3 John 1:13-14…..
13. “I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:
14. But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.”
Love, Sister Meza
This week was crazy! Monday night was awesome! We got to have two lessons with our investigators. A young mom we are teaching accepted baptism and came to church yesterday. The other lesson was with a young girl who needs permission from her dad to be baptized. Tuesday, Sister Thomas was really sick so we didn’t really do anything.
Thursday was Thanksgiving which has been my favorite holiday on the mission! We woke up and got together with three zones to play turkey ball. Then we hung out and had smores before we headed to dinner at the Horton’s home. That night we got back together and played board games with the other missionaries.
On Friday, I was able to go to the temple with my Mission President, his wife, and all the missionaries going home the same time as me. It was a very spiritual experience.
Saturday, we taught Elvis again and we brought a member who has recently returned to being active in the last five years, after leaving the church when he was 16, and then falling into a life of drug abuse, but was able to overcome that and become a strong follower of Christ. This was the first time he had ever gone out with the missionaries and it was such a great and powerful lesson.
On Sunday, during third hour, we shared the new Christmas initiative with the ward. There is a really cute video that has come out and you can find it at mormon.org. Then later in the day we were able to teach the message of the Restoration at a baptism the Elders in our ward had.
It was a great week and I’m looking forward to this upcoming week where I can give it my all. This is the last week of my mission and it is beyond bittersweet. I love serving Jesus Christ because of all He has done for me. The last week He gave us His all, and this week I will too.
Love, Sister Meza
This past week flew like no other! Sister Thomas and I were able to have a mini missionary with us! Leeyah was a great addition to our companionship and she will be an amazing missionary!
Wednesday we had a training on the Christmas initiative that the church is coming out with for the whole month of December. It is going to be a great time to serve as the Savior did! The initiative comes out November 25.
I also had my outgoing interview with my Mission President this week. It still hasn’t hit me that I’ll be home in two weeks! He talked about three things I need to do to stay active when I go home, which is to 1) pray daily, 2) read the scriptures daily, and 3) prepare to take the sacrament weekly. He said there are also three things I need to do in order to stay worthy, which are to live the word of wisdom, livethe law of tithing, and live the law of chastity, so that when doubt and trials come into my life, those things can help me be strong through it.
Today we had cross fit and I got to see all my mission friends not serving in the Jurupa Stake, which was super awesome! Afterwards, we were invited to go to an “all Sisters” meeting with all the sister missionaries serving in the north half of the mission. It was a meeting on discouragement, which apparently a lot of sisters are going through.
While contacting on the street we met and had a lesson with a man named Elvis. We taught the Restoration and it was so spiritual. He accepted all commitments we extended to him and he is on date for baptism on December 18th.
Love and miss you all!
Love, Sister Meza
Hello everyone!
The mission is going great and I can’t believe it is coming so close to the end. Being a missionary is so much fun! Although this week I had food poisoning, it helped me to be more patient with myself.
Yesterday we had interviews with our Mission President. It was great and he talked about how missionaries put themselves in spiritual bondage. They limit the capabilities they think they have. He shared a scripture and pointed out some things to help us overcome spiritual bondage.
Mosiah 7:33 (Book of Mormon)
“But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart (repentance), and put your trust in him (faith), and serve him with all diligence of mind (focus), if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage.”
Faith, Repentance and Focus can help us all overcome our difficulties. We all have them in one way or another! I love the power this scripture brings! I know that this gospel is true and that Jesus Christ is at the head of this church!
Love, Sister Meza
This week was kind of an emotional roller coaster, but a lot of good things happened! This weekend was the Jurupa Stake Conference with a visiting General Authority, Elder Zwick of the Seventy. It was an awesome spiritual uplift that I needed.
Our Stake President, President Jorgensen, is known throughout the mission as a great support of missionary work! Elder Zwick is his Uncle and his dad is the Temple President of the San Diego Temple. I wouldn’t be surprised if President Jorgensen became a General Authority one day!
We were able to have two investigators at Stake Conference and they got to meet Elder Zwick. Charley is a cute 12-year old girl who is on date for baptism in December, and Koreen is a young mom of three boys. It was crazy when he met Koreen because he gave her his phone number and said “when you get baptized and you really know the gospel is true, call me”. It was awesome! It was her first time at church and she loved it! 🙂
I don’t remember if I mentioned this in previous emails, but we met Koreen while we were walking, the same day that she prayed to God to find someone to drive her to church! Prayers are always answered!
I got to go on exchanges with Sister Madrid, a missionary I came out with! She is from Peru and is the bomb! Since we were on exchanges the date after her birthday, we had a lunch and dinner appointment. (#spanishwardprobs) We ate so much tres leches cake at each appointment we got sick! haha! At one of the homes we were at, one of the women tried to set me up with the missionary who baptized her and she video called him. It was super super awkward.
Well, that was my week! Love and miss you all, keep killin it:)
Love, Sister Meza
What a week! So much has happened! I may explain things kind of out of order, but hopefully, I can remember everything. Today we went to Olive Garden with the Spanish sisters for Sister Madrid’s birthday this week. When we went to pay, someone had already paid for all of us. Wow! There are some really nice people in this world! 🙂
Friday I got to start something scary called “my plan”. Basically, every Friday for half an hour, I do this program to prepare me to go back to normal life. Haha! I still feel like I’m going to be a missionary forever.
We had a lot of really good lessons this week and the work is really picking up in our area!
This week for Sister Thomas’ training, we focused on the Book of Mormon and how to help the people we teach to gain personal revelation through it. So we went crazy sharing it with everyone we met! It was so great to see how much people are willing to read and pray about it and the feelings they get as they do.
Tuesday we were walking and met a guy name Charlie. We taught him about the peace that comes into our lives when we grow closer to God and read the Book of Mormon. He shared with us about how he had gotten out of jail after being incarcerated for 10 years. He is ready to change his life around and accepted a baptismal date on December 4th. That day we also taught a young mom and this sweet little black woman, Kenya, and shared the Book of Mormon. The young mom, Dalia, was excited to read it with her husband, and Kenya ended up not being able to read it due to her lack of vision. She said she was going to get some glasses this week so she can!
We were also able to teach another investigator named Charley. She is a really sweet 12 year old and we were happy to see her at the Ward Trunk or Treat and at church yesterday. She is an amazing artist!
Thursday we were able to teach Jasmine and Mirna. This week we realized that we have three different young moms we are teaching that have all boys! Jasmine has 5, Koreen has 3, Mirna has 5. Mirna accepted baptism but she wants to get baptized with the rest of her family which we have only taught once. They are a strong family! All these young moms were supposed to come to the Trunk or Treat but none of them were able to make it.
Yesterday we picked up another investigator named Daniel and we brought Brother Olayan to the lesson and it was crazy! Daniel has a strong southern baptist twang and Brother Olayan is this sweet little Hawaiian man. Brother Olayan and him were basically speaking in another language that only they could understand. We would teach and then they would go off on analogies and somehow bring it back to what we were talking about.
All and all it was a great week. Sister Thomas and I are having a lot of fun together and we are working hard also. We really had the faith this week to stay so organized with everything we had going on. I know this is going to be a bomb last 6 weeks of the mission!
Love you all and God Bless,
Sister Meza
This week was good! We taught one of our investigators, Nohel, about the importance of church. He believes that he only needs to go to church three times a year to have a strong relationship with God. We shared with him Mosiah 13:16-19, which says….
16. Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.
17. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work;
18. But the seventh day, the sabbath of the Lord thy God, thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates;
19. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
He better understood the commandment to give Sunday to the Lord. Sadly, he didn’t show up to church on Sunday. The Stake President and our Ward Mission Leader went by a few weeks ago and invited him to church and he also didn’t show. 😦
We also started teaching a 12 year old girl named Charley. Her mom is a member and she is super involved in the youth activities at church.
Oh yea, and it is official, I am staying in Jurupa with Sister Thomas the last 6 weeks of my mission. It is crazy how time flies! Although I still feel like I’ll be a missionary forever! 🙂
This week is get to start “my plan” which is a program to help missionaries transition back to normal life. Whoohoo 😉
Hope you all have an awesome week!
Love, Sister Meza
Hello friends!
This week was interesting and seemed to go by pretty fast. I wasn’t feeling good all day Saturday and Sunday so some wonderful people took care of me while my companion was working hard. It was so cool to see Sister Thomas really excel in taking over the area. 🙂
Sunday at church was also interesting. I was feeling better in the morning so we were able to go to church! Before sacrament had started there were a few of us waiting in the chapel when an older gentlemen from the ward stood up and yelled at everyone to be quiet and that this was a chapel of the Lord and he was trying to meditate. It was a rather aggressive moment and pulled away the spirit. He did it again as more people filled into the room. He ended up doing it four times and then a member of the Bishopric escorted him outside the chapel. It didn’t stop the spirit from coming back into the room as the sacrament was passed.
Then we were able to hear from some great missionaries including my companion!
Overall, it was a good week.
Love, Sister Meza
Just wanted to share some of my favorite scriptures from this week:
“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” Ether 12:27
“And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?” 2 Nephi 31:10
“Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life.” 3 Nephi 5:13
Have a great week!
Love, Sister Meza
Hello Friends!
This week was great! On Tuesday, we had an orientation to serve at a therapeutic riding center which Sister Thomas is really excited about! She loves horses! Then when we got home and started our studies, I wasn’t feeling well and it turns out I was suffering from heat exhaustion.
Friday was the last multi-zone conference I would have on the mission, so I got to give my outgoing testimony. I feel like just yesterday I was giving my incoming testimony. It is always amazing to hear the testimonies of the missionaries leaving! Just the other day, I was reading the entry to my first multi-zone conference and it’s crazy how much I have grown.
Some things that stood out to me in the meeting was when my Mission President talked about exact obedience. He taught that we are not perfect and that God doesn’t demand that from us, but the two principles within being exact is obedience and repentance. The Lord’s love is always there but that trust needs to be earned.
We met a guy this week while walking on the street and we taught him a lesson. It was crazy because he had said that last week he was looking at the BYU website and wants to go there. He said that he loved the values of the school and asked us if we had a book he could read….of course we do! 😉 He was definitely prepared by the Lord!
One of the people I had taught in Corona was supposed to be baptized this week but the day of his baptism, he didn’t show up to church So Sister Nai and her companion went by his house and no one answered so they went into his backyard and found him sitting on the couch watching TV. They had a lesson with him and he has chosen not to get baptized. It makes me sad because I know all the blessings he is missing out on. Hopefully, down the line he will be ready to make that sacred promise with God.
General Conference is the best holiday on a mission! I loved the talk by Craig C. Christensen about Joseph Smith because he had given the same talk to our mission in May! This time around it really helped me gain a greater understanding of Joseph Smith! I loved Elder Oaks talk on missionary work! The simple things he invited each of us to do was:
This is just from my notes and probably not 100% perfect from what he said, but I know that as we apply this and strengthen our desire, then we can be the means of bringing more joy into the lives of our brothers and sisters! I love the Gospel!
Love, Sister Meza
Sister Samantha Meza 