Random Lessons

   This week has been so great!  We have had a lot of times where our lessons fall through and our back ups would be there and let us in!  It was so great to be able to share the message of the Restoration with them!  The missionary broadcast was so great and I learned a lot!  One of my favorite things that I was reminded of was that our purpose is to baptize and to call to repentance.  I really liked the statistics that we were shown that the baptismal rate is much higher when the investigators are found through the members of our wards! 
   This Thursday was so great!  It was my first exchange in MY area and it was so different!  I learned a lot and had to rely on the Spirit so much to overcome the fact that my companion didn't speak Spanish.  It was difficult, but I learned so much in that one day!  We had our first drop (which means they will no longer spend time teaching that person/family)  of my mission this week.  We dropped our investigators Juanita and Victor, because they won't get married or separate in order to come to church.  That really was a good experience, because we knew this was best for them and we did it out of love for them.  Another family, the R.'s who for a while haven't been as interested as before, called us back and the mom, M., said she wanted to get baptized!  The entire family came to church and was welcomed so lovingly by the branch!  That was so great to see!  It goes to show that hard work and obedience eventually pays off!
   (No pictures this week, which makes a missionary mom sad.  I'll be praying to see his face next week!)
Here's a great video about why Mormons send out missionaries, like Elder Jarnagin, out into the world-

https://youtu.be/nD6Z7V4-PfA

Sadness from Investigators

   This week has been pretty great, but it has been one of the hardest as well.  Not much to report.  I am improving in talking and teaching more in lessons and Elder Franco has been letting me take charge of more lessons, which is hard, but it's good to help me grow.  We had many more member present lessons this week and we could really feel the difference.  
   This week was really hard because Cesar Chavez, who was rapidly progressing, told us he does not believe in the law of tithing.  We have tried so many times to talk to him, but he never wants to.  This has really been my first real experience with the sadness missionaries feel because of their investigators not following commitments and not progressing.  This has been a great experience to learn and to grow and I learned more fully that we always need to rely on the Lord.  Elder Franco and I had the opportunity to fast for Cesar and nothing has happened yet, but I know something will down the road, in the Lord's time! 

   On a side note from Mom, I received this picture from a member in the area this week-

Apparently Elder Jarnagin's basketball skills have really leveled up!  (He was actually helping her set up for a youth activity, where they set up a platform in front of the stage.  He jumped from there...;)

Smile!

  This week has been so great!   We have been having a lot of lessons with the Family Chavez and he has been very accepting and is steadily progressing for his baptismal date on the 30th!   We had a lot of success with talking to people in the most random places. We were getting gas on Wednesday and a Mexican woman pulled up and we began to tell her about the restoration when she broke down into tears!  She said she needed this message and she would call us later on. We had exchanges on Thursday and I got to use my bike down in Truckee River, a biking area in the middle of Reno.  I was with our District Leader's companion, Elder Gamble.  He is more reserved than other elders, but he has a great gospel knowledge and genuinely cares about people.  It is always so different serving in English, but I learned a lot from Elder Gamble! 

The Mission Tour with Elder Robbins was so great and it really gave me more confidence to be diligent in street contacts!  Saturday was something special, it was just a regular day, but I felt so happy all day and it was just because I tried to smile more.  It was so great to see the impact a more positive effort has on our attitudes about missionary work!

Dropped

   We had a lot of great things happen this week and a lot of sad things.  We had few people drop us and that was kind of hard to take.  A couple of our solid investigators said they aren't really interested and that was super sad to hear.  We did have a lot of good things happen to us though!  We had a lot more member support this week, we had one lesson where we were driving to it when Elder Franco told me to call a member that usually can't come out with us, but he was willing and able to come with us right then!  We had a part member couple come to church this week, the Chavez's.  The husband is an investigator and the wife is less active.  We have been working to get them to come to church since I arrived and it was such a blessing to have them there yesterday!  I know if we keep working diligently we will see miracles out here!
 This is 'Nevada Chloe'-

Compared to our dog in New Hampshire, the real Chloe-

Christmas Miracle!

Homemade Christmas Tree and presents

     This week has been amazing!  On Monday, we had the opportunity to have a dinner with some of our investigators and it was so great to show them that we are regular people too!  Christmas Eve was fantastic as well!  Even though we were red dotted for a while (this means the weather was considered too severe to go out in it) and then we didn't have much success with the snow and everyone inside.  It got to the point where we had an hour before dinner and we decided to pray to find a new investigator and we found one!  It was so awesome to see our prayer answered!  

   

   Christmas was so amazing!  We had a wonderful breakfast with some members and got to Skype our families which was so amazing!  It was great to hear from them and see them again!  My family had somehow received a package containing some of the contents of the stolen package with no idea how it got there.  What a miracle!

   Saturday we committed a lot of our investigators to come to church and one family came, which was so amazing! We have had more success this week talking and sharing messages with people on the street which has been great.  Elder Franco has been saying less and relying on me to say more, which is getting me out of my comfort zone and that has been really helpful in helping me grow!  Another fantastic week in the mission!

Robberies and growth

This was the first thing we saw/heard from Elder Jarnagin this week- it was a sad way to start!

   This week was rather interesting.  We had a slow week, until the Christmas party on Saturday for the branch where we had our investigator, Manuel, show up, which was so awesome!  We got back to our apartment that night and some of our neighbors informed us that I had been robbed.  Apparently, there was a package on the doorstep and during the time we were gone to the Christmas party three boys came, opened it, and took everything inside.  The neighbors filed a police report and since then it has been an interesting growing experience.  Earlier in the week I felt myself just going through the motions, so I prayed for a trial to grow more.  Heavenly Father answered my prayer.  I recognized that and through that I am trying to use this experience to grow to be more Christ-like.  It is hard to have charity for those that do things, like steal my stuff, after my family put time and effort into finding the gifts, but I have found that through humble prayer and asking the Lord to support me, it is possible.  I also found that just getting out there and working hard was the easiest way to bring back that joy to my heart.  It was so cool to experience that! 

Out working hard with Elder Franco.

Dinner with familia Vivas

Dinner with familia Perez

   Another blessing/miracle we saw was one of our dropped investigators called us, because he wanted to talk with us!  We asked how he was doing and re-committed him to a baptism on January 2nd.  What a miracle!  We are going to try our hardest to help him fulfill this goal! 

  Today as we were leaving to go shopping, I felt impressed to look up the hill where the kids had run off with my gifts and I found one they dropped!  What a miracle!  This week sure has been interesting but I am so grateful for this opportunity to come closer to my Savior!

The found gift...

We sent him a fleece blanket with pictures from this past year printed on it.

Their shoes after finding the stolen gift on the hill.

Slowly but Surely

   This week was slow when it came to missionary work.  A lot of lessons cancelled and we spent a lot of time looking for people that had been referred to us because they were Spanish speaking.  We helped a less active church member move out of her boyfriends house who is an investigator who dropped us.  I felt bad because she owned most of the stuff in the house and the house was close to empty when we were done.  
   We had exchanges again and I went down to south meadows again, this time with Elder Day, Elder Shearers companion.  He is really good and natural at street contacts, so I learned a lot.  We had a great lesson with Juanita and Victor yesterday with our new Ward Mission Leader, Hermano Larios.  It was great because he was able to share his conversion story and his testimony of blessings and we were able to give their two year old daughter a blessing.  Their daughter has a heart defect and I anointed, in Spanish.  It was scary, but the Spirit guided me and it turned out alright.  I am so thankful for having willing members to come to lessons with us and for the guidance of the Spirit in all that we do in the field.
  A note from Mom-  In my email, I asked what happened with the blue gems and stones they found last week.  He said that they took them over to the home of some church members who live close in the area and called the police.  As far as he knew today, the police have not gotten back to them yet.

  Some of you asked if Elder Jarnagin or Elder Franco was driving when they got the speeding ticket last week.  With a sigh of relief, I can report that it was not Elder Jarnagin.