Back to Spanish again!!

Hi everyone!!! So yeah I'm back to Spanish ahhh it's weird. But I'm finishing someone's training, her name is Hermana Ferguson. She's really cool she's from Utah, I really don't have much time to write and next week I'll write more. But have a great thanksgiving; I'm so thankful for my family, the gospel and so many things in life. Love y’all.

Sister Escalante

I HAVE AN ENGLISH NAME TAG

Hello everyone...

I HAVE AN ENGLISH NAME TAG, it’s real now.

Vanessa is a new investigator she is disabled, and lives in an assisted living facility and she was referred to us from hercousin who lives in Washington. He actually called the bishop in our ward for someone to give her a blessing. The Filipino elders gave her a blessing and then they told us about her and we went by last week to get to know her and she is really quiet it's hard to get her to talk but she has a Christian background and she is from Washington too. We asked her, sooo do you like California!?? Haha she said “not really". But she has her daughter close to her, she's stuck here. We told her who we were and that her Cousin wanted us to visit her and we actually sang a song, and she liked it. :) On Saturday we saw her again and our plan was to teach her the restoration and we brought a member with us, so we literally didn't prepare for her at all with role play because we had to leave early to be there early so as we go in, we kind of introduce ourselves more and we start doing the " 10 points" which is a way to introduce our message with her and making sure she understands our purpose there. So we taught her the restoration, and oh man the SPIRIT was there andactually it was my first time to really teach the whole restoration in English and I did a great job( well my comps told me I did) haha. But man I just felt great and it was just an awesome lesson. I just could feel that love for Vanessa and really to let her know that Heavenly Father loves us and wants her to be happy and how he did through the restoration. So Vanessa told us that she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and some other type of cancer, but she said what keeps her here is having that " faith and hope" I just love that because this week I was reading a talk from elder Utchdorf about " a summer with great aunt rose" and he talks about ways we can be happy and he says 3 things " faith, hope, and love, those things will bring happiness to our lives. I know that as we apply these 3 simple attributes of JesusChrist we will come to understand more of his love in our lives and follow his footsteps. Heavenly Father has something great in store for us, but we just need to do the right things for those blessings to happen. I know he loves us and he wants us to be happy, I have come to understand those three simple attributes as I have faith, hope and charity for those I teach. I invite you all to read and ponder the scriptures. Heavenly Father blesses them to help us in our tough times and we can find ways to have faith, hope and charity there. I love them. But Well I hope everyone has a great week. Take care y'all. 

Sister Escalante

This week I ate "Balut"!!

Hello everyone! What a week, pretty interesting. So being in a trio has been a little bit hard but the lord is always there to help. This week was rough but it was a funny one too. 3 cool things happened: #1 we found a new person who is very interested, while knocking doors. He is young and his name is Luis haha he said he would love for us to come back. #2 we saw an UFO, while we were heading home from dinner we look at the sky, and about this time it's pretty dark and we see this spaceship looking thing and it was weird, Haha but later it appeared on the news and they said it was a missile that was been testing out, my companions and I were like, yeah right!! Another new thing this week was that I ate "Balut" look it up if you don't know what it is. Haha it was good!!! This week I've been thinking about how much Heavenly Father loves us, all of us make mistakes all the time and he just give us so many times to repent and it's just crazy how we have that opportunity to be better each week. The atonement is real guys. Haha but I see it every day, people want to be better but they don't know how and that's why Heavenly Father puts missionaries to help, I love it. I know that we can become better every day and follow the example of Jesus Christ. I love this gospel and it has helped me a lot in my life. Our mission president now wants a MISSION ON FIRE haha I was thinking about this and thought of "catching fire" haha but noooo our mission president wants us to baptize more and to have higher numbers, :) it's awesome. This week I have a feeling it's going to be better :) l hope everyone has a great week. Love y'all :)

Hermana Escalante

Miracles from knocking on doors.

Happy late Halloween! We had to stay in our Apartment for Halloween, because our area gets pretty crazy, but we took a good long nap yay. This whole change of time has been awesome, now I don't wake up as tired. This week: Miracles from KNOCKING DOORS=> since our area is hard to contact people in the streets, we just knock on doors and let me tell y’all, so far it's been awesome! We stated doing something different, Instead of sounding like a Jehovah witness we just offer service and also an uplifting message and we didn't see any miracles from that. No one was interested, soooo we decided to change some things, we knocked on this persons door and it was my turn to speak and I just said " hello" we are missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of latter, we have a wonderful message about Jesus Christ and we would love to share it with you, the lady says "sure come in". And I look at my companions and they look at me, we were like WHAAATTT!??? Haha, her name is Anne and she's Catholic. Later that day we knocked on some else’s door and she was Hispanic, and I was able to have a conversation in Spanish with her, we shared a video with her and she wants to know more!!!! So it's been awesome knocking doors, but we still have those who still aren't interested, but we have to keep trying until we find a solid one :) one of the things I learned this week is how to love your companions no matter what. This week we worked at communicating more and teaching with the spirit. It went well. :) Have a great week.

Hermana Escalante

Goodbye SAN GABRIEL Hello GLENDALE.

Goodbye SAN GABRIEL Hello GLENDALE. So on Tuesday I got a call from the mission president’s assistant notifying me that I'm getting ETD (Emergency transfer) to ENGLISH in Glendale. The sisters needed my help in Glendale and president received inspiration that Hermana Escalante should now be an English missionary. I can tell you, it's hard!!! I'm so used to teaching in Spanish that somehow I have a hard time teaching in English, but my companions are very nice and I'm trying my best and they help me a lot haha. So in San Gabriel I was only there for a week!!! And now I'm in Glendale for the rest of the transfer.  It's beautiful; from our house you can see the whole city!! And Michael Jackson was buried here!!!! Haha it's pretty cool, it’s hard to walk though, we can't bike because there are too many hills, and it's hard but it's great. so last week I was in China, now I'm in ARMENIA!!! Holy cow there are so many Armenians here it's crazyyy. Some of them are very rude, so now our area here got permission to knock on doors, and I actually like it but not when they are Armenians, they close the doors on your face and when we try to give them a pass along card they reject you and say “NO" immediately. But some are nice. After endless knocking with no success we finally found this family who invited us inside their home, they are orthodox and they told us they weren't interested but they would attend church haha it was awesome. You would be surprised how many people reject you and how many just don't care of what you have to say, but I've learned so much. I love this area and Heavenly Father put me here for a reason and I don't know yet why but I'll find out somehow. This transfer has taught me how to be humble and love others no matter what. I've been reading the scriptures so much and I just love the scriptures they just bring you peace and you learn a lot when you have the spirit with you, I'm so grateful for the scriptures in my life. I hope everyone is doing great I love y'all. Have a great week. :)

Love,

Hermana Escalante

FIRST WEEK IN MY NEW AREA!!!!!

FIRST WEEK IN MY NEW AREA!!!!! It’s all good, not knowing the area is pretty hard and being in a trio is pretty interesting. Haha my new companions are pretty cool, we have a lot of things in common and they are very nice and love to work hard. In this area we have some challenges but Heavenly Father put me here for a reason and to work. Our goal in this area is to find more people, we have a lot of people with baptismal dates but they are not progressing and we are trying our best to get them to take that step to baptism. One of the things I was reading this week was in John 21:15-17 which is one of my favorite teachings Jesus did when he was on earth. He said: “So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, FEED MY LAMBS. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, FEED MY SHEEP.He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, FEED MY SHEEP.” “I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned me to do. Jeffrey R. Holland. Our father in heaven wants us to feed his sheep to go out there and help those in need. If we love him we will do everything he asks us to do. I want to forget myself and go to work, like president Hinckley said. The gospel is true y'all , there are people out there that need to hear about the gospel, and Heavenly Father puts you out there because he knows how capable we are of teaching. I love being a missionary and helping those souls. OKAY ENOUGH FOR THE SPIRITUAL PART!!! San Gabriel is crazy, holy cow there are a lot of ASIANS here. Well I guess I don't need to go to china anymore, I feel like I’m living in China here, It’s like Miami with Cubans, just imagine. But other than that I love it here, it's pretty busy.  On Saturday we decided to go and contact people because here it's a mini New York busy and people are walking everywhere so we decide to contact Latinos. We probably found 3 that were Latinos haha.  As we contacted one person, we told him who we were and our purpose and the guy tells us “I know who you are" I'm like yeah!??? He said you guys are my neighbors and since I don't know everyone we were like, “awesome" can we pass by your house and share something with you?! He said "yes but he was busy all the time, but hey he lives close to us so he ain't going nowhere haha.  My body hurts so much from biking, I haven't biked this much in my life, Azusa was a piece of cake but here holy cow we bike everywhere to get to places and people live so far, because we live downtown it's hard to get to most places, this week we talked to 30 people in total. It's awesome since the three of us are pretty new in the area we are trying to find more people. I hope everyone is doing well. Have a great week!!

Hermana Escalante

THE TEMPLE Woohooo.

So this week, conference was probably the best thing ever. I loved every talk, and hey we have one of our investigators who went to church and watched general conference and it seemed as if every talk was meant for her and my companion and I were just giggling and we were saying oh man conference is awesome. Haha elder Jeffrey R. Holland just nailed it with his talk about mothers I loved it. One of my favorite quotes was from Elder Larry R. Lawrence "our Heavenly Father knows our divine potential, he rejoices every time we take a step forward." Another one that I liked “we do not have to be perfect, but we need to be good and getting better. We are not perfect but he loves us and he sees us trying all the time. Also, went to the THE TEMPLE Woohooo. It was about time, man I've been waiting for 6 months haha too long for a missionary. But it was amazing, every time I go to the temple, I just forget about everything and I just focus on my feelings and the lord. As a missionary everyone literally tells us their problems and I guess when I go to thetemple, I just forget MY OWN problems. I love the temple; it is truly the house of the lord. Back at home its 4 hrs to get to the temple and the Temple here is like 45 minutes and the members don’t go. Wow if I lived here I would go at least every week, it's awesome. Also this week we gave a baptismal date to our investigator for November the 22nd, hopefully he makes it. Also this week we are having transfers, so I've been here in Azusa forever now 5 transfers haha. I was born here and everyone says I may die here, well hopefully not but this Saturday we will find out. I love my companion and this is my last week training her it's been great. :) The gospel is true y'all. I love testifying to people that it's real.  Well we will see what happens this week with transfers. Wish me luck!!

Besos, 

Hermana Escalante

General Women's Conference!

This week I got sick during exchanges Haha. We had exchanges this week and I got to go to El Monte with Hermana Hansen she's from Idaho and pretty cool. We got to teach a bunch of people, and it was a fun experience. Later that night an hermana dropped off some pizza for us, but believe me it was good and yeah I got pretty sick afterwards, we went home and I wanted to puke and my belly was hurting a lot, oh and by the way I lost 5 pounds haha yeah but it was a great time with Hermana Hansen. Later the next day they tell us that our mission president is going to come to our apartment and check how clean it is haha and I'm thinking no I feel terrible, and I wasn’t feeling good enough to quickly clean our apartment but I told him that I was not feeling ok and he just said to take this herbal tea and I did, I felt great afterwards haha. Another awesome thing that happened is that we invited our investigator to get baptized and he said yes!!!!! He is really cool and his name is Miguel, he loves his family and he wants to be a better example to them. I see him getting baptized soon :) Also, this week we had women's conference and it was great I loved Elder Uchtdorf’s talk. "There is enough that doesn’t go right in life, so anyone can work themselves into a puddle of pessimism and a mess of melancholy. But I know people who, even when things don’t work out, focus on the wonders and miracles of life. … As you walk along your own bright path of discipleship, I pray that faith will fortify every footstep along your way; that hope will open your eyes to the glories Heavenly Father has in store for you; and that love for God and all His children will fill your hearts”. I love it. He is just great and I can't wait for conference. And we are going to the temple!!!! Now I'm more excited, I just love the temple. I just need that time in the temple and forget about everything else. I hope you all have the time to prepare for the Temple. I love it!! As a missionary it’s like a car needing gas to keep going haha. My companion and I have been working really hard and now that we are walking, and walking we have been able to talk to more people. I love being a missionary and bearing my testimony every time I teach someone. I always pray for Heavenly Father to bless us that his spirit may be with us throughout the day and every time I teach I feel the spirit, I Know this church is true, without a doubt in my mind. I love talking to people and teach them with power and knowing that it's true like Jesus did. I love my savior and as I read the scriptures I come to know him more. Watch conference you guys!!! And write down some questions before, and I know Heavenly Father will answer you. :) Have a great week Love y'all 

Hermana Escalante

Mission conference with Elder Echo hawk

Hello Everyone!!!!!!

This week was great, we had a FIESTA!!!! The English and Spanish ward came together and we had a party, we each had to bring like a especial dish from their countries so I made something from Honduras, l couldn't make a lot because I don't know how to make big stuff from Honduras but I made something basic that I like to eat, it's called Tajadas or fried plantains with sour cream so good, I had a lot of fun. We have two investigators with an invitation for baptism. :) But my favorite part of the week was when we attended our mission conference with elder Echo hawk of the quorum of the 70. The spirit that we felt was so strong. Basically, he talked about how we need to be obedient and having faith in the lord Jesus Christ to be able to have success and miracles in our mission. It never hit me until that point that obedience is a key to success. It's the first law of heaven, not only in our mission, they teach us how obedience is important but even after our mission, we need to continue to follow gods commandments in order to be happy. Also this week I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish!!! Yay.  I love the scriptures, you can feel the spirit so much and I just love testifying to people that it's true. I love this gospel and I'm now reading the New Testament, and I love it. I know the scriptures are here to help us today and to guide us. If we don't read them we won't know the plan Heavenly Father has for us. I hope everyone is doing great. Have a great week. Go out and teach with the missionaries!!!!! :)  

Hermana Escalante

This week has been crazy but rewarding.

Hello everyone!!!!!

This week has been crazy but rewarding. We have 3 new investigators, one of them is Fabian he is blind and he is pretty cool. This week we are trying to teach him the Book of Mormon but it's pretty hard to teach him because he doesn't read becausehe can't see lol. But my companion and I decided to get him Book of Mormon CDs. Hopefully everything goes well this week with him. :) Our other investigator is Esther she is awesome. This week she was pretty sick so we actually couldn't see her but we are thinking of inviting her to get baptized :) And our new investigator is Oswaldo and he is great, his story is that we found him outside of our other investigators house and he started talking to us and asking questions and he said he was actually taught a little bit by other missionaries, we stated teaching him a little and one of his friends comes over to pick him up, and Oswaldo starts getting nervous and tells us that he would like to hear more but he just doesn't want his friends to know he is been taught by missionaries, but we did get his number. One night he decides to call us at 3 am and I thought it was the alarm but nope it was Oswaldo, but OF COURSE I didn't answer because it's against the rules answering too early in the morning haha but I called back around 9 he said he wanted us to pray for him and to go see him and I'm thinking "no" but then we wanted to see how he was doing and he told us to meet him at his hotel. So we made an appointment with him for the coming Sunday and we went to the hotel with two other members. We knocked on the door he wasn't wearing a shirt so I'm a little worried. But we went in, and got to know him a little. He is in his 30’s and he has 4 little girls and he told us he has never been a good person he always lived in the streets and he doesn’t want his daughters to see the person that he is, and that is why he wants a change, to come closer to God. He told us that he wants to be a better example for his daughters. He looked nervous, but he opened up to us! We told him that God loves him and he put us there for a reason and that we want to help him. He was very open to change for sure. And we could feel the spirit there so strong and I just saw the love Heavenly Father has for him. We told him that contacting us is a step to change his life and he liked that. We had to go because it was pretty late but we invited him to say the closing prayer and he did it! :) In his prayer he was so thankful that we were there and he said "God I know you want me to change for my daughters, but I'm taking baby steps". My companion and I were dancing when we got out because this is what we needed this week and we are pretty sure he is going to get baptized this month. Pray he gets baptized please. Haha well have a great week!

Hermana Escalante

Missionary work is the hardest thing.

This week was hard and good I feel like sometimes I’m putting my best effort but I see no effect on the things I do with my companion. Sometimes I just feel like I'm doing the best I can but not enough. And I get pretty sad: (Missionary work is the hardest thing. My companion  and I have worked so hard but people don't want to keep commitments and don't want to progress. But something that helped me so much this week was exchanges, my companion went to another area and I stayed with one of my leaders (sister training leaders) and she told me that sometimes people are going to be ready but we just need to be patient and trust in the lord. We walked a lot and talked to so many people and then I figures that’s what I needed, I learned new techniques to how to talk to people and it helped me a lot. We literally found 10 people and taught like 3 of them and it was just great, I felt good and something new we want to work on this week is finding new ways to contact people and help them progress, and that will help us have a baptism soon. Well I hope everyone is doing great and sorry I haven't taken any pictures, soon I will though.

Take care. ADIOS.

LOVE,

Hermana Escalante

H

This week was HOTTTT. It went up to 109

Hi everyone! 

How Are you guys!? This week was freaking HOTTTT.  It went up to 109. It was so hard to bike and concentrate; people were not opening their doors. And it was annoying, but I understood it was really hot. We had 18 lessons in total yay, it was a cool week and we worked hard, another cool thing this week was that we had zone conference. It was amazing!! Zone conference is when all the zones come together (only Spanish) and we hear from our mission president, the talks were amazing. Something that helped me a lot was what our mission president said: “Heavenly Father is hastening his work and he helps us in every way”. Like it said in D&C 4 “the field is white, already to harvest" and yes we have to memorize it Haha. He has everything prepared for us we just need to go and Convert these people. He also talked about being humble and how it's a Christ like attribute and how we should be humble all the time, how Jesus Christ is always humble. And he also told us that as missionaries we need to be obedient. There are so many missionaries that are not obedient and he told us that it's the first law in the heavens and we should be obedient all the time. And I have seen that a lot, one can be very disobedient very easily. My companion and I are doing great, we have set a goal for his week to contact people and talk about family history because we saw that people are tired of hearing " hey we are missionaries and we want to teach you more about Jesus Christ and how you can come to know him" so we started on Saturday, we went to the Park and started talking to random people about family history and we found a lady who looked interested. And so far it's been working so we will see how this week goes. Well I hope you guys are doing fine. Have a great week. 

Hermana Escalante

My Birthday!!

Hello Everyone,

This week has been good; it's been successful because we were able to accomplish many things with my new companion. However, the battle continues here with Satan, I'm discovering why I stayed in Azusa. I have been here for so long and talking to everyone here makes you run out of things to find people to teach about, make you lose your mind, and I’m a little discouraged too, but we found 3 new people this week.  I am a Finisher, I don't give up, I want success and the Lord has shown me how I can. I just need to trust him a little more. But now as I go forth and preach his gospel more he will bless me more. How's everyone?!  Well Sunday is my BIRTHDAYYY! #20 ha-ha and I can’t wait. My companion is already telling me the things she's going to do for me!!  Ha-ha Well I hope you guys have A great week. 

Love, 

Hermana Escalante

Discovering why I stayed in Azusa.

Hello Everyone,

This week has been good; it's been successful because we were able to accomplish many things with my new companion.However, the battle continues here with Satan, I'm discovering why I stayed in Azusa. I have been here for so long and talking to everyone here makes you run out of things to find people to teach about, make you lose your mind, and I’m a little discouraged too, but we found 3 new people this week.  I am a Finisher, I don't give up, I want success and the Lord has shown me how I can. I just need to trust him a little more. But now as I go forth and preach his gospel more he will bless me more. How's everyone?!  Well Sunday is my BIRTHDAYYY! #20 ha-ha and I can’t wait. My companion is already telling me the things she's going to do for me!!  Ha-ha Well I hope you guys have A great week. 

Love, 

Hermana Escalante

New companion her name is Hermana Scott

Hello everyone,

This week was crazy! I have a new companion her name is Hermana Scott, she's from Missouri and she is a Gringa ha-ha but she's awesome I love her. I'm training her and it's been great so far, As I wrote last week I have 2 areas that I'm taking over now and it's been overwhelming but so far it’s great. This week we had a bunch of new people and I want to work hard and I have been doing that. Now that I have a newbie (a baby) it makes me want work even harder because I want her to learn good things and work hard. She's great, she told me that she really wants to learn Spanish and I'm like uhhh yeah girl, I got you. Ha-ha so far she's doing good with Spanish and I have been teaching her a lot, we speak Spanish all day and it's weird to me but I'm used to it now ha-ha. How's everyone?! I'm doing well now we are 4 missionaries in our ward, we have fewer missionaries now but it's all good. Well, have a great week and oh gosh it's almost my birthday, I'm excited. Take care y'all.
Love,
Hermana Escalante 

Sister Luau

Sister Escalante's First Baptism.



Sister Escalante's new companion

Hermana Scott