he was ever interested in learning about the gospel.  (ooh, background story, 18 years old, from Ecuador, here learning English, going home next Tuesday.) so we always would see him right, well we asked him, and he was like ya! So we went over and taught him, then he said, "Can I come out teaching with you guys? I want to be a missionary."
 BAHAHA WELL HECK YEAH YOU CAN MARTIN!!  So Martin came out teaching with us ALL DAY FRIDAY!! ALL DAY!!!  We gave him some things to study and to watch, and he studied them. like what! cool. Anyways, He said,  "I give you guys so much credit, and I want to go out teaching with the missionaries down in Ecuador when get home because I see them everywhere."
OH MY GOSH. Then he sad, "I know the Book of Mormon is true, why wouldn't it be?
 Basically my jaw was on the ground all day long. haha SO COOL!  He is coming out teaching with us tonight too. so cool right? yeah, cool!  don't worry I took pictures, this really happened. 

Martin, Hermana Whitehead and me

Out biking with Martin

THEN ANA!
I love Ana.  Love, love  her!

We went and knocked on her door, and she opened it and said, "I was praying you guys would come." LIKE WHAT?  Then she was like I have been reading in the Book of Mormon.
(she was on page 58)  WHAT?  She said, "I find so much comfort, and its true!!) AMAZING!!!

We saw her two days later and she was in Jacob.. haha what! She is amazing... amazing! and she is in the worst, most terrible, awful situation I have ever heard of, and shes so positive, and she knows everything will work out. I love her, truly love her.

It's the little things. 

I love being a missionary.

gosh.

KICK BUTT THIS WEEK PEOPLE!!

LOVE,
HERMANA WIDDISON

                                                    AUGUST 3, 2015

 SURVIVED ANOTHER WEEK!

This is why I have the best parents in the world......

My parents are crazy!!

TROMPO -- a Guatemalan game.. my favorite thing in the world.. seriously.. YouTube this thing, Its amazing! I am learning tricks with it. haha and I have a video of me doing tricks, but hey too many gbs.. missionary problems, sorry 

I love my mission, every moment is fun.

 We have now entered into AUGUST! The hottest month of the year!!

whoot whoot.. It's okay 3/31 days down.. hahaha the first two weeks of August are the hottest weeks. So me and Hermana Whitehead literally are mentally preparing ourselves for the sauna to happen! WHOOT!

However, Heavenly Father is blessing us big time :) even if those blessings are those nice summer breezes!! I LOVE WHEN THE WIND BLOWS!! AHH YAY! 

Thank you for all the birthday wishes! I turn  20 tomorrow.. so those of you who missed out.. that's why there is repentance.. HAHA  and of course for my 20th birthday I am gonna do something crazy... So Build a Bear it is for me today ;) I don't wanna grow up!

moments this week..

 We have an investigator from the Dominica Republic.  She has super hard and fast Spanish and she said, "you girls spend to much time in the sun, so let me give you facials." So we went over to visit her  and they had turned her house into a spa. Oh my gosh one of the most random things that has happened on my mission. She gave us facials and they just smelt like throw up!  They were chunky and it turned our skin orange.. haha and then she said, "I have a healthy smoothie to give you". lets not even talk about it...

but hey it was an adventure, then she didn't even come to church.. like what! that's okay, maybe next week.

Then we met this cool guy from CUBA, hard Spanish as well! But he also spoke English (tender mercy)  He was trying to move a mattress so of course we said,  "can we help you?" then he said yes! (crazy because no one here ever says they want our help so it was a miracle.)

We helped him move his new mattress, and he just  kept calling us angels over and over which is always weird because I have never seen an angel as sweaty as me. hahaha but we helped him, then he said, "you guys are the Mormons right?  of course we are, so then he went off and told us about how he has had alien encounters in Nebraska. LIKE WHAT!! Then he was like "I believe in aliens.. so the fact that you guys believe in your saint Joseph Smith guy and how I saw aliens, I am interested.. " BAHAHAHA okay .. so we got a good laugh out of that,  so hopefully he realizes that Joseph Smith didn't see aliens.. but hey, hes interested :) 

The mission is amazing.

I am surviving the heat. 

Its just hot.

love your favorite missionary :)
IN THE WORLDDDDDDDDDDD

Hermana Widdison

                                               July 27, 2015
WELL HELLO!

I have survived another week here in the SAUNA!

Pretty sure I was called to serve in Africa rather than Texas. Because I feel like it is just as hot. There is no other way to describe my week other than hot. hot. hot. Plus we checked the weather this week, yeah, whoot 104 degrees plus 100% humidity.

We try and avoid the roads with a lot of cars because it's seriously just so hot. Biking is so hot. haha we just sweat. It's awful when we stop to wait for the red lights because then we just sweat even more. People tell us to not to come visit them because they don't want us leaving our apartment, but we are like.. "well we have to leave anyways" hahahaha people these days!

We have a lot  of friends at taco trucks who give us water bottles all the time. Which is such a blessing! I am so grateful for them! 

 Go taco truck friends :) 

This week was awesome! It went so fast I have no idea what even happened...

Well we found a ton of new investigators! They are all from GUATEMALA! One cool thing about serving stateside Spanish speaking, is that we meet people from everywhere, we can normally guess what country they are from, which is cool! Plus they are all just short so they are so amazed that this tall white girl is speaking Spanish to them and playing trompo!! (TROMPO is a game in Guatemala, its basically a top.. haha  It's a street game, so I play it then the people come up to us and ask where I am from and then we teach them the gospel :)) hahaha

We have some awesome investigators!!  All of them are men.. hahaha my life. It's funny because we can't enter into their apartment unless there is a 3rd girl, so we teach the majority of our lessons outside, sweating, and we can feel the breeze from the apartment. OH, TEXAS IS HOT!!

However, Heavenly Father is definitely blessing us in this heat! We were able to meet some amazing people this week and slowly but surely we are seeing changes in these people its amazing of what the gospel does!

our investigator Ana came back.. then left..  MY HEART CANT HANDLE HER. hahaha 

I love her. I have never been able to understand 100% of Spanish until her!

I love teaching English class! Next week we are having a birthday party for me during class! It's neat because a lot of the students aren't members, but they just love the missionaries so much!! :)

Go missionary work! 

It's bomb.

It's hot.

I am so excited for November. When it is finally  a good chilly temperature. Praying for November!

The mission is great.

I love my new president! whoot.

Oh yeah, we had transfer calls this morning, and I'm not leaving!:)

Staying here with Hermana Whitehead for another 6 weeks.

That means biking in the hottest time of the year.. whoooooo..

(PRAY FOR ME)

LOVE YOU ALL!!

love,

Sweaty Sista Widdison

hahaha these pictures.. enjoy them!

I hate taking off my backpack!

DID I MENTION, TEXAS IS REALLY HOT?

                                                                                                         July 20, 2015

HELLO :)

Let's just start out by saying I hope you enjoy these pictures... hahahahahaha

Hermana Whitehead trying to survive the heat

It really is HOT IN TEXAS

That was Saturday, the HOTTEST day of the summer so far and boy was it awful. It was the longest day on my mission so far. We knocked on so many doors.. and no one was home.. no one. All we wanted was one sit down lesson, and we got ZERO. No one opened the door. So we got to enjoy the 100+ degree weather. I had so much sunblock on and I was just sweating and sweating.

The biggest blessing though was when our friend at the taco truck gave us a bottle of cold water because of course our water was warm. TEXAS IS SOOOOOO HOT.

Saturday was a long and basically awful day, but we met the cutest lady named CLAUDIA who said she wanted to learn more. So I am grateful we were able to see some miracles that day. but boy oh boy is Texas hot!! It's not even the hottest part of summer yet!

but we see miracles when we are out working :)

THE GRACE OF GOD IS REAL

Some awesome moments this week!!

WE FOUND ANA OUR INVESTIGATOR, and now she is gone.. again.. Shes basically Houdini.. so that's cool,(NOT) so pray she comes back! haha... again! When we saw her we just hugged her and told her how worried we were about her and she was shocked we cared so much about her!

We had interviews with PRESIDENT HALL this week. He's amazing. I have nothing else to say about him except he seriously is amazing.  It was sad he told me tell him about home and I just had no idea what to even say. The mission is my home it seems like and I felt so sad I couldn't remember stuff. I was like, I have a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters.. hahah the mission life. President Hall is truly amazing and I am so grateful he is my mission president right now, he just loves us. Sister Hall is amazing too.

It was cool we had an investigator devotional last night and President Hall spoke. (of course it was a Spanish devotional..) and Sister Hall doesn't know Spanish, but she got up there and bore her testimony in Spanish. Holy cow I felt the spirit so strong. To know she is trying so hard to learn this language to talk to these people. It was a testimony builder. I love her. So Awesome!! 

Funny story, we broke our dish washer. So I put soap in it... and I didn't check what kind of soap... then when we went to go check the dishes and there was water and soap all over the floor... so we opened the dishwasher and it smelt like laundry... HAHA WE PUT LAUNDRY SOAP IN THE DISH WASHER... hahaha it didn't even clean our dishes but it gave us a good laugh :)

 We have the privilege to teach English class every Tuesday and Thursday night. It is really fun. I have come to LOVE the students of the class! It's so fun to watch the people progress and learn English! It's so funny because they say their B's like V's  and they get frustrated and say funny stuff in Spanish! I love them! It's just fun how missionary work comes in all sorts of forms :)

Pray Texas gets cold (joke of the day..)

I love you all, Hermana Widdison!!

                                                                                            July 13, 2015

Dehydration Nation

I wish I had a lot to say but I will just make this quick!!

MOMENTS THIS WEEK :)
1.I went on a super cool exchange with Hermana Campos and Sister Guidi!!! It was way cool.. Hermana Campos is from Mexico!! and Sister Guidi is a sister from temple square on her outbound here.  She's originally from New Caledonia.. like where the heck is that? Oh, its an island between Fiji and Australia.. like still, where the heck is that? haha but she was pretty legit. She speaks Tahitian, Italian, Spanish, French, English. kind of impressive right? SO COOL!! she told us all about the mission on temple square.(sounds kind of like prison.. ) hahah

2. ooh I was dehydrated. That was an awful experience! hahaha sorry mom. I swear on my life I am drinking enough water, but we are just sweating like pigs in a butcher shop!!! Wanna know something funny? Okay I will tell you :) every morning deciding my outfit, I think "okay what shirt isn't gonna show my sweat as bad.." hahahaha that's gross.. MY UPPER LIP SWEATS. I am having an atonement lesson in life, instead of bleeding from every pore I am sweating from every pore...(hahahahahaha) but really. Deodorant and sweat towels are life. So we had to stay inside like bats on Friday. That was AWFUL. I drank about two gallons of water though :) Go me! I wanted to get out so bad. There were five other missionaries who were dehydrated!

3. Our investigator Ana ran away. We don't know where she is. So pray for her.

4. We have a cool new investigator OMAR. flirty old Colombian man who tells us "I love you" in English when we call him. Not so sure about him! but he is getting baptized in August.. so that's cool right :)

5. KIKO IS MY FAVORITE MEMBER, and that deserves a big moment for this week. He gets to go through the temple next week :) YAY!!! He has been a member for about a year and a half. His conversion is the best one yet :) he is cool.. He has lost teeth because he was hit with a 2x4.. like what! who is this guy! he has also been to jail, been hit in the head with a baseball bat, been stabbed. He has lived a life! and he's an amazing member missionary! He comes out riding his bike with us :)

well, that's all!

love you all :)

your favorite sweaty missionary here in Houston :)
HERMANA WIDDISON 

or as KIKO would say

hermana WIDDY :)

Amazing member Kiko

Just having a crazy moment

Sometimes the heat just gets to you!

Downtown Houston

                                                                           JULY 6, 2015

 WAIT IT OUT

What a week :)

First off, let me tell you about my new mission president :)

PRESIDENT HALL.

Hes so fun! and so skinny.. and so amazing! and so different!

He is an iron-man runner. Hey, and I love running :) so boom! perfect right?! haha

He is really, really  skinny. I just can't get over it.. haha

Our mission now has a facebook. So y'all can go stalk it!!!

On Wednesday we had a big mission conference, "MEET THE HALLS" where we got to meet him and his family. I LOVE THEM!

It was cool because we got to all go up and shake their hands and introduce ourselves and such.

So this is how it went down.

I went up to President Hall and shook his hand, and I told him my name.. hah

" Hi, I am Hermana Widdison"

"ooh Hermana Widdison, you are a runner"

" yup haha"

"You run the 400 meters right? "

"yes.. haha"

"You love Vans too right?"

"yes...."

"You're from Meridian Idaho right"

"yes... how do you know all this?"

"Oh we just wanted to get to know you, so we facebook stalked you!"

HAHAHAHA PRESIDENT HALL FACEBOOK STALKED ALL THE MISSIONARIES!

He's so cool.

 He knew everything about me it seemed like, a little creepy.. but I thought it was chill. He knew my races, where I was from, where I went to school.. dang. 

So it was really neat to meet him, and to see the already big changes hes making in the mission!

He is what I need it seems like :) YAY!

Something cool happened this week.. (duh cool things happen all the time. but you know what I mean.)

On Friday me and Hermana W. were leaving an apartment complex, when of course it started pouring rain, so we decided to wait it out, because it would pass in like 10 minutes. So we were waiting under this little parking cover, and this guy yells and tell us we should come in.. haha So we were like cool, yeah!

So we go into this apartment, and Ludwin is the boyfriend, and Ana is his girlfriend. Ludwin tells how we need to help Ana change her life.  Ana is an alcoholic and is 37, and has just had the worst eight years of her life. She has died twice, and now has a mechanical heart. yeah hard life.

So we were teaching her, and she just wants to change her life so bad, and she just wants to be able to be with her four kids, and be able to see them.

Her kids met with the missionaries eight years ago, so she remembers the restoration video. like what cool!

Anyways, that was Friday, so we taught them and then they were like hey come back tomorrow we are going to have a barbeque. So we said ok!

On Saturday we go back and they have like a Thanksgiving sized barbeque. It was so neat, because she had so many questions about the Book of Mormon and the restoration, and then she came to church on Sunday. I have never met someone who has wanted to change their life so bad.

You can just see how broken she is when you look into her eyes, but then you see the potential and the love that Heavenly Father has for her. DANG SO COOL. missionary work :)

So that was my week.. plus other fun stuff.. biking.. biking.. sweating.. more biking.. bug bites.. new president.. talking to drunks.. meeting people from turkey! WOW!

Texas is cool!

sike.. Texas is HOT!!!

 ENJOY YOUR WEEK!

talk to you next week :)

Your favorite sister missionary in the world..

duh ( humble I know )

haha