Hello

Feliz Lunes!

Well, summer is definitely coming. I thought that it was hot earlier, but now it is just getting hotter. And the natives say that this is only Spring. Woohoo haha. Bring it on, I say. Also, I am getting some fairly awesome tan lines from my shoes and my watch, and my hair has changed color. When people in the mission office see my passport photo, they don’t believe me when I say that I have not dyed my hair blonder here in the field. The sun just bleaches it a ton.

In further news, we have been waging a war in our apartment this past week. A desperate battle over the kitchen floor. We have killed five cockroaches in the past few days. FIVE COCKROACHES. And that’s not counting flies, ants, or other little bugs. Today we thoroughly thoroughly thoroughly swept and mopped and mopped some more. And then we sprayed bug killer all around the floorboards and doorways and everywhere. I guess the good news is that I am not so terrified of spiders anymore. Instead of running and shrieking away from bugs, Hna Garci­a and I run and shriek towards them so we can just kill them and get it over with haha.

This week a woman named Flavia came to church with us, and she also brought her boyfriend, which was amazing because we have not even been able to talk with him yet. She raised her four children alone and now owns a small kiosk and is living with her boyfriend. She is an incredibly strong person, and I really admire how receptive she is to the Spirit. Even though they live half an hour away from the church, she got on her motorcycle and drove out here because she truly has a desire to know and understand the truth. There are so many different churches and denominations here, and Flavia wants to know which of all truly comes from God.

I have been reading a lot in Alma lately. I absolutely love the discourse he gives in chapter five, and this week I really want to study more the questions he puts to the people. These scriptures really are inspired and, to me at least, hit me directly in the heart. It is a chapter I like to read again and again because I always have a lot of room to improve, and the questions Alma poses are really the questions that matter. "Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins?" Alma 5:27

Love you all! Have a marvelous week!

Hermana Simmons

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Yes, and definitely here in the mission field I see the whole spectrum of missionaries. People who use any type of anything as an excuse to not work, and people who refuse to go back to the pension until they contact "just one more" house. It really depends on the person if we let the mission change us. I have been reading a talk titled "The Fourth Missionary" by Lawrence Colbridge (or something like that). It is fantastic, and I definitely recommend you all to read it. Because it doesn’t apply just to being a missionary, but the type of person we want to become. If we want to serve the Lord unhappily and with resentment, or wholeheartedly witholding nothing. When we keep the commandments because we truly love God and want to please Him, we will receive the blessings promised. But if we do not give our hearts and minds over to God, in the end it will be as if we had not kept the commandments at all.

Love you!!!!!

Hna Simmons