I love being a missionary!

The hearts we "heart attacked" the Benitez's with - put in a frame! awww. And
Hermanas Brown and Hunt

Woohoo this was a fun week! We went to two areas.

It's been really fun. We went to the MEMPHIS HERMANAS YAYAYA and had the usual Monday night dinner with the Benitez family and it was so good to see them. The Hermanas are doing a fantastic job and they speak really good Spanish! I also got to see the Ramos who haven't been consistently going to church except for Jose. We taught them again and talked about why they weren't coming. We committed them to come again and asked them why they were coming. They all gave great answers like to feel the Spirit, to do what's right, to be closer to God, etc. But then we asked Jose and he said "to take the sacrament and to administer it!" AWWWWW :') so cute. I wanted to cry and he still wants to serve a mission and they are just the cutest family. I love Memphis.

Memphis

Mis Ramos

After Memphis we went to Southaven for just a day and they were also great. They are some of the ASL sisters and they are hilarious. They dressed up as each other for Halloween.

Southaven Sisters dressed up as each other.

We had MLC and interviews and again President Wakolo is amazing. He probably doesn't sleep or eat very often-in fact I know he doesn't! But he has the strongest spirit with him and is also really funny.

Then we went to Arkadelphia and it was really fun because I didn't ever know sister Duncan or Sister Fifield but they are super awesome. Also Sister Thomas was there too and it was cool to see her in her last transfer! I learned a lot from these three how to connect with members and just be happy and stuff. They're cute.

I didn't get our group picture, but this is Sister Thomas massaging my head. 

I love being a missionary and this week we are in Little Rock, Spanish! Have a good week, family.

Hermana Macfarlane

Impactation

Jaja Good subject line right?

We pulled up next to the McDonald's the other day to use wifi and the lady stuck her head out the table and said "y'all lookin' for pokeman??" Haha. Funny.

We had some pretty fun stuff this week. We are currently on the Memphis side of the mission and we have half our clothes and food with us shoved into our carry ons! We visited the cutest sisters in Little Rock zone and also over here on the Memphis side! I'm not really sure what you want to know about my week. We had a good long drive over here and I tried fat Larry's barbecue for the first time. It's a restaurant that a member opened so he lets the missionaries eat free. Picture of ooey gooey BBQ nachos to follow.

I've had a lot of experiences learning to trust the spirit and God's timing. When we were in Otter Creek we went to contact a potential investigator who wasn't home. We are working on "tarrying in the area" or making every area meaningful, so we looked around for people and knocked a few doors. I felt good about leaving, like we had gave it a good effort when I looked down the street and saw a cute middle eastern family standing outside about to leave! We sped walked over to them and introduced them to Mormon missionaries for the first time. It was such a cool experience because I was ready to go but the spirit said no, and then they were like so interested in learning more about what we believe. Super cool.

So usually when we get to an area we kind of establish what the next few days will consist of and we set some goals and get a feel for the area and then we do an iPad audit. That night we have to make plans for two full days so it takes a good minute! We pray over the plans and then go at it the next day. We both split win one companion and then switch the next day and usually on Sundays we kind of rotate around. We talk about how their area is doing and how they are doing and it seems that usually they give the same answers for both. It's
really been a neat experience seeing sisters we knew struggled before who are doing so much better now and sisters who were doing fine and now are doing great! Also it's cool to see how missionaries change
even over three days. The Atonement covers it all and it doesn't have to take a long time.

I studied some of my Atonement chapters this week in Mosiah and Abinadi is one of my new favorite Book of Mormon heroes. Also president Wakolo is my new Mormon hero. His family has had a lot of losses just in the 2 1/2 years they have been here and they just keep plugging away and understanding the plan of salvation. They are amazing!! Also we met a lady from Iraq this week who speaks five languages and made us dolmas which is like yummy rice stuff wrapped in grape leaf.

Yum

Hermana Macfarlane

I slept in a bed last night

As the subject line says last night was a privilege because we slept in real beds for the first time in about a week and a half or so. Haha It's not too bad sleeping on couches, air mattresses, and cots until you go back to a bed and realize how nice it is. :') I'm grateful.

Last Thursday we came to Little Rock and we did some mini visits with sisters in close areas and then Monday night we went to the Searcy Zone! It was my first time ever going to the "black hole." (I call it the black hole because there are no Spanish sister areas in that zone so we don't ever go there. There aren't any in the Memphis north zone either but we do go there often for the temple and such.)

All the fun new Sisters and their trainers and Sister Wakolo

Impacting in Action!

We visited two sister companionships there who are so cute and they were both so nice in letting us come over there. Then Thursday we came back for a 7 o'clock breakfast and meeting with President Wakolo and the Impact Elders to get on the same page. We got to meet the new missionaries too!!!! They are so sweet and awesome. Seriously. We have noticed that the new missionaries are way better than we were when we came out and it's so fun to see how quickly they learn and catch on to stuff.

We came back and packed our things for our weekend in Russellville. :) First we visited the Conway sisters for a few hours to let the Russellville sisters settle in a little as they just came back from training. Conway is really cool and it's an STL area so they are just rockin.

RUSSELLVILLE IS SO GREAT. It was so fun to see some of the members in English and Spanish there and we even got to go to church with them. :)

Hermana Becerra is a new missionary and she's FLUENT IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH WOOHOOOO!!!!!!!! We pray for that all the time. What a blessing it will be to have her in this mission! And her trainer, Hermana Olson, is a super great trainer and is pretty new herself so they are going to do very well together. Usually when we do visits they are three days, so this was our first one and we have two more this week. President Wakolo is the nicest man and he is so concerned for our health and safety and makes sure we have a place to sleep every night and a car and he wants to make sure we take breaks in between areas, especially if they are hard so we
don't burn ourselves out. He also said we can go back to places we have visited if their investigators get baptized so that we, again, don't burn ourselves out and we can take time to enjoy a few things like that. So cool! So coming up, the Jonesboro sisters should be having a baptism and she is the sweetest investigator, oh my gosh!! Prayers for her would be very appreciated. She's amazing. And she just bought cowboy boots (pictures to come).

Jonesboro with Yuri!

I have been studying a lot about the Atonement because President Wakolo wants us to teach him the plan of salvation in 5 minutes in our next interviews and also I felt like I needed to understand the Atonement more. So I have been reading all the Atonement chapters in the Book of Mormon and some verses in the Bible and it's amazing. I just read Mosiah 2-5 and it's beautiful! I love it because the people aren't like totally wicked but king Benjamin is still sharp with them but he loves them so much and they repent and do better and it gives
me a lot of hope. I know the Book of Mormon is true, therefore I know that king Benjamin's people were able to feel the Spirit as they listened to the prophet and they were forgiven of their sins. They retained that remission of sins as they served and continued to repent and do good always. WE CAN DO THAT WITH CONFERENCE -LISTEN AND FEEL THE SPIRIT AND REPENT AND CHANGE AND OOHHH ITS SO NICE. It's such a beautiful plan! I love it. Repentance isn't the back up plan, it IS the plan! 

Russellville Hermanas

Much love to you all this week. We are doing really well and Sister Skordas is and angel and we get along great great great!!! It's weird because we aren't really with each other because we are always on splits with the sisters. But, we do have night time, and long car rides, and planning time so we do have time to talk and we trust each other a lot. It's awesome.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA MAC I LOVE YOU!!! You da best. 

Hermana Macfarlane

We decided we have to take our group pictures in the car because that's just iconic of what we do jajaja Sorry Conway - we didn't get a picture with you :(

Jonesboro and Andy's Custard

Cabot Sisters

New Companion, Peanut Butter, and making an IMPACT

Emailing in the Mission Office with Sister Skordas

Hello hello!

This week has been kind of weird!! We said goodbye to a few
investigators and members... I said goodbye to the Guerrero's like four
times. haha We just kept seeing them. But we had a good last few days
and then Sister Skordas and I are now living in some other apartments
in Little Rock-this will be our home base.

Sister Skordas is really awesome! She's really smart and knows a lot
of people so it's helpful to me because I've just been Spanish the
whole time. We both love peanut butter and we both have brown hair
haha.

Some of the Little Rock Hermanas

We had a lot of time to plan these last few days, it was a little bit
crazy to get all the logistics figured out. We started on Thursday and
because we didn't have a car, we helped out the sisters we were
staying with and also visited another close by area for a day. And
then Hermana Thornton and I went back to the Spanish Branch on Sunday,
which is why I said goodbye to people twice but it was also good to
say goodbye to people I didn't get to see before! And they have a fast
breaking comida after church and it's always the best food. Sonia, who
is from Peru, made these tamales and someone else made yummy flan and
chocolate and we had fruit and it was a really good one!

Guess which one is mine?

Also, it's been fun living with other sisters because apparently other
missionaries like actually cook stuff???? I didn't really realize how
lazy I have been but last night we came home from Spanish stuff and
the English sisters had made this egg and toast and bacon feast and it
was delicious. The other night they made soup. It's a step up from my
cereal and peanut butter/apple and peanut butter/bread and peanut
butter/eggs and tuna and ... NOT peanut butter.

Frozen Egg

So our plan for this week is to visit two areas. We will leave tonight
and then change on Thursday and come back on Sunday! We haven't figured
out exactly how grocery shopping is effective but the Impact Elders
suggested lots of instant oatmeal and like noodles and stuff. AND
PEANUT BUTTER. This morning we were at the church dropping off one
of the sisters being transferred and we had a second to go get
breakfast so I got this little burrito thing but also the yummiest
peanut butter chocolate smoothie. Good stuff.

Merli, Devny and baby Gracie!

This morning I studied a lot about hope. I love President Uchtdorf's
talk from this last April because he's like, just start with hope!
Start with where you are and it will increase but you just have to be
the one to start!! And we were trying to figure out how to explain the
difference between hope and faith. I haven't gotten an exact
definition yet because I think they can't be totally separated. But
hope is good.

Also I like this:
Acts 2:
37 ¶Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and
said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,
what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that
are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save
yourselves from this untoward generation.
41 ¶Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the
same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

THREE THOUSAND. So cool.

The church is true. Love y'all!
Hermana Macfarlane

Bye Bye Hermana Thornton

Allergies!

GENERAL CONFERENCE

Saying Goodbye to Sister Cannon

HELLLOOO!!!

I JUST LOVE GENERAL CONFERENCE. This will be my last general conference as a missionary so I was like "yeah I'm going to watch the whole thing in Spanish!!" That didn't happen. I did the first session and the first part of the second session and then the spirit lovingly told me there were things I needed to hear in English and I was being prideful trying to do it all in Spanish. And I'm so grateful that I listened because there were so many answers to prayers  and questions! :)

General Conference

I really love watching conference in the comfort of my home (with blankets and crepes and pajamas) but there is just such a sweet spirit that is felt as people gather together in the chapel to listen to the leaders of the church. Especially in the Spanish room it is so fun to be in there and especially to see their gratitude that it is being translated into their native language so they can understand clearly the messages from the Spirit.

To sum it up I learned to have faith, hope, charity, love, diligence, and obedience. And that member missionary work talk was really cool, too.

AND THE MISSIONARY CHOIR AWW WEREN'T THEY SO GOOD?!?!

We had a fun thing this week (or last week?) when we were going to see a person named Meli, she wasn't home and I felt like there might be someone else in the area we needed to see. So we knocked on the door next to hers. It was an older not Hispanic lady who did not want us to come in because she was having a bad day. So we left her a nice note and I assumed that was the person we needed to see or uplift or something. As we went back to the car we were like hmm.. No there's still someone else. So we knocked on the next door and again not Hispanic but a nice young family. (Side note: I was like "yeah let's just leave them a card or something" and Hermana Thornton was like "no let's ask them if they know anyone who speaks Spanish" so that was important.) We asked her if she knew anyone who speaks Spanish and she was like "yeah there's a big family that lives down the road..." And she gave us the exact directions. We were like SWEET okay and went to see them. We got there and the house was not Hispanic and no one was home but Hna Thornton saw a Hispanic guy outside so we went to go to talk to him-and it turns out it was that family! They are a family of I think 10 in total all under the age of 17 and the parents might even be married!!! I love that God always knows where His missionaries are.

We didn't know exactly what the outcome was going to be but we knew there was someone in the area that needed the gospel.

We had quite a few good experiences this week:

- We have a nice couple we are teaching who are actually reading the Book of Mormon and want to learn more :') it's so happy. They are so nice. Isidro and Claudia (and their daughter.... Dseomthing)

- Carlos the security guard was a really sweet experience because I was going to just walk by him because I was in the middle of a conversation with Hna Lopez who was teaching with us. But then Hermana Thornton chased down a Hispanic lady and gave her a card and then I was like "okay I need to go talk to the security guard now." So we did and he was the jolliest nicest man who happens to be just like Hermana
Lopez's brother. Anyway, we started talking about God and it turns out he is having a really hard time because ofthe loss of his son to cancer and Hermana Lopez was so sweet to testify to him of eternal families and it was just a really cool experience.

- Two of our four investigators have had their babies and IT IS SO HARD NOT TO HOLD THEM THEY ARE SO CUTE. Hermana Guerrero is an awesome awesome member who has been coming back to church and came teaching with us a few times. She has the whole fellow-shipping thing down. We took her to see Vicky and they were nice and stuff but then that night Vicky had her baby! And Hermana Guerrero has gone over or talked to Vicky every single day since then. Last night we went to go follow up with Vicky on her reading and we got there and the Guerrero's were just over there hanging out and eating soup or something. So cool.

Cereal

Last week I got a call from President Wakolo saying he wanted me to come to the MLC the coming week. So that was this Wednesday and Thursday but the coolest part is that Hermana Thornton took over the area all by herself in Spanish for two days and (as far as I know) it was SUPER great. There's a trio of English sisters that live in our same apartment complex so the trainee came over here with Hna Thornton and I just think they are cool for doing that and surviving. And now Hermana Thornton will be training this next transfer!!

This

Chick Fil A

morning I got a call to be an impact sister (I don't really know what that is yet.. It's a new calling that I think President Wakolo made up). There have been impact Elders off and on for the last year. All I know is that I am going to be with Sister Skordas (who you don't know yet but she is really really awesome) and we travel around and "impact" areas or something. I think we sort of do like 3-day exchanges with whichever sisters in the mission we feel inspired to... Impact.I don't know where we will be living-possibly in our car. :) But I will let you know as soon as I find out, I think I get transferred this Thursday? I just have to tell you that I have been praying to know how to be a better teacher and develop better teaching skills and also how to like correct and be a good example but in a loving/sharp/charitable way and this was an answer to my prayers! I am nervous because it will be a learning and changing experience for me, but I know that God listens to and answers our prayers-even in ways we are definitely not expecting.

A cool thing we learned at MLC is being "therefore" missionaries instead of "however" missionaries. We made a circle list of all the things we feel when we have unity in our companionship (desire, joy, fun, flow, excitement, urgency, etc.) and all the things we feel when we have contention (anger, bored, agitated, frustrated, lack of spirit, flaws, annoyed, etc.) and in the middle of the ven-diagram (sp?) we put an "I" because it starts with us. And president expounded that to saying all those feelings of unity make you a disciple who says "therefore..." Example: "I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, therefor I will have joy, desire, etc." the other side would be "I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, however, I feel anger or boredom..." So, don't make excuses. Decide to be happy and use the Atonement because repentance is the plan!

Haircuts, Hna Thornton got straightened and I got curled.

Okay, is this email long enough to make up for the last few weeks??

I was grateful for the reminder from Elder Rasband (I think) to remember our spiritual experiences. I was thinking about how important it is not just to quietly reminisce on them but to really ponder and consider what that meant for us then and what that means for us now. Sister Wakolo invited us when we feel anxious or sleepless at night to think back to our favorite temple and the feelings we have there. I usually do not have problems sleeping but often at night my mind runs around before I go to bed as I have a second to over-analyze everything. But I have pondered my temple feelings and it always brings the spirit back and I am able to feel calm and to sleep well. (Even if it doesn't make you fall asleep, she said at least you are giving your mind and body a good rest!)

Thank you for the prayers and love and support!!! Please continue not only to pray for us and the people in our areas but also for yourselves and the people in and out of your circle of friends with whom you can share the blessings of the gospel, they are so sweet!

Much love,
Hermana Mac

Fiesta Patrias

Cupcakes

So there's this nice man whose friend gave him an English class invite and he was so excited and came to class and was like "your home is so nice!" Hahaha poor guy thought we live here. We gave him a church tour and he's the nicest. His name is Oscar.

Hermana Benitez (the Little Rock one not the Memphis one) gave us a GIANT dinner. (Eggs, spicy spicy pico de Gallo, tuna and cucumbers, chicken, and veggies.) Pictures to follow. They are so cute and she's going to give me a haircut soon woohoo!

Benitez Dinner

My companions

So we had our specialized meeting this week which was great and exactly what I needed. But then we went on blitz after and Sister Forsyth drove our car. We had sung Dearest Children God is Near You and she was like "hey! Are you related to that Macfarlane? I'm related to Charles Walker!" And it turns out our great great great great grandpas were friends. Cool.

FIESTA PATRIAS: the best. The branch threw a fun party to get to know their countries that they do every year and some of the Russellville members came!!!! :) It was so so fun. And Nitzia (she came to one English class and we taught her once and she came to church) came to the party and she is so awesome. They asked us to look at the tables and then after like 20 minutes we should start eating. She just started eating anyway. We like her. :)

We were Columbian, Hna Barrientos (green) was Bolivian, Hna Lopez (blue) was Chilean. We are not very good at the skirt holding thing.  

We taught relief society about being honest. I never really put it together that when we are dishonest (small lies, cheating, gossiping, denying truth, etc) the spirit leaves us. And the opposite is true too. When we are honest with our leaders and families and honest with ourselves and God, the spirit will be in a much greater abundance and we will be strengthened to tell the truth and be blessed because of it. Honesty is a commandment! It was a cool thing for me to study.

Have a happy week!
Hermana Macfarlane

HOLA FAMILIA Y AMIGOS!!!!

Hermana Macfarlane and Hermana Thornton

This week was a week of miracles! Well, mostly the weekend. We usually go to "Baseline" which is like a really long street with a lot of apartments. It's kind of a ways to bike there but there are always people outside who are prepared to listen to the gospel!! It's so fun. Hermana Thornton is great at talking to everyone and we just give out all the pass along cards and invite everyone to English class.

One of the guys we found, his name is Isidro, I think. We just talked to him briefly but we went by again to see him and he and his wife just let us right in and their kids were so polite and listened very intently. They were curious about the Book of Mormon and mostly the little kids were so cute they all came up and shook our hands and introduced themselves. So sweet.

Another person we are teaching is named Meli. She is a younger adult who is so nice and asks a lot of questions and came to church WOOHOO. She and her mom have been listening to the missionaries and they love the Plan of Salvation. She came to church with her little brother.

We have been studying a lot about baptism and the Atonement. I learned this morning that I need to focus more on The Savior's Earthly Ministry and Atonement but focus on the Atonement part in order for people to understand the purpose of baptism. Because He paid for our sins, suffered on the cross and was resurrected, we can have faith, repent and receive a remission of our sins and be baptized.

Hermana Thornton is SUPER great and I'm so grateful to be her companion. I just want you all to know that.

Hermana Thornton

How is Utah?

Hermana Macfarlane