8 Mar 2011

Mom,

Thank you for the email. It was pretty great! I enjoyed reading it all. We've had a crazy week this week, but once again, I've forgotten my post it note, so we'll see how this email turns out. Haha. Well, maybe I'll try to attach some pictures and that can help jog my memory. I swear, my memory has gotten worse and better all at the same time. Haha.

We had a great district meeting last Wednesday. And I had this really cool experience preparing for it. I had to talk about teaching people, not lessons. And I prayed really hard to have the Spirit help me to teach what my district needed to hear. Everything I prepared went AWESOMELY along with what everyone had and it was a great meeting. We spent all day in Yakima and got to see lots of less actives in the Spanish branch. Pretty productive.

I went on exchanges with Sister Holmes Wednesday night to Thursday night. It went splendidly and even though I had some weird feelings and thoughts during parts of the exchange, it went really well. We got to teach a lot of people and just, great. I love Sister Holmes, she's so awesome! I also had this really weird/cool experience that night. I was praying for more charity and patience. I was kind of stressed and after I ended my prayer, I felt my heart soften and just this peace came over me. It was really weird because I could actually feel my heart getting soft, but it was, so cool. I'm so grateful for experiences like that that confirm that God is our loving Father and He DOES listen to our prayers.

That lead into a really great weekly planning on Friday. We had great insights on how we need to help the people we are teaching. It went super! We also had a great time following the Spirit. And we had this awesome lesson with a lady named Ramona. We taught her a first lesson and it went awesome. She said she was baptized in a church in Los Angeles and then came here and found a Seventh Day Adventist church which made her get baptized and she hated it. And now she's semi-studying with us and we told her that all those other baptism she had weren't valid and she needed to be baptized in Christ's church if she wanted to do what was right and serve Him. Pretty intense, and we'll see if she lets us come back...I hope so! She's awesome!

Saturday was...wow. Haha, just so funny. We were doing whatever, finished weekly planning and all sorts of good stuff. We went and saw this lady named Emelia and her son, Dimas. Sister Kendell had taught them before and so we went over to see if we could teach them again. Well, so after her feeding us tamales and flower water and shoving turtles into our hands, we decided that they weren't interested. But, then just as we're leaving, her friend from Vegas pulls up and she comes in and as like 'Oh, so you're Mormons.' So we're like yeah, and then we start talking and she's like well what about your king...Mr. Smith? And we're like oh no, he's a prophet, etc. etc. And so Sister Kendell starts talking about family history and stuff like that. It leads into the Plan of Salvation and we taught her a lesson about that. It was crazy because the friend was on our side the whole time. Everytime Emelia would start to almost...argue with us, she'd be like 'Let them talk. They'll explain and then you can ask questions'. It was just so funny and we were shocked. And after it was all done, the friend was like 'Show her the book! They have a book and it's awesome! It teaches great things and I love to read it. Oh and they sing. Well, at least mine did.' Keep in mind she is NOT a member. But then she also was like 'And they have this movie and...it's so great. Have you shown her the movie yet?' Just hilarious. And it went awesome! The Spirit is so great.

Sunday was long, but awesome! A member in the ward brought one of his employees to church and she loved it! She asked if she could come back and if we could teach her...if that would be okay. Umm, YES it would be MORE than okay! =) But, so great. Unfortunately, it was Gaby's last Sunday. She's reporting tomorrow to the MTC and will do AWESOME. We have some pictures with her.

Monday we did service for a part member family...Emy and Miguel. We once again, went at some ivy and it was....crazy! We spent for hours there with the Naches sisters chopping most of it away. We'll go back tomorrow and finish...hopefully.

Today we woke up to snow...joy. But the sun's already melted it. And things are going great! I love you all and I'm so happy to be serving a mission! You're the best!

Con amor,

Hna. Pleshek

Oh, did you call Sister Martinez? I want her to bring some of my stuff to Wisconsin and if you and/or Dad can go get it, that would be awesome! Sister Mitchell should be calling you, but ...oh man. I need it done ASAP because the Martinez family are leaving...on the 18th. Anyways, love you!