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