Missionary Letter #100

MERRY CHRISTMAS MONTH EVERYONE!! how are ya'll??

tell me HOW YOU ARE LIGHTING THE WORLD THIS YEAR?!!
(and if you don't know what I'm talking about do me a solid and visit mormon.org:))

this week I said goodbye to my dear hermana nielsen awww. I'll miss tango-ing at 6:30 AM, our cute little sticky notes of love, and constantly breaking into song together.

BUT. My new companion is Hermana Robles! She's so adorable and is from california and is INCREDIBLE at drawing people. So insane. She and I came out almost exactly 1 year apart from each other.  I love her because she's so patient with me having to repark 14 times to get the car straightened out :)))

ELDER BEDNAR CAME TO OUR VERY OWN MISSION!

It was amazing. The entire time it was a Q&A based on some talks he had sent us a few weeks before. He would allow a question, then usually ask a follow up question, then provide insights or tell the person to read in the Book of Mormon for their answer. His insights were SO powerful. He taught me a lot about what kind of missionary I want to be.

ALSO! He and OUR VERY OWN President Whitney are first cousins!

At one point Elder Bednar made the same joke President Whitney always makes about how women do 9 things perfectly then stress about the 1 mediocre thing, then men will do 9 things terribly but 1 average thing and they celebrate the one average thing and Elder Bednar demonstrated celebrating and I KID YOU NOT Elder Bednar pounded his chest and went, "YAH!!" and it was so unexpected I just about fell off the green plush pew ahahaha.

Elder Bednar told us a story about how one summer day when they were like 10, he and President Whitney had found some old boxing gloves and because they are boys of course they put them on and started boxing in the living room. I guess President Whitney (who is the sweetest most subdued man you will ever meet no joke) hit Elder Bednar a little too hard and he fell back and shattered the front window. They were freaking out but President Whitney's dad came in and said, "Well, I guess we'll need to replace the window." and that was that. I pray daily for that level of patience hahaha.

i love you! I love Texas! I love the Lord!!

love ya'll,

Hna Anna Wolford

3232 N Locust St, Apt 1114
Denton, Texas 76207

Texas Fort Worth Mission
1331 Airport Fwy Ste 305
Euless, TX 76040-4150

Missionary Letter #99

HELLO FROM GOOD OL' DENTON TEXAS

let's start off with a quick missionary jargon lesson, shall we?

to "die" on your mission: to go home
to "kill" your companion: you're their last companion before they go home
to "bible-bash"/"bash": to argue with the bible in order to prove someone's beliefs wrong

TEXAS IS EVERYTHING I DREAMED IT WOULD BE - it's big, southern hospitality, it's big, southern accents, it's big, cowboy boots, and IT'S BIG.

My trainer is Hermana Nielsen from Seattle, Washington. This is her LAST transfer before going home which means that I'll kill her heh heh. She's great and filled to the brim with lots of nuggets of wisdom. We are the exact same height and weight but I have blonde hair and she has brown so we decided I'm the pink princess and she's the blue princess from Barbie Princess and the Pauper. (see pic of us in our colors;))

Spanish is coming along! Some people in the ward speak only spanish, some only english, and some speak english but tell me to speak spanish back to them. SOON ILL BE SPEAKIN LIKE A NATIVE

MY FIRST LESSON AS A MISSIONARY AND I GOT BASHED AHAHAHA:
Hermana Nielsen and I had planned on teaching Pedro and Carmen the first discussion. I was SO prepared and so excited, yes yes! We invited Hermano Benavides and his RM daughter Jessica from the ward to come along.

The first part of the lesson was AMAZING! The Spirit was so strong, and they were very receptive to our lesson. About halfway through, their adult son Eduardo walked through and invited him to sit down and listen. After about 2 minutes, he left and came back with his bible. I was like, "eeekk yes another investigator!" WRONG.

Eduardo lit us UP. He had come prepared as well. Anything we said, he'd cut us off mid sentence and share a scripture about how we were wrong. The Benavides' know SO much about the gospel and would rebut his scriptures with others, but there was SO MUCH contention, the Spirit was not there.

Finally, Hermana N and I interrupted the arguing and bore testimony. After, sweet Carmen said something like, "We always knew you girls were good girls. We know God sends people in other path for a reason."

AND I KID YOU NOT EDUARDO SAID,

"The devil sends people in our path too"

HE SAID WE WERE SENT FROM SATAN AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

It's SUPER hilarious now!! But not so much at the time.

don't tell my mom, but I definitely cried the whole way home.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT

I didn't come out on the mission thinking it would be a piece of cake. I knew what I was signing up for.

plus, missions are hard! and I haven't been here longer than a week!!!

Isn't it crazy that the Lord entrusts the most important work of the ETERNITIES to a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds?
In all honesty, I don't know much. But I know these things to be true: God answers prayers. The Savior died for us all. Joseph Smith was a prophet. The Book of Mormon is true. I can be with my family forever.

If you are questioning any of those things, ask the missionaries!!

Acts 5:41-42

all my love,

Hna Anna Wolford

3232 N Locust St, Apt 1114
Denton, Texas 76201

Texas Fort Worth Mission
1331 Airport Fwy Ste 305
Euless, TX 76040-4150

Missionary Letter #98

MY LAST WEEK IN THE CCM AM I EXCITED YES AM I READY PROBABLY NOT BUT HEY ITS COOL

mexico is trying to kill us. last week there was the most INSANE rainstorm I had ever seen. The streets were flooded, in some places up to our thighs! It was SO FUN I COULDNT STOP LAUGHING. this week an excavator hit an electrical line, so we went without power for a while. (in a spanish to english translation mix up, the translator accidentally told us someone had jumped the fence surrounding the MTC. I don´t know how those two things translate similarly but it was very funny ahahaha)

mexico: 2
americans: 0

Hermana McGee is known here as the girl with the spider bite (obvi) --- missionaries we´ve never met will say, "wait, you´re the one who got bit??". unfortunately it got infected again. we now call the clinic our "home away from home" because we´re their best customers. we go in, chat with the receptionist and ask for "the usual".

here i´m known for my "not today satan" shirt. The latinos especially get a kick out of it hahaha. I like to tell my missionary friends that if you take out one word from it, it´s still funny. "not today", "today satan" and "not satan" ahhahaha. too good.

I´ll be sad to leave my latino friends knowing I´ll probably never see them again ESPECIALLY my teacher HERMANA LEYVA. I love her SO SO much. i tear up just thinking about it. she said she´d invite me to her wedding in a few years tho so my hermanas and i are thinkin GIRLS TRIP ;))

nobody in my district is going to my mission which makes me sad. they´re LITERAL FAMILY. To say goodbye, Elder Z has drawn each of us our favorite temple. I´ll send mine. It´s absolutely incredible.

cool spiritchal thing I already sent to my mom: this past week I was assigned to give a talk in spanish in sacrament meeting. in the middle of the night i woke up kind of groggily with my talk on my mind and this random experience that i hadn´t thought about in YEARS popped in my head. I swear, I heard a voice in my head say, "write it down" and in an instant I became wide awake. I kept one foot on my bed (lol) and lunged for my notebook and scribbled down some words then fell right back to sleep. When I woke up, I attempted to translate my chicken scratches and I realized I had written a story that went in a completely different direction than what i had initially planned for my talk. I scrapped my old talk and started over with this story. Despite my nerves, the talk ended up coming together wonderfully. I don´t know why I was prompted to share that story but it was crazy to recognize the Spirit guiding my life.

I´ve only been out six weeks and I already can´t imagine my life without my mission. I have grown so SOOOO much spiritually. This is seriously such an important work and I´m so blessed to be apart of it.

next email I´ll be in TEXASSS WOOOOOTTTTTT!!!

I love you all!!!

Hna Anna Wolford

Missionary Letter (just pictures) #97

 love you all!

 

Hna Anna Wolford

Texas Fort Worth Mission

México Missionary Training Center

Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828

Gustavo A. Madero 

Colonia Zona Escolar 

07230 Mexico City, Distrito Federal Mexico

Texas Fort Worth Mission

1331 Airport Fwy Ste 305

Euless, TX 76040-4150

Missionary Letter #96 - Anna in the MTC (CCM)

Hooooolllllaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

HOW IS EVERYONE GOOD GOOD

poor poor pobrecita hermana McGee. she is the "Job" of the CCM. This week she got this thing on her leg that was this weird nasty hole that was black and grey and pussing. SO GROSS. email me if ur tough enough and u´d like to see and I´ll send a pic lol. when we went to the Enfermería Dr Jackson said it was probably a spider bite and just to soak it in soap and water.

ANYWAY apparently our district leader shared that with the entire branch leaders during their meeting and so NONE OTHER THAN THE PRESIDENT OF THE CCM CAME AND ASKED HER HOW IT WAS. and knowing me of course i had to say something I probably shouldnt have lol:

president bennett: "Wow that sounds terrible! Does it hurt?"
hna mcgee: "Yeah, but I think it´s getting better!!"
president: "and how did you know it was a spider bite? was that what the doctor said"
ME: "that AND she has starting shooting webs out of her hands!!!!!!!!!!!!"

him: ..........
her: ..........
world: ........
me: heheheheh

haha jk don´t worry he thought it was funny and even high-fived me for my "cleverness" #blessed

but Hermana McGee should be okay. She´s accepted the fact that it´ll probably need to be amputated and has already taken to her new nickname: Peg Leg McGee.

PEG LEG MCGEE HAHAHAHA SO FUNNY I CRY

yesterday was latino dayyyy which means that I was assigned as a compañera to Hermana Cavello from Ecuador all day. it. was. AWESOME! I made her laugh tons of times (idk if it was at me or my jokes) but either way i am now a bilingual comedian WOOT WOOT

Hermana McGee and I had the most amazing lesson this week. It was our first time teaching the first vision from memory. There is power in the words of the sacred account of Joseph Smith. We just bawled and bawled through the whole thing haha I think our investigator Renata was confused lol. but I love sharing it and I love even more sharing it in spanish. I KNOW Joseph Smith was called of God. See D&C 136

anyhooooo!! thank you for all your love and prayers and emails and I adore all of youuuu!!

ALSO EVERYONE WATCH GEN CONF K K

Hna Anna Wolford

Texas Fort Worth Mission
México Missionary Training Center
Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828
Gustavo A. Madero
Colonia Zona Escolar
07230 Mexico City, Distrito Federal Mexico

Texas Fort Worth Mission
1331 Airport Fwy Ste 305
Euless, TX 76040-4150

Missionary Letter #95 - Spanish Gaffe

hollaaaaaa from mexicooooooo!!

today we went to the Mexico City Temple for the second and last time. The celestial room and sealing rooms are unlike any other Ive ever seen! so special.

I live in casa 6 room number 3 with my comp Hermana McGee from Arizona
(who is feeling much better thank you all for the prayers and kind words for her! in fact she´s doing SO much better that she CREAMED us at basketball despite her illness lol)
theres also Hermana Lindley from Indiana
(she is literally the most funny human on the planet and her and i get along SO WELL we share clothes and laugh so hard we practically get our exercise in for the day)
 and also Hermana Flake from a small town in central Utah that nobody has ever heard of (if we could place bets on who is making it to the celestial kingdom I WOULD PUT MY MONEY ON HER)

the elders in my district are TOO PURE FOR THIS WORLD: they are adorable and so precious. we call them "the sons we never had" but I don´t know if they like that so much ahahaha.

Im learning SO MUCH here. I feel like I´m reading the book of mormon for the first time. I just get SO much out of it with every verse. I love LOVE the Spirit here.

My spanish is coming along very slowly but surely! hermano madin (one of my teachers) told me the other day that i sound like a latino and i told him i was mega super offended he said i sounded like a latino aka a dude and not like a latina and he thought that was pretty gosh darn funny.

SO THE SUBJECT LINE
the other day hermana mcgee and I were teaching our investigator Daniel about God. I was going to say either "Dios (God) nos (us) ama (loves)" "God loves us, right? but i was also going to say "Dios (God) le (you) ama (loves)" which means "God loves you". BUT INSTEAD I SAID, "Dios no le ama" which translates to "God doesn´t love you". and Daniel was like, "¿¿Qué??" and STILL NOT REALIZING MY MISTAKE I smiled sweetly and said, "Si es verdadera´" and my poor companion was like, "no hermana wolford no" hhahahahahahah

luckily it was just my instructor hermano martinez and not a REAL investigator haha. sos.

OH and thank you so much uncle tom and aunt kristy (i think you guys read the blog?) for your sweet package!! it made my day, my hermanas´day, and especially the elders in my districts´day haha!!! thank youuuu!!!!

anyways!!! i love you all send loads of emails you make my week!

God loves you be good!!!!!

Missionary Letter #94 (This time it's Hermana Anna Wolford)

Hola my beautiful friends and family!!

I arrived safely in MEXICOOOOO and I HAVE LOVED EVERY  WONDERFUL SECOND!!!

The CCM is so beautiful!! there are palm trees every where and neon colored birds! It´s surrounded by three large mountains that have brightly painted houses all stacked up on them. At night you see the houses lit up and it looks like Tangled!

The CCM is surrounded by these HUGE walls. They´re not quite big enough to drown out the constant sound of sirens, cars honking, wild dogs, and (don´t tell my mom) gunshots aaaaaahaha. Regardless, it feels like paradise!!!

Everyone here is so nice even when YOU ACCIDENTALLY SIT ON THE ELDERS SIDE OF THINGS WHICH I DO TOO OFTEN SO AWKWARD DUDE

best food has been the salads and the tortillas and burritos and the WORST FOOD was this warm drink that looked, smelled, and tasted like Pepto Bismal. SOS

My companion is Hermana McGee who´s going to SLC WEST. She´s the sweetest in the whole entire world. We laugh SO HARD TOGETHER. She helps me remember directions to all the buildings, AND I say words of encouragement through the door of the bathroom as she´s throwing up... -- we make a great team!!!!

Please pray for Hermana McGee though! 1. because she´s been sick and on bed rest this week and 2. because she has to put up with me hehehhe

I LOVE being a missionary! We talk a lot about how on our missionary plaques there are two names - our family name and Jesus Christ. We give up our first name for 18 months to go out and serve the Lord.

I am SO HAPPY HERE I JUST CRY FROM JOY! Once when it started raining and i got to wear my rain boots and pink rain coat and another time when for dinner we ate costco hotdogs i SHED A tEAR

there are so many real blessings of being a missionary!
- I wake up and immediately jump out of bed (FAMILY--I KNOW ITS SO NOT LIKE ME)
- I am literally smiling all the time (its ALMOST CREEPY)
- my SKIN HAS NEVER BEEN CLEARER (BLESSED)
- and most importantly I am learning so much more about this beautiful gospel!!

I love my Savior and am so humbled that I get to represent him for 18 months. I´ve grown so much closer to Him and I look forward to becoming more and more like Him every day!!

do me a favor and do something nice for somebody today! you´ll feel good and they´ll feel good and we´ll all feel good LIFE IS GOOD

please send me emails! i can read them all week but have only a very short time to respond! if i didn´t send ya one I¨LL CAtCH YOU NEXT WEEK I SWEAR

con todo mi amor,

Hna Anna Wolford

<[email protected]>

Texas Fort Worth Mission
México Missionary Training Center
Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828
Gustavo A. Madero
Colonia Zona Escolar
07230 Mexico City, Distrito Federal Mexico

Texas Fort Worth Mission
1331 Airport Fwy Ste 305
Euless, TX 76040-4150

Home! Last Steven Wolford post.

Steven arrived home on August 1st. Here's a few photos of meeting him at the airport :)

This will be the last blog post for Steven Wolford's mission. Stand by, mission fans, for the inaugural Sister Anna Wolford mission blog posts starting on the first p-day following 9/11/18. :)

Missionary Letter #93

This week was zone conference up in Barrie zone in the Newmarket area. Which the GPS told us an hour to get to but planning in traffic bumped it up to about two hours (luckily we foresaw that and left early :)

As it was my last zone conference I was able to bear my testimony as a departing missionary. I got there that morning and realized that this was my time, I was bearing my testimony and I was the oldest person here on the mission. That was a hard truth for me to accept, and the whole meeting I felt like my spirit was being walloped by the spirit from the meeting and nervousness that soon I would be on the plane leaving.

It's a scary thought to me. I've spent the last two years becoming familiar with it. Learning how to talk to people, how to be happy when it's hard. How to develop a testimony of the Savior and the Restoration and how to help others come to understand it.

A fun story this week. My companion and my former companion went to the temple with our recent convert to do proxy baptisms. So my and the Zone Leader Elder Timmins went out to proselytize while they were in there (and fill out a car accident report because he got tailgated right before they got the stake center to meet up with us  #don'ttextanddrivekids) We went out, dropped by some former people that they had taught, some potentially interested people  and finally, once we were a little flabbergasted that they had been in the temple for so long, we went to drop by another person. A guy named Paul that as soon as he saw us dropped everything and invited us in.
I've served for two years and this has never happened to me.
We talk about him, how he met with the missionaries previously but had since stopped. We talked about what he thought of the Book of Mormon. He has such great faith, and after we left we both admitted to eachother that we could have stayed there all day answering his questions.

Love you all!

Elder Wolford

Missionary Letter #92

Thankfully I'm not getting an emergency transfer this week, but rather my companion Elder Lou is. It's sad to see him go but thankfully it's for good reasons. We're getting a new Assistant and there needed to be someone to fill the gap he created when he went to get trained. Since we're the only tripanionship in the zone it was the most obvious choice to split us up.

But regardless, we did have a super fun week. Including but limited to a ton of drop-by's to members at the request of our Bishop (which makes drop-by's a lot more enjoyable when you're doing it at the request of someone else) as well as teaching our arabic investigator. I'm also in close contact with the Heartlake Elders who are very excited because for the first time this mission has a Hindi speaking Elder that is in a city where 75% of the people are from India or speak their native tongue of Hindi. So he is very well loved over there. By both his companion and the members and the people he talks to.

Besides that we're about to go to a birthday party for our ten-year old investigator. His parents are members but due to complications he cannot yet be baptized. We're all excited for that though. I've never been invited to a Birthday party before so it should be exciting.

Love you all, God loves you all!

Elder Wolford

Missionary Letter #91

I swear. This week it's switched from chinese to arabic speaking. We've talked to a dozen arabic speakers about how to improve the work and get people together to teach those recently moved to Canada. Specifically for our one Arabic speaking investigator Hani.

He kind of popped out of nowhere. Coming to church with his buddy Awad  (who's a member that we're working with to go to the temple) and expressing through very broken English and a lot of hand signals that he had a desire to be baptized.

Something interesting about those from the middle east, those that grew up between India to Egypt. One concept they are absolutly fascinated by is the idea that we can be free from sin. Or clean from sin. I don't know why that is, but after talking and getting over our shock that a man had literally walked on our lap ready to be baptized we began teaching him. Teaching him is fun, beacuse Awad comes and we have a game of charades combined with gospel principles.

Besides that we had one of the emergency moves that seems to pop up every once and a while. This one wasn't because they had to much stuff to move by themselves, but because it was so hot outside and they were so tired that they needed a few pairs of extra hands. Five minutes in and we were all sweating. it was fun though, we had the chance to talk with members and less active members about their families, what they loved and desired. I hope it will lead into something more down the road.

Love you all. God loves you!

Elder Wolford

Missionary Letter #90

So this past week we got a new elder. Elder Lee from Hong Kong (did I talk about him last week? No... Alright) He's only been on his mission for one transfer and so we've needed to begin twelve week(missionary training) so our morning schedule looks like

Planning 30 min
Personal Study 1 hr
Companion study 30 min -1 hr
Language study 1hr
Twelve Week 30 min

Total: 3 1/2 to 4 hours of studying and planning.

It's a bit excessive, but it's also good because as a new missionary that's learning Canadian English and all the slang, expressions and mannerisms you need time to learn a language. He's really opened up over the past week though. When he got here he told my companion Elder Lokatama that he didn't really like to talk and he never smiled. He's different already. Smiling all the time and talking openly. It's great to see him open up.

Serving in a tripanionship is interesting. You can't do things the same way. Two guys on your doorstep can be a tad intimidating, three just adds to that. Despite that though we've seen some success. We joke around and talk as we go out contacting, and because of that people see that we're happy. It was funny... coming back from an appointment the people gave us chocolates. We talked to people and offered chocolate. It WORKS!

We also had a baptism this week. It was awesome! The spirit was super strong and we only forget to fill the font a little-bit. (It all worked out in the end). Due to the time and energy that went into making this baptism possible President Shields attended. (Iwasnotstressed) I wasn't stressed, but it was kind of a big deal. My boss (or the thing closest to my boss) was at the pinnacle of missionary work. A baptism is supposed to be super spiritual and a wonderful experience for everyone.

As for what was funny this week. We took zone video's to introduce our companionship to eachother. (Phones make it super easy to do stuff like that) and we sent ours in, but the sound didn't work. So the entire video was just us looking off into the distance with no sound....

We won.

Love you all, have a fantastic week!!!

Missionary Letter #89

Once again I find myself at the end of the transfer. Time's flown by in Mississauga and I've had a lot of fun as I've been teaching (and baptizing) here. I'll be honest my greatest fear for this, my last transfer, was changing area's. Partially because that would mean I have to pack up all my things and have no motivation to unpack them until August 2nd.

Thankfully I'm staying in Mississauga for another transfer, we did get a call last night but I'm not losing Elder Lokatama, instead we're going to be follow-up training another Chinese elder. #Tripanforthewin

Besides that though, we had a baptism this week!!! Min Zhang was a chinese investigator found in english class. She has been in Canada for about two months and despite numerous oppositions she got baptized this past Saturday. It was amazing. The ward we baptized her in had two mandarin speakers (both of whom served their missions in Taiwan) we worked closely with them both but leading up to the baptism we felt like attendance would be pretty low.

Lo and behold, we had a great turnout. Even though people in the ward couldn't understand everything that was said they came and invited Min to the ward. It was a miracle.

Besides that last week we went on a hike with a few of the other missionaries up north in Georgetown. Funnest, Hike, EVER! Really when I say hike I mean we found a small creek running through and followed it all the way up a large hill. Afterwards some awesome members helped us out and made hot dogs. We had five missionaries there who were going home next (now this) week. It felt like a good closing activity for their remaining time in the CTM.

Besides that, I love you all. God Bless and keep trekking on!

Elder Wolford