My Farewell Party

This week was so great!  We started off the week in Tuxtla where we had a leadership council meeting with our mission president and the assistants.  The zone leaders along with the sister training leaders from all the zones in the mission met together and we received inspired council for our zones.  We were instructed on how to be better teachers and to teach with the spirit.  It was a great meeting!

After the leadership council with president we were sent out to teach and apply what we had learned with our zones.  We held our zone conference on Wednesday and instructed our missionaries on what our president had taught us.  It went very well and was very successful!  Wednesday night the branch here gave me a farewell party in the chapel.  They set up tables and tied balloons to all of the chairs as we all sat and gathered around together.  It was quite the turnout.  Just about the entire branch came!  We had a little dinner and the members thanked me for my love and service.  I am so grateful for them, they are such great people!

On Sunday we were able to attend the tempe dedication of the Mexico Tijuana temple that was broadcasted in Tuxtla at our stake center.  It was such a beautiful service!  President Uctdorf spoke along with Gordon B. Hinkley's son who is the president of the Tijuana temple and his wife.   The spirit was so strong!  It was such a great experience and I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to be a part of it!  We have been working so hard this week and I have been loving every minute of it!  I think that one of my favorite days this week was the day that we taught 11 lessons!  It was a great day and a record broken for the most lessons taught in one day:)  Being a missionary is the best!
I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love, Hermana Paini

His Gift to US!

This week was awesome!  I learned and grew a lot this week.  We had our mission Christmas activity which was very beautiful.  We had a talent show in the morning that everyone participated in.  My district put on a skit demonstrating the day in the life of a missionary on Christmas day.  My part in the skit was the missionaries exercise routine in the morning.  We acted  out as if I was teaching them zumba and they attempted to follow me.  I did a lot of gymnastics and some stretches and they followed after me...it was hilarious!  Afterwords the elders in our zone did a dance that hermana Martinez and I choreographed.  Wow, I have not laughed so hard in a long time...it was so funny!  After the talent show we had our combined zone conference which was my favorite part of it all!  As the assistants counseled us on Christ-like attributes and what we can give to Christ this Christmas I felt the spirit so strong!  They also talked about the gift that our Savior has given us and passed around a wrapped box for us to open and look at and ponder at what it is that he has given us.  As we each opened up the box we found a mirror inside and saw our reflection looking back at us.  The gift that he gave us is our life.  They asked us to ponder on the following questions: How long did the Lord spend in making me?  As a creation made from the hands of a perfect being how much is my value?  What can I become in this life?  While I reflected on these questions I felt the spirit so strongly in knowing how much meaning being a child of God holds and how infinite and limitless my potential truly is. That I have the potential to become as the perfect being who created me.

This gospel is truly a message of so much happiness!  When one comes to the understanding of where they came from, what their purpose in this life is and where they can go after death a new light of hope enters into their life.  Similarly, the message of Christmas is a joyful one.  That a Savior was born 2015 years ago and he lived and he died.  But he lives again!  I invite each one of you to think of what you would like to give him this Christmas, it can be a changed heart or service to your fellow men, it doesn't matter what the gift is.  But when it comes from the heart as did the treasures from the wise man, it is the best that we have to give!  I love you guys and I hope you have the best week yet!  Give him your gift and see the joy that comes from it!

Love, Hermana Paini

Minor Surgery

What a great week it was.  Nothing went as we had planned this week, but the Lord's plans are always so much better than ours!

I had a little accident this week while we were in Tuxtla, I stubbed my in-grown toenail, which has been in-grown and infected for over 3 months now, very hard on a big rock.  We were with a big group of people at the time so I couldn't scream and jump up and down so I just stood still in silence while tears filled my eyes.  As I leaned over and told my companion what had happened she looked at me and said, "Oh no" and wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly because she knew how much pain I was in.  The group of people we were with also noticed what was going on and let me sit in their car and put my foot up and they gave me a paper towel to soak up all the blood coming out of my toe.  As the taxi dropped us off at the house we got out to walk inside.  As we were in a trio for the companion exchanges we were doing at the time with my companion and I along with a sister in our zone I had two people to help me hobble into the house.  My companion let me use her foot to step on top of in order for my bare foot not to touch the ground and hermana Lopez, the sister we were with put her arm around my waist and let me use her to lean on.  As soon as we walked through the door one of them ran to get me a chair to sit on and another to put my foot up while the other filled a bucket of water up to heat so I could soak my foot.  A bit later in the week I was able to be operated on.  As my companon is a certified doctor she was able to help the doctor who did the operation.  Another missionary who had recently had surgery and was recovering in the mission home let me squeeze her hands while they put shots in my feet and worked on them.

I have felt so much love and support this week from so many people.  I am grateful for the kind hands of all those who cared for me.  My mission president and his wife were also so good to us to care for us and let us stay in the mission home while I was recovering and took us out to eat.  I have felt so loved this week!

I am also able to start walking a little bit this week so we are very excited about that. Yay!  Missionary work is the best :)  I love you guys, have a great week!

Love Hermana Paini

I Love Being a Sister Training Leader

My New Companion

This week was awesome! I love being a missionary:)

We have been seeing a lot of miracles lately.  It is so amazing to me to see all of the different ways that the Lord places those whom he has prepared to hear the gospel. Every day is truly inspired!  There are days when every plan and appointment we have falls through and we find someone prepared and waiting to hear the gospel in the street.  It is amazing how the Lord works!

We have also had several great opportunities lately to help the sisters in our zone.  It was one of the most rewarding things when after a companion exchange the sister I did the exchange with hugged me and with tears streaming down her face and told me thank you and that she loved me.  It is a great opportunity to be a sister training leader because we get to help not only the investigators but our missionaries as well.

This transfer we are focusing on the promise our president gave us that we would be able to find 2 families to baptize this transfer so we are excited and working hard to find them.

I think that's about everything new this week.   I love you guys, have a great week!

Love, Hermana Paini

Doing Dishes

These are my favorite things ever!  They are called
Moto taxi´s and we use them a lot.  

Service project with the Young Women

My companion painted my nails for me

Teaching with the Power of the Spirit

A picture from intercambios that we did with the hermanas this week

This week was great, I feel like I say that every week but it is always true! It was hard to say goodbye to Hermana Briscoe but comforting in the fact that I know I will see her again.  We plan to be roomates together in BYU and have several fun plans that I am looking forward to!

My new companion is Hermana Martinez.  She is 24 years old and has already graduated from college with her nursing degree.  She has 14 months in the mission and is awesome!  We are working great and so hard together!

This week the Lord has been teaching me more about the power of the Spirit in teaching the scripture in D&C 42:14 comes to my mind that "if ye receive not the spirit ye shall not teach."  It is very true!  We can talk for hours on end using our personal knowledge along with the scriptures but if we do not have the spirit we are not teaching.  It is by the spirit only that our words enter in the hearts and minds of those with whom we are speaking and the spirit which testifies of the truthfullness of our words.

Love, Hermana Paini

Leadership Opportunites

This week was great!  Though we weren't able to work in our area very much for meetings we had in Tuxtla, we were able to witness several miracles and serve the Lord.

This week was so full of learning experiences for me and I loved it.  We had the privelege of attending leadership mission council as leaders in our zone and were able to learn from other leaders in the mission as well as our mission president.  It was very inspiring!  We were also able to train the missionaries in our zone in another meeting we had and it was a great experience.  I can always know that the spirit is present when I feel like I am the one learning while I am teaching.

I have come to a greater understanding this week of how important the spirit truly is in this marvelous work!  There have been so many times where the words given to me only by the spirit.  I am learning to trust in the Lord more and more each day and trust in his hands to help us do His work.

I love each day here in the mission, the hard ones as well as those that bring peace.  I am learning to enjoy every moment here and I want to make the most of every minute of every day that I have left!

My companion is getting transferred to some place called Idaho... She has finished the mission and is returning home.  Though I will miss her very much I know I will see her again soon which brings peace.  After the mission we are both going to go to BYU and have lots of plans to keep us busy:).  My new companion is Hermana Marinez and I will get to meet her tomorrow.  I know I will love her and I am excited to work hard together this transfer!

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!  Choose to make it great and it will be!

Love, Hermana Paini

We decided to sleep on the roof one night!

Pictures from Mexico

I´m sorry I didn´t have time to write a group letter this week we have been super busy all day with meetings and different things that I didn´t have time to do so.. so I sent a lot of pictures :)  It was a really great week though and hopefully I will be able to write lots next week. Here are some pictures.

Learning how to eat fish

Making Tamales

I got to be companions again with the companion I trained in my last area,  hermana Romero.. yay!

Companion exchanges with our hermanas in our zone in their fancy house!

Suprise celebration for my companions 18 month mark