Week 78 - "It looks like a freaking elf threw up on it"

OK- so lots of exciting things happened this week:

To start off, we have been instructed to ask our apartment office guys every week if there are any packages, and unfortunately there are never any packages for us, they are usually for the Elders who live in our same apartment complex.  This las week as we were going to check the mail again, the apartment manager came running outside, and yelled, "YOU HAVE A PACKAGE!"  We stopped dead, and said, "What?"  "It's apartment #___, right?" And we said, "Yes!" And it turns out we did have a package!  We jumped up and down in the air we were so excited.  Thank you everyone for sending us mail.  We loved it. :)

Tuesday we went on exchanges with the Canyon lakes Hermanas and I got to be companions with Hermana Wallace again for a day.  I love Hermana Wallace a lot.  I miss her a lot too.  We ran into some crazy black people and a less active lady we have been trying to find in Bear Creek for like three months, but it was special for me to be her companion again for a little bit and also it worked out, because Hermana Wallace and I ended up singing at the Christmas Conference, which was the next day.

The Christmas Conference:
It started with a beautiful message from President Mortensen about how we ended up with hitting or not hitting our yearly goals.  Then after that we watched the Nativity Movie, which is not a church movie, but President approved it, so we all watched it together.  Then we all took a giant picture of everyone in the mission, and then we had a surprise visitor, aka Santa.  Then we had a crazy dice game and then we got to sing our song with Elder Guzman, Elder Self, and Elder Smith.  It was nice.  We think it went good?

Then later that day I accidentally slapped myself in the face with a tortilla.  Long story. Haha.

This last Friday we went to the temple with Giselle.  It was a really special experience.  The Monroys drove us there and then afterwards we went to go get ice cream.  She was so happy.  So so happy.  It was super cute.

Then on Saturday we got to go to Hermana Black's previous area to see one of her investigators get baptized.  And get this!  It was one of my past investigator's daughters!  We got to go to H6 and see all of the members and it was super nice.  They all said, "Hermana! Your spanish has gotten a lot better!"  And in my head, I said, "Oh I sure hope so."  The moral of the story is- GOD CAN WORK MIRACLES IN YOUR BRAIN.

Then on Sunday we got to sing in the choir.  No one told us the memo about how we were all supposed to wear red and black....Hermana Black was wearing green and I was wearing white and blue.  We stuck out kind of.

Then I got to face time my family, and my brothers very kindly showed me my Christmas presents that are still under that tree.  Haha good times.

Something I've learned over the mission is that Jesus Christ truly came to earth.  I learned he didn't need to do it, but that he did it.  How truly humble he must have been to willingly learn to walk, eat, experience acne, and mosquito bites and death to be able to save us.  I know he did EVERYTHING for us.  Literally everything.  We must only do the little things God has commanded us to do, and we need to do them right now.  There is no delaying, because he did not delay.

I love each and every one of you.  Happy Holidays!
For my birthday tomorrow, post something on the internet that you are grateful for please.
Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Always,
Hermana McCurdy

Week 77 - "It depends- who is the Batman?" Hermana de Almeida

I always was one to really love the holiday season.  Looking at our apartment, you sure can tell.  I think we might get a notice from the mission office about having too many Christmas lights or something.  But we're really pleased with how it looks, let's just say that. :)

ANYWAYS- this week I GOT MAIL.  Thank you very very much :) you know who you are.

Also, Hermana Black and I assisted in putting up wall paper this week.  It was pretty awesome.  I was also pretty sore the next day.  We were helping Hna Alcantara, whose house was badly destroyed during the flood, and we were helping her redo her kitchen.  We also learned that the plaquito, or my little black name tag, is excellent for applying the paper to the wall.

We had a stake meeting in which President kind of threw it down...but it was also super awesome.   It was cool to be there in the giant meeting with Bishops and the stake leaders.  We are looking forward to see more unity between the mission and the stake pronto. :)

Speaking of President, we also had our interviews with him again this week.  It was super nice.  When we have interviews it is to check up with us and make sure that we are good, everything is good, and to see if we have any questions or something.  My interviews with President usually go something like this:
President:  "Is anything bothering you Hermana McCurdy?"
Hermana McCurdy:  "what do I do if I think my wisdom teeth are coming in?"
President: *laughs*
OR
President: "Is there anything that is keeping you from reaching your potential Hermana McCurdy?"
Hermana McCurdy:  "I'm afraid of dogs"
President:  *laughs*
Hermana McCurdy:  "It's just that when we go to knock on the door and the crazy dog comes out and barks and acts like he's going to bite me, I just can't knock on the door President.  And I don't know what to do about it."
President: *laughs harder"

But yeah.  Interviews were good. :) neither of those things happened this week, but they have happened in the past.

WE HAD 12 PEOPLE AT ENGLISH CLASS.  OUR ENGLISH CLASS IS GROWING!

Also, I attended my own funeral.  Because I will soon be "moving on to the side" the missionaries in my district threw me a funeral this week.  It was sentimental.  I have a great district. :)

AND THEN yesterday it was 9:24 and we were driving home disappointed because we only had 10 contacts, and we needed five more, and we had to go home.  We would have gotten people who were outside, but no one was outside, because it was freezing. (Or, freezing Texas style I should say) and that was when we saw them.  God provided us with 5 contacts right there in the middle of the road, preventing us from driving forward.  GOD IS GOOD.

Other than that, you all know how much I love lights.  Christmas lights, candles, weird light analogies, northern lights, night lights, spot lights, over head strip lights, LED lights, special lights, side strip lights, front lights, etc. etc.
I know that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, and that in Him we can do all things.  I know that He came to earth to give light to this earth, because without Him we would be in an endless and hopeless darkness forever.  To find ways that you can spread HIS light with the world, especially this holiday season PLEASE go to Mormon.org and watch the cute Christmas video.

Here is the link:  #Light the world

Love you all!  And always will
Hermana McCurdy

Week 76 - "It's because they're Mexican. It's different."

OKAY- SOME PRETTY AMAZING THINGS HAPPENED THIS WEEK.  If you read any of my emails, read this one because it was legit.  I like to call it, "The week of the party crashers."

This week we had our last English Class with the school district.  We had a little party.  We taught them Jingle Bells and they laughed as we were singing.  It was really cute.  It was also very fascinating to me to watch how their accents have progressed as they have been learning with us.  They couldn't say certain sounds without really really trying before and they were starting to say them even without thinking.  It made me wonder if my Spanish was like that too or if it's still just as bad as I think it is. :) . Our brains are marvelous.

Also. Giselle. Again.  SHE FOUND HER FIRST NAME TO TAKE TO THE TEMPLE.  It is the name of her great-great grandma, and her name is Apolonia Romero.  We found her by accident and it was amazing.  I've never seen Giselle so happy.  She is also SO excited to go to the temple on the 23rd of December.  We're pretty happy about it too.  After we went to go celebrate with ice cream.

Then, we crashed our first church Christmas party this last Friday.  Then on Saturday we crashed the English Congregation's party and all their members were really excited because they thought they got sisters in their ward..... It was heartbreaking to tell them no but the food was super good.

Speaking of food, we also got fed some mean Mexican food this week.  We had this one soup that was super hot, and then you put a lot of salsa in it.  One of the members was sweating up a storm and we actually really liked the food.  Something I've learned is that it is really only the Mexicans who like spicy things.  For example, people from Honduras hate spicy things because, "If there is a fire in my mouth, I can only taste the fire, and then I don't get any of the beautiful flavors." etc etc.  That soup was so good though.  Mmmm.

Random- this week we killed a lot of cockroaches.  I don't know why, but we did.

Also, we went to set a baptismal date this week with Grace for January sometime, and we let her pick her date because she works best that way.  She looked at the calendar and was like, "Oh that's way too far away" and then picked one that was closer.  She was so cute.  We'll see how it turns out but she has come really far this weekend. :)

AND THEN- Heidi got robbed this weekend!  She said that the man was about to break into her room but that something she couldn't see stopped him from walking in the open door and hurting her and Alexis.  She said it was because she had been reading, praying, and going to church.  Hermana Black and I nearly smiled ear to ear and told her that yes it was.  There are seriously no blessings the Lord will not give us if we only do those simple things.  That was something that really stuck out to me this week.  The Lord can protect us and our families from anything (literally anything) if we will just pray, read the scriptures, and go to church.  I know that is why He gives us the gospel- to BLESS OUR FAMILIES.

I love you all LOTS!  Let me know if there is anything that I can do for you!
Always,
Hermana McCurdy

ps.  The Book of Mormon is true.

Week 75 - "This chair could hold an elephant. If it was a small elephant."

Okay so I left my sticky notes about what I was going to write about at home.....awkward.  Anyways, this is what happened this week.

Hermana Black is a great missionary.  She has some amazing habits that I have no idea how she developed them (maybe she was born with them?) but they make her a really good missionary, and then she is also a very good friend.  She is the type of person that can make anyone feel good about them self.  She also goes a long with all of my craziness, which is another plus to having her as a companion.  When I'm saying things like, "I want to decorate the apartment" she says, "when do we start?"  When I say, "I want to hang up lots of Christmas lights and make a bijillion snow flakes and make our own Christmas tree,"  she says, "I was hoping you would say that."  And when I say things like, "A chocolate milkshake sounds nice" she also has the courage to say, "Hermana it is freezing outside and we had ice cream at lunch" just kidding.  And of course she always has the courage to shoot my bad ideas down too.

Hermana Black found out that King David is her 122nd great grandpa.  That was cute.

Speaking of it being cold, I don't know if I'm just accustomed to the humid hotness all the time, because this week I have been so cold!  And it's only been about 50 degrees, if that.

This week we had more meetings.  They were fun.  We got fed Chinese food.  I learned a lot about how to use my faith in everyday mission life, and how to help myself and others develop more motivation.  It was pretty nice.  Then later in the week we had zone meeting. We took some cute Christmas pictures.  We also had pan dulce and chocolate abuelita for snacks en la reunion de zona.  It was bomb.  I like our zone a lot!  I have always loved it but somehow I felt the energy change this week.  In a good way.

Also this week we faced a lot for rejection than normal.  We got doors slammed in our face, yelled at, told we were deceived, sworn at etc. etc. and I couldn't have been more happy about it.  There's been this little fire brewing in me that kind of likes it.  How strange to still be joyful in such a thing.  Not that we do it on purpose of course, that would be crazy.  But I can't help but think about how Jesus Christ was rejected even before He was born, (with the innkeeper) and how grateful I am that He let me experience a little tiny part of it.

Giselle Roque.  I don't know if I've mentioned Giselle.  Giselle is this recent convert of about a year and a half who has already read the Book of Mormon twice.  She is 19 and she can't make up her mind about whether or not she wants to serve a mission.  She started coming out with us all day.  Then she decided she wanted to serve a mission again.  So she filled out her papers, and she is waiting to hear back about some things about a mini mission.  But it is funny because other than sleeping in our apartment, she basically is already on one.  She even weekly planned with us this last week, has her own planner, counts key indicators, puts lessons in the area book, and calls us to ask if she can go out with us.  Best. Member. Ever.

She also got to help us set a baptismal date with Heidi, our hilarious English Investigator this week.  She loved it.  It was so cute too.  Heidi was so excited and in her prayer she also told God that she loves Him.  That's a big thing for Heidi.  It was super cute.  She also is on fire in the Book of Mormon.  The Book of Mormon can do anything.  I know it.

In total, sorry for the scattered email, as I forgot my notes, but I think this is what stood out to me the most this week:

Jesus Christ should have been the saddest person in the entire world.  He was completely innocent of alll wrongs and He had horrible things happen to Him.  He was crucified and denied by the very people that He came to save.  He was betrayed by all.  He took the weight of all the wrongs, sins, sadnesses, sicknesses, bad days, bad hair days, EVERYTHING upon His shoulders, and even still there are many that will never accept Him.  When I try to think of how horrible that must have been my brain cannot comprehend it.  This week as He let me taste a little bit of that weight of the world He also shared with me some of His joy as I watched God's precious souls come closer to Him, and that happiness was stronger than any pain or rejection.  It was happiness that came straight from Heaven to my heart.  I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ feel that way every time we choose to take a step closer to them, no matter how small the step.  And I also think, that although Jesus Christ has every reason to be the saddest person that ever lived, He is the happiest too.

Love you all to the sun and back! :)
Hermana McCurdy

Houston West South Squad

Our $5 dollar tree.  You should see it when the lights aren't on!

Adrian brought snacks to the Christmas devotional.  I took one for Jimbo. (Jim is afraid of pickles.)

Houston West South Sister Squad

MLC Conference

The silly zone picture!

Us with Giselle.  (Aka the best member ever)