Thankful List and More

Hola!

How are things with you all? I want to hear from people... I did hear from the ward a week or so ago! Tell people thanks! :)

So about that spider. I wouldn't have gone within 34 feet of it. Except it had one of it's legs caught in the door. So I poked it with a stick until it's leg fell off. Then I hurried and squished it. It was disgusting and I could feel it squish through my shoe. Not like into my shoe, but it was a big one. I also probably wouldn't have killed it, except I didn't want it to get into that person's house. You're welcome, mystery person. 

So it has been super cold the past few days. I think I will stop at target today and get the super warm and wonderful sweater they have there to wear underneath my coats. And without coats. Whichever I feel like. But yeah, layers are important.

My companion has been sick the past few days, so we've mostly been staying home. But I got the General Conference DVD of the last conference that I ordered from the office! It is fantastic! I've been watching a few of the talks over again the past few days while Hermana Chambers has been sleeping. And reading the Conference Ensign/Liahona during studies. If you ever see a spanish conference liahona, you could send it to me! They only give us one per companionship of those too, and Hermana Chambers has been studying the Liahona during language study lately. I have been reading the Book of Mormon during mine, and it is way cool to read the scriptures in a different language; because it really helps clarify the scriptural language they use and see the scriptures from a bit different perspective. There are a lot of different insights I've gotten reading the same scriptures I've read a million times in English just by reading them in Spanish. I'm really glad I'm a Spanish speaking missionary. Also the Spanish people are great. They have really given me a big appreciation for other cultures and how much different they really are. But at the same time, how unified we all are. I don't know. It's hard to explain. But it's cool!

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving. Yeah, we have a dinner. I'm not exactly sure what it will be like. There may or may not be turkey. Thanksgiving is kind of an American holiday, and the person we are going to is Hispanic. But she is a really good cook so I'm sure whatever it is will be great! And it isn't until like 6:00, so I don't know what we'll do the rest of the day. But it is one of the two days of the year when all the missionaries in the ward can eat together (the other one is Christmas). We have a rule in our mission that only one companionship can be at a dinner at a time. Everyone hates that rule (especially the members) but it does make a much more effective use of time. 

Ummm..... I don't know what else to say. So I'm going to make a grateful list! Here we go! I'm grateful for:

!. My wonderful family!

2. My companion

3. The Gospel!

4. A car

5. Food

6. Humidity. It is doing great things for my hair. It has been more manageable than it ever has before! Yay! Also it is growing much longer with less split ends. Even though the humidity makes it super hot or super cold. 

7. Virginia Fall

8. Computers to use so I can email you all.

9. President Wilson and Sister Wilson

10. Coats/footpillows/blankets/warm things/my mittens! Also that almost all hispanic houses are SUPER warm because they all hate the cold. 

11. Children

12. Ponies

13. This ward/my home ward

14. That I didn't get transferred right before the holidays

15. Chickens.

16. The scriptures

17. A prophet/apostles/general authorities

18. I'm a Spanish Misionera!

19. Money

20. The blue house. It's adorable.  (This is where she is living now)

21. Prayers

22. Church/the sacrament

23. The mission library/church books/church movies

24. Our investigators

25. This area. It has a ton of potential, and we are finally getting more time freed up to go find new people.

26. The Holy Ghost

27. That my parents taught me how to be independent and work

28. The opportunity to be a missionary at this exciting time. It is helping me learn and grow so much and prepare someday to be a wife/mother/whatever else I will be doing with my life. 

29. Jesus Christ/the atonement

30. A Heavenly Father who loves me!

31. Leaders of the church, here and back home and everywhere else.

32. Education that I've received. Teaching hispanics really makes me realize how good I've had it there. We've taught people who can't even read at all. "E", our investigator struggles with it. Her 9-year-old son reads better than her. But she loves reading anyways. Education is good. 

33. Air-conditioning/heating

34. That I'm prettier than a turkey. They are really unfortunate looking. 

35. My senses

36. Pictures

37. I can play the piano! But I hope I will still be able to by the time I get home. I never really have time to practice. Or a piano. 

Yeah, 37 is probably enough for now. But that was lovely. 

Oh, by the way I'm finally driving now. Elder Burton (who is the senior missionary over cars) told me I could drive for a while if I wanted. Which is great, because I've missed driving, lots. This car has kind of touchy acceleration and brakes, so It seems like I'm a spazzy driver, but I'm not, I promise. Also It has really fast acceleration, which I'm not used to, so that doesn't help. When you go from driving the Nissan and a Suburban around to a fairly nice newish (sort of) car, it is a bit strange. And our car is the 2nd oldest in the whole mission. Well, I don't know about oldest, but it has the 2nd highest amount of miles on it. It doesn't even have 62,000 on it, but usually they switch them out before now for brand new ones. They've just had a lot of expanding going on. But now that the mission is about 50 missionaries over its maximum, they finally are only letting in the same number as leave. No more 37 new missionary transfers. Which is good for everyone. But yeah. 

So yeah. Those are basically my thoughts this morning. 

How are things with everyone? Tell me stuff. Ummm... yeah. 

BYE, LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a good day....

Hermana Emily Pratt

Hermana Pratt, Korina, "M", Said, Hermana Chambers

District - November 2013

Hermana Pratt with one of her trainers - Hermana Brown on her last day

So yesterday was the baptism for Korina and Said. They are so great! Both of them have such strong spirits and testimonies. I have really high hopes for them. But yeah, the baptism was so great! The Spirit was so strong the whole time. They were confirmed in the service, which is unusual for converts, but if they hadn't been they would have had to wait a whole week. But in Said's blessing, it said that he was going to be a missionary someday! And Hermana Chambers and I were both super excited and she was crying and it was funny. And Korina was crying too. They are the greatest! It was really cute how nervous Said was and he wanted to practice everything a lot. We went through the baptismal interview questions every day this week with him and after the interview he told me and Hermana Chambers separately "thanks for teaching/helping me!" He is so precious. And Korina has so much faith she would stop drinking water if we told her it was against the word of wisdom. It was really funny teaching Said fasting. Telling a 9-year-old boy he has to go without food for any length of time is really hard. He was practically in tears. He finally told us he'd go without breakfast on fast Sunday though. It was good. 

The reason I didn't write much last week is because not much happened that week. And not a lot happened this week either. Mostly just things fell through. Except for the baptism. 

Oh, there was one funny story though. So we were tracting this apartment complex where several Spanish speakers live and this guy answers a door and he looks white and speaks English too us, but he was clearly struggling and had an accent. So we spoke Spanish to him and he was really relieved and we told him about us and the church a bit and he got really excited and told us he was going to come to church and bring his kids and he wanted to change his life and stuff. So we set an appointment to come back and teach him (it fell through later though) and left. We started knocking other doors and then "B" (the same guy) comes outside and tells us that all the Spanish speakers were at work, so we were like, "Ok.... Well do you have time for a lesson?" And he said sure, so we went over and he invited us in and we asked if there was a woman in the house and he said no, so we explained that it is a rule that we can't go in unless there is a woman in the house, but we could do it outside. And he's like, "Oh, ok. I understand." Then we asked if we could start the lesson with a prayer to invite the spirit and he said, "Yeah, come on in!" and so we explained again. Then we finally said a prayer and he was like, "Ok, see you on Sunday! Thanks for coming by!" and we were just like, "Ummm.... Ok, bye!" and it was really awkward. He clearly wasn't doing it on purpose, I think he was just really confused. But it was funny. Good try, but not really that good of a try. It was almost a lesson. So close. Oh well. 

Ummm.... Let's see... I translated for President Wilson at the baptism after ours. It was a lady that has been taught for 3 years and has wanted to get baptized for 2 of them, but couldn't because she wasn't married. But they finally got married a couple weeks ago and tonight she got baptized! But yeah, it was interesting translating. Man, they talk so fast sometimes! Poor President Wilson probably missed half the service. I also kept doing awkward direct translations, like instead of Holy Ghost, I kept almost saying Spirit Holy because in Spanish it is Espiritu Santo. And lots of other things. But yeah, it was lovely and both the services were fantastic and there were a lot of people at the first one, with Korina and Said and "M" (the other Hermana's 9 year old investigator, but she's the daughter of some less actives that are coming back). Like more people than were at church. It was awesome.

Well..... I don't think anything else really happened this week.

The largest of spiders you've ever seen in your life. Oh my gosh it was so terrifying. And it may not look huge in the picture, but it is HUGE. Like the size of my hand. Well, not that big. But bigger than my palm.

 It was a good week!

Love you all lots! Eat lots of chicken... And hot chocolate... And soup... And basically whatever you want. Bye!

Hermana Emily Pratt

Emily is on the front row

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!

How are things? Things here are lovely. It is finally starting to get really cold. It has frozen a couple nights out here. Not as cold as Utah, but oh well. There are SO MANY leaves everywhere. We raked a member's yard the other day, us and some other missionaries, and it took ages. Well, not that long because there were lots of us, but there are like a ridiculous amount of leaves.

Ummm.... Not much has happened this week. And I'm SUPER tired today for some reason. So my brain isn't quite working. So if this letter does't make sense, that may be why. 

Oh, yesterday we had someone from the Seventy come talk to us. His name is Elder Sitati. He and his adorable little wife are from Kenya and they have cute accents. She talked about our companion and how to get along with and love them and stuff and why we have them and whatnot.

He talked about the missionary purpose. It was fantastic. He split it up into 8 parts:

1. Invite others to come unto Christ

2. By helping them

3. Recieve the restored Gospel

4. Through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement

5. Repentance

6. Baptism

7. Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost

8. Enduring to the end.

It was really good. He talked about how each one has a verb in it. Then we talked about and found at least two scriptures for the why and the how of each of them. I learned lots from it. It was extremely long though. About 6 1/2 hours with only a half hour break for lunch. 

But one of the things I wrote down is how he talked about plants and compared them to the Holy Ghost, first you have to make an environment where they can grow, then you have to nourish and care for them and then just be patient and wait. You can't force it to come, but once it finally breaks the soil, it is wonderful and a miracle. 

And yeah. Mostly we just spent a lot of time finding scriptures for each of them and breaking down each part and stuff. He said some really cool things about repentance and how true repentance means turning our hearts to God. He compared it to when a little child puts their hand in yours they are willing to go wherever you take them and they are putting complete trust in you. Someone also read D&C 19:15-19 and made a comment that was like, "We can choose Christ's manner of living, or Christ's manner of suffering." And I really thought that was cool. If we live like Christ, the Atonement will apply to us and we will be able to be happy. If we don't choose to live like Christ, then we will have to feel everything for our own sins and pains and have to suffer like Christ, "Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit - and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink."

And yeah, basically I loved it. I learned a lot and the Spirit was so strong the whole time. Maybe that's why I'm so tired. 

And yeah, Corina and Said are getting baptized next sunday. Corina is 13 and Said is 9. They are super funny. And oh my gosh Corina is the sweetest girl. We like barely even mentioned fasting in the lesson before fast Sunday and she asked what it was and literally all we said was, "fasting is when you go without food for 2 meals or 24 hours and you are praying during that time with a purpose in mind. It's like a super powerful prayer. We usually fast on the first Sunday of the month." And then the next day she came to church and mentioned that she was fasting. This girl is golden! 

Things are great here!

Love you all! Thanks for your support and such!

Buenos dias!

Hermana Pratt

Some fall leaves. It is like that everywhere here. Every road. 

There are prettier places, but I haven't gotten good pictures of them.

The gorgeous tree in our front yard. It is even prettier now, but I didn't take another picture yet

A Turtle statue that I enjoyed

Me and Sandra, a recent convert in our ward that is so sweet! She has adorable children too. 

(Or childrens, as Dina would say)

Our very soon to be baptized family! Well, Corina and Said (on the ends) (Pronounce Said like Sigh EEED)

On Saturday we had our ward Halloween party/trunk or treat thing. They told everyone to bring Chili, but unfortunately some Hispanics don't know what chili is or how to make it. So there were some interesting chili imitations. Also, no one trick or treats in Virginia. It is weird. Like we saw about four groups of kids outside the whole night. How unfortunate.

But yeah, things are good. I can't really think of anything else that has happened. 

Oh, we taught a new investigator the other day. His name is Ivan and we taught him the restoration and he actually like listened and asked questions and stuff. Most of the people we teach are either dead silent the whole time unless you ask them a direct yes or no question, or they literally talk for an hour for every sentence you say. We now have two investigators that are a nice balance between the two. He seemed a little nervous when we gave him the Book of Mormon and found out that we were the Mormons (I wonder what his preacher has told him) but other than that he is way good. It was a very spiritually powerful lesson, despite it being outside on his front porch in the middle of an apartment complex (there wasn't a woman in his house).

So things are great here! I loved the pictures and everything else in the package. It is starting to get cold some days here. The leaves are changing and they are gorgeous. I will send some pictures that I took for you. Love you all lots!

Hermana Emily Pratt

I always love to read the hymns during sacrament meeting. It works better if you try to take the tune out of it and read it like a sentence, because sometimes the pauses and stuff of the song take some of the meaning out of the words. But the hymns are beautiful.

Since I've been here on my mission the sacrament has had so much more meaning for me. Since we teach people about baptismal covenants and how the sacrament renews them, I've understood them so much more. We have to do three things (Keep the commandments, always remember him, and take his name upon us) all of which benefit us more than they benefit God. And in return, God promises that we can ALWAYS have His Spirit to be with us. Every moment we are worthy of it, the Spirit will be with us. It is a promise. Every time it uses the words "will" or "shall" it is a definite promise. It has been more interesting to read the scriptures every since I realized that. It changes things and makes them more powerful. I want to get a dictionary someday, because the wording of the scriptures is really so powerful, and I think sometimes we are just so accustomed to scriptural language that we don't always realize how strong the words actually are. For example, "A broken heart and a contrite spirit." Broken is a strong word. When you are broken, it means you are like not functioning. It doesn't just mean you feel a bit sad. It means you are like at the end of your rope and have realized that you cannot do more yourself. Contrite means we are sorry. Really, truly sorry and willing to change. When we come forth with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, it means we have done all that we can and have found out that our way doesn't work. And it we realize that God's way is the only way, and so we humble ourselves and basically admit that we are nothing and that God knows everything and we put ourselves into His hands so that he can change us and tell us what to do. But we need to do it with "real intent," which means that we are willing to act on whatever  answer we receive, not just go back as soon as things get good again. I've been reading the Book of Mormon lately and highlighting pride in one color, and the consequences in another and the same with humility (but different colors). It is extremely interesting. Also, I've noticed that so many times, the really bad pride that leads to destruction started with the wearing of costly apparel. I don't know what that means, but it is interesting.

We had a super cool miracle this week.  We were on exchanges and I was with Hermana Carn, one of the sister training leaders, and we went to go knock an apartment complex that we've been working but we found a bunch of mormon.org cards everywhere in English, so we figured they must have just been there.  So we decided to leave and come back in a few days.  But as we were driving away, I thought I wanted to go check up on a family that we found last time we were there that seemed interested.  They weren't home, but we decided to knock on a door that looked Hispanic that wasn't home last time.  So we knocked and this little boy who was probably 8 or 9 answered and said his parents weren't home, only his siblings and his grandma.  We asked to talk to her, so he went to get her.  Then he told us she only speaks Arabic, because they are from Egypt. We were about to leave after talking to them for a couple more minutes (I don't think she really knew what was going on) so we handed them a Jesus pass-along card and she immediately said, "Jesus!" and started to kiss the card and cry.  We were a bit confused, but she waved us inside and her grandson Joseph told us her son had died when they lived in Egypt 4 years ago.  She was still crying and telling us thank you for the card and she left to get a tissue and Joseph asked, "How can I get more of the Jesus in me?" And we asked if he wanted us to teach him how to be more like Jesus.  He got really excited and said yes, so we asked if we could send some missionaries back with stuff in Arabic for his grandma and stuff in English for him.  He told her and she was super excited too, when we said she could be with her son again someday, forever.  We couldn't talk to her very well because Joseph had to translate everything we said, but they are such a miracle.  We said a prayer with them and they were so excited and told us to come back soon.  Unfortunately we had to give them to the English missionaries, so I don't know what else will happen with them, but I hope they take good care of them.  But yeah, that was super cool.  And we were fasting that day too.  It really does bring miracles.  God really knows His children.  If there is one thing that I have learned on the mission, it is that God loves and knows each and every one of His children personally and by name and He only wants the best for them.

The leaves are just starting to change here; most of them haven't yet. I'll take some pictures and send them to you when they start to change more. There really are trees EVERYWHERE here. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a tree. Like almost literally you can't, unless you're standing in the middle of the road. Which would probably be a bad idea. Even though people here are WAY better drivers than in Utah. In some ways. Utah is just a place of terrible driving. The thing that people do here though is they won't let you change lanes. The instant you put your signal on, they speed up so you can't get in. You pretty much just have to start going over before they back off. It's super annoying. But aside from that they are usually better drivers than Utah. Unfortunately I won't be driving for a while. I miss driving. I'm not the designated driver in our companionship, because Hermana Chambers knows the area better because she's been here and extra transfer, and she's the senior companion. So unless I'm like training next transfer *knock on wood* then I won't be driving for a while. Oh well. Someday. At least Hermana Chambers isn't a crazy driver at all. If she was I may have had to ask President Wilson if I could drive.

Yeah, our member dinners were pretty good this week. One of them they gave us soup. Hispanic soup is not like real soup. It is just like quartered vegetables and chicken legs/meatballs/mystery meat in broth. It is weird. You can't just eat it with a spoon. You like eat the stuff out of it and then drink the broth. But it tastes good, usually. If you don't get too many bones.  Also, I tried Columbian food for the first time this week. The Hincapie's, the parents of the two boys that just left on their missions last month are Columbian and they are like the sweetest people ever. The Columbian food was super good, except these like fried banana things. Those were nasty. But the rest was great! And they are like the nicest people and all they want to do now that they have missionaries out is spoil the missionaries here. It is funny. They just want us to come over and stay for the whole day. He was like, "Come over sometime when you don't have appointments afterward and we'll watch a movie and have popcorn and my love will cook delicious Columbian food." It is funny. They're adorable. 

We have one lady and she was dropped 3-4 years ago for a weird reason that isn't really a good reason to drop someone, and she was never picked back up. But, we went over there and she still lives there and we had a really good restoration lesson and her son, who is probably in his 20's was there.  At first he was playing with his phone and not really paying attention.  She seemed just a bit skeptical but when we started talking about Joseph Smith, her son started looking super interested and when we asked if they would read the introduction and gave her a Book of Mormon he asked if he could have one too, in English so he could understand it better.  We have high hopes for him, and for her too.  Unfortunately someone else got home right before we were about to challenge them to be baptized, and they all got super distracted and both of us felt it wouldn't be right to invite them after that, but we're going back next Saturday and we're super excited!

But yeah. Not too much else is happening. Things are good.
Love you all! You are the greatest! Thanks for your support and love and whatnot!

The church is true!

Hermana Emily Ann Pratt

Cars, Sickness and Random Pictures

Most of the district before transfers

Penguin porch statue

Scary dog

Interesting bumper sticker

Emily & her first trainers

Sombrero!

Today we went at like 9:30 in the transfer van with Elder Burton (the senior missionary that is over cars) and got five brand new Chevy Cruzes. The one we picked up and drove back to the mission office only had two miles on it when we go it. Unfortunately, we have to keep our old (not really that old but old for a mission car) Chevy Malibu that has like 60,000 miles on it. It has been having some problems lately, so that is irritating. It keeps telling us "ESC off, tires low, traction low," etc. We were a bit jealous of the new cars. 

PS I really miss driving. I haven't driven in over 4 months. My companion doesn't even really like driving. Oh well. I'll get over it. 

Nothing really exciting has happened this week. Actually, like nothing has happened this week. Mostly Hermana Chambers was sick so we were just at home except for when we had appointments. And I wasn't feeling great either, but I wasn't as bad as she was. But yeah. This week was boring. Also, most of our appointments cancelled. And none of our investigators came to church, because of the rain. I don't know what it is with Hispanics and rain, but church attendance goes down by like half when it's raining. It's weird. 

Oh, and we have lots of member dinners this week. They replaced some of the Hermanas in our district with Elders, and one of them is brand new, so they sent him and his companion into relief society with the food calendar and made him ask them to sign up. And Elders are always acting super pitiful and starving to get member dinners, but all the women fall for it. This new Elder, goes in and was like, "Hola... Tenemos... Hombre...?" Because he didn't know Spanish. What he meant to say was hambre, but what he said means "Hey, we have men." So yeah. It was pretty funny. He is a bit of an awkward person. But oh well. Maybe he'll get over it a bit when it isn't his first Sunday in the ward. But anyways, all the relief society women thought it was adorable so there were at least two people signed up for like every day for the next week or two, and a lot of them are in our area, so we have like three or four dinners this week and next. We're a bit worried because the people here are fairly poor, so a lot of times we really don't know what we're eating. But they are trying. Sometimes I'm pretty sure they just put the whole chicken in the pot after plucking it, and smother it with hot sauce and then put a bunch of rice on the plate. And I'm kind of joking, but at the same time I legitimately think that may have happened a couple times out here. But of course, sometimes it is actually awesome food. You just never know. But luckily I won't need to buy as much food this week.  I can't even tell you how many times I have eaten at places where I don't trust the cleanliness of the plates/food. Sometimes it is really scary. I rarely know what I'm eating. It's just... Great. 

But anyways. Yeah, this week has been uneventful. This next week we already have lots of appointments set up, so it's going to be pretty busy. Hopefully we're up to it. We're still not quite back to normal yet. Working on it.