Please send you email addresses

Hello,

This is an update from Debbi.  Marie's mission president has asked that the missionaries' emails not be posted verbatim onto their blogs.  Since I find it highly unlikely that I will rewrite her email each week, I am suggesting that, if you wish you receive her emails, you send me your email address at bardsleyclan6@comcast.net.  I will then forward her emails to you for the next two months (!) until she gets home. We are allowed to forward on her emails, just not post them to a public blog.

Thanks!  Here's looking forward to November 11th!

Debbi

El Monte week 17!!

Well, thanks for all the birthday wishes and stuff.

I will tell you what I did for my birthday. First I woke up at 5:30am
and went with yeni's grandma to the hospital to have surgery. Her mom
couldn't go and so she called us to see if we could. We had to get
special permission. So we went and then sat there for three hours. But
the good news is now yeni's mom loooooves us. She even agreed to be
taught. And when we go over she gives us all sorts of food and random
stuff. It is pretty funny. Then we went straight from there to go do
service, we dismantled this old play structure for a member. That was
pretty entertaining. It was us and two elders and one of the elders
went like.... Into hulk mode. We were trying to like... Take it down
nicely and unscrew stuff. And he just took the hammer and started
smashing it down. And then he would just like rip chunks off and toss
them across the yard. The slide was the best part. It was still bolted
on and we couldn't get it off and he just walked over and ripped it
off and tossed it over his head. We just kind of stood back after a
while. It was funny. And I got fed like 10 times during the day. I
wanted to throw up.  But it was good.

We also had a suuuuper fantabulous lesson with Cecilia this week. Her
kids are super cool. I don't know if I mentioned this last time after
one lesson the 11 year old boy asked, "so what do we have to do to get
baptized?". But what made this last lesson super good was that we
brought a member with us who we didn't even know but she is like
exactly the same as Cecilia. Her name is Arely, she just got baptized
like four months ago. Everything Cecilia would say, Arely had had like
the exact same experience and would just testify to how the gospel
would help her with that specific problem. It was really cool. The
only problem is even though Cecilia and her fam want to get baptized
we still haven't been able to get them to church for one reason or
another, and if they don't make it this Sunday we will have to drop
them. So pray that they make it to church this Sunday.

Else wise, yeni is doing so awesome. I am so proud of her. She kind of
had a spiritual/emotional crisis this last week, and it was rough and
we were super worried and a lot of people were super angry, but in the
end she showed that she really has learned from the gospel and ended
up apologizing and repenting and making everything better than it was
before. Every one was so happy after including her. Which is bom.
Before she never would have done that, she just would have stayed
angry and the other people would have stayed angry at her. It's so
cool to see people change. I am just so excited to see her go on a
mission one day because she really wants to. Through Christ, we truly
can repent and become better. And change isn't an instantaneous
process, but one that takes years and it is so cool to see her start
that slow but sure process.

Oh yeah, I am learning how to play guitar. I am going to come home
with all these crazy talents.

Have a good week! Oh I sent some of my winter clothes home today.

Love
Hermana bardsley




Sent from my iPad

El Monte week 16!!!

So, some big news this week. First off, I seem to be lactose
intolerant. It seems to be a common trend here in the Arcadia mission
for missionaries to become lactose intolerant. I know of like five
others who never were before their mission and became so out here.
Strange. I had been eating cereal and milk every morning my entire
mission  but about a month and a half ago I started to get kind of
sick every morning. After about four weeks of that unpleasantness I
switched to eating oatmeal and the problem went away and for the last
two weeks I have been fine. The good news it cheese doesn't seem to be
a problem, just milk.

Secondly, THANK YOU SO MUCH TO GRANDMA!!!! I have been chowing down on
that vodka [pasta] sauce like nobody's business. It is the best.

Thirdly, happy birthday to me. Yay.

Fourthly, we started teaching a family from yucatan. Their last name
is kawich. Which is super Mayan. They all speak Mayan. The mom is
super cool. She prayed about the restoration and felt really good.
Also she is going to make me panuchos.

Fifthly..... And probably most shocking... They sent me my pretrunky
papers. Because of the way transfers work out I will be coming home a
little earlier than expected. I will be coming home November 11th.
They wouldn't let me stay till the next transfer. I tried. When I got
the letter I called the office and told them to change it, but the
computer program the church uses gives each missionary a range of when
they can go home. The December transfer ends December 16th and the
latest it will let them send me is December 14th. They said that a few
weeks ago a missionary tried to extend their date by two days and the
mission president approved it and it went to the first presidency and
they said absolutely not. So, it didn't seem like a battle worth
fighting. I will go home with all the missionaries I came in with, the
difference is they had six weeks in the mtc and I only had two. So I
guess it's kind of fair because we had the same time in the field. BUT
IT WILL BE GOOD! Because there's a lot of missionary work that needs
to happen in Washington. And if I am never home I will never have time
to show up at some of these peoples houses every Sunday and drag them
to church. Hehehehe i have it all figured out. :)

Well this week we went on a lesson with president Villanueva, his wife
and their 8 year old daughter. They are super awesome. They have a
super strong testimony. He was super poor growing up in Oaxaca and had
like nothing, but after they converted his mom always payed their
tithing and because of that they were super blessed and now he is like
the owner of a bus company on Mexico. But yea they are bom. They ended
up coming to Cecilia and her family who have been reading the Book of
Mormon as a family. Whoohoo!!

Well, have a good week. See ya way too soon.

Hermana bardsley




Sent from my iPad

El Monte week 15!!!

So our pday was moved to today since we had interviews with president
Villanueva yesterday. This week has been pretty swell. President
Villanueva is bom. He is coming to a lesson with the roldans tonight.

We had a super awesome tour this week. It was with a lady named
Cecilia and her two kids. First off. Those kids are bomb. We taught
them the plan of salvation earlier in the week and afterwards the kids
who are like 8 and 11 took the pamphlet and were talking to each other
not to us and were like "we will read this tomorrow in the morning
when we get up". We didn't even tell them to read it. So anyways, at
the tour we gave the whole thing and then at the end we showed them
the bible video of Jesus Christ getting baptized and invited them and
they were all like "yea, I think so." And then the closing prayer was
the best part. In the closing prayer, she was like "god, hopefully I
can be part of this church so that my family can have blessings". It
was awesome.

Ummm.... Besides that... Everything is SUPER! This gospel really does
bring happiness. True happiness. And if someone isn't happy it is
because they aren't living the gospel. It's the truth! And I have been
thinking about this week how we should always let people see how happy
it makes us. And smile and be happy and say hi to people and stuff.
And when we do that it makes us even happier!

Well... Have a good week!

Love,
Hermana bardsley

Sent from my iPad

El Monte week 14!!!! (with some pictures)

Hermana Bateman, Atziry Banuelos (member family), Yeni (recently baptized), Marie

Marie and her first cousin, Aaron Bardsley.  They were called to the same mission and didn't know each other.  They met in the mission when Elder Bardsley arrived a couple weeks ago.

The joys of bike riding in 100 degrees.

So this Thursday is my cats birthday. If you could please give her
some sort of tasty treat that would be much appreciated. 

So this week we did service for the Roldans and it was pretty great.
We went over in the morning and cleaned up her yard and mopped inside
and stuff. We had the elders come too and they gave her a blessing.
She was super happy by the end. And she was like "hey since you guys
are here do you want to eat something for lunch?" And we said sure.
And then she gets out all this stuff that she had made early in the
morning for us, before we came over. We were super glad we had said yes.
It was super tasty. And she just was like glowing with happiness to
give us food it was pretty fun. She said how happy it made her to have
us in her house and give us food. It was cute.

We have been trying a lot to try to find ways to serve our
investigators. Mostly it's just nice to do something different. Put
jeans on, ya know. But it also just makes them see the purpose of this
whole gospel and feel god's love for them.

We have Atziry Banuelos with us right now. She told us that she wants
to spend the whole day with us today haha. So we are sitting here
typing our emails as she is talking to us. It is pretty funny. Makes
it hard to focus though haha. It was her birthday on Saturday. Her and
Yeni have become like besties. They spent her whole birthday together.
We met up with them for dinner and made them give out pass along cards
to random people at a taco stand. It was awesome. Yeni got someone's
address. Future missionaries right here. One day we were taking out
Yeni, and we got a text from Atziry that was like "you don't have to
take me out too but if you want to I can come I'm ready" hahaha. So
now we just take them both out. Don't want one to feel left out.

Hna Bateman says she is going to send you some pictures. Your lucky day!

She is doing awesome by the way. Her Spanish is really improving which
is really nice, my vocal chords can take a break. But no she doesn't
play piano... Even though she's white and from Utah. I don't know what
happened....

Well, I know more stuff happened but I can't think of anything right
now.... Cheers!

Love
Hermana bardsley

El Monte week 13!!!!!

[Marie's first comment below is in response to us telling her that the Banuelos family had written us, thanking us for our wonderful daughter.]


Ahhhhh man I love the Banuelos fam. They are members, but like the
best members ever. Their daughter atziry is the one who comes out with
us on her bike like everyday. And hermano bañuelos baptized all our
jovencitos who got baptized a few weeks ago. They are the best.

As for this week, this will make you laugh mom. First they asked me
and one of the elders to do a musical number for a meeting we have
this Tuesday. We are practicing for that now. Haha. And then on Sunday
someone came up to me and was like "you are the one in charge of piano
lessons right?" And I was like.... What the?! Who do they think I am!
Just cus I'm white?! Why don't I just play trombone at the next
meeting. Haha. So I'm giving someone a piano lesson tomorrow hahahaha.
Oh how I love Spanish work.

So we started teaching this really cool lady this week. She had seen
us going to the neighbor and she asked if she could join us when we
come give the neighbor lessons. She has had all these crazy dreams
that led her to want to take the lessons from us. She is super cool.
Her name is Luisa.

We also had a bom lesson with the Roldans about the power of the Book
of Mormon. There was this moment where we just like got the super
strong impression that Hna [Hermana, or "Sister"] Roldan already has a testimony of the Book
of Mormon so I was just like "but Hna, you already have a testimony of
this book so your husband is more the one that needs to ask". And she
was just like,"how did you know that?" And I was like..... Uhhhh... I
don't know. It just popped into my head. And then she told us how she
had prayed and asked if it was true once and just saw like this bright
light with her eyes closed and had this tremendous peace for the rest
of the day and nothing bad could get her down that day. So that's
awesome. Sorry if this email is really disjointed I can't even hear
myself think in this room.

Well, I'm going to go because we have to practice. Cheers

-hermana bardsley

Sent from my iPad

El Monte week 12!!!!!!

So to start off with a somewhat unpleasant funny story. Yesterday, we
had one of the most uncomfortable meal appointments of my mission. So,
yesterday was fast Sunday. And then a member decided to feed all of us
missionaries dinner, and it was tinga which is like chicken in this
chipotle sauce that you put on tostadas with lettuce, queso fresco,
and crema. Which is like superbly delicious. And after biking around
all day in 100 degrees and fasting we were pretty hungry, so I ate
quite a bit. But we forgot that someone we were teaching right after
that had also mentioned she wanted to give us a little something when
we came this week. Well, I have the gift of an extremely fast
metabolism, so it is normally not a problem for me to eat two to three
back to back dinners. But so anyways we got to this investigators
house and first, as I normally do with back to back dinners, I used
the restroom. Only... The toilet wouldn't flush. Now, normally if this
happens I just say a quick prayer and everything goes right down. But
not this time. And there was no plunger. I tried my best for 5 minutes
or so to get it unplugged, I even tried using the toilet brush, but
with no success. So eventually i had to come out and be like....
Sooooooo...... Do you have a plunger? Well anyways for the next twenty
minutes she was trying to unclog the toilet. And I we were just
sitting there awkwardly haha. She got it eventually. Apparently, this
is a normal occurrence even if you just put toilet paper in the toilet
and you just have to pour some buckets of water down the toilet while
it is flushing and it works. So that was that. Finally we start eating
and after about 15 minutes I get the sensation that I am going to
throw up. Once again I try to pray it away. "Please Heavenly Father I
just clogged the toilet, no one has even had to use the bathroom since
then, it's going to look really bad if I have to get up and run to the
bathroom now". And as the sensation got worse my answer was this "you
are either going to throw up on the plate, or you are going to run to
the bathroom and throw up there, which would you rather?" Well, I
chose the toilet. So I quickly got out of my seat, made a joke very
quickly about how I won't put any toilet paper in this time and ran to
the bathroom just in time to throw up my meal. By the time we got to
the lesson part I was ready to jump ship and get out of that house
haha.

But ANYWAYS, as for cool stories this week, yeni is probably the
highlite. Whenever we go over to her house she tells us how all her
friends and her family have been asking her all these questions like
why she doesn't drink coffee anymore and she is like "because our body
is a temple and we can't have the Holy Ghost if it is dirty". And all
this other stuff. She has been coming to lessons with us and stuff and
giving these bomb testimonies about how she started to notice the only
time she was happy was when either we were at her house or she was at
church so she was just like, this must be something good. So she's
doing awesome.

Besides that, there's not too much else to say! Things are good here.
I got the package and the pasta sauce was intact. I have already eaten
most of it :) thanks.

Love
Hermana bardsley

El Monte week 11!!!!!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAL!!!!!!!

It has been World Cup madness over here. Mexico lost yesterday though
so things will die down a little bit. Conveniently the game yesterday
was at 9am, yes, our church starts at 9am. The whole week before
bishop spent pretty much all his time making it clear that the
sacrament>soccer. Needless to say, about half the congregation left
after the first hour, after they had taken the sacrament haha. When
Latinos become members of the church they are able to give up most of
their santitos (statues of saints that they pray to) but they never
really give up the soccer god. We all have our flaws.

BUT ANYWAYS!! Guess who came to church?! Hno roldan!! We brought
president and sister becerra to a lesson with them this week and it
was BOM. Got him to come. He only stayed for the first hour but still!
That is huge progress. We are super excited for them.

As for the Banuelos family, those who are actually going to progress
are a starting to make themselves clear. It is going to be interesting
to see what happens because they are such a huge family and some of
them are really into it, and some of them are starting to go the other
way.

But! We found another suuuuper cool family. They are seventh day
Adventists. Which I don't know if you've ever looked into seventh day
Adventists but their beliefs are super similar to ours. The missing
piece is the authority to act in Christ's name. We taught them and the
dad was like, "wow, you are right, I can't believe that I have never
actually prayed to god to ask if I am in the right religion, that is
the difference between you and us, we have never actually asked god.I
need to do that." And then at the end the dad prayed and the Holy
Ghost was super strong, and we asked the son, "why do you think the
Holy Ghost is here?" And he was like, "well, it means god is giving
his blessing to the message, which means it is true". It was one of
the best lessons of my mission. It was super cool. I don't know their
last names, but their first names are genoviva, Mauricio, hector, and
Eduardo. Super cool.

I think that's about it from this week. Things are going well
here! El Monte rocks. My trainee's Spanish is getting... gradually
better. Have a good week!

Love,
Hermana bardsley

El Monte week # FANFREAKINTASTIC!!!!

Wow! What a week. Yeni, Eduardo and Dulce all got baptized yesterday.
Eduardo popped up and hollered and spit water everywhere. It was
pretty great. And the best part was they all gave their testimonies
afterwards and talked about how good and clean they all felt and about
how glad they were tthat they made this decision. The cleansing power
of Christs atonement is incredible. It is so cool that he gives us
that opportunity to start completely fresh. Mom, could you send me
your conversion story? I was thinking that would be cool to give to
yeni, because she is also a 13 year old girl who is now the only
member in her family. Her family is supportive but still it won't be
an easy road.

Also!!!! It is official, Aaron Bardsley comes into California in two
weeks. I saw his picture in the office where they put the pictures of
all the new missionaries coming in next transfer. That was pretty
cool. I showed everybody. President Becerra was like, "I saw that...
Good thing I'm leaving, one Bardsley was enough" haha.

So yesterday was like SUPER intense but awesome. So we had the three
baptisms which was crazy in itself. And then we were at home finishing
our studies. And I was feeling this impending need to find new people
to teach because we hadn't found any solid ones yet that week because
we had had a ton of meetings and also preparing for the baptisms. And
I don't know if I ever mentioned, but finding new people to teach is
my favorite part of missionary work. Baptisms are great, but what I
love most is teaching an awesome first lesson where they pray at the
end and ask if Joseph smith was a prophet or if Christ's authority
really was restored or something like that and helping them recognize
the Holy Ghost answering their prayer for the first time in their
life. So anyways, we hadn't done that at all in the week so I was
feeling this great inner need. And it was about 4:30, and normally at
that time we would just eat dinner, and then take our car because we
have a car to use at night since we are in a dangerous area. But I
just really wanted to take our bikes and go try to see this one person
we had talked to on the bus. So we did, and she wasn't there. But on
the way back, there was this huge family sitting outside so we got off
our bikes and talked to them. They invited us to teach them on the
spot, so we did and it was AWESOME. The dad like really got it. At the
end he accepted to be baptized, and then when his wife said that she
had already been baptized he was the one who cut in and was like "well
what they are saying is that Christ's authority was lost from the earth
after the apostles died and that it has been brought back through a
prophet, so your old baptism doesn't count". We were just like.....
What the....who is this guy... We asked him if he had been taught by
missionaries before and he said no. I guess he is just extremely
intelligent. But yea, because we rode our bikes we ended up getting 8
new investigators. And they are awesome, they are the family Banuelos.
Well there are some other last names but that is the one that is most
of the family's. Pretty cool. It was quite the Sunday.

As for the Roldans... We will see, it was a rough week concerning
them. We had to leave church to go to their house to have a ten minute
spiritual intervention amid preparing for the three baptisms. Pray for
him. That he will have the desire to act.

Well, this week was crazy, but fantastic. So many miracles. El Monte
is the promised land for missionary work. I love it.

Love,
Hermana Bardsley

El Monte week 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, this week was pretty fabulous!! Yeni, Eduardo, and dulce and are
getting baptized this Sunday so pray for them! We taught them all
about temples on Saturday and we are planning a temple trip with all
of them to go do baptisms next month, after they get baptized and get
their member record number and stuff. We are also starting them on
family history so that they can bring their own names. That is super
exciting. They will love that. The temple is so cool. So cool how
there is a way to save the entire human family. Sounds like the truth
to me.

Also, this Sunday was stake conference. We got the roldans to go even
though it was like half hour away. I love seeing the little changes in
people. Hna roldan has been going in just her regular clothes for the
last two weeks but this week she bought a dress for church. Natalie
was super excited to show us her moms dress. Stake conference was
pretty funny though because when we got there, none of the chairs put
out were taken but all the soft benches were except the very front
row. And well, you never want an investigator to sit in the back
because then they feel like they are not actually part of the
congregation but just visiting. So we brought her and her four insane
children to the very front row. We were prepared and brought a ton of
coloring stuff and some puzzles and fruit loops. So the kids proceeded
to lay on the ground occupying pretty much the whole aisle way and the
space from the first pew to the stand with their coloring stuff.
Everyone who wanted to walk by had to step over them it was quite the
scene haha. But the kids were actually pretty good! They didn't make
too much of a fruit loop mess at all! And stake conference was
awesome. A lot of husbands and wives spoke like the temple president
and his wife and president becerra and his wife and I think it really
impacted Hna roldan to see that this gospel really does bring that
happiness to a family and to a partnership. Also we gave them a
baptismal date for July 13th. Super exciting!!!!! Families are the
best. The husband just needs to jump on board and go to church and
stuff..

Well, the gospel is true. I know it. And the Book of Mormon is true,
it changes lives. It is the best book ever. It brings us closer to
Jesus Christ than any other book. And families really can be together
forever if we perform those sacred ordinances in the temple.

Keep being awesome!!!!

El Monte week 8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In case you are wondering. I have only been out on my mission 11
months still. Or that is what I tell people. My companion got confused
once, she was like.... "Wait but didn't you say you came out in June?"
LIES. I WILL NOT LISTEN TO SUCH BLASPHEMY. 11 months.... I have been
out 11 months. I also never turned 20 because I went to Neverland. I
am still 19 and always will be. The end.

So this week was ROCKIN!!! Wow. I have typed that word so many times
all in caps that when I typed it just now in lower case the ipad
automatically changed it to caps. Must mean its been a good 11 months.
We had 7 investigators at church on Sunday. The roldan family came
again, only the dad still didn't come.... But! In our lesson with then
on Saturday night he said something pretty cool. We asked them at the
end who they know that could use more of god's love in their life. And
he brought up his mother in law. His wife, Sandra, was like "no I
don't think she'd be interested in changing religions at this point in
her life". And then he said, "well the Catholics never did anything
for us. The Catholics don't come and make us breakfast before church
or give us a call to wake us up, or visit our family. So what's the
problem?" I want to say really quickly that I do know some fantastic
Catholics who do a ton of stuff to help. But it's true that this
church, Christs church, is action oriented. And really, love oriented,
that's what drives the members and the missionaries to action.
Sometimes, the result we want may not happen, like he still didn't
make it to church, which we know would help his family more than
anything we do, but it's still cool that he recognizes that love, and
that even though he isn't acting yet that he wants other people to be
able to have that love. But pray for him that he can start doing...
Well... Something. So that he doesn't stop the whole family's
progression.

Also, this is a cool story. A couple days ago we got a phone call from
some guy named genaro who gave us his address and said he wanted to be
taught. We thought it was a little weird because we didn't remember
meeting any genaro lately so we weren't sure if it was going to be
sketchy. Especially because he called us like several times. Well,
anyways, we made an appointment, and brought a member and went, and
then he called us right when we got to his house and asked us if we
could meet him in a parking lot outside a certain laundromat instead.
We were like..... Okay...... Hmm.... But since we had a member we
went. Well we got there and he was out there waiting for us but I
didn't really recognize him at all. But he was like "don't you
remember me?" And I was like "uhhh yea.... Of course, remind me where
we met though?" And he gave me the street name and then I remembered.
We are supposed to talk to ten people at least everyday on the street.
One night at like 9pm right before going home we still hadn't met the
ten. Well there was this sketchy group of people on the side of the
road, on a pretty sketchy street, some of them ere drinking or
whatnot, but they didn't seem dangerous, there were women with them
too, so we talked to them really quickly and gave them cards with our
phone number just to meet the ten contacts. That was like 3 weeks ago.
Well anyways, this guy, was one of them and turned out to be awesome.
He started out by telling us straight up all the things he wants to
change in his life that he thinks we can help him with. And then when
we were teaching the restoration when we got to apostasy he was like
"but wait, there needs to be a direct lineage of authority from Jesus
Christ so what happened to bring that back?" Made it really easy to
transition into the restoration of Christs authority.

Well, that is all, have a good week. The gospel is true. It changes
lives and is the true way to feel gods love.

Love,
Hermana bardsley

El Monte week 7!!!!!!!!!!!

So this first week of training was AWESOME. My trainee, hermana
Bateman is really really a good missionary. When we teach in English i
would have no idea that she just came into the mission a week ago. She
teaches very well. Spanish is another matter. But she's coming along.
It's weird because I've yet to have a companion who doesn't speak
Spanish, and since I grew up speaking it I don't really know how to
teach it to her. On a side note, All the Latinos call her Hna batman.
Pretty cool. Batman is my companion.

Sooooooooo the most exciting news this week is this! The family that
we had been teaching, the roldan family.... Came to church! And on
time too! I don't think I had mentioned how hard we had tried to get
this family to church in the past. We had done pretty much everything
in our power. One week we even went to their house, got all their kids
ready, and made them pancakes for breakfast and they still didn't
come. So this was a huuuuge miracle. And it went AWESOME. She got
fellowshipped super well. Sometimes investigators kind of go unnoticed
and that's why no one says hi or introduces themselves, but since she
has four little kids, who are... Well... Quite energetic... And
definitely not used to sitting through sacrament meeting. She
DEFINITELY didn't go unnoticed. Which was good, because then
afterwards everyone came up and started talking to her telling her
their stories about the crazy things their kids used to do in
sacrament meeting so not to worry, I don't know if they were planning
to stay all three hours, but one person took her kids to primary whole
the mom was talking, so then they did. It was perfect. The husband
didn't come though which was a bummer. Next week. A family even
invited them over for a family home evening tonight as well, hopefully
he will go to that.

Kids are awesome, there are so many families we teach that the little
kids are the motivating factor for the parents. The little kids read
the Book of Mormon everyday and are the ones who want to go to church.
They can feel the difference and the spirit right away, while adults
are so stubborn oftentimes. Like with the roldans, the eight year old
girl Natalie, was the one who in our last lesson with them committed
her parents to go to church. She was like "before we say the last
prayer I need you guys (to her parents) to promise me that you will go
to church this Sunday because you said you would for the last two and
you didn't, so promise me right now". We just sat there like..... Wow.
Who needs missionaries, we all just need Natalie. If all parents knew
how much the gospel would bless their family and their kids, I feel
like they'd just jump in the waters of baptism right away.

Sad I missed the pbd [Pacific Ballroom Dance] concert, but I'll be there for the next one!
Today I was getting my hair cut and the Mexican version of dancing
with the stars was on. Needless to say, it was very difficult to not
let my eyes wander.

On another note, I've been coming across a lot of prophecies in the
scriptures lately about the hastening of the work. All the stuff about
when god sends everybody out right before the end to gather fruit and
stuff. And there's some stuff in Isaiah that talks about it as well.
Crazy, to think this is it. This is the hastening of the work of
salvation. The last call before the end. And all of us are those
workers in the vineyard in the last push who need to help others find
salvation. Some apostle said that the hastening of the work is up
there with the restoration of the gospel and other huge events in the
history of the gospel in importance. And we are part of it. Now is the
time when we do everything we can to help everyone come unto Christ
and receive the ordinances of salvation!

Love,
Hermana bardsley

Ps to answer your question mom we don't have senior or junior
companions in our mission, just companions. I've had companions that
I've been out for longer than before, but there's no distinction.