California Ventura Mission: Maira Got MARRIED!!!! 03/28/2016

Hello family!!! The news you've all been waiting for:

I am being transferred to Camarillo!!!! That means OXNARNIA!!! It is in the Oxnard 5th ward! Right next to Oxnard 6th ward! I am so excited! And Selena, who was baptized while I was in Oxnard 6th lives in those boundaries!!

We are running around like crazy people because we are white-washing out and Elders are coming in to replace us. That means we have to clean up all of the Hermana hair from the last 15 months... (seriously, that is how long Hermanas have lived in our apartment...we have so much junk everywhere!) But it's okay. There have been an exceptional amount of creepy men telling us how beautiful we are lately...so the Elders can deal with them. haha.

I am going to go by a tote today and leave it at Tifanny's house! I am so grateful for her! It has been so fun living my her. That means we have to all travel back a few weeks after I get home and visit her. :)

I am so grateful for the time I have been able to spend here in Santa Maria. We have seen so many miracles! The beginning of the transfer Hna Eames came in and told me that we were going to be preparing to have a baptism every week of the next transfer, and we worked so hard all transfer long to make that happen! We saw so many miracles from it. This coming Sunday, Elahny Garcia will be baptized. She is not technically counted as a convert baptism because she is still 8, but the branch president asked us to teach her and prepare her, because her family was less active and her dad is in jail. The week after, Maira Vargas will be baptized. She got married this last Saturday, and she is so excited to get baptized and prepare for a temple sealing. When we taught her about that she said, "Oh!! I like that better!" And she's already invited us to come to the temple when that happens. :) The week after the other Hermanas have a baptism with their investigator, Alejandro, and we are teaching his friend, Arturo. He is also very prepared, and we think he might be able to be baptized along side Alejandro! We are also working with a less-active family - la familia Lopez. Hno. Lopez has an interview this saturday with the branch president to see when he can get the priesthood to baptize his 9 year old son - Misael. We have another investigator, Samuel Cano who did have a baptismal date of the 9th, but we know he won't be ready by then. We are hoping he will be ready by the end of next transfer. There are so many other people in this area as well that are so incredible and so close to baptism. It was such a privilege serving here, and serving with a companion who had the faith the bring this goal into my life. I have never been so focused on preaching repentance and baptizing converts. This whole transfer has been a miracle! We are excited to leave our efforts in the Lord's hands as he works through the Elders coming in to lograr esta meta!

Hermana Eames and I have become really good friends! We think very differently, but we learned how to work with each other in a loving way that assured the things we did were what the Lord wanted us to do. We saw so many miracles, and we had so much fun together! She has a lot of faith, and she loves these people so much. She is an incredible missionary! Fun fact: we were working on family history this week and Hna Eames looked over at my screen and was like, "Your grandma was a Hart? My grandma was a Hart!" So now we have to find out if we are related. :)

I have grown a deeper love for my Savior this week as I have studied about the last week of His life on this earth. I have learned a lot from the example of all of the people around him as well. From the story of Peter cutting of the man's ear, I learned that Jesus Christ can make the best out of everything we do - even our mistakes. As I learned from a letter from Hna Jeronimo - he takes our 5 loaves and 2 fish and multiplies them into what He needs them to be.

Okay so a few people have requested more details about us driving to Santa Barbara last week for zone conference when it was actually in Santa Maria...

So we pulled in and once we realized no one was there and we had read the text wrong we called the mission president. I was suppose to be playing the piano and apparently he had just leaned over to Sister Felix and said, "Where are they - they live 5 minutes away!" I think he had just pulled out his phone to text us or something, and so he saw us calling he answered while seated on the stand in front of everyone. He whispered, "Where are you?" We told him we were really dumb and what happened and he just said, "Okay - see you soon." We sat by them at lunch but he didn't really say anything else about it. He did make a few jokes about it though later on to us though haha. But everyone knew because apparently one of the zone leaders had announced I would play the piano and then an Elder walked up. We had a couple stories we told people as our excuse. One was that we were saving someone from getting attacked by a bear, and the other was that there was a shooting around our apartment complex and so we couldn't leave. Our zone leader believed the second one... But don't worry, we told him the actual truth!

On Saturday we drove back to Santa Barbara for the baptism of one of Hna Eames' old investigators. Then we rushed back the Maira's wedding!! It was so awesome! And then we went to Women's Conference. What did you all think of it? I loved it so much! I loved the part where they told the story of the lady that did a huge service project and then the spirit told her, "You have done a great thing. Now go and serve your neighbor across the street." What I got out of Women's Conference was "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." The Lord really does magnify our efforts - just like Hna Jeronimo said!

I am super excited for General Conference this weekend!!! I encourage you all to prepare questions for it! You will get a lot more out of it. It is such a wonderful opportunity to hear the prophet's voice! I know the Lord speaks through his servants.