If you can't tell....

If you can't tell I have a new email address. The Church just updated the email service and are now coordinating with gmail, so our email is much better, we won't lose emails because gmail automatically saves, we will receive email instantly instead of having to log out and back in to see if anything came while we were writing... it is just all around better! (but no g-chat of course) My new email address is brynn.ladd@myldsmail.net, so just the same as my gmail. Anything sent to the old email address will still get to me, but you should go ahead and start emailing me here.

I don't have much time to write because we have a district meeting today (yes, on our pday, but we had a zone activity yesterday on their pday so it balances out) so I will probably just be pasting most of my letter to President into this one. So for the last week it has been pouring rain almost everyday except for yesterday. It is beautiful! I'm sure I wouldn't think it is so beautiful if I was on bike, but I do. I was sad when it didn't rain yesterday, but the rain is back today! However, the work hasn't stopped because of the rain, in fact, we seem to find so many more people at home (though there haven't been hardly any outside). We have been having a lot of success contacting referrals that the English Elders give us, and they have been finding a lot of hispanics recently. Of course some of them aren't interested, but we have made a few appointments and have a lot of hope for the ones we have yet to contact. Our zone had a fast from Monday to Tuesday and Hna Lopez and I have already seen the fruits of it. We each fasted for our individual areas and the needs they have, but since we fasted as a zone we were able to be unified in our desires to improve the work. One thing Hna. Lopez and I have been trying to improve is getting more fixed appointments. Since the beginning of my mission that has been a struggle with the hispanics, trying to get them to commit to being home at a certain time, and then having them there when they do commit. We have a few appointments set up for the rest of the week though, and we are hoping they hold. We are also starting language classes through our stake this week as a finding idea. We are going to be teaching Spanish to the Americans in the area and English to the Hispanics, with a little overlap so that they can practice together. Our hope in this is to help the English members be able to communicate with their Spanish neighbors so that we can receive member referrals. We already have a lot of interest for it. Larry Farnsworth, the husband of our recent convert (they were also just called as branch missionaries!) is very excited and has already started asking all of his coworkers for any Spanish contacts they have. Rosalva goes to other English classes and after the first day she told us "There are so many people there that I want to bring into the gospel." They are really feeling the light of the gospel in their lives because they have such a great desire to share it. We also had another couple called as branch missionaries, so we now have 4 in the branch, the most we've had since I've been here. I probably have a new favorite thing about my mission every week but one of the top ones is that, our branch, our members and recent converts. They love us so much and have such desires to share the gospel. One of my other all time favorite things about the mission is the children. Members and nonmembers alike, they treat us like their heroes. I have seen the children in the branch grow up so much in the past 5 months. The daughter of one of our less-active members has been learning to talk since I've been here and we were there when one of her first words was "mana". At church last week one of the sisters was bringing her son back in to the chapel and when he passed us he turned around and ran back and gave us hugs. Another little boy likes to run around the chapel and 2 weeks ago as he was approaching our pew he stopped and saw Hna Lopez and said "Hermana Lopez!" in the middle of sacrament meeting. We were dropping off flyers for our Spanish classes at another chapel last Sunday and when we walked down the hall the primary was getting out and a little boy tugged on his mom's arm and said "look mom, it's the missionaries!" There is so much meaning in the words of the scriptures when we are told to become like little children, and so much truth when Christ tells us that "for of such is the kingdom of God." I think that is what I will miss the most when I go home. The people I can keep in contact with, the places I can visit, but never again will little children recognize me by a name tag and be so excited to see a real live missionary.

Desde Mesa con amor,
Hermana Ladd