Week 16: Dona Ana Ward, Las Cruces, NM

 Merry Christmas!!

Feliz Navidad!

This week was good, we had like 4 Pdays so that was fun! Although, now I'm a bit sick Pdays-- just slightly haha.

Tuesday, we had our Christmas party with the whole South of the mission. We watched The Fighting Preacher which was cheesy good. I got to talk with my old companion which was nice. 

Oh yeah and this week basically our whole zone got sick and has had to quarantine. Not for covid, but for strep. Thankfully we didn't have to. 

We had exchanges Wednesday! I always like them because it's a new perspective and it changes up the usual day to day. 

An awesome thing happened Thursday. We were getting gas and and I saw some guy getting gas behind us and I decided to talk to him. I was like "Hey, it's such a beautiful day!" He got out and was like "sisters?!" I thought he was a member, but it was Gabriel! We have been teaching this guy over the phone, but we have never been able to meet with him so far. It was awesome to be able to meet him and he was excited to see us. I also found his mom on Facebook and we have been talking to her. She said that Gabriel loves our calls and looks forward to them. It was very sweet.

Christmas Eve we went to Hatch! It's a little town 45 minutes to the north. Have you heard of Hatch Chile's? They come from this town. We had district counsel got lunch and made a music video haha. It was fun.

We then spent lots of the day watching the Chosen as a zone over zoom. Then we went to our friends Laura and Evan's church. It's the first time I have actually been to a different church's service. It was good they had a band and Laura was singing. The music was very pretty. I think it's good going to different churches because it solidifies my own testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I felt good there, but I feel a different spirit at our church, one that makes me want to be a better person.

Both of our parents got us matching pajamas they are very cute haha. Christmas was good we just spent it watching more of the Chosen, I made wontons, and then we played games with our members friends and had a proper Christmas dinner. We also got our own little stockings from a member. 

Merry Christmas to yall! I hope you has a great one and could feel your Saviors love. 

As a missionary praying can become kind of rut, because we do it so much. But yesterday while praying I just realized I'm praying to a God. How cool! I'm praying to a God who knows me and cares. He wants to help us on the condition we ask. Prayer is awesome. If you feel discouraged with it, don't give up. I've personally seen Him answer my prayers, even when it took years.

Love you guys!

Sister Crofts

Week 15: Dona Ana Ward, Las Cruces, NM

 Merry Christmas!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!!!

This week started off good. We attended the baptism of Philip in a different ward, but I have met him before so it was awesome. After he was baptized he said he wanted to do it again and when he was confirmed he said he saw his dad smiling at him, it was so cute

We had some lessons with Gabriel this week. He has been taught all three beginning lessons and believes it all basically, the problem is meeting with him in person, sometimes that's the struggle of teaching people from Facebook. 

Facebook is great, but sometimes there are A LOT of interesting people on there. 😶 It gets a bit exhausting haha.

We had a good lesson with Jose this week. We keep asking him to pray about baptism, and he never does. I believe it's because he is scared of the answer he is going to get. I know God will tell him he needs to be baptized.

We also met with Laura and Evan. It went with the usual confusing questions, but then I read a story from the Bible and bore my testimony and there was the spirit there. It was awesome, and I love feeling the spirit so much in lessons.  I don't always feel it, and I've realized that sometimes it comes in waves.  I want to keep working to feeling it more.

We went over to Sijas and she has a day old lamb! It's so cute and she has another one that's older.

We also finally passed off Josh to Elders.  I think they might be able to help him better and plus he is closer to them. 

We had our ward party Friday and we invited a lot of people like we always do to events and church. Jose and Ramon came, and also this less active family and this other less active. It was awesome. We also got to meet Santa, which was pretty uneventful haha

Then this Sunday we sang at church again! Two Sundays in a row. One of our friends Wesley, decided to call us the singing sisters. Haha it went well.

Jose came and Leo and his two daughters came! It was awesome and at the end he said that this was the place he needed to be. His daughters also made fast friends in the ward. 

Laura came to church to watch us sing! It was so sweet of her, and we are going to go support her at her church Friday. It was a great Sunday, and we even got more people to watch zoom too. Even though some of the Sunday school lessons can be interesting, I'm glad that people feel the spirit and some people's weird comments go over their head. It's a blessing.

Oh yeah, so after the Christmas party they had 6 big pans of enchiladas, beans, and rice. Wee have so much left we need to finish off--they are really good. I have realized how enchiladas should taste now, New Mexico knows how to make them.

Also, I'm red, if any of you know what that means haha

Oh yeah, I promise this is the last thing, we went shopping with a member this week to buy stuff for our friends who weren't going to have any Christmas gifts. It was super fun and people in our ward are so generous.

Feliz Navidad! I love you all, and more importantly Jesus Christ loves you.  Because he loves you, we can all change, our past doesn't need to define us and our future can hold infinite potential. I'm so grateful for our personal savior. He is love. 

Merry Christmas!

Love Sister Crofts

Family group call

Celebrating finishing training with some Martinelli's

Ward Christmas Party

At Phillip's Baptism.

Week 14, Dona Ana Ward, Las Cruces, NM

 Miracles, Methodists, and a Musical nNmber!

Hey y'all! This week was good!

Transfer news came out and...... I'm staying with my same comp. It's gonna be good and that's what I wanted to happen. However, our zone is kind of getting wrecked. Meaning split up.

We had a really good lesson with Christian this week. We found his number from his dog that ran away and we invited him to church and he wanted to go! Monday, we invited this lady from the ward to come with us to meet with him.  She had kept popping in my mind. Turned out she has been wanting to go out with the Missionaries so it worked out great! Chris talks A LOT, but it was good and he is really interested.

We also found a new person from our paper area book and she wants to make us dessert when we come over tomorrow 🥰

Tuesday, we helped out at a Methodist church and we stayed there a while.  When we were gonna leave  they made us stay for a white elephant ornament exchange. I got a creepy ornament, I will send a picture.

We had zone conference this week and it was really good! I got called up to role play inviting someone to sacrament and explaining sacrament. I was really nervous at first, but then I felt the spirit and it was good. I don't think I learned a ton, it was more just remembering things I know. But something cool that was said is we are immortal beings living a mortal life. We are all infinite and precious, this is just a temporary moment.

I also learned that I need to work to feel the spirit. I have been reading the Saints book and everyone who receives a witness has to go through a trial of their faith. I need to have a trail of my faith and show I really want it. That goes for all of us.

Our 84 year old neighbor Wesley dressed up for our chapel tour and it was super cute.

A miracle this week was we were walking away from someone's door and this lady came out of no where down the stairs and was crying. She asked us to pray for her. Her grandpa just passed and I gave her a hug and we prayed with her. She said she'd love to meet with us again. It was a cool experience that showed that God can just put people in our path--He can do anything.

We brought cookies to people this week and we had a good lesson with Noe! He is someone who was on date before and now he wants to get baptized again! The problem with most people though is they have a problem with commitment haha. I have learned that commitment is a wonderful quality. 

My comp and I sang Silent Night during church and it went well!

The best part of the week was Monday. I really have a testimony of priesthood blessings. It's a wonderful how God knows us all individually. He is always there for each of us and I know that He knows YOU!! 

I appreciate all your prayers and let me know if any of you need any. I'd love to pray for you.

Love Sister Crofts

Sister Bishop and Sister Crofts with President and Sister Weathersby

Creepy evil reindeer ornament

Week 13; Dona Ana Ward, Las Cruces, NM

 Hey again!

This week had some miracles which was awesome. 

We finally met with Ramon this week, twice. He has been really hard to get a hold of lately, but we caught him at his house on Tuesday. He was feeling bad for things he was doing. We just told him that God loves him so much and is proud of effort. Everyone has struggles and he has to overcome his. I really felt the spirit and I felt how much God loves us. I don't always feel that, but it was really good. We all struggle so much, and we should never think we are worthless because of it. We have INFINITE potential. That's something I've learned this week. God is ever loving and a perfect Father. So of course He is going to always be there for us and always tell us to keep trying.

Right after we left Ramon's house the Elders in a different area called us and said that they wanted us to meet with them and an investigator in 20 minutes. They are in our area and they want to be baptized the first of January! We were like, of course! We met in the murder park at like 8 at night. We were safe but it was kinda funny. We taught the restoration and she felt the spirit so much! She said she wants to be baptized because she sees the light in members. I never really realized that people could feel the spirit around members, but it was really cool to see what a different light we have.

We met with Evan and Laura this week! We went in going to teach the restoration, because they decided they wanted to be taught the basics again. But then it changed to teaching the Plan of salvation. It went well but one thing at the end was I read Moses 1:39 and I said that we both believe in the same God and Evan thought that was revelatory that I said that because apparently no other missionary has mentioned it before. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Honestly I just do my best and sometimes I'm confused haha

Okay, so a great technique I have been using to start conversations on Facebook is," hey blank, I'm Alexa, this is random but I'm a missionary and I love to pray with people, can I pray with you?" It works soooo well. A lot of the people respond and we've got 4 new people from it this week. So many people love praying!

We also helped out at a food bank and they had 5 boxes of extra bread they gave to us, so we gave some away to our friends and missionaries haha

We had a district potluck this week, which wasn't really a potluck, it mainly was dessert. We also snowflaked our old 84 year old friend Wesley's door and he called us and said, is this the wcm? World class Missionaries haha! If we're world class then why isn't he baptized yet?? Lol he also calls himself the OG hahaha he's great.

We had another lesson with Stephanie which was not good. She was super down the whole time and felt like she couldn't change who she was and things she was doing. It made me feel sad she thought that way.

Saturday night, we ran into Ramon when he was out walking, again, we had a good hyping up lesson where we told him he can do this and we were there for him. We related to him a lot and I think he thought we were perfect, so we quickly dispelled that belief. He said he would come to church the next day and was a lot happier. But when church rolled around our member who was gonna pick him up, showed up empty handed😑 it was sad. Now we are going to take a break with him for a week and let him come to us. He has to make the choice and choose the gospel. 

Lots of our friends are going through really rough times in their life right now. I'm really starting to understand what it means to mourn with those that mourn. I wish I could understand how to help them, but I don't. Only Jesus Christ does. 

We also invited this guy, Christian, to church, and the only reason we had his number was because it was on his dog's collar when his dog ran away. Anyways, he saw it as a sign from God that he needed to go back to church and now he really wants to go with us and we are teaching him tonight!

God is always good, even if you don't see it. It's a fact. Everybody can change. And miracles happen everyday, even if you don't see it.

I love you all!!! I hope yall have a great week

Love Sister Crofts

"Snow flaking" their neighbor's door

Pday hike.  One of the elders in her district is from our stake!

Giving out lots of bread to people

Happy missionaries!

Week 12: Dona Ana Ward, Las Cruces, NM

 Hey y'all!! Holy cow it's been over 11 weeks🤯🤯

This week was slower than the last, but it's been good!

Thanksgiving was pretty good, we were allowed to spend the whole day with members and call our family whenever we wanted, which was nice. I still prefer my Dad's Thanksgiving dinner over anything-- hahaha it's the best.

Some friends this week were a little less interested, but we also found this cool lady named Jane. We were coming back to our apartment and we saw her on a bench across from us. We said hi and said that we felt like we should talk to her. Turns out she is Buddhist, and she is super cool! She said she would meet with us again.

We met with her yesterday and she said she believes we should all be compassionate with each other and always try and gain more knowledge. We talked about how we believe the same thing and how the church is a place where we have compassion on each other and help each other grow. 

We read Mosiah 18:9 with her, the one where they comfort those that stand in need of comfort. I asked her what that made her think of and she said really happy people. She's super sweet and she was excited when we gave her a Book of Mormon because she is a book nerd. She told us she wasn't going to be converted, but that she'd love to hear what we have to say😁

Brenda came to church!! She said she would, but when church started she wasn't  there. Then we saw her walk in, it was awesome. I think she enjoyed it, so it was a good first step for her.

These are the highlights of my week. It's been a good one and even happier that one of my friends is going on a mission! God is good and He looks out for us, even when we don't see it. We're teaching a guy who says he feels nothing when he prays, but it's important to be patient. Line upon line things usually come,  not all at once. I guess that is like missionary work. It takes all those little moments to help a person come closer to Christ.

Love y'all, have a great week!

Love Sister Crofts

Someone brought them a TON of chocolate chip cookies!

Packages are fun!

Happy sister missionaries

Matching shirts!