Hello everyone <3

We had such a good week and with all of our investigators leaving for spring break we had to go out everyday and find new ones. Sometimes its good to be pushed to work. The weather is starting to heat up and I have been told its really unusual for it to be this hot in March so everyone is expecting a burning summer..pray for me. I think the people feel bad for us when they open their doors and we are standing outside sweating and exhausted but they talk to us so its worth it. 

We were able to meet a lot of cool people but one of the biggest miracles we had was a referral from the Elders in a Spanish ward. They had gotten a media referral for a girl that has already taken all the lessons and had been on baptism date back in Nebraska but moved here and she wanted to pick up where she left off. We met with her yesterday before church and talked to her about her testimony and why she wanted to be baptized. Anyways long story short she has gone through a lot and she knows that this church is true. By the end of our little meeting we had her back on date for April 15th. I literally had nothing to do with her progress in the church but Heavenly Father knows all of his children and he will make sure that the elect are found. Media referrals are one of Gods greatest tools.

Yesterday after church we were able to drive out with the Chaparral branch president and a set of Elders over the area. It is a super small town in the middle of no where New Mexico that consists of stay dogs and dirt. We went out to find their YSA's invite them to come to our activities. We didn't end up seeing anyone haha but it was cool to see what its like our there. I got some pictures that I will attach. I love being YSA over 3 stakes...we get to go everywhere and see where all the other missionaries around serve.

This weekend we have the "Sunday that no one missed". We are hoping to get 100 people to come. We have been passing out invitations and our ward mission leader even came out with a cool video that in my opinion could be a mormon message.

Any who...I love you all so much!! I hope you have a great week!!

Love

Sister Nye

Hello all you lovely people,

I don't even know where to begin...this week flew by so so fast. We spent a lot of time looking for investigators and referrals and got a lot of doors shut in our faces but it was still a lot of fun. For some reason all of our referrals either don't have a working phone or we don't have their address so we cant drop by. Yesterday we spent 2 hours knocking every door in an apartment complex looking for a girl named Abigail that is dating a member in our ward. He didn't know her apartment number so he just gave us some directions like "take a right once you hit the brick wall, go down the stairs and you will see a tree...her apartment is the one next to the one with the bush in the front" anyways we didn't want to miss it so it seemed easier knock every one and be safe than sorry....in the end we didn't find her but we met a lot of cool people and even got some referrals for other missionaries.

Training a new missionary has been quite the experience... not so much for her but for me. I mean I hope that she is learning, growing and gaining a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ but every day I am pushed out of my comfort zone and I have noticed that it has cause me to grow a lot more. i have really been focusing on the spiritual promptings that I receive and yesterday we had a really cool experience that Ill share.

We had gotten home it was around 8 o'clock and our appointment had canceled. We were going to have companionship study but all the sudden two names from back in October popped into my head that were given us by other missionaries in our zone. We had previously tried contacting them but they were never home so we just stopped trying to meet with them. I decided last night that we would go find them even though I didn't have an address to their apartment building. In my mind I was thinking that if I started driving Heavenly Father would tell me where to go...it didn't exactly happen like that so we had to call someone for the address and it turns out we were pretty close. I remembered which apartment number was theirs and GUYS THEY WERE HOME!!! Seriously what a tender mercy...4 months have passed since the last time we went by and finally they were there and willing to meet!!! ahh... I was so excited! Hopefully something will come out of it!

I love you so much!!!! 

Love,

Sister Nye

March 7, 2017

Hello all my loves,

It was such a great week and Sister Vasquez and I are working together super well. She has totally come out of her shell. On Friday night our appointment cancelled and it was to late to knock door so she wanted to go to Walmart to talk to people. I love Sister Vasquez... the first thing she did was go to the ice cream isle and ask a random lady about a certain brand. The lady straight up ignored her so she asked again. When the lady ignored her the second time Sister Vasquez just looked at me with the most sad puppy dog face and shuffled her way back to our cart. I give her 10/10 for creativity. She is so willing to talk to everyone and it is her favorite thing to make people smile. Ahh! I love it.

A couple of emotionally hard things happened this week involving members, investigators and less actives. I was taking it all pretty hard and I don't know how to explain how I felt other than my heart just hurt. I wanted to help them all so bad but there was nothing we could do as missionaries so I felt helpless. I am so thankful for the scriptures, prayer and good friends though. Although these feelings didn't go away as soon as I prayed I still felt the comfort I needed to get though it. Also tender mercy when all of this happened I got a letter from Elder Barnard that was totally what I needed. Its been a couple days now and everything has worked out. Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us and even when trials come we can feel comfort in knowing that it is for our benefit.

We were able to go to the temple yesterday and it was perfect. I have missed the temple to much and all the peace it brings. I got the biggest impression while in the session of how little time I have on my mission and how I need to work hard and be diligent every second of each day.A member in our ward bought me the bible videos and I started watching them on Sunday during dinner and I felt so overwhelmed as I watched the final moments of the Saviors life and when he appeared to Mary.  He has done everything for me and I have this time right now to devout everything I have to him and this work. I feel so honored to wear his name every single day and I hope that I can represent his name well. 

I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week!!! 

Love,

Sister Nye

Hi Loves,

This week has been really good and its all because my companion is the sweetest thing that has ever happened to this planet. Her name is Sister Vasquez and she is from Utah...of course. She is straight from the MTC and she is going to be a powerhouse/she already is. The members love her and you cant help but fall in love with her when you see her.

Training has been interesting haha. I do not feel qualified at all but I am praying that Sister Vasquez will be able to learn and we will be able to grow together. We have been role playing a lot and I have been learning so much from it...probably more than she is. I am excited to see what happens in these next couple of weeks as she begins to break out her shell!

I hope this was the right thing to do but I threw her right into teaching and we have only gone tracting once for an hour. I love teaching and being busy because it makes time go by and it feels like we are fulfilling our purpose. 

We have been taking a family history class so that in the near future we will be able to teach our own class at UTEP and use it as a finding activity. The institute here also put together a council that Sister Vasquez and I can go on campus and set of a table that says "Talk with a Mormon" hahaha...We have been told that there has been some success in our mission doing just that on other college campuses.

This Saturday we got to attend the stakes women's conference and the theme was "Hope in Christ". I left so uplifted and optimistic. I love hope. Whenever we share the plan of Salvation we always emphasize the JOY and HOPE that comes from it. A scripture I have been sharing a lot lately is Mosiah 4:6-7 because it talks about the knowledge we have of the goodness of God. I hope you are all able to ponder your testimony. How bless we are to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father and he has created a plan for us so that we can return to live with him and our families forever. I know that this life is not the end and although we face many challenges and trials that this is but a small moment and through Jesus Christ we are able to have peace. This is where my hope comes from. 

I love you all so much!

Love

Sister Nye

AHHHHHHHHHH,

Hi loves of my life.....I am so stressed and excited. I got a call from my mission president this week and he asked me to train a new missionary. I wasn't expecting it at all. I thought for sure Sister Plitt and I would be together another transfer but nope. The Lord has other plans for us. I will be staying in YSA and Sister Plitt is going up to Albuquerque. I honestly feel like I have only been with her for a week. Transfers go by so fast...

If anyone has any tips for training please let me know! I wasn't able to be on the trainer conference call that my mission president gave so I kinda feel in the dark! 

Eric and Grecia got Baptized on Saturday!! Both had beautiful baptisms. Grecia is super shy so only wanted her mom and aunt and those that needed to be there for the ordinance to attend. There was such a special spirit there.

Eric brought his whole family and they all took Books of Mormon so we will see if anything good comes out of that!! I have been waiting for his baptism for months now and had had tears in my eyes the entire time. Eric was my first lesson in the field and it has been so crazy/amazing to see this change in his life!

Well tomorrow is going to be crazy. I drop off sister Plitt at 1:50 and pick up the new sister. Everyone Pray that she will enjoy her first week! The first day is exhausting and overwhelming so she will need lots of prayers but I know she will find so much joy in this work!! I cannot wait to see her reaction when she teaches her first lesson and the investigator feels the spirit. It is truly the best feeling out there!

Love,

Sister Nye

A little Tribute to Elder Barnard:

Roses:

-Staying YSA

-Eric and Grecias baptisms

-training a new missionary

Thorns:

-Buddy and Killian are moving this week.

-Sister Plitt is leaving me

-A centipede was in our apartment and Sister Plitt made me Vacuum every room while she stood on a chair screaming.  

Hello Everyone that I love so much and hope have the best Valentines day ever,

A lot happened this week which is always the best because sitting idle on a mission makes minutes feel like hours. I got to take a trip up to Albuquerque for a training and it was so much fun and I learned a lot. It was super weird to be out of my area though since I haven't left El Paso in 4 months. It almost felt like a different planet. Also another bonus of the trip was that I got to see my wonderful trainer Sister Hazen! I have missed her so much and it felt like a dream to see her again.

We have been teaching a lot but instead of teaching people who have a lot of desire to change we have been teaching people who want to learn what mormons believe. I have learned a lot this week about the difference the Holy Ghost can make in the lives of those who want to repent vs those that just want information. I was reminded that I can only bring the spirit to them and that it is their job to allow him into their hearts. 

My companion and I have been planning a family history night for our recent converts and they are all so excited. Sadly Killian and Buddy are moving at the end of the month(downside of ysa) but they surprised us yesterday and told us they are planning to go to the temple next week to do baptisms for the dead. I love seeing them progress in the gospel. It makes my heart so happy and I know these steps they are taking now is going to strengthen their faith.

Eric and Grecias baptisms for Saturday are officially planned! It is such a sigh of relief, especially for Eric. He is still in shock that he gets to be baptized!

AHHH sorry I have to leave so I got to cut this short!

I love you all!!

Sister Nye

Happy Valentine's Month

Hello lovely people,

This week we got super good news! Eric got approved by the first presidency of the church to get baptized! When we got the call from our mission president we were shaking and speechless. We got to call him that night and tell him and he instantly started spurting out who he wanted to do what and when and how! He has already given everyone assignments and he chose his date! The church will be gaining the coolest new member on February 18th!  The members in our ward are so excited. All of us have been waiting months for this. Woohoo!

Grecia was also able to come to church this week and she chose the 18th to be baptized as well. She is super shy so she only wants us and her family to be there. She has the strongest testimony already and we have only been teaching her for 2 weeks. I'm pretty sure she has gotten every LDS/mormon app ever created on her Ipad but its awesome because it helps her to understand the Book of Mormon. 

I was reading in Mosiah this week when Abinadi is preaching to King Noah and his priests and all the sudden it just hit me how truly incredible Abinadi is. 

He was called of God to cry repentance and he refused to stop or deny his message even when he was threatened to be put to death. As I was reading I was thinking and questioning Abinadi's purpose. I realized that he suffered death just so that one person named Alma could learn of Christ and the atonement. Alma took Abinadi's words and wrote them down and converted hundreds.

Abinadi never got to see the fruits of his labors and I don't think he cared. He knew what he was supposed to do and without any hesitation he fulfilled his calling. I know God has an important purpose for all of us and if we listen to his prompting we will be able to touch hundreds and thousands of people.

Sorry this email is short! I love you all so much! I hope each of you have a fantastic week! 

Love 

Sister Nye