HELLO!!

Hi Mami and family and friends!

That huge house and the ball pit were at a member's house where we had Zone Activity today, which I'll explain more in my email. Neither of those girls are the girls that got emergency transferred. I'm not over those girls...who are no longer there. They switched them out and put in Elders. I am over two sets of missionaries in Temecula, and also the Winchester sisters here in Murrieta. It's been great fun J

Zone Activity!

Yes, I heard about the crazy accident with the woman getting hit by the truck. It was right by the Wal-Mart where we sometimes shop. Some people say it was suicide, some people say it was just a crazy accident. That same day, another teenage boy was hit over by another member's home. He was on his bike and got hit by a car and died on impact. It's been a crazy week. I feel bad that Patti and Marie had to deal with all that (they were visiting San Diego and stopped by a member's house to pick up spare items so Alyssa wouldn't have to ship them home). I hope they didn't have to see anything too crazy. I heard it was pretty gruesome. 

That's cool that Hermana Prestgard's (another neighbor) mission gets to go see a chiropractor. My foot and hip are actually feeling better this week. I feel like if I just deal with it and keep working, the Lord always ends up blessing me with a little bit of relief, so there's no use in worrying about it.

That's so fun about Mike & Jodi's trip to India! And Ariana's new place looks great! I'm excited to go spend a nice weekend there myself, sometime. J That really is so cool about Ariana's wallet. Wow! Isn't the Lord so merciful and people are so wonderful. That's amazing - and what a neat/scary experience for her, ha-ha.

I love Elder Ballard's attitude about being bold. It's so true. We had a training on being bold in our invitations recently, and being bold with love is just the best way to do it.

David is doing quite well actually, better and better every week. The Martinez family is going well, though still in the process. Keep them in your prayers; we have a lot of hope for them! The drama family is doing all right - I think we need to be a little bolder with them, because they need it. Our Branch President is also working with them though and he's fantastic. He's the best Branch President/Bishop I've ever worked with. He's so great.

We finished up all our exchanges this week and they went well. I felt like I was able to help many of the girls this transfer, whereas last transfer I still felt like I had no idea what I was doing and that they were probably helping me more than I was helping them - it's been good though. We go to the temple this week and I am so very excited! We had a fantastic Zone Activity today where we were able to learn a lot about the temple from one of the Temple Workers in our stake in his (huge) home. He has a "temple room" actually. It was pretty small, but we crammed all 20 of us in there and it was great. It was inspiring and I felt like I received some revelation and that I am preparing to receive more for the actual temple session. One thing I realized though is that it is a very small amount of members will ever really understand the significance of the temple and the ordinances there.

And then you think about how many people have lived in the world...and how many of those people are members...and then how many of those members are endowed...and then how many of those members are worthy and actually GO to the temple.... and then how many of them actually understand the significance of it. Crazy. It's a good thing we have a larger perspective as we learn about the Plan of Salvation and how merciful God is to His children. I love the temple so much though, and even though my current understanding is so very limited, I am grateful for the rest of my life that I have to learn. One goal I have for when I get home is to go to the temple every day the week I get home and then at least once every week after that. I love my Savior so much and want to feel close to Him there.

Sounds like you have a busy month this next month! Sounds fun! I hope we are just as busy over here. J The work of the Lord is so fantastic. Especially when you realize who is doing it...a bunch of 18, 19, and 20 year olds (or old 22 yr. olds like me) who don't really know anything.... but it doesn't matter, because this is His work, so it will go forth. I've really loved Jacob 4:7 this week, especially as I think about the meaning of the word "condescension". It's pretty beautiful. I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ because without it, I would be nothing.

I love you so much mama, and all of you who read this. Thanks for the letters Grandma and Grandpa!

LOVE YOU!!!

Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante

With the Hermanas

And, the Sisters (note the careful arrangement of the Black & White)!

Wednesday P-Day

Hey Everyone! 

I'm so sorry about the short email today. I was planning to send all sorts of pics because I'm currently in the Temecula Library (on exchanges and this was our assigned email time due to the holiday and having Zone Conference yesterday) and the computers here are way faster, but we don't really have a lot of time, so we'll see. I am here with Sister Dredge, but she wasn't feeling very well so we had to step out for quite some time so she could call the nurse, so yeah, not a lot of time left. Sorry. Poor thing, she is so stressed she is making herself sick (literally).

I loved the outline of your lesson though - so great! I heard from Grandpa and Grandma this week! That was great! Since their computer crashed, it's been hit and miss, but glad to hear that they're doing well. I love my family and I love all the great news you tell me about how everyone's doing! Sounds great!

It has been a fun week, also busy, with several exchanges and Zone Conference. David came to church this week (the less active we found who we thought was an investigator) and he is doing very well! Poco a poco! We had lots of drama go down with some other less active family that I won't go into details about due to privacy, but it was crazy. The Branch President here is so great though and he is really helping out, but we'll go see them again tonight. The good news is that all this craziness is humbling them and they (most of them, at least) came to church last week, which is great.

Zone Conference was so great! No, I didn't really do anything with the training, but I was assigned to be in charge of the musical number. We sang "Abide With Me, Tis Eventide" and we had piano and violin, it was lovely. Saturday was a weird day. I came back from exchanges and Hermana Painter seemed so scarred. They had had a lesson with a new investigator we had recently picked up and I guess it was a bad experience. An hermano from the ward went with them, but they still felt super freaked out, all of them. I guess they are schizophrenic and it was just a bad situation. Thankfully nothing happened, but she still just felt really strange so she got a blessing from the Elders.

We also were walking around some apartments when this guy on his balcony saw us and he was on the phone and drinking and starting freaking out and cussing and yelling about how terrible Mormon's are....it was interesting. Hma Painter wanted to go back and pound on his door and tell him off...thankfully she understood that that probably wasn't the wisest idea, so we moved on. Right after that, we saw a little Latino family and we didn't really want to talk to them because we were so sick of being rejected and weird things happening that day, but we did anyway (of course) and it turned out to be a little misericordia! (mercy) They were so cute and we set up an appointment for the next day. We had a member come with us to the lesson and it was so powerful! They are now working towards baptism. J Hma. Painter had a lesson with them last night, but I'll hear about how it went today when we switch back. 

Yes, I got the package, ha-ha you cheater. It's fine though. Thank you so much! You're the best mama! I love you soooo much! I hope you had a happy V-day! We have the car back, everything is fine, and we just don't use the dishwasher, we hand wash. We also just use the setting on our washing machine that doesn't mess up our clothes. Most of my clothes are okay, it mostly just stained my whites, but Sister Wickham suggested some stuff called White Brite or something and I got it and most of my clothes are now white again (with the exception of one pink shirt and one orange one...not sure how that happened), but we're all good. 

Crazy stuff happening here in Temecula. Sister Johnson was emergency transferred out and then just this Monday both sister Taupau and Sister Lemon were transferred out and they put in some Elders from Carlsbad. I guess it was no good having them in that area, which I totally agree with since we were neighbors with drug addicts and Satanists. I don't know why they didn't just switch the sisters with the Elders though, because their area is perfectly safe. Oh well. It's not my decision (sadly). Well, I'm going to wrap this up! I'm sure other cool stuff happened, but I can't remember and I'm out of time. 

The gospel is true! I love the scriptures and I love my Savior and I love YOU!!!

Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante

Happy Valentine's!

Hi Mamita y Familia,

Well, this has probably been the longest and most ridiculous week of my mission, but we made it through. With Zone Training and exchanges and a baptism and having no car and our dishwasher flooding and our washing machine ruining my clothes and getting sick...I'm surprised we survived, but we live and we learn :) it was a beautiful baptism though. I love baptisms. I used to get so stressed about making sure everything was perfect, but now we just do what we can and if it's not perfect, well, they're still getting baptized and that's all that matters. But it was lovely and everything worked out great. Hermana Painter and I sang "Asombro Me Da" (I Stand All Amazed), mi himno favorito, and it really brought the Spirit. It was great. Elder Cordery and Elder Olvera also taught at the baptism they are very wonderful missionaries who bring the Spirit every time they teach and testify.

No worries about the being sick thing (I know you're wondering). I'm not sure what happened, but I started feeling sick on Saturday and then spent most the night up in pain and eventually throwing up. After that I felt all right and was able to sleep, and the next day at church the Elders gave me a blessing. I still wasn't feeling too hot, but in the blessing I was promised a good night sleep, which I received, so even though I'm still not 100% today, I'm feeling much more rested. I think I had a little bit of a fever too, but I didn't keep up with it well enough to know exactly. It didn't keep us from doing the work of the Lord though, so all is well. Hermana Painter has been feeling all right, but she still has her ups and downs with her esophagus, but she's doing really well for the most part.

I feel like I'm having a hard time getting everything done that I need to. I feel like my mind is winding down and getting all sorts of disctracted, but this is the time that I need to be more focused than ever because I have so many responsibilities. I think the Lord knows that if He doesn't keep me busy, I'll get trunky or something ;) I am definitely feeling the support of my Savior at this time in my mission though. I know He's aware of me and the work that we are doing.

We had lots of fun miracles this week, with finding two less-actives by accident! One was a referral from the English missionaries (they had no idea she was a member), but they set up an appointment with her and told us to head on over. We tried teaching her but soon realized that she had already been baptized, about 20 years ago in Guatemala, but hasn't come to church over here due to health. P.S. She feels like she knew an Elder Escalante in Guatemala, so can you ask Michael if he remembers a "Lina Chavez"? Also, what trip to India? I was left out on that part of the family update. And I'm absolutely jealous.

Anyway, we also had a few minutes before we needed to exchange back with Hermana Painter and Sister Major, so Sister Wickham and I decided to know a door that had a 3-prong satellite (Spanish channel - we look for the clues to find the Latinos, ha-ha) but then her neighbor opened the garage door. We went to talk to her and she wasn't interested but we asked her if she had Spanish-speaking neighbors and she directed us to another house up the street. We knocked it and found out it was a member of the English ward but invited us in to talk to her mom. Turns out she is the Mysterious Rosa that moved and we had no trace of, but we found her just a few streets over by accident! It was a cool miracle.

Wow, almost out of time. So our car also went to Vista for a few days this week to get fixed, so we were left without a car to cover half of the city, but the members are awesome and we got rides, as well as did lots of walking. It was fun. Oh yeah, and we had a fun activity with the branch for Valentines’ day and Iris and her family came (new investigator). We were also able to give her a tour of the chapel, but she seemed to feel a little guilty there and they opted not to come to church the next day. Bummer. We also found a new investigator named Claudia this week and she is stellar! Hopefully I'll have more time to tell you more next week.

Well, sounds like the family is doing great! I got a great email from Brudder this week and tell him I'll write him next week. This seriously has been the longest week ever, and I didn't even get to tell you about all of it. Well, I love you so very much and I think it's so cool that you are studying the gospel so much more these days. I love it so much and I love how much sense it makes and how much happiness it brings us. 

Love you soooooo much!

Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante

Time is flying!

Hola Everyone!

Okay, sorry if this is a little shorter than normal. I had a few more people to write back to today (including my baby sister - yay! She wrote me, por fin!), and also, the Internet just deleted the email I started writing you a few minutes ago. I really struggle with this library...but I'm glad to hear you got a few pictures last week.
Well, where to start…

 School - if I get on the UVU website, am I able to sign up for classes yet, or is that after I'm accepted? Honestly, I would rather wait until I get home to do the interview, if that's possible. I have enough things to keep me busy here.

This will be a very busy transfer. We have ZTM on Wednesday and it looks like instead of doing the training with the Zone Leaders (like last time), they'll probably do a training and then I'll do a training on my own. Fun stuff. As an STL, it's different than zones and areas, because we are an STL no matter where we go and are assigned to companionships, more than areas. So right now, I am over the other Murrieta sisters (there are only 4 of us in the Zone), as well as 2 other companionships over in Temecula, though I am not over Sister Johnson and Sister Taupau, sadly. Sister Fluckiger covers them, as well as the sisters in Fallbrook.

So right now I have 6 exchanges to go on in 3 weeks, as well as the ZTM, Zone Conference, and temple trips. It should be great fun, oh and we'll probably be in charge of the training in the District Meeting in one of the upcoming weeks. It's crazy, but it keeps me busy and focused, which is what I need. It's been a good week with Hermana Painter, so I think it will be a good transfer.

Jose Luis did great in his baptismal interview on Sunday, so he will be getting baptized this Saturday, and then we will have the branch Valentine's day Party that evening as well. Should be fun!

We are really working on finding new investigators, though we have a few,
we are needing to find more, and more people who are really open. Claudia and her Andrew would be baptized in a heart beat, but her husband is against religion, so we just do what we can to help them feel the Spirit and we are trying to figure out how to help there be a change in the home. They're great though. It seems like the great investigators we are finding, we have to pass them all off to the English Elders. They are Spanish and Spanish-speakers, but grew up here in the States so they feel more comfortable in English. Bummer - but oh well.

Wow, I'm almost out of time! Sounds like no fun with popped tires and delayed flights, but I'm glad to hear that the fam is doing well for the most part! I am proud of you for writing in your journal mama! I used to be very good about that at the beginning of my mission, and then it just turned into a sort of scrapbook, taping things into it and putting random notes on sticky notes, but lately I have been trying to be better about it. It is hard though to find the time. If I'm not filling out teaching records or making calls, I'm probably planning for exchanges or doing extra studies, so writing in my journal is hard sometimes, but I know I won't regret it in the long run, and I know you won't either.

Oh, funny story real quick! Sister Fluckiger and I were carpooling up to Vista together for the Mission Leadership Counsel, and we planned everything perfect for Hermana Painter and Sister Flint (brand new missionary, she'd been out for about 2 days), but then they called us as we were half way to Vista and they realized that the apartment key was still on the keychain that we had! We didn't have time to go back and be on time to our meeting, so they went to French Valley to the Sister's apartment, but it took them about an hour to find because the new sister still didn't know the area and their gps wasn't reading the address correctly. Poor things. It worked out, but Hermana Painter left all her things in our apartment (thinking that she would be coming back to them in just a few minutes after we exchanged in Temecula), and was then left with nothing but her water bottle to get her through half the day. Not her scriptures, nor planning, nothing! But she survived.
She's a trooper!

Well, sounds like work and everything is going great! Sorry I don't have
much more time. I gotta go but I love you so much!!!

Con amor,
Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante