Goodbye Guadalupe ‏ 03/16/15

       

Helllooooo otra vez :) 

I hope you have all had an amazing afternoon/week, because mine was pretty crazy. 

I have spent the last 6 months of my life in one house, one ward, 3 companions, and they decided to move me to a different ward today. Yup, we had transfers, and I am now in the ward of "7 gotas." 

My new companion is Hermana Heywood. My first American companion! She has 3 months in the mission and is from Heber City (I think), Utah. She actually speaks Spanish really well for 3 months in the mission. I'm, impressed. 

I'm really excited to be in a new area, meet new people and ready to give it my all. I learned so much in the Guadalupe Ward (my old ward), and I'm going to miss a lot of people. From the outside, it looks like we didn't have any success, because we didn't have any baptisms. But, we did contact a lot of people that live in other areas. We strengthened less-actives, and little by little, the ward is doing better. 

Now, I just have to learn a new area and...well...we always have to remember that change is good. It's always there to help us grow and learn something new. But even better, to learn what God wants us to learn in this moment. 

You asked me what we do for service? There are a TON of elderly people in the Guadalupe ward, and a lot of times we sang hymns for them. We always offer to help when the people are out sweeping, or cleaning. Most of the time, they don't let us, because they think we're really tired and should sit down or something. Haha! claro que no :D Oh, and it's always fun to help with homework - especially in English. 

I don't know that I have all that much to say, but just keep striving to do what's right. And be humble. That's something I had to learn this week...but it's worth it. Really...Humility is not a sign of weakness or low self-esteem. It's actually a spiritual strength, and when we learn to apply it, we grow and we learn how to have better trust in the Lord. 

Have a great week, everybody :) 

H. Daniels

Some extra information Sarah sent to explain her transfer.

There's pretty much only 3 cities in the mainland of Mexico in the mission: Mazatlan, Culiacan, and a little town called Esquinapa. The other cities in between are "pueblitos" kind of like ranches and don't have a ton of things. But yeah, I’m in Culiacan still. 

Guadalupe is just a ward in Culiacan. Culiacan is pretty big city. In it there are 3 stakes. (or 5. haha I don't remember.)  I was in the Guadalupe Ward (it's called Guadalupe for colony there). Oh yeah...in Mexico they have something called "colonias." Because the cities are bigger, and a lot of times they have repeated streets. there are several colonias in each city. Every ward is made of 5 or 6 colonias, depending on the people and everything.