Six months!!

hola todos, 

so it looks like i will be giving you all a big hug in ONE YEAR! holy cow. time is flying! i thought that since i hit the six month mark in my mission that i would change my weekly update email to a "bre update" and write the things that i have learned these past six months.

in the past six months i have learned:

to eat chile... with everything (fruit, suckers, rice, soup... you name it)

to eat tortillas with every meal

to speak spanish (well... almost)

to take a freezing cold five minute shower every morning

to pray

to love the Book of Mormon 

to share happiness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone that i meet

that Jesus Christ is my Savior and redeemer

and

that i am a daughter of God.

i couldn´t be more grateful for the past six months that i have had in my mission. i feel so lucky for the opportunity that i have to be here in mexico serving the people of merida. i have learned so much these past months and i know that the things that i have learned are things that i couldnt have learned without the decision to serve a mission. the only thing that i haven´t learned so far in my mission is how to endure the heat here! PRAY FOR CLOUDS.

i love you all,

SEE YOU IN ONE YEAR!

hermana williams

General Conference Weekend

hola todos,

wow. what a weekend.

i hope everyone loved general conference. i sure did. guess what? i got to watch conference in ENGLISH. it was SO wonderful. all of the american missionaries gathered around on the couches in the mission offices to watch it from the tv, and of course the elders brought snacks to share. i felt like i was at home watching conference with my family.

my absolute favorite talk was president uchtorf's talk about being grateful and how we have the choice to be grateful.

after the confernece ended, hermana argueta and i and 14 other missionaries went to dinner at elder and hermana esteves house. they are missionaries in the temple and live right behind the temple in a little gated community. they are so so so so sweet too. it was such a great way to ended conference weekend.

also, hermana argueta and i encountered a miracle this week. hermano jose roberto, who is one of mine and hermana infante's old investigators moved back into his house this week. he is 28, and cousins with the herrera family in our ward. when hermana infante and i first started teaching him he told us that he was getting a divorice and that he would be moving out of his house to live with his parents within the week. well, this week his cousin giselle called us and told us that he moved back in to his house and that he wanted to meet with us the next day. we went to meet with him and he told us that while he was really sad that he remembered from our lessons that he could pray and talk to heavenly father, and he remembered that the steps to saying a prayed were in the back of his book of mormon. well he started praying and started reading the book of mormon little by little every day. he told us that pray slowly started to change his life and give him the help and strength he needed to fix things with his wife. he is now living at home and slowly becoming happier and happier each day. his baptismal date is set for this month, on the 26th! i am so thankful for the book of mormon and the power of prayer and the power that it has to change lives. 

i love you all.

have such a great week!

hermana williams

ps... hermana argueta told me that this week i woke her up at 1:30 in the morning to say our morning prayers. i don't remember a thing hahaha.

20

hola mi familia,

well this week i turned 20! i feel so lucky to have been in mexico on my birthday and to have celebrated it with my large extended second mexican family here. it is hard to describe all the love that i felt that day, and the next day, and the next. in the past three days i have eaten 4 different cakes with four different families! calories dont count in the mission, right?

on my birthday hermana glendy took hermana argueta and i out for authentic yucateca food. i finally tried cochinita, which is apparently the most popular food in the state of yucatan, and i loved it! then we went to the herrera family's house to have a lesson with their cousin and after the lesson we had cake... but the cake ended up getting all over my face. apparently the tradition here is after everyone sings happy birthday that the person who is having a birthday has to take a small bite of the cake and me, without knowing, took a bite of the cake and got my face pushed into it. ahhhhh got to love the traditions here. then afterwards we went to the stake center to watch general conference. i feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to watch general conference on my birthday. i loved listening to the messages and seeing the conference center. it was such a beautiful experience.

also, i loved your package! i cried the whole time because i have the sweetest, cutest and most creative mom ever. thank you so much mom, and mitchell jake and dad. i loved all the cute things that mom put in my package but i especially loved your birthday cards. i am so thankful to have the best family is the world, and im glad to know you're all exactly the same. mitchell's letter said "hey bre, happy birthday, you're so old. while i'm writing this letter mom is crying and dad is listening to some sad song and crying too so you could say things are pretty cool around here" hahahaha i died. also he told me to celebrate with a coke but i'll have to put that off until next year (and two weeks) wow time is flying by so quickly.

i love you all so much!

i can't wait to chill with you all soon

hasta la vista baby,

hermana williams

oh also, hermana argueta and i and the alonzo amily didn't end up getting to go through the temple because it was closed for conference so hopefully we will get to go on april 12th, their new date.

oh, and we had transfers! i'm staying in centro with sweet hermana argueta. 

ps, happy birthday uncle marty! hope you have a great day. love you!

eternas pueden ser las familias

hola mi familia,

first of all thank you so much for all of the sweet birthday balloons, all 20 of them landed right outside my front door this morning! i loved reading the little notes that everyone sent me but i´m a little sad that jake never sent me one hahaha.

well i hardly have time to write but this week has been so great, and i have some exciting news for next week... i get to go to the temple this saturday, ON MY BIRTHDAY! our ward mission leader and his family have been members of the church for about three years now but they haven´t entered the temple yet. when hermana infante and i first met hermano edgar and his family we started teaching and preparing them to enter in the temple and be sealed as a family. this sunday the alonzo family invited us over for lunch and after lunch they told us that they had a special announcement for us. we all gathered around in their front room and hermano edgar, hermana carol and their 4 kids all sat togther on one small couch and we sang "eternas pueden ser las familias" or in english "families can be together forever" and then told us that this saturday they are going to enter the temple to be sealed as a family. it was the sweetest moment. they asked us if we would be able to attend and i knew we wouldn´t be able to but i called our president anyways to ask and by some miracle... he said YES. i am so happy for the alonzo family and for the oppotunity that they have to enter in the temple and be sealed as a family this saturday. i am also so thankful for the resorted gospel in my life and that through the restored gospel by the power of the preisthood we have the opportunity to be sealed as eternal families.

i love you all so much my sweet eternal family! it will be a little hard to be apart from you all this week but know that i am so so happy here and that i am here in mexico with my second family. 

i love you!

hermana williams

Birthday Celebration!

This week is Breannes birthday.  March 29th!  I can't believe she will be 20!

We decided to still have a party for her even though she is far from home. 

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRE!!!   WE LOVE AND MISS YOU SO SO MUCH!

five months!

mi familia!

as of yesterday i have been out in my mission for five months... can you believe it!? TIME IS FLYING. really it has been the fastest five months of my life.

well this week has been so so great. at the start of the week we had zone conferences all day tuesday and wednesday. we listened to talks and had a bunch of practices. i loved the conferences but the best part of the conferences was that two hermanas, hermana nuñez and hermana cardenas, in our zone had to stay with us for those two days because their area is far away so basically we had a big giant two day sleepover. the first night we said our prayers and climbed into our hammocks around 10:30 but didn´t end up going to to sleep until after midnight because we talked and talked and talked... and the next night might have been worse hahaha.

hermana argueta and i have been teaching two "POTENTE" new investigators this week, hermana odysey and hermano govanni. hermana odysey is the director of the zoo... so we have been teaching her IN THE ZOO in a quiet spot next to the flamingos. hermano govanni is a friend of one of the young women, trini, in our ward so we had a friend home evening thursday night and we have been teaching him almost every day since. he came to church alone yesterday because trini couldnt come but he didnt want to miss it. they are both so so great and progressing so rapidly and... they both have a baptismal date for saturday march 29th. oh what a birthday that would be! please pray for them that they can keep progressing.

oh also yesterday i had to give two talks! TWO. one talk in sacrament and another talk in a conference that our stake had with our ward mission leaders. the bishop called hermana argueta and i saturday afternoon to tell us that we would be giving talks the next day and then on sunday i found out an hour before the conference that i would be giving a talk -___- it was a day full of nerves but luckily both of my talks turned out alright. i am so very thankful for the gift of tongues.

okay i have to go but i love you all so much. have such a great week. the church is true. share the gospel with others. every member a missionary.

los amo,

hermana williams

March 10

¡mi familia!

hola todos, los amo mucho

well this week has been so so great, hermana emilia was baptized on saturday night! before her baptism she called hermana argueta and i and told us how happy she was and how she couldn´t wait any longer to be baptized. she ended up coming to the church an hour early to be with us while we were setting up everything to get ready for her baptism hahaha. the actual program was so beautiful. a few of the hermanas in our ward gave talks and then her son, jorge, bore his testimony. it was so sweet. he talked about how happy he is to have recently become a member of the church and how happy he is to see his mom become a member of the church one month later. i started crying during his testimony. i feel so lucky to have been an instrument in the lord´s hands to help bring the gospel into jorge´s life and now emiia´s life. hermana argueta and i are fasting and praying that soon we can also bring the gospel into the lives of the rest of the viloria familia.

oh also.... we celebrated with hot dogs again after the baptism hahaha. 

i wish i had more time to write but i have to go. i love you all so so much! you are all in my prayers. have such a great week.

i love you!

hermana williams