June 3, 2013

Wazzzz uuuuup?!

Hello my favorite people ever! How are y'all doin? Where has my life gone? Time is flying by out here! Craaazzzyyyyy! Well let's see what's new in the life of Sister Rocha....

This week has been all about service for Sister Rigby and I. On wednesday we had district meeting out in Winnsboro which is an hour away so us and the Elders in North Monroe traveled on out there. Then when we came back we had to take the Elders to walmart cause Elder Joseph's bike broke again. So we took them there are waited for like an hour cause nobody that works there knew what they were doing... So then we took them home and went to dinner. That's all. Then on Thursday we went and helped a lady in our ward clean her house. She is moving up to Minnesota and she has a lot of health problems so it's hard for her to clean her house. And she has 3 cats and a dog so that doesn't help the problem... So we went and helped and Sister Rigby vacuumed and swept the floor and I cleaned the ENTIRE fridge and freezer! There was cat hair everywhere inside it and things spilled up the wazoo. It was prettyyyyy gross! That took me like an hour to clean. Then I mopped the floor. I felt like those men in the yellow suits from Monsters Inc. needed to come decontaminate me in their little shower things. But while we were there helping I felt like a good person so that's good :)

Then on Friday we did our usual service at the Grace Place (kitchen for the less fortunate). Then we had to pick up the Elders and take them to walmart AGAIN, cause Elder Joseph's bike broke AGAIN. So we did that and that took about another hour cause the people at walmart still hadn't learned to do their job. Then we went to the Frandsen's for dinner! Woo hoo!! And they had family visiting. Candace's sister is here to visit for 3 weeks and she's 17. She's super awesome! We are planning on taking her tracting with us and to do some missionary stuff while she's here cause she wants to serve a mission. So that will be cool. :) But then that night the Zone leaders and Sister training leaders were coming back from MLC in Jackson and they got in late so Sister Johnson stayed at our pad for the night. She is super cool!

Well I have 2 minutes left so I have to make this quick. We went to the dr and the ER all day cause sister Johnson had some nasty bites on her legs and one was so bad they sent us to the ER. So we spent all day doing that on saturday. Then Saturday night we had a HUGE rain/lightning/thunder storm! It was crazy!!

Well I guess that's it for now. The church is true! Love you all!!

Love, Sister Rocha

I survived!

My homies,

Sorry this email is late this week, but we had transfers yesterday and that counts as our P-day for the week and yesterday was just busy waiting for the new missionaries to get in so we didn't have time to email. So here I am now. :) You may have heard that a tornado hit through Oklahoma and killed a lot of people, well that tornado was headed our way, but luckily it didn't touch down here in Monroe. We did have a really big storm last night. Thunder and lightning all night long and it was pouring rain. Our power went out at 10:00 last night, but it was a good thing cause we didn't have a problem getting to bed on time. Nothing much to do in the dark. I think it was Heavenly Father's way of making sure we actually went to bed on time. Haha we have had people staying at our apartment these last couple of nights so we haven't been doing a great job of going to bed at 10:30... haha whoops! :/

Sister Peterson went home yesterday so her and Sister Totterer spent the night at our apartment on monday cause we had to be at the church at 7:30 and we were closer to the church so naturally they slept over. Haha ;) It was fun to spend one last night with Sister Peterson though! She is a great girl and I learned a lot from her these last 6 weeks, even though she wasn't my trainer. So yeah, we had a little party on monday night. Well as much of a party as missionaries can have. Silly string, balloons, toilet paper (for streamers, not for toilet papering. haha) and church music! Woo! Party animals! ;)

And last night we had the Bastrop sisters stay with us cause President wanted all the missionaries that had been traveling to stay in the main cities just in case anything happened. So we had Sister Johnson and her 2 trainees. They are both visa waiters waiting to go to  Brazil. So we had 5 of us on monday night and 5 of us last night staying in a one bedroom one bathroom apartment. Miracles do happen! haha

Well as I said, we had transfers yesterday, but Sis. Rigby and I are staying together one more transfer! Woo hooooo!! I just love that girl! We have become so close, we teach really well together, and we just always have fun! So I'm excited for these next 2 weeks. We had 21 sisters come out this transfer, 4 of them being visa waiters, and then we have 20 coming out next transfer, so I will definitely have to train next transfer :/ I'm just glad I don't have to this transfer though! Cause there are some girls that I came out with that have to train. Phew! Dodged that bullet. Haha But along with transfers we lost some Elders :( We lost Elder Durrant, Elder Saunders and both of our Zone Leaders, Elder Nielsen and Elder Bolkcom. It's really rare to have both of your Zone Leaders leave the area, but it happened so it is what it is. Elder Henrikson and Elder Mower are the only 2 Elders that stayed in our District. And then over in West Monroe we lost Elder Flint. What a sad day T-day is! We were so lucky to have so many great Elders! But these new Elders that just came in are probably super great too! Hopefully... One of our new ZL's is Elder Ensign and he's 6'9"! So he's kinda tall. Whatever. But yeah, change happen a lot out here and I already don't like it. And that's how I feel about T-day. Haha

So this last week we have been keeping in touch with Christopher our investigator. And he was progressing really well! He didn't come to church cause he was with his mom for mothers day, but he felt bad about it and he was still reading his Book of Mormon. When we taught him the Plan of Salvation on Tuesday, we found out that he is on probation for probably another year so we can't baptize him. :( Unfortunately if you are on probation you can't be baptized. When we told him that he was pretty disappointed, but he said he is willing to keep working toward baptism until he can be baptized! So that was awesome! He is such a good kid and he has such strong faith. When we got done teaching him he asked us if we could come back later and teach his girlfriend Cabrina! HECK YES WE CAN!!!! So later that day we went back and taught her and it was a good lesson. She was really interested so we went back again on Saturday and taught her the first part of the Plan lesson and we really emphasized how the gospel can make you happy and how it helps you get through the trials in life. Chris had told us she was having a hard time and we really felt prompted to emphasize how much God loves us and how he has a plan for each and every one of us to make us happy. And that really captured her. She is having some pretty serious problems right now and my heart just breaks for her. She really believes that the gospel can make her happy though, and she has come to trust us so much. Her and Chris said they are reading the Book of Mormon together and we are so excited for them!! And they both came to church on Sunday!! And they call us all the time to come over to have lessons with them. Love it. Neither of them are really in the position to be baptized quite yet, but just seeing their desire to live better lives and seeing their faith and relationships with Heavenly Father grow is amazing!! And this is why I'm so happy out here!! Seeing these two grow closer to Heavenly Father is one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced! The Spirit I feel when we are teaching them is awesome. This is what missionary work is all about and I LOVE IT!!!! :)

On Wednesday we had Sister Garzand come and stay with us. Her companion Sister Mapy is one of the Coordinating Sisters and she had to go to Jackson to pick up the new sisters coming in and do some exchanges so we had Sis. Garzand for a week. Sis. Mapu called on Tuesday and asked if Sis. Garzand could come spend the weekend with us so we were like of course! And then Sister Mapu was like, alright I'll drop her off tomorrow. After we got off the phone, I turned to Sis. Rigby and said, "Tomorrow is Wednesday. I thought she said the weekend!" hahaha So Sis. Garzand spent the "weekend" with us. Really she came on wednesday and just left yesterday. So that weekend turned into a week. haha It was fun though. Kind of crazy cause Sis. Rigby and I had no idea what to do with another Sister. Haha  Poor poor poor Sister Garzand. Having to spend so much time with us....

On Thursday we went tracting in the rain! I've wanted to do that since I got here and I finally got to! :) No luck though. We tracted for about an hour and when we were walking back to our car it stopped raining and the sky cleared up. Weird. haha When we were tracting we knocked on a door and the guy came out, probably in his 60's and we told him who we were and what we were doing. Before we could finish explaining what we were sharing with people, he said "I'm a baptist." No way sir!! I could have told you that one! Everyone here is!! haha anyway... Sis. Rigby asked him if he had heard of the Book of Mormon and he said he had. So we asked him if he had read it and he said he did and he didn't like it. Sis. Rigby asked him why and he said it went against the Bible, and him and Sis. Rigby kind of got into a little bash. But I think it's hilarious that people think it goes against the Bible. Obviously you haven't read it sir if you think that cause it's "Another Testament of Jesus Christ." Weird confused people.

Saturday this last week was our most eventful day. We went tracting for about 3 1/2 hours and it was a huge success!! We handed out 6 Book of Mormons (that's good for around here) and we got contact information from all of them but one! And that's cause he lives in Texas and was just visiting his mom. So that was super cool. We still need to contact all of them and set up appointments, and we'll probably do thattonight. But it was great! :) It has started getting reaaaallllyyyyyy hot down here! On saturday it was 95 degrees with 95% humidity. Woof! We were dying! Since it was so hot, we took a break after about 3 hours of tracting and were walking back to our apartment to get some water and cool off. As we were walking back this mailman comes out of his truck and started talking to us. He said, "Are y'all out here teaching people about Jesus Christ?" Yes sir. "Are you teaching people that he is our Savior?" Yes sir. "Are you teaching people that you only have to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and then you're saved?" Well we believe that through him you can be saved. And he just walked away back to his truck. Then about a minute later we hear something zooming behind us. We look back and this mailman was speeding right toward us and almost hit us! He stopped right behind us and started yelling at us that we don't need to be out here doing this so we can be saved. And that we need to stop telling people about this whole works crap cause you don't have to have works, as long as you believe in Christ and accept him into your heart then you're saved. And told us to stop spreading out cult and just zoomed away. As he drove off I yelled, "We're not a cult, but thanks for trying!" He definitely heard me. Hahaha :) But little did this stinking mailman know, we were walking on a dead end street, so he had to turn around and pass us again. So we just waved and smiled at him. Hahaha! I laugh at it now, but for about 3 minutes after it happened I was so frustrated with him! I don't really know why. Probably cause I was sick of people being so stinkin lazy thinking that they don't have to do anything but believe in Christ! Christ came down to earth to die for our sins! He went through SO MUCH just for us and there are people that think we don't have to work for our salvation. But after that we just laughed and laughed about it. I have never been so close to being run over by a mail truck. Haha! Bless his heart. (That was for you Carla. haha)

On Sunday we went to visit this less active and it turns out she is going to this baptist church every week for church instead of our church. So that's awesome. Super nice lady, but she talked for 2 hours!! She seriously was just saying one thing after the other and pretty much I know everything about this ladies life! She never gave a breath where we could jump in and say "well, this is why we're here." or " well we gotta go now." Oh man. They say people here in the south really talk talk talk, but I didn't realize how much they talked until meeting this lady! It seriously wore us out physically after visiting her! We were so tired! Good thing it was time to turn in for the night. haha

Well as some of you probably know, cause most of you are family... Andrew has been having some more medical problems. He's such a problem. But everyone knew that. Haha ;) But everyone keep him in your prayers! He's been through a lot and he needs all the prayers he can get! Such a problem child... haha Andrew, it's probably that stupid beard you're growing. If you just shaved it I bet everything would be fine ;) And also a widow in our ward, Sister Earl is sick and in the hospital right now. We love her so much!! She is like our mission grandma :) But we are so sad that she is sick. It breaks our hearts to see her so helpless :( She has a bowel obstruction and they still don't know if they have to do surgery. But she is in so much pain. :( So please keep her and Andrew in your prayers!! 

Well, Lexie is going into the MTC TODAY!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She's probably already there! But holy cow, I am so excited for her!! She is going to be such a boss missionary! I can't wait!! :) :) You're great Lex! Go show Hawaii how to live fo realzzz!

But I think that's about all the excitement for this week. All the excitement I'm going to tell you anyway... haha Thanks to everyone for keeping in touch with me! Sister Rigby is always talking about the letters I get and all the emails people send me and I tell her everytime, "Don't you wish you had the best family and friends like I do?" haha y'all really are the greatest!! After talking to everyone on Mother's day and reading letters from everyone, I have really reflected on just how lucky I am to know so many AMAZING people!! :)

Y'all keep being amazing!! The church is true!!!! My testimony of the Book of Mormon and how happy it makes you has grown so much out here! I hope y'all are having the same experiences with it. I never realized how cool all of the stories are until now! It's so true and if we do all we can to follow Christ and keep the commitments we have made with our Heavenly Father, then we will be so much happier and we won't have a thing to worry about. How nice is that?? Having the knowledge to make us so happy and to let us know our true purpose in life. We are so lucky to have this knowledge!

Love you all so much!! Have a fantastic rest of the week!! :)

Monroe Boss, out!

Sister Rocha :)

Time is flyin!

Hello family and friends!! I feel like I just wrote to you, so hopefully I have something to tell you... haha Days are just blending together and I can never remember what has happened. Haha but everything is going well! I can't believe I am starting into my 5th week out here in the field! Time seriously has flown by.

Last monday we played ultimate frisbee, again! And it was so fun! Turns out I'm really good. Either that or everyone else just isn't... haha I like to think I got my skills from Christopher though so don't ruin this for me. The rest of the day we just hung out. I love P-days :) Today we are going to hang out with Sister Frandsen, cause with her sister on a mission she loves hanging out with us. Haha love that lady!

Oh, but there is this lady that is a widow in the ward and we just love to visit her! Her name is Sister Earl. She is the greatest! She gets really excited about little things and she LOVES when we come over! She is a widow so she really doesn't have anybody come over to her house and so she loves us missionaries to come by and visit. We love to go and just talk about the gospel mostly. She is evidence that wisdom does come with age. She can just sit and talk about the gospel forever. And she was a convert to the church when she was a teenager and it's so fun to hear her stories. She remember a lot of her life for such an old lady and it's awesome! We visit her often :)

Some exciting news! So I told you about a boy named Christopher that we tracted into. He is 19 and we went and saw him on wednesday to finish teaching him the Restoration lesson cause last time it was rushed at the end. So we finished that up and the spirit was really strong. P.S. we were standing in his grandparents garage just talking so that is proof  you can feel the spirit anywhere! Anyway so the spirit was really strong and Sister Rigby asked him if he would be baptized? And he said YES! He said he would definitely want that. We set a date with him for the 18th so hopefully it happens then! He came to church with us yesterday! Woo hoo! And he said he really enjoyed it!! :) There is a lot that he doesn't understand so we have a lot of work to do, but it's definitely worth it. He has had a hard past and right now we think that he smokes and maybe does some other drugs, so we have a lot of work with him, but he has told us many times that he wants to change his life around. He dropped out of school so he has a hard time reading and understanding things, so we need to work with him on that. We'll need to read the Book of Mormon with him and stuff. There is a lot to work on with him, but with the Lord anything is possible. :) We also told him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it when he does read and he will come to know for himself if it's true and he says he believes it true. So he just needs to come to know for a fact :) And when we ended the lesson with him on wednesday we asked him if he would pray and he said yes, but he would need help. So I helped him pray and the spirit that was felt was SO STRONG. Ahhhh!!! It was amazing!! I have been waiting for the moment to be able to feel that with an investigator :) :) So pray for Chris!! P.P.S. This happened on Courtney's birthday. I knew it was a special day ;)

Yesterday at church was amazing!! I know I said we have been struggling with the ward, but as we have come to know them more and more my love grows for them! There are some really amazing people down here. For the most part it's still hard to find people to give rides for investigators and stuff like that, but as we get to know them more and gain their trust they are slowly starting to help more. :) But the testimonies yesterday were awesome! That was one of the times that I felt the Spirit so strong in church! All of us missionaries were talking about it after cause it was so strong to all of us. I just hope Chris was able to feel it and recognize it as the Spirit.

There is this lady named Sheila that we visit with. We have been trying to get her to come to church and read the Book of Mormon, but she has so many health problems it's hard for her. I don't remember if I already told you about her, but I'm too lazy to go back and look so sorry if I have. haha Anyway... She had a tumor on the back of her brain a year ago and they took it out, but now it's back. It's affecting her vision and her coordination and stuff. If she sits down to read something for too long she falls asleep. So she is always up and moving and moving around when she is talking to us. And not only does she have a tumor, but she just found out that her brother has colon cancer. Turns out he has had it for a long time now and she doesn't know what stage it's in, but if it's been a long time I'm guessing it's a stage 3 or 4. So now she is worried about that and she smokes allllllll the time!! So she is just having a really hard time right now and she tells us everytime we go over that we make her day so much better. She has had depression and she says we help so much. She says she feels different around us and I know that she can feel the Spirit she just doesn't recognize it. We know that we could get her to church and to be baptized, but there is so much going on right now that she won't come to church. We need to stress the importance of it with her, but she just talks and talks and has a hard time listening when we teach her something. Haha so we sit and listen to her like her therapists. Probably not a good thing that we do that, but she needs us right now. So pray for Sheila and her brother please!

On Friday we went tracting for about 2 hours and I think we had like 3 people open their doors, and they all told us they were saved and had accepted Jesus Christ and they didn't want to learn about what the Book of Mormon was. So cool. Haha hopefully we planted a seed somewhere with the millions of cards we left on everyone's doors. Then on Saturday we went tracting again for about 2 1/2 hours and we had about 7 people out of 60 houses open their door. Just open the door, not let us in, just open it to us. And everyone there thinks they're all "saved" so that was cool. Oh dear. Lot's of work to do down here. Haha but I really like tracting! My comp. hates it, but I really like it. I think part of it is I like to hear all the excuses people will come up with, and it's just nice to be able to walk around outside instead of sitting in a car going from house to house having nobody be home. On occasion we do get someone that will want to hear our message. But for now we're still chuggin along :)

Well that's about all my stories for this week. Sis. Rigby and I laugh A LOT during week, but mostly it's just me being a smart alec. Haha nope, I haven't changed ;)

I am SO MAD that I'm missing branding this weekend!! But I guess being on a mission is a good thing too.... haha I hope y'all have fun! Take LOTS of pictures and send them to me so I can enjoy it too! And for the really good pics, print them off and send them in the mail. Ah I hope you guys have so much fun! And that will be cool for y'all to be up there on Mother's day. Maybe you could have all the men cook. Hubert better order lots of frozen pizzas if you're gonna do that. Hahaha ;)

Oh! CONGRATS TO JULIA AND KAYLI ON YOUR MISSION CALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhh I'm SO EXCITED for you two!! You two will be amazing! I knew Julia would be going somewhere in Asia... haha I love you two so much!!

Sounds like y'all are havin fun and keepin busy! I'm super excited to call on Sunday! :) Hopefully I can figure it out with mom and we can skype :) Well remember that the church is true! I wouldn't be out here if it wasn't :) 3 Nephi 16:15...Nobody wants to be tasteless salt! Work hard to keep the commandments and do as the Lord has asked so we won't be worthless in these last days! Love you all so much!!

If you're not having fun, then you're not doing it right :)

Love,
Sister Rocha :)

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We got a MONTH in the bag!

Hey y'all!!

How is everyone?? Can I just start out by saying THANK YOU! I have gotten some good letters this last week and I am so thankful for them. They really help to be able to hear about home and all the encouraging words y'all have to say. This week has been good! It's had it's ups and downs, but just trying to stay positive. :) Having so much fun though! The gospel is so fun :)

I have a super cool story for you for this week. So last monday Sister Rigby and I had a dinner appt at the Frandsen's hosue. They are probably the coolest family in the ward! Really young and they have 2 kids. Love them to death. Candace Frandsen is the sweetest and so fun to just talk to. So we were talking to her about her kids and their birth moms cause she adopted both of her kids. And we found out that one of the birth moms lives in Farmington. She is my age and she went to Viewmont. She was talking about her and how she just loved her so much. This girl thinks that nobody loves her, not even God, and she has just had a really hard life. So she was just talking about how much she wished she could help her, cause she loves her so much. So we were telling her how one of the visa waiters we have here in West Monroe is from Farmington also and wondered if they knew each other. So Candace pulled her phone out and got on facebook to see if they were friends. Turns out they were. So we were talking about it and Candace really wanted Sister Benjamin (the visa waiter) to write her a letter. Candace wanted to talk to her about it cause she wanted them to be friends. Well we were talking about how maybe this is why Sister Benjamin is in Louisiana and not in Australia yet. And how crazy it would be if she got her visa the day after we talked to her about the whole thing. And also Sister Benjamin was the ONLY one in her district to get sent to the MJM. Everyone else went to Washington. Weird right? So the next day we were going to lunch with the West Monroe sisters and Candace decided to join us so she could meet Sis. Benjamin. Turns out Sis. Benjamin and this birth mom were best friends growing up! And we talked about it for a while and finished lunch and left. When we got into the car Sis. Benjamin said, "wow, this is really weird. I really feel like I should write this girl." So she did the next day! And guess what? THE NEXT DAY SHE GOT HER VISA. She had waited in the MTC two extra weeks, she was the only one of her district to get sent to the MJM, she has been here in the MJM for 3 weeks now, and all the other visa waiters in the mission are close to the mission home and she is all the way out here in Louisiana. Now if this girl in Farmington isn't the reason she's here, then I don't know what else! We all thought that was the coolest thing. God really does have a plan for everything. Sis. Benjamin had been really struggling with being here for so long and now she knows why she was here. Craziest thing ever! God has a plan for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.

Well let's see what else happened this week.... we have been getting fed a lot by the members. haha They really are nice people, they just need to figure out how the church is supposed to work. haha But I have loved it here! The people are so nice and we always have fun. Christopher wrote me and told me that, "If you're not having fun, then you're not doing it right." So Sister Rigby and I have taken that to heart and it's our new motto. haha :)

So I've told you about the lady Sarah Fisher that we tracted into my first week here. We were able to visit with her again this last week. She has been so so busy with things, it's hard for us to catch her at home. But we caught her and she invited us in and we were there for like 2 hours! Visits aren't supposed to last longer than like 45 min, but this was a good visit! People down here in the south really like to talk. A lot. haha But Sarah is one of the greatest people ever! She loves God with all her heart and her faith is amazing. She is always praying for God to help her with things and she can always see the good in people cause she knows we are God's children. And talking to her is just so fun and amazing. And it helps that she's hilarious! haha We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she really liked it cause it answered a lot of questions for here that she had had about where we came from and where we're going. So that was awesome. She told us that she loves to talk about God, but when somebody starts trying to change her beliefs she doesn't want anything to do with them. So we're a little nervous to teach her the Gospel lesson. The next lesson about baptism and repentance... but we want her to understand that we're not trying to change her beliefs, we're just trying to build on them. Cause if she was to get baptized she would be an amazing member! We can tell that she would be so strong in the church. So we have faith that when we teach her that gospel lesson and ask her to be baptized that she will accept. And we want to get her to church cause we know that she will feel the strong spirit that is there.

But after we left her house we were walking down the street a little ways and we ran into this kid named Christopher. He is 19 years old and he has been in and out of jail a couple times and really wants to change his life around. He actually talked to us first. We were walking down the street and he called out to us and just talked to us and asked us who we were cause he saw our name tags. So we started talking to him and he seemed interested in what we had to say. But it was funny cause while we were talking to him his girlfriend came out of his grandparents house and she just sat there giving us the stink eye cause we were talking to her boyfriend. And she was black so you can just imagine how that looked. Haha but I saw that she didn't look to happy so I kind of yelled over to her and introduced us. Her tone and everything automatically changed and she came over to talk to us. haha so funny! But we were talking to them both about the Book of Mormon and asked if they would read just the introduction and then we set up an appt to see them again. So we went back on thursday and we were teaching him the Restoration. We had barely gotten to talking about Joseph Smith when all of a sudden a gillion people came out of the house, stuffed in the mini van and were like "aight Chris, we leavin. You comin?" And they were going out to eat so we didn't want to keep him. So we hurried and finished up and just asked him real quick if he would read the Book of Mormon and we would be back. He said he would and he went and got in the car. It was really awkward cause they started pulling away slowly so I was being pressured to hurry and finish. So that was weird. But other than that I think it went well... haha we are gonna go back and see him this week.

Ok so it's "Creepy Story of The Week Time" So every friday we go to this place called 'Grace Place,' it's where they feed the homeless and less fortunate lunch. We go and volunteer and wash tables and trays and mop and sweep and just whatever else. So Sister Rigby and I were just standing there talking when this guy, that can't really talk, comes up behind me, puts his finger to his lips telling Rigby not to say anything and he kind of pokes/grabs my sides and yells in my ear!!! Ok so this guy is not all there and you can't ever really understand what he's saying and just very homely looking. So you can just imagine what my face looked like when this guy GRABBED MY SIDES!!!! First off that's just not ok ever for some weird old man to grab me by my sides, and it's definitely not ok when I'm a missionary!! Rigby was DYING. Then to make it more interesting he starts talking to me like 5 inches from my face and I don't know what he's saying. And all of a sudden he starts talking like daffy duck, just SPITTING ALL OVER MY FACE!!!! Who is this guy and why is he doing this?!?! haha Rigby thought that was just the funniest thing in the world! She's still not over it. She still brings it up all the time and just laughs and laughs. We really never have a normal day here. I don't know why I keep running into all the creepy weird people. It definitely keeps me on my toes. haha

Oh! I hit my month mark on saturday! That's crazy huh?! It feels like I've been here forever, but it also feels like it's going so fast. We're already half way through this transfer. I've been out here 3 weeks tomorrow! Crazy how time flies. Um sorry y'all I have not run into Si or anyone from Duck Dynasty yet. And I've never seen it so I doubt I'd even know they were standing next to me. I'll keep my eyes out though. haha

Oh I guess I did have to speak in church yesterday. Most awkward talk ever. haha First off, the chapel isn't very full to begin with, and I was the last speaker after this high council man that just spoke for like 40 minutes.... So either people were sleeping or getting restless and just wanted the meeting to be over. So I got up to speak being all excited and not nervous. I've kind of gotten over being nervous to speak to people. Kind of. haha but I was talking and I thought I was saying some good things and I should have just stared at my paper and nobody would have even noticed. I could have probably told story after story of nothingness and people wouldn't have noticed. So that was weird... but I gave my talk based on Elder Eyring's talk in Conference called 'Come Unto Me.' I really really liked his talk. But people were telling me I did a good job after. So either people actually listened or they just saw that I spoke so they thought they'd just tell me. hahaha

On saturday we went to help these recent converts move. They were moving from an apartment to a house so we had some members there helping and then us 6 missionaries. But the weird thing was... the people still hadn't picked where they were moving to! So we had their house packed and stuff loaded on the trailer and then waited for an hour for this lady and her boyfriend to decide where they were moving to. Yes she has a boyfriend living with her and she was just baptized like a month or so ago. So sad. Anyway. She finally decided where they were going to move and we drove on down there to pack. Talk about GHETTO. Houses were boarded up, some sketchy people were walking around there and it was just scary! I feel so bad for them. They have 3 little kids and I'm worried for their safety :/ It was the ghetto of the ghetto down there. I was so scared to be there. But some funny things happened. We saw this man dressed up in a really short dress with make up on, a purse in hand and high heels just walking down the street haha Super weird. And then, this girl Hannah is friends with the people we were moving and she is living with them for now. And when she got out of Bishops car she dropped her cigarettes out of her purse. So I went and picked them up and threw them in the ditch. hahaha I would. :) And then she was looking for them everywhere and when she found them in the ditch she was tiiiiiiiicked!! hahahaha you should have seen her face! Oh man, I'm such a terrible person. But I'm just trying to help. ;)

But it was really sad to be down in that part of town. So many little kids just walking down the streets doing whatever they want. It's so sad to see how some people live. It makes me so so so grateful everyday for the gospel, loving family and friends, and for a beautiful safe neighborhood to live in. You definitely don't know how blessed you are until you come down here and see so many people without the gospel! So sad.

Well I guess that's enough stories for the week. I love hearing from y'all and hope you're all doing well!! Can't wait to see where Kayli and Julia get their mission calls!!!! WOOOOO!!! SO EXCITING!! Well, the mission is awesome! Tough, but awesome! Remember, the gospel is true, God loves you so much, and remember to keep praying and reading scriptures everyday!! THE GOSPEL IS SO BOSS!!! :)

Love you all so much!!

Love, Sister Rocha :)

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Who knew what a mission was?!

Hey ya'll!! How's it goin at home? I love love love getting letters from everyone so keep em comin! They really help cause at the end of a hard day it's nice to just read some nice letters from some nice people. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ABBEY AND LEXIE THIS LAST WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope ya'll had a good day! Sorry the party wasn't as fun cause I wasn't there... haha

Well this week has been interesting. Let's start off with an update from Anthony the creepy library guy... He has been texting us every single day since we saw him and he always says "wyd?" we guess that means "what you doin?" We didn't ever text him back until the other day one of our Zone leaders got sick of him and texted back, "we are doing missionary work, cause we are MISSIONARIES." Hoping he would get the hint. But he didn't. He texted back and said "I miss you." Then he said, "send me a pic." and that was freaky! So we blocked him. So no more Anthony, but everytime we walk into the library I'm afraid he'll be here. haha

Um this last week we have just been doing a lot of service. There is one lady in our ward who is paralyzed on one side of her body so we cleaned up her yard for her. It hasn't been touched in like 2 years, so we had the elders come and help us and we had a lot of fun doing that. haha we are all just goofballs. I don't know if that's a good thing though... but yeah, we cleaned up all her leaves, mowed the lawn, and just made it look nice. We did that on saturday and thank heavens the weather was super nice that day, so it was enjoyable work. There is a train track behind the ladies house so we would fill this garbage can with tons of leaves and when it was full we would go across the little creek and dump all the leaves on the train track. And then the train came by and blew all the leaves. We pretty much we're like 5 years old. haha it was so fun though! We're lucky enough to have fun Elders in our area.

Holy cow. The members here are so lazy!! They can't do anything for themselves I swear. We are always getting calls to do this and that. And people always ask if we've seen so and so and how they're doing and blah blah blah. There are so many less actives in this area and no wonder they don't come to church cause the only people seeing them are the missionaries. Hardly any of the members do their home teaching and visiting teaching. I mean I'm all for visiting people and doing service (cause that's what missionary work is) but when you have members that just take advantage of you and are just lazy, it's super frustrating. The church is so different here than in Utah. People in Utah are so willing to do things and help others out, but down here people just don't see the importance of joining missionary work. And it's hard cause there are so so so many less actives here and we visit them as missionaries, but we can only see so many people in a day and it would be nice to have some effort from the ward. They're really nice people, but very lazy and selfish.

Nothing too exciting has happened this week. We are just visiting less actives and trying to build relationships with the members so we can have more help. Cause we're supposed to have member present lessons, but we can't have those if members don't help obviously... so we're trying to build relationships there. We have been having a really hard time finding people to teach. A mission is so different than what I thought it would be! But it's still good. :)

I love being out here and I love the Spirit I feel :)

Yesterday at church they were really emphasizing talks from conference about families and how important that structure is. And it was really hitting me how important family prayer and scripture study is. Being down here has really changed my outlook on families and just how important they are. There are so many people I see that don't have relationships with their families at all and the life that they lead because of it. I want to challenge you guys as a family to start having scripture study and prayer together. I know we didn't do it when I was home, but I have been thinking a lot about what they were saying yesterday and that support in the home is what we all need. I think as a family we could do a better job at reading scriptures and praying, cause we can all work on coming closer to the Lord. I promise that as you read scriptures and pray together that it will give the Spirit more opportunity to be in the house. And it will bring us closer together as a family and closer to our Heavenly Father. And not just my family, but every family! You don't really know what you have until you're 2,000 miles away. The family units down here are just sad. It breaks my heart to see that people can't rely on a family, and they aren't close with God at all. But that's my challenge for ya'll cause I know that we can all use stronger families. And with how wicked this world is becoming, the family and the home need to be a place of refuge and peace. And with how much they emphasized it in Conference, it's probably something we can all work on being better at.

I love you all so much and am so grateful for family and friends that are so supportive and encouraging. Cause it's not easy out here, but it's fun and I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else! I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have the support system I do. Keep being awesome!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

Love, 

Sister Rocha

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I'm on a MISSION!

Hello my family and friends! Wow thank you for all of the emails. I don't think I'll have time to write everyone back, but I will do the best I can and if not I will print them out and try to write y'all later.

Wow it has been crazy here! This last week was full of surprises. Haha the mission field is nothing like I expected it to be. My companion Sister Rigby is awesome! She is super fun and chill and we just have a grand old time with everything. There are 3 other sisters that are close by in West Monroe so we see them often. Sis. Peterson, Sis. Totterer, and a visa waiter to Australia Sis. Benjamin. They are all awesome girls and we have so much fun together! The Elders here are awesome too. Elder Henrickson, Elder Durrant, Elder Nielsen, and Elder Bolckom are in the Monroe area and they are fun. Good guys. It is very different out here in the south. There are tons and tons of baptists, pentacostals, and any other religion you could think of. Not many mormons... haha it is really hard to find people that want to listen to you. They all say they have already been saved and they know Jesus, so that's all they need. So it's hard to get people to listen, but we're trying. It's kind of sad cause I came from the MTC where they tell you everday to not give up, it doesn't matter what area you are serving in there are people that are ready to listen, but a lot of the missionaries that have been out for a while just say we need to embrace the south and that's just how it is. I'm doing my best to not get discouraged like everyone else though. Don't worry about me. :)

Wow do I have stories for y'all. Let's start with the second/third day I was here. So on wednesday we went out to Winnsboro (about an hour from Monroe) for our district meeting and when we were there we did a little role play thing. It was set up as a missionary at the library doing some mormon.org and the person next to them glancing at their computer. So we practiced what we could say and practiced getting them interested and explaining the book of mormon and all that good stuff. So then on thursday Sister Rigby and I went to the library to do somemormon.org and it just so happened that I sat next to a black non member. Imagine that in Louisiana... haha So I could tell he was glancing at my computer and in my head I was thinking, "Oh crap. This is exactly what we practiced yesterday! I'm gonna have to talk to him." So I was trying to get the courage up, when all of a sudden he looks over points at something on my computer and asks a question. So I told him about it and talked to him about the church for a minute when I asked him if there was a time that me and my companion could come and teach him more. All of a sudden he says, "Well right now would work just fine." So I called my companion over and we went to a table and taught him the Restoration lesson. At first he seemed interested. He was talking and asking questions. Oh before I forget, his name is Anthony and he's 22. As we got farther into the lesson he started asking random questions about Utah and stuff. So we would answer them and get back to the lesson. We asked him if he would read and pray about the book of mormon and he said yes. So that's awesome right? Then we kept talking and we asked him if he'd come to church. He said yes! So then we asked him if he would be baptized on May 4th and he said yes! So of course me and Rigby are stoked! He agreed to all the commitments and we were just excited. So we kept talking to him getting to know him better. But he started getting really weird. He would get up to go get a drink for like 2 minutes and then come back. It started to seem like he was on drugs... but we kept talking to him. When all of a sudden he says, "I has a qestin fer y'all. When was the first time y'all had sex?" Um we almost died!!! What in the world is going on here?! hahahaha we were kind of stumbling over words not knowing what to say, when I blurted out, "Well as member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we don't believe in sexual relations before marriage. And you know what (glancing down at my watch) it's time for us to go. We have a dinner appt. we have to make." (We didn't have a dinner appt for a whole other hour." But we got our stuff and got out of there fast! But it was too late, we had already swapped phone numbers with him. STUPID IDEA. So we go on our way laughing and dying in the car not knowing what just happened. And later we get a text from him asking where we were. We said we were at an appt and asked if he needed anything. We kind of thought we should just not text him back, but we didn't want to just give up on him. We thought maybe he would come to church. So he texted back and asked if he could borrow some money. So we didn't text back when about 30 min later we got another text saying "WYD?" We figured that meant what you doin. So we didn't text back. Then he texted us again saying, "I meant what are you doin rigby?" We were back at our apt and we started freaking out. We were like we didn't tell him where we live, but what if he somehow found us and he's outside our apt?! Of course we are freaking ourselves out. haha So we called our Zone leaders and told them about it and they told us to text him and say "we are missionaries and our only purpose is to bring others to Christ and if you need anything else we can't help you." So we did that and he texted back "ok just checking on you." So by that point I turned to Sis. Rigby and said, "Well I've been here 2 days and I'm never talking to anyone again." hahaha can you believe that?! The first person I go to talk to and teach about the gospel is a creep that is asking us weird questions. He texted us the next morning and said good morning. TWICE. And then asked us what we had planned for the day. We never texted him back and luckily he never showed up to church. Oh and to make it better, right before he asked us that super odd question, he told us he had just gotten out of jail the day before. So we were definitely out of there! hahahahahaha CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT HAPPENED TO ME ON MY SECOND DAY OUT?! God sure does have a sense of humor.

But now I have a good story. On friday we went tracting and we were getting close to being done. The West Monroe sisters were coming down to have a sleepover cause we had to leave at 5 the next morning to go to Winnsboro for a festival. Anyway we got to a house and Rigby said, "ok this ones all you Rocha." So we walked up to the door and somebody on the street finally answered! Keep in mind, this is the first door I was going to speak at while tracting. My first door. First. So I introduced us a missionaries and asked him his name and then all of sudden this comes out of my mouth. "um. uh. well. this. uh." and then my companion saved me and talked to him. Wow I felt so stupid! Haha he looked at my like I was crazy and said no thank you and we left. Just like you mom, I started laughing. Hahaha I have never felt more dumb in my life. But whatever. There's a first time for everything. Haha so we kept going down the street and nobody was home, or they just weren't answering their doors cause they didn't want to talk to us. We came to the last door that we hadn't tracted and Rigby said again "alright Rocha it's all you. You can do it." This lady answered the door and I gave her the whole shpiel. It was so boss. She said ok yeah come on in. WHAT?! COME ON IN?! That doesn't happen. haha so we went inside and talked to her for about a half hour and taught the Restoration. She seemed super interested and she had a lot of questions. She then went on to tell us that the reason she let us in was because she had been praying for more answers. She had been asking God what way she was supposed to go with religion. Well if we weren't an answer I don't know what is! We set an appt to go back this week and teach her some more. She was such a sweet lady. Her name was Sara Fisher and she has a little 7 year old and one on the way. Her husband didn't look so excited that we were there and didn't want to talk to us. So hopefully that doesn't change her mind about anything. We left her with  a Book of Mormon and she said she'd read it an pray about it so hopefully she does! So ya know, I felt pretty good about the second door I tracted. Not gonna get my hopes up thought. Haha

So on satruday we had the catfish festival in Winnsboro. We left our apt at about 5 in the morning and drove an hour. Our stake president paid money to get the missionaries a booth there. We were there from about 6:30-6:30 on saturday. We had a ton of pamphlets, pass along cards, book of mormons bibles and dvds just to pass out to people. For the first little while we just walked through the crowds and just handed out pamphlets and mormon.org cards to people. There were a lot of people that would say "oh I already know Jesus. I've been saved." But there were a ton of people who took them. And then for the last little while we just stood outside of the booth and handed things out and there were quite a few people who would go into the booth and other missionaries would teach them more and most walked away with a Book of Mormon. It was a really awesome experience! I had told Rigby that one of the things I was most afraid of was to talk to people. Not just talk, but talk to them about the gospel. So saturday was definitely a way for me to get over that. Haha it was perfect. There were thousands of people that came through that festival and I talked to more people that day than I ever have in my life. Haha I have never been rejected so many times in my life though. It was tiring. Haha All throughout the day I was finding some pamphlets and mormon.org cards on the ground, but the worst was when I found a Book of Mormon in the garbage. :( That was so sad to see because this person that threw it away had no idea what exactly they had in their hand. They had no idea that that book could change their life forever. It's so sad to see that down here. So many people that think they are saved just because they believe in Christ. And you try to teach them that there is more than just knowing Christ, but hardly anybody wants to listen. So that was a whole new experience, and it was really fun. We have already gotten some media referrals from Church headquarters and there are people that wrote their name and numbers down so we could contact them to teach them more. So hopefully we planted a lot of seeds! We got really sunburnt thought. All of us are so red. Mine has mostly tanned now though :) haha

Then yesterday was fast and testimony meeting at church. Um there were all of like 40 people at church yesterday. And that might even be pushing it. There were not many people at all! But the spirit in that meeting was so strong! It was awesome! It was crazy to see that there weren't many people at all. It was a small chapel and only like a third of the way full. It is very humbling though coming from Utah. Cause it really is true that you don't know what you have until it's gone. This last 6 days here has made me realize just how lucky I have been my whole life. So a lesson to you all. Just take my word for it, up in Utah and Idaho you have it really really good! It is definitely an eye opener being down here in the south. But I really do love it. The people here are so nice. If somebody doesn't want to listen to you they just politely say no thank you. Nobody has slammed the door in my face yet. But then again I have only been out here for 6 days... haha it really feels like an eternity though.

We have some senior missionaries that are out in West Monroe that take really good care of us. Elder and Sister States. They are actually in our stake! In the 6h ward! Crazy. I have never seen them before in my life. haha super weird, but they're nice. They actually took all of us sisters out to dinner on friday. Sister States is crazy though. haha She says some weird things. And then last night some people in the ward fed me Rigby and the elders in the area. The food was so good! And they had Blue Bell ice cream. Best ice cream I have ever eaten in my life! Court, you would die! haha If every dinner out here is gonna be like that, then I'm gonna come home fat. haha

We did play ultimate frisbee today though so that was a good workout. We went out to west monroe and played at a park there. Us sisters and then all the elders in both areas. It was super super fun! The humidity is going to be the death of me though. We played for about 2 hours and my clothes and hair seriously felt like I just came out of a swimming pool. Haha so gross!

Ok there is a guy that just sat down and is talking to me and we started talking about my mission and I'm gonna have to talk to him abou the gospel. We have kind of already started. But I'm scared cause of what happened the last time I was at a library! haha what a joke. I've only been here 6 days, this neesd to slow down. haha jklol jklol!

Oh ok so also before we came to the library we went and visited duck dynasty. They live in West Monroe so we went to the store out here and got some pictures in front of the trailers. Tell Andrew he can be jealous. Haha

Ok I think that's all of the exciting stories I have for this week. There will probably be more to come next week. Oh dear I just remembered some funny happenings. Sorry I'm all over the place. haha So when we were tracting the other day this 9 year old boy comes up to us on his bike and is just talking to us and riding along side us. He asked what we were doing and we told him we were going to tell people about Jesus Christ. He thought that sounded pretty cool so he told us that he was going to come along with us and help us. hahaha we didn't know what to say, but thankfully his brother made him go home. haha

And then also about 10 minutes after that there were some kids in a yard jumping on a tramp and they asked if we had husbands. I said no and one kid asked if I would marry him. I told him not today, but maybe later. Haha not sure if that was acceptable as a missionary, but I'm trying to watch what I say. hahaha silly kids!

Sister Rigby keeps telling me that these happenings this last week have never happened to her for the 5 months she's been out. So I guess there's something about me that attracts weird things. haha

Anyway.... I guess I'll end this now. I miss you all so much! I'm not really homesick, but I do miss you. haha I really do love it out here and I love being a missionary! Spreading the gospel to people is so much fun!! And the people I am around are so much fun! Sometimes we might have too much fun.... haha well don't forget to read your scriptures and pray EVERYDAY! Pray multiple times a day. Ever since being out here I pray a whole lot and much more sincerely. They're cooler when they're more sincere, remember that. And remember, the scriptures have all the answers to happiness and peace.

Hope all is well at home!! Love and miss you all so much!! Keep the letters comin cause I love to hear about what's going on at home :) :)

Love, 

Sister Rocha

ps. Abbey and Lex, I am trying to get a package together for your birthdays. I'm sorry if it's a little late, but I'm trying! Love you both and have happy days!! 

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Updating Sister Rochas emails :)

Well I made it to Monroe Louisiana!! We had to drive two hours to get here. There were 5 of us in a mini van with one of the helpers or whatever to the President was driving. I got to ride with Sister Parson (THANK HEAVENS! Love that girl!) and there were 2 other new girls and then Sis. Mapu. She is awesome! But we had a good 2 hour ride. It is so pretty down here! It's super green and so so pretty.But it's sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hot and humid!! I'm going to die. LITERALLY. And it's only April. :(

 This is where I will spend the next 12 weeks of my life. My companion is awesome! Her name is Sister Rigby and she's from Idaho. We are getting along really well so far. We came to email at the library cause I didn't get much time to email while we were at our first transfer meeting place. I am super nervous of course. But not as nervous as I was yesterday. Yesterday after calling home, I was ready to go home. Haha I didn't know what to expect and I just felt like I couldn't do this. And I was running on two hours of sleep so that didn't help my emotions. Haha but last night some of us were talking in a room and we were just sharing how we all felt and our questions about the gospel and we had a really good discussion. It made me feel a little better cause we talked a lot about how a lot of our gospel is based on faith. And like Elder Holland said, we don't need to tell God what we don't know, but tell him what we do know. So that helped my nerves a little bit.

And having Sister Parsons here has helped so much. Times have gotten really hard (it's only been 2 weeks....) and I have told myself at times that I should just go home. But of course I always talk myself out of it. And a lot of it is because of her. She may be one of the most hilarious and fun people to be around, but she always knows how to make me feel better and having her with me these last 2 weeks has made me realize that one reason I came here was to meet her. So if I'm having these experiences already, then I probably should stay. Haha we weren't companions in the MTC, and not even in the same district, but we roomed together. So I know God put her in my path for a reason and that will happen many more times while I'm out here. I'm grateful to have this experience though. It's gonna be tough, especially cause I hate change... but good things always come from it as long as you rely on the Lord. He can do anything. He knows your every feeling, because he has felt it too. Put your trust in Him and you can do anything you set your mind to! (I know this is true, I just need to practice it more) :/

I have been pretty homesick lately, but I'm trying to come out with two feet completely in the mission field. I know it will take time, but I know God will help me. I love the people in my mission already! All this time at the MTC I have been thinking that every missionary is all holy and just reverent all the time. And that's not how it is at all. Missionaries are still normal human beings!! Hahaha (I should have known already, my mom served a mission....) haha but the missionaries out here are really welcoming and really fun. There are some sisters out here that I know I will just love! One of them being my companion. :) Or my new mom I should say. I have gained a lot of new family today it turns out. I'm still trying to figure it all out. haha

Turns out I was right, I did pack my mission president so he could move out here! So so weird. But President McDonough and his wife are so sweet and nice. Love them already. The sisters stayed in the mission home last night and holy cow their place was huge! They had so many rooms and so many beds. It was fun. And they fed us lots of food :)

I think we are just going to get settled in today and grocery shopping and stuff. Not really sure of what all will go on. I'm super tired though, I know that for sure!

Oh so cool experience that happened. All the girls in my district asked the elders if they would give us blessings the night before we left. I had Elder Tanner give me my blessing. And holy cow, the spirit I felt was awesome! He said he hadn't given many blessings before and when he took his hands off my head he said, "Woah. That was the weirdest feeling ever." He said exactly everything I needed to hear to get ready to come out her. So that was a cool experience. What a kid! It was so sad to say goodbye to everyone. We leave our families behind, then they give us a new one and after we bond and become super close, they tear us away! Haha we say that all the time. It was hard to leave our district and it was even harder to leave some of the girls I roomed with. Sister Smith and Sister Parsons. Not my companion.... awkward.

But we also had four sisters come out with us that are assigned to Sydney, Australia, but they haven't gotten their visas yet. So they sent them out here with us. Great girls, love em! One of them is Sister McKinnon. I went to junior high and high school with her. Super cute girl. So if Ali's visa doesn't come on time, maybe she'll join me out here... haha jk jk! Kind of ;)

Well I should probably go now. Just wanted to let you know I was here and let you know I'm scared out of my mind, but I'm here. haha one of these days I'll learn to approach people about the gospel.

I miss you all so much! Don't have too much fun without me. Oh wait, impossible. HA! Love you all!

Love, Sister Rocha

P.S. Sorry Court and Kayla that I couldn't talk long yesterday. :/ I was just bawling at the pay phone and it was time to get ready to board the plane. It was so good to talk to you though! Oh and if you could both email this to your moms. They gave me their emails and I forgot to bring my notebook in. :/ haha Love you both :)

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