Email from Zaragoza

Hola familia que tal????

How are you all? Wow, I cannot believe summer is over! Do you guys start school this week or next? That is so crazy to me; I still feel like I'm in last winter or something. Time flies so so fast! How is everything going? Thank you so much for the pictures from Bear Lake! I printed the one out of you guys on the stairs and hung it up, and I love looking at it so much! I love just staring at your faces; I miss you so much! I cannot believe how big the grandkids are!!!!! I looked at Caleb forever trying to figure out who it was and then I realized it was him! Ah, it stresses me out--tell them all to stop growing up. :)

Well, things are really good here! Mostly we are still floating from the baptisms, and we are still just so grateful for that. And the best part is that Tatiana and all the kids are going to do baptisms this week with the branch!!!!!!! We are so, so, so, so excited for them. The kids are SO excited. We are so happy, and this is such a good step to get them going to get sealed! Ah, they are the best. They are doing so well, and it´s just incredible the light they have now! Sorry I talk about them so much, it´s just that I love them so, so, so, so, so much :)

This week a really good thing happened with Rachel´s family! So when we first started meeting with Rachel, we had to come when her husband wasn´t home, because she was afraid of him knowing about it. I hadn´t met him until this week when we went there and he was home. We were a little nervous because she had said he is against the Church, but we just started talking to him and chatting with him. We ended up talking to him for a long time, and he was laughing with us, and he said we should come back! He later left cause he had to work, but Rachel just looked at us and started squealing, and she was so so happy that he listened. So we are doing an FHE with them this week and we are so excited! 

Ari and Ricardo are doing well--they are reading and praying and coming to church and the activities. They are getting baptized for sure, it´s just a matter of when :) But my goal is to baptize this whole family and have Rachel get her eternal family that she wants more than anything in the whole world. :) We also had a really cool miracle--last week at the FHE that we do every Friday night with the branch, one family invited their friends, a family of 4 from Ecuador. They came and loved it! We did water games, and they had so much fun and connected really well with everyone. We were so excited! So this week we did a FHE in the house of the members with this family and we taught the Plan of Salvation. They had really good questions and loved it all! We are so excited because it´s a family, and we can´t wait to teach them! It was such a huge miracle that this family just fell into our lap cause of the members. :)

Speaking of the activities, they are going really well! Hermana Noakes is amazing at planning things--when it comes to having fun, she takes it really seriously haha. :) So we plan the FHE every week and have a message and then games and food. Tons of people come and investigators are coming a lot. We are finding so many people to teach, but also the branch has a completely different feeling since we´ve started the activities. Everyone is so much more united, and there´s so much more love here. It´s amazing. I know Ana and Mateo wouldn´t have gotten baptized without the activities. Also we do zumba every Friday before the FHE and it´s so fun. Hermana Noakes and I teach it and it´s hilarious! But so many people come--even the men do zumba! We have so much fun, and it´s such a good way to bring people together. So many good things are happening here, it´s amazing. :)

Oh, and another miracle! Last week I found out that Jakeline got baptized! Do you remember the 15-year-old girl we were teaching in Badalona? She got baptized finally! I am still writing her, and I was so, so happy when I found out. Such a blessing!

Also, yesterday we were visiting Amalia, a really sweet, old Spaniard woman who we always go visit to sing to her because her husband just died. We were talking to her yesterday and taught her the Plan of Salvation. She started crying and said that she knows that she will see her husband again and that she knows if he were here, he would accept the things we are telling her. After all this time visiting her, we just found out yesterday that a few years ago she and her husband were listening to the missionaries, but eventually lost contact with them. But they loved what they taught them and they wanted to know more. Wow! I thought she was just completely Catholic and not open to anything. But now she is totally prepared and we are going to teach her the lessons. She is so prepared and so, so, so sweet. She just can´t stop kissing us and hugging us, and she is just the sweetest woman ever. I know if she doesn't accept the gospel here, she will as soon as she gets to the other side. :)

Well family, this gospel is true. I absolutely love the hope that the gospel brings. I love thinking about hope, and I love that when we have faith in the Savior, we automatically have a hope for a better life. I know this gospel brings true happiness and that there is nothing that can replace it. True happiness is keeping God´s commandments and loving Him and loving others with everything we have. I love my Savior with all my heart, and I know that we can have a perfect hope through faith in Him and loving Him. I´m so grateful to wear His name on my chest and spread this message of hope that we have.

I love you all so, so, so much! Thank you for your support and love--it means the world to me! I love you, and have a wonderful week!!!!!!!!

Love, Hermana Boyer :)

P.S. I was wondering if anyone could send us recipes for desserts that are easy? We make brownies and no-bake cookies every week for the activities and for people, but I feel like I should branch out but don´t have any recipes haha. Thank you so much!

This is us with Tatiana´s family- we had a birthday party for Mateo!

Las Familias Pueden Ser Eternas

Hola familia!!!

How are you all? Wow, it sounds like Bear Lake was the biggest party ever!!! I love so so much all the pictures and stories and everything--thank you for sending them! I love so much the one of all of you! I cried when I saw it, cause I just love you all so much and miss you like crazy! It sounds like it was such a fun week--I love that Mom and Dad did the water weeny haha! That is the best thing I´ve ever heard. I wish I could´ve seen that! What a party, I´m so glad it was so fun. I thought about you guys a lot this week, wondering what you were doing and how it was. I can´t wait to party with y'all next summer :) But keep the pictures and stories coming, cause I love hearing about them so much!!!!!!!

Wow. This week was the biggest miracle I´ve ever had in my mission, maybe even my life! Mateo and Ana were baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can´t even tell you how amazing it was. It´s so perfect that it doesn´t seem real-- like how Christmas Day or the first week of summer isn´t real cause it´s so wonderful haha. I can´t even tell you how perfect it was. All week we visited them a ton and they were so so excited! Both of them were reading a ton and preparing for the baptism! They were so excited. We were so excited all week, we could barely stand it. We tried to make it the perfect baptism--we made tons of food and decorations and all this stuff haha--we were so happy!!!!!!!!!! Everything went perfectly except a few technical diffictulties, but it´s okay! SO many people came to support them--there are tons of youth in the branch that love this family and have just taken them under their wing--it´s amazing. A little miracle was when us 4 missionaries in the branch sang, and I was so nervous, cause I have a cold and my voice is completely gone. I was praying so hard I would be able to sing--and I could! My voice came out and I was so lucky haha. Such a tender mercy :) 

So when Ana was baptized, we were behind the font with her, and she was so excited. She was grinning the whole time during the prayer (yes, I was prayer peeking!) :) and grinned at us the whole way under the water :) When she got back up the stairs to us, we were all 3 crying and so so happy. She had this incredible light about her. Then we stayed and watched Mateo, and he grinned at us the whole time too. Ah, it was honestly one of the happiest moments I´ve ever experienced. Then after, Tatiana was giving her testimony, and she said something that melted both of us into tears: "This whole year I´ve been preparing for the temple, but I just haven´t felt like the Lord wanted me to go yet--now I realize that He just didn´t want me to go alone." Then we sang the song "Las Familias Pueden Ser Eternas" or "Families Can Be Together Forever." Hermana Noakes and I were just melted to tears because this family is eternal now. Just imagine that less than a year ago this family was falling apart with drinking and all sorts of problems--now they are headed to the temple together. It´s a joy that I can´t express because it´s too sweet. There can´t be anything sweeter than seeing the change that has come over them--especially Ana and Mateo. When I first got here, they wouldn´t even look me in the eye when I talked to them, let alone comment in lessons, come to church, or read the Book of Mormon. Now they are the ones getting their parents up to come tocChurch, they read together every day looking for answers, they are the life of every activity getting all the youth together, they call us just to see how we are, they are so outgoing and loving to everyone--and best of all, they have such strong, deep, sweet testimonies of the gospel. It´s amazing to see too how Diego when I first met him didn´t have a testimony and didn´t want to change. Now he is coming to church every week--he loves the gospel, and he is changing. He has such a sweet and sincere testimony that´s developing every day. I can´t explain the change in them--it makes me cry just thinking about it! The other day I was reading the notes from my setting apart and it says that I came on a mission in fulfillment of promises made before this life. I know with all my heart that I knew and loved this family before this life. I know that they are a huge, huge part of why I came on a mission. I love them with a love so deep and so real that I know it´s from the Lord. I would do anything for this family, and words can´t express the joy that I feel from seeing them progress. Wow, I´m a mess here as I´m writing just crying my eyes out haha! Sorry this is so mushy, but I just want you to know how deeply I love this family and how deeply I love this gospel that changes lives. It´s incredible. The Lord is so good. He is so merciful, and He has poured out countless blessings on this family. How blessed we are to be a part of it.

Here is one more really sweet thing that happened this week. So remember the Amigó family that I am obsessed with? Well, I talked to the mother on the phone and her father just died, so we can´t go visit her. But I was able to tell her over the phone how much we love her and are praying for her. They are back on vacation, but she said when they get home we can for sure visit them. (I still haven´t met them yet!!!!!!) But their son Oscar is becoming more active. A few weeks ago he came to church and the elders presented him to me, and I pretty much attacked him telling him how much I love him and his family and I want to help them so badly and all this stuff. I was so happy to finally meet someone from their family! Well, he came to church yesterday, and he said, "I´ve been thinking about the first time I met you, and I wanted you to know that I am so grateful for the love you have for my family. My family and I haven´t had love like that in years, and I can´t tell you how grateful I am that somebody cares about my family. I´ve been thinking about you so much and there are no words to describe how your love has touched me." Then right after that he said, "I know this is against the rules, but I just have to do this cause I can´t express how grateful I am any other way"--and he picked me up in a huge bear hug for 2 seconds, and before I even knew what had happened he set me back down again haha! Normally I would be super freaked out, but it was just so sweet how grateful he was, and I knew that he wanted me to know that it means a lot that I care about their family. It was really sweet.

Well, things are really good here. I just want to say that this gospel is true. There is no sweeter joy that comes from the change the gospel brings on our hearts. I have seen it firsthand how the gospel softens our hearts, refines our actions, and puts the Lord´s love in our countenances. There is no sweeter joy that comes from watching a family that was once breaking to being so happy and heading for the temple. I love this gospel with everything I have. I know that my Savior lives, and I love Him with all of my heart.

I love you all so, so, so much and thank you for all your support, love, prayers and letters! Have such a wonderful week and know that I love you so so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Hermana Boyer :)

 I love these pictures!

 The one of me and all the girls are my crew! These are all the Young Women and man, I love them so so so so much!

The one of us with the man is Oscar Amigó- the one who hugged me haha :)

Email from Zaragoza (from August 11)

Hello my wonderful family!

How are you all!!!!!!!! How is Bear Lake???? Ah, I´m so jealous--it sounds like such a party! The house is SO pretty too! Ah, I can´t wait to hear about all the adventures and everything--that sounds so fun! Dad sent me pictures, and I was dying at how pretty it was and everything! I can´t wait to hear all about it. It sounds like Sarah is quite the life of the party! I love hearing about her haha! That´s so funny. And I am so sad about little Beth´s arm! That broke my heart when I read that! I hope it gets better soon! I hope you guys have so much fun and tell me everything that happens!!!!!!!!!!!

This week was really good!!!!! I decided August is a funny month because it´s SUPER hot. Like seriously, I don´t remember what it feels like to not be drenched in sweat. And everyone, I mean everyone haha, is on vacation! Cause in Zaragoza there´s no beach, so everyone goes to the beach, but they go for the whole month. So it´s interesting! But we are loving it and it´s been a super good week.

The best news is that Ana and Mateo are for sure getting baptized on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, I don´t think there are words to express the joy we feel. I don´t think I´ve ever felt joy like this! It´s incredible the miracles that have taken place this week to get them ready for their baptism. So this whole week, Ana and Mateo have been saying that they want to get baptized, but they are just scared. So we text them and call them every day we don´t see them and have been working through them on their doubts. The best thing, though, is that they totally understand that they need to work to be prepared for their baptism, so Ana and Mateo have been reading together every day, praying that the Lord would answer their doubts. And He has!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They have had so many spiritual confirmations that they should get baptized and it´s amazing!!!!! It´s incredible to see the change that has come over their countenances--they look like different people cause they have this light about them. It´s amazing!!!!!! I cry every time I think about it. 

So finally yesterday we talked to them, and they said that they are for sure ready, and it makes them nervous, but they know it´s right and they want to do it. They are both so excited about it. It´s amazing!!!!!! Also, yesterday we were in ward council and Tatiana--their mom--broke down crying about how she´s so nervous her family will fall away again and that she has all these fears for her family. But then every member there testified how her kids are ready, that the Lord has prepared them for this, that her family won´t fall away again, and all these things. Everyone was crying and the Spirit was so strong. It was incredible!!! And now Diego is all for it--he wants his kids to get baptized, he has a testimony, and he loves the gospel. It´s incredible!!!!!! Last night we talked to Tatiana on the phone and she told us about how a year ago, her kids were completely Catholic, Diego came home drunk every night, and she was going to divorce him--now they are headed for the temple. Ah, I´m crying as I write this just thinking about it. The Lord is so good. I really feel like this family is the reason why I´m on a mission. I love them so much that there´s not even room in my heart to describe it. Ah, sorry I´m getting all mushy! But they need all the prayers we can get--so if you can all pray for Ana and Mateo together, especially while you are all together right now, I know they will feel those prayers. I´m so excited I can barely stand it!

We have had lots of amazing miracles with menos activos this week too. A few weeks ago we met with a woman who is in the military, and she said that ever since she started working in that, she has felt that God can´t exist because she´s seen so many awful things. We had an incredible lesson completely driven by the Spirit, and by the end she was crying, saying how she wants to believe in Him again, even though it hurts her. We have been meeting with her, and now she is reading the BOM every day--and she came to Church for the first time in 15 years yesterday :) The Atonement is real. It changes lives and heals hearts--I´ve seen it.

Other awesome miracles: 

- We went to eat lunch with Rachel and her family, and her whole entire family was there for a birthday party, and we got 11 new investigators from it!!!!!!!! It was amazing.
- We had 5 people come to church yesterday! For us, that´s really big.
- We have found 2 really good people to teach--one is from the street and one is the daughter of a menos activo. Both of them are reading the BOM and are going to progress really fast.

Pretty much, I love this work with all my heart. I just love the change that comes in peoples´ countenances when they accept Christ in their lives. It´s visible, it´s real. I know that the gospel changes hearts, lives and families. I am so incredibly grateful to have a front-row seat to the change that the gospel brings. I´ve seen it over and over again in other people, and I know I´m seeing it in myself as the Lord changes my heart and refines me to be better. I love it so much!

Thank you SO much for all your support and love! I hope you have such a fun week, and I will be thinking about you! I hope it´s a wonderful week together :) I love you all so so so much :)

Love, Hermana Boyer

Zumba and Soccer Make Baptism :)

Hello family! 

How are you all???? I am so sorry that I forgot to tell you that I wasn´t going to email you until today! I have felt bad about it all week haha. It´s transfers today, that´s why!!!! But how are you all?? Are you all having such a party on Butternut? I´m so jealous--it sounds so fun with all the adventures and kids and everything! Ah, I hope you are all having so much and partying it up. Take lots of pictures and write down the one-liners for me! And I am so excited to hear about Bear Lake! I hope you have so much fun! I hope it´s awesome. Huge shout-out to Sammie--I hope you had the best birthday ever! I was thinking about you, hoping that it was a wonderful day :)

This week was crazy!!!!!!!! I decided there´s just never a dull moment ever. Good news--Hermana Noakes and I are staying together another transfer! I´m so excited. She finishes her mission next transfer, so I´m her last companion (as they say in the mission, I´m going to kill her off haha). It´s super crazy. But we are having so much fun together and we are a good team, so we´re super excited. I love her so much--she is so funny and such a good missionary. 

Transfers were super sad, though, cause two of the elders in our branch went home and they decided not to send us anymore, so it´s just us four here! Saying goodbye to them was so, so sad--it was one of the hardest goodbyes ever, cause we were all so close and do everything together. So now it´s just the four of us and it´s weird, but it´s good. 

We had SO many miracles this week! I can´t even tell you. Okay, so I had an interview with President last week and he told me that if I invite every single person to be baptized in every lesson, I will have more baptisms--makes sense right? And now as a mission, we have a goal to invite at least one person every day to be baptized. That´s something that has always made me nervous, but this week we just went for it. We are inviting everyone! It´s amazing!!!!!! So we were in a lesson with Rachel, who is becoming active again, and her kids, Ari, who´s 18, and Ricardo, who´s 12. We´ve been teaching them a lot, but they never really pay that much attention. We were teaching them and I got the feeling to invite them to be baptized--and I told President I would repent, so I needed to do it. I thought to myself, "Okay, President, this is for you," and we invited them. And . . . Ari said yes!!!!! She said if she gets her answer that she will do it for sure. I was so surprised I almost fell off my chair! It was unreal. President´s advice is real. Now we are inviting everyone to be baptized and seeing so many miracles from it! It´s addicting--now I feel like inviting everyone to be baptized and talking about baptism all the time. It´s the best thing ever! I love it.

Another HUGE miracle this week: Tatiana´s family! Okay, I can´t even tell you the changes that have come over this family. So the father, Diego, used to listen to us but never had a testimony and always cared about soccer more than anything. But now, he comes to every single activity, church every Sunday, he bears his testimony in every lesson to his kids, he wants a calling--it´s incredible!!!!!!!!!!! And Alexander blesses the sacrament every week and brings his friends to listen to us! And Ana and Mateo, who were so shy you couldn´t even look them in the eye, are now the most popular kids in the branch! They have so many friends and are the life of every party!!!!! Every time I think about how far this family has come, it brings tears to my eyes. Words can´t describe how much I love this family. But Ana has never wanted to read the scriptures, no matter how much we invite her to do it. But this week at an acitivty, she came up to me so excited and with this light in her face. She said that she and her mom decided to read the scriptures together. Before they read, they prayed that her doubts about baptism would be answered. She said as they read that all of her doubts were answered and that she felt like she was talking directly to Heavenly Father. It was amazing!!!!! I was crying as she told me, and we cried together and were just hugging. She wants to get baptized and go to the temple with her family!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Right now we changed their date to the 16th because they want more time to plan it. She is still nervous about it, but we are hoping and praying with everything we have that by the 16th she will feel ready and be up for it. They are so ready, they just have to have the courage to do it. But it's amazing. I can´t even describe how much joy I feel with this family. I love them with a love that´s not even mine. They are incredible!

Ah, so many good things are happening! We are starting TONS of activities, and it´s incredible to see the change it has brought in the branch! It´s like everyone´s been waiting for acitivites to happen, but it just hasn´t yet. But everyone comes, and there are TONS of youth in this branch that serioulsy are the magic of this branch. So we have a big FHE every Friday night that so many people are coming to, we have sports every Saturday morning, we are in charge of Young Women activites every week, and we are doing Zumba every Friday! It´s so fun! We are having so much fun and seeing so many miracles from it--I really think this is a huge reason why everyone is progressing so much, because they are in the Church all the time and feeling the Spirit. It´s just incredible! Tatiana and her family come to every activity and are the life of the party at everything! The only bummer about Zumba this week was that Hermana Noakes was leading a dance and tore her ankle! She has really bad ankles, so it´s happened before, but she couldn´t finish, and one of the elders and I had to make up the rest haha. But she is doing better; we are taking it easy for her.

Another funny thing about this week--so all of the sudden everyone in the world wants to feed us! It´s crazy! We love it, though, cause we are getting so much closer to the members. So this week we ate with President and Resu at 4:30--they fed us this really thick soup and bread, and we thought we were good to go. Then she says she´ll go get the main dish. We looked at each other like, "Oh, shoot!" and she brought out this HUGE plate of fish! TONS OF FISH. It actually didn´t taste that bad, but it was SO filling. And after a huge pudding to eat. I was so full I wanted to die. Then at 8, we ate with a menos activo and she gave us Pica Macho--a Bolivian mountain hot dog, beef, fries, and fried vegetables. Hermana noakes just straight up told her she couldn´t finish after a few bites. I felt bad, though, and didn´t want her to be sad, so I ate ALL of it. Oh my gosh, I seriously don´t ever remember being that sick haha. On the way home from her pueblo, we were in the back of a bus and we were bouncing around everywhere. I was holding a barf bag and barely made it to the bathroom in time when we got home haha. Needless to say, I was up all night in the bathroom. It was really funny haha but my stomach is still messed up, and I don´t think I¨lll ever be able to eat that stuff again.

Okay, sorry--this is the longest email ever, but I just have so much to tell you! Pretty much I just want you to know that the Lord loves us SO much. This is His work. He knows His children, and if we put our faith in Him and do everything we can, He will help us bless others. He gives us miracles every minute of every day. This is His work and He´s in charge. All we have to do is be worthy to follow the Spirit and be the instruments in His hands. I am so happy to be a missionary; I love it with all my heart. I always look down at my chapa (nametag) and just smile, cause I love wearing my Savior´s name on my chest every day and doing what He would do if He were here. This church is true. I know that with all my heart, and how lucky we are to have that knowledge. 

I love you all so much and hope you have so much fun together! Know that I love you with all my heart! 

Love, Hermana Boyer :)

This is my little friend Laura--I love the young women here so so much!!!!!!!!!!

This is Hermana Noakes and I at an activity where they had to feed each other yogurt blindfolded--it was super funny!

It was Hermana Porter´s one-year mark in the mission, so we burned a shirt haha.