Back to the basics!!

Saludos de LA!!!!

Hey errbody! I hope all is well in your neck of the woods! Our neck of the woods is sunny and chilly! Yes you heard me, it's CHILLYYYY as in cold, yessssss. I had to pull out my jacket the other day and my heart was so glad. Fall in California really is so beautiful. We actually had a good amount of cold rain last night which everyone was super stoked about. I've seen a few pictures of snow in some missions!!! Craziness it's that time of year again!!! Anyways in other news, transfers happened and wow has it been crazy! Sister Smith and I found out that we would both be released as STL's to train!!! Oh boy!!! Haha we were both pretty shocked but super excited! When we had to eventually be separated and say goodbye on transfer day we were crying pretty hard hahaha the AP's were staring at us...... lol anyways I'm staying in Bell and when we got our transfer calls, it said I was going to be with Sister Cox, I am finishing her training. I was content and happy about it!! That next day we did our normal thing and went new missionary contacting (for the last time) :( :( and when we got home, we got a phone call about 10:15am, from the AP's telling me that President Haynie felt strongly prompted that I needed to train one of the new missionaries as well. I felt pretty shocked but excited for my new comps! So now we are in a trio, Sister Cox is from West Virginia and she is an awesome missionary! She is one of those missionaries that you would say came to the mission "pre-trained". She's confident, has her purpose written on her heart and loves everyone so deeply!  I already love her so much! My other companion is Sister Hegerhorst( it's been funny hearing the members in our ward attempt to say her name) she is from Nampa, Idaho and is actually waiting to receive her VISA to go on her mission to Ecuador! She is super funny and is very much more reserved than Sister Cox but she is definitely opening up more and more. And boy when she speaks, we all die of laughter and when she testifies the spirit fills the room. I feel so much has happened that it would take me all day to write but I just want to share how much I know that God is aware of us and he answers our prayers, I've felt it time and time again, but I know God really arranges things to work out the way they do for our benefit. I'm grateful to be able to go be in a trio and training two missionaries because I feel by doing so I will be able to go back to the fundamentals that are essential to me being a Christlike and consecrated missionary! Plus obedience brings blessings and I've seen that so evident in our work this week! 

Not so beautiful picture of us working in the rain the other day! 

Starting at the beginning of the week, we hardly had anyone to teach but we went out on Tuesday with faith to find more of God's children who need the gospel. As we were out we met these jovens playing soccer outside, so we decided to talk to them, they weren't really interested so we asked them if we could talk with their mom.  We go up to the door and instead of meeting their mom, we met their sister. We started talking to her and she told us we could come by another day. We go by for our return appointment with an awesome recent convert I used to teach, Adriana Cruz, who is around the same age and we end up having such an awesome lesson. Angelica, is only 14 years old but her desire to learn about Jesus Christ is so evident as we taught her. We invited her to be baptized on December 11th and she accepted! We of course want to talk to her mom and teach her family before but we gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read Alma 7. As we were leaving we asked her what her plans were for the rest of the day and she told us that she was going to start reading the BOM and that she was going to try and have some of it memorized for the next time we come back! 🙃😮 hahaha she is so cool, it was even cooler seeing Sister Hegerhorst place the Book of Mormon and how happy she was teaching someone so prepared by the Lord. Sister Cox and Hegerhorst were so ecstatic and wouldn't stop shouting about how it was the best day ever lol we love being missionaries!!!

Another SUPER NEAT experience happened the other day but actually started a few months back when I was with Sister Smith. Back in September, Sister Smith and I were contacting on one of the busier streets of our area and we ran into a brother and his younger sister, Anthony and Joanna. They were interested in the message of Jesus Christ so we got down info and set a return appointment! We weren't able to make it to the return appointment but another day we stopped by, but they weren't home :( We didn't go back after that. Fast forward to a couple weeks back we received a referral under the name of Nelly and in the description it mentioned that her kids had met the missionaries but they never came and the kids were disappointed and somehow Nelly had run into a member from LA 3rd ward at the DMV and they started talking and the member got Nelly's info,  sent it as a referral to our area. We called the referral ASAP and set a RA with Nelly, also inviting her to the thanksgiving activity we were having in the ward! Later on during the activity, Nelly called us telling us that her husband Juan and her two kids, were outside the doors of the church at the activity but that they didn't know how to get in. We go and greet them and as I see them, lo and behold it's Anthony and Joanna the jóvenes we met on the street that day in September! It turns out Nelly, the referral we received is their mom and apparently Anthony and Joanna were so disappointed we didn't come! Crazy!! Their family is incredibly cool and we are so excited to teach them! We went to see them yesterday and set a baptismal date for Joanna!!!! Gahhh Milagros!!! It was so cool and how although Sister Smith and I made the mistake of not going by to see them again, Heavenly Father put them in our path to be able to see them and to teach them. The Lord is blessing us as we are being obedient and are giving every effort to Him and his work!!! I invite all of you to count your miracles, one by one this week and I promise you, no matter what circumstance you're in, you will have that confirmation that God loves you and has blessed you with so many things this year! Even our trials can be blessings! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!! Hope it's spent well with the fam or wherever you are. Love you alll!!

-Hermana Abreu