Feb 20

Hola Familila,

Pues, esta semana fue fantastico!  Tuve mi primero bautismo!  Well I like to count it as my first... it was amazing!! She was so ready to get baptized AND her boyfriend and son came (pictures included) and they said they want to get baptized too!  Awesome.  So does our other investigator Susana (from Argentina) who also went.  We've been so blessed, we don't even deserve it.  It was hard to hold back tears because the service was incredible.  Seriously the talks were awesome and tons of the members came to support! Even better.  Teresa truly loves us...I always dreamed of having a convert like her!  I was blessed to have her as my first.  So we had dinner with her two nights ago and as she was giving the closing prayer she said " and I hope they give recieve my good news well....that I'll be getting married in the next week or two.."  WHAT?! Who does that during a prayer?? Well I guess it's a good way...so now she's getting married!  They're totally going to get sealed. Woo!  It would be a great way to end my mission in a year, right??  P.s kinda freaks me out that I've been out for 5 months....ugggh. I hate it. Time really doesn't wait for anyone...ok enough with the cliches.  We helped this less active move....let's just say I was scarred.  There were bugs EVERYWHERE...I couldn't even touch anything....Hna. Coughlen was the one folding the clothes and I was just holding the bag open...that's how pathetic I was.  I'm pretty sure I had a disgusted look on my face too.  I told Hna. Coughlen that I would eat 10 of her dinners (she eats like a bird so she hates that the members feed us a ton).  But the number went up everytime we saw bugs so I'm up to 30.  I'm ok with it...I rather eat nasty amounts of food then touch any bug.  Oh! So tomorrow is transfers.  We're both staying here so that means I'll be "killing" Hna. Coughlen!  We already made our goals so we're super pumped.  It's going to be her wonder transfer!  She deserves to go out with a bang and I'm gonna make sure that she does!  Ok that's all I have for this week.  One more funny story.  So Hermana Coughlen and I made it a goal to OYM (open your month) more people and we promised that the next people we'd see, we would talk to them about mormon.org.  So of course it happens to be a couple of teenage lil gangster kids.... conversation as follows:

Us: "Hi how are you?"

Lil black gangster kid: "oh we'z good"

Us: "What's your name?"

Lil black gangster kid: "Caine!"

Us: "Kay or Caine?"

Caine: "Caine! like Caine and Abel..."

Us: "Oh that's sick"

Caine: " Yea, most people ask me why I wasn't named after Abel since he was the righteous one, but I like to say I was named after the first murderer! The orginal OG (original gangster)!

They then proceeded to ask us awkward questions like "Am I going to hell if I had sex before marriage?"

Uhh..... "Go visit mormon.org!"

So yup...those are the kinds of people we talk to on the streets.  As we were walking back, they asked "do you have a facebook??"  and Caine said "probably not.." and we turned around and said "yes we do!".  "What's your first name?!"  Hna Coughlen: "look up "las hermanas!"" then they say "yea, ok.  We'll just look up Hna. Ruiz"
....great...freakin nametags!

Well I hope you all have a great week...I love you, stay safe, choose the right.

February 13th

Familia,

Things are going great in the Denver 1st ward.  So miracle happened. Ok do you remember Teresa? She's an investigator and she lives with a miracle.  She actually was the first person I taught on my mission! November 30th :) Well she is amazing.  Has AWESOME faith...seriously the most faithful person I know.  She takes notes during church of all the scriptures she hears and studies them later in her free time. She's that good.  But everytime we extended the baptismal invite, she'd always say it's too soon or she'd accept but go MIA and she'd miss her baptism date.  Well she was scheduled the be baptized yesterday the 19th.  Last week we surprised visited her at night since she wasn't answering our texts/ calls.  Luckily, she was home and we were able to teach her.  We thought it'd be important if we focused on the doctrine of baptism so we read out of 2 Nephi 31 where he explains
why Christ was baptized and how we should follow his example.  We read the whole thing with her and explained that as missionaries, we have the authority to know when she's ready to enter the waters of baptism. Hermana Coughlen then says "you are suppose to be baptized this Sunday but what if we moved it to the 19th?"  It was silent but she looked us in the eyes and said "yes...I will be baptized the 19th." WOW.  It was such a sure and clear answer.  She then told us how she felt fire in her heart when she said it.  It was such a beautiful moment to see the Spirit testify of the truthfulness of baptism. Yesterday we were able to go with her to a baptism so she could see how its done.  She's all ready to go! We're so excited and she is too.  We're going to begin teaching her boyfriend...who is basically golden as well because he's like the guy version of her.  They want to get married so that means temple wedding in a year! Awesome.  That's the most exciting thing that has happened this week.  verything else has been a blur.  Both Hermana Coughlen and I are sick but we're well enough to do the work ;).  I love you all and pray for you every night! I mean it, I do. Missionaries don't lie.  Have a great week!

Feb 6, 2012

Good morning Family!

Ok so I owe you some good details.  Alot has happened this transfer...it's hard to believe I'm almost done with this one!  Only two more weeks and it's a new start!  Well kinda...pretty sure I'm staying in this area and staying with the companion that I have now. I had my first baptism two weeks ago!  His name is Mauricio and he's
from Uruguay...so he speaks like Paulo but more "shushy".  He got married like 3 weeks ago to a recent convert but they were living with eachother prior so he couldn't get baptized since they were breaking the law of chastity...oops.  But it's all good now because Mauricio will be getting the priesthood soon and we'll be helping them prepare to go to the temple!  Love it.  So two weeks ago, some english elders asked us if we could join them in a lesson with some brazillians. Apparently they came from Brazil a couple years ago but don't know
that much English but they understand Spanish alot more.  So we went in the lesson thinking that we would be able to understand like 50% of what they were saying.  Well turns out that we had no difficulty understanding eachother at all!  The spirit definitely helped us and we were all amazed how well it went.  I can understand portuguese! The gift of tongues is real...no doubt.  So another miracle..we went to go visit a family on Saturday that were kind of investigating.  I say kind of because the sisters before Hermana Coughlen and I were teaching a girl named Elizabeth....but she went to jail.  So her family would listen to the lessons but not really do anything at the same time.  So we went to go visit them and we shared our purpose as missionaries and it was super spiritual.  We then invited them to church the next day and they said yes!  And they actually went....they went to church before evening hearing one of our lessons!! Who does that?! So we'll be seeing them this Tuesday and we both feel good about them.  We have Teresa on date for this Sunday... hola hna ruiz, soy elder palma otra vez , aqui escribiendo por su hija, ella esta trabajando duro , y elola esta muy emocionada por el bautismoque va a tener esta semana de una hertmana que se llam teresa , y estamos orando por ella para que  pueda venir a la iglesia los domingos, y esta funcionando , y esperamos que se pueda bautizarse domingo.  las oraciones funcionan , hna siga escribiendo a su hija ,es unma buena misionera, y espero que usted siga bien. elder
palma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     escribalee!~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok it's me again, so it snowed a ton this week!  We were super stuck with our car that I had to dig it out with cookie pans!  They're actually pretty legit.  But we look pretty dumb out in the snow with our skirts and cookie pans...people drove by and laughed at us...with good reason. Oh the mission.  But we bought a shovel and we were able to help people with their car!  My back hurts a ton....cars are heavy...well yeah but after like 10th car, i was so dead tired.  On Saturday we were driving down the road and saw 90 year Hermana Rivera shoveling her yard!  This lady is ANCIENT!  I love her to death...she
is so faithful and has the most powerful testimony I've ever heard. She reminds me alot of Nana.  She is ALWAYS doing something even though she barely can breathe.  So we turned the car around and helped her even though she was basically done.  She's amazing.  Apparently its suppose to snow today....great!  I decided snow as a missionary SUCKS.  But I'm sure as a regular person, it's nice.  Welp that's all I can really think of...please pray that Teresa gets baptized this Sunday!  We really need them.  I love you all and keep being faithful.

Amo,