Hola from the Dido!

Well Hello!

Muchisimas gracias por los fotos y los emails tambien! You are the best. Papi also sent me a foto this week of Ariana and Michael and I from when I was probably around 8. Fun memories J

I loved the letters from the Primary children in the ward this week too! I will definitely write them back today. Sadly, I only have a few minutes because I had to catch up on some other emails, including writing my trainer Hermana Ruiz who just got back home. It was great to hear from her, but post-mission life doesn't sound so fun. I think I'll just stay on my mission forever. Is that cool?

We are experiencing so many miracles, and it's all because Hermana Bennett has such great faith! She really is so great and I feel so spoiled to have her as a companion. Training is going well and she is progressing a lot. We set a baptismal date with Luis and picked up a few more investigators and were able to have a lot of lessons this week. We are having about the same about of lessons that Hermana Sheffield and I had, but now with 5 less hours of proselyting time (due to training), so it's pretty awesome.

The Gonzalez family came out to a family home evening (FHE) last night at a member’s house, so that was super exciting! We will be going to Mass with them this Saturday and then they will (hopefully) be coming to church with us on Sunday. Great fun. Oh, but the FHE! It was actually pretty slow getting started and pretty awkward. The members were late and not even home when we showed up and the other members were very late. The ward mission leader (WML) hadn't assigned anyone to give the lesson so there was no lesson planned due to miscommunication, so the zone leaders (ZLs) and I threw together a skit with the kids, watched a Mormon message, Elder Herrera shared a scripture, and we had a great lesson after all! I love that Elder Herrera is in my ward and my Zone Leader so I still see him all the time. It's great. It's fun being with Hermana Jones in the same ward too! I think she kind of resents me though…and loves me. It's hilarious.

I still don't know President Kendrick very well, but so far he seems pretty great. Due to time, I will talk about him and Sister Kendrick more another day. I don't know much about the rules changing and getting Ipads, but that would be pretty convenient. I'm kind of stubborn though and don't like all the changes, so hopefully our mission gets those after I leave. That would be nice.

Sounds like you are having lots of fun keeping busy and I hope you have some great trips! I hope everything is well with the whole fam and that M,J,&D find a place very soon J

I just want to tell you how much I love the Book of Mormon. Seriously. It's so amazing. We read it every day in language study, as well as my own study in the scriptures and I am just blown away at how amazing it is every time. The more I read it, the more I realize how perfect the gospel is and how blessed we are to have the Book of Mormon. It makes so much sense and I just love how much I feel the Spirit as I read and study it. I will never stop learning from the Book of Mormon.

Sorry this is so short. I love you and will write more next week. I promise.

Te quiero muchisimo!

Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante

New President & New Companion!

Hey Everyone!

How are you? Wow, can you believe that tomorrow is my half way mark? Me either. I am not very excited about it, to be honest. I've been feeling a little down, because 1) I don't want to be on the downward slope, and 2) I feel like I should be a better missionary than I am, being half way out. But alas, the Lord knows my weaknesses and He still loves me. Thankfully I still have 9 more months to become the missionary the Lord wants me to be!

Thanks for the article on Peru! That is so awesome! Speaking of Peru, could you do me a favor and sign into my regular email to find me some email addresses (since we are now allowed to email anyone)? First would be Bertha's email, or course, and then if you could find Chen Chen (Sara) and Adu (Michael), that would be great! I won’t be writing them for a while, but I just figured I'd ask now so I'd have them for later. That would be super! Thank you mama!

And thank you for the pictures! Goodness, my Nieces and Nephews are so darn cute! I'm glad to hear that Grandma's party went well. I do love getting her letters every week. That is so fun that Chris sang! I hope you recorded it :) How is he doing? He seldom writes, so maybe you can update me, but maybe I should just email him. That's so fun that so much of the family has been in town and you've been able to spend a lot of time together. And that's so good that you are sharing your wonderful talent of story telling!

Anyway, I'm sure you want to hear about my week by now :) It has been pretty good! My new companion is.....(drum roll).....HERMANA BENNETT!! I wish I could send you a picture of her, because she is just darling, but alas, neither of us have our camera connector things today. She reminds me Josie a little bit though. Hermana Bennett is 19 and from Canada. She just finished her first year at BYU-Hawaii and loves to travel and explore. She is very sweet and a very good missionary, though we are still working on her Spanish (of course - seeing as she just got here). I do wish I were more disciplined at speaking Spanish though so I could help her out more. I realize that I would be much better at Spanish than I am if I were more disciplined at speaking it all the time. It's so easy getting away with speaking English though, since we are in the States and we live with the English sisters. She's helping me though, and although she doesn't speak a lot of Spanish, she does want to speak it. We are just thrilled to be together. When the new missionaries walked in at conference, I picked her out as the one I wanted, and what do you know! We were put together, ha-ha it's just dandy. 

The new President (President Kendrick) is pretty great. He is leaving things mostly how President Cook had them, and just changing things here and there, but they are good changes that will be good for the mission. He has a great Texan accent, and really doesn't speak much Spanish at all (even though this is technically a Spanish-speaking Mission President Assignment and he served in Argentina) – ha-ha but that's ok, he's still great. The meeting with him was brief. We just met with him as trainers, then he met with the new missionaries, and then he put us in our assignments, and then we were off! He came to our District Meeting the next day actually and met with us individually, but nothing too exciting, just a get to know you mostly.

Hermana Bennett and I have been able to set two baptismal dates together already! But one of them has already fallen through, as he was a teenager and his mother does not approve. Oh well, he has a Libro de Mormon, and maybe he'll have a chance in the future. We will hopefully be setting one with Luis tomorrow as well, as he is as stoked about the Book of Mormon and church as you can get. We just have to talk with his girlfriend/mother of his children and get them hitched or something. It will all work out though J The Gonzalez family came to church this week, which was a miracle! Miracles always happen on Fast Sunday. It's so great. They left early, but that's ok. They came! That's the first step. Luis came and decided to stay for all 3 hours and made some new friends! Things are going well, even though it is still hard. I definitely feel a lot of pressure, being a trainer, and also trying to keep up the work in our area, as well as trying to help build up and organize and support this messy ward (that has been a huge focus lately).

Oh yes! Before I forget! Pres. and Sister Cook will be speaking in their ward this Sunday. Don't feel obligated to go, but you had asked about it so I thought I'd let you know. It is at 1pm and at the Lundstrom Park 2nd Ward, 1260 No. 1600 E. Logan, UT. Also, you can add "Carlsbad California Mission - President Cook" on Facebook if you'd like to see more pictures of the mission.

Hermana Bennett told me about this cool map where it follows the history of the Book of Mormon and shows where exactly it happened and stuff. If you see one of those at Deseret Book of something, want to send it to me? She said she saw it in the MTC Bookstore. Sounds pretty cool though!

Well mama, I am out of time! I love you lots! I know the power of the Atonement is real and if we just do our best and rely on the Lord, He will justify us.

Con muchisimo amor y cariño,

Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante

a.k.a. Llama face

Happy July 4th!

Hi Mama!

Well, you said you'd send a part 2 to your email, and nothing else has come yet, but that's ok. Happy July to you too! I can't believe Jodi broke her collarbone...again! Pobrecita. So you might have told me already, but are they living with you right now? (In between trips all over the place, of course).

That's cool about Landon's fairwell! I can't believe he's leaving already. What day does he go into the MTC again? Which Chile mission is it again? I'm sorry to hear you can't sleep, but I'm glad I got an email out of it. How did class go? I hope you sleep better tonight! Wow, that's a lot of festivals. So are you actually telling stories or just hosting them or what? Sounds like a lot of fun! Pictures? Ok, I just got your email, so I guess that answers some questions about Landon. So is he flying straight to Chile then? I'm glad he got his passport in time! Whew! He's going to be a rockin' missionary! I'm so stoked for him :)

Ok, I guess I can answer some of your questions now.

So, it's been an interesting situation that last week actually. We got a lot of surprises at the mission conference (which was awesome - I have tons of pictures but I'll probably have to upload them later) and this last week I have been covering two areas with Hermana Villaseñor, or I should say Sister Villaseñor, because although she is Mexican, she is an English missionary. She was whitewashed into a new area and we have been temporarily together and covering both here in Escondido and over in San Marcos until our new companions arrive today. Yep! That means I'm training again, haha it's great. I'm actually really excited.

Hermana Sheffield is over in Vista and will also be training! She was absolutely SHOCKED when she heard she was whitewash training in Vista - haha it was so great! I miss working with her though, she is super awesome. I'm excited to see her at transfer meeting today too! So I'll meet President Kendrick in a few hours (I believe he arrived yesterday) as all the trainers will head up early to meet with him so that he can then interview the new missionaries and decide whom will serve with whom. He will then come around to every area over the next few weeks and personally interview and get to know each missionary, so that should be pretty wonderful.

It's been a fun week bring in English work part of the time! It's definitely different, but still great. We actually didn't spend a whole lot of time in San Marcos because we were so busy here in Dido with lots of citas and stuff. We did teach a couple of schizophrenic less actives in her area, and also had dinner with a family. We stayed in my apartment though and went to church here and everything since the transfer didn't actually start until this week and she doesn't have a lot of work over there right now anyway. Hermana Villaseñor is good missionary and a fun girl...though I'm happy to be getting a new companion :)

Hermana Ruiz went home last Tuesday! Wow! It was great to see her right before she left. I sure do love that "little brown girl", haha. Oh yeah! Other news - Hermana Jones is in my ward! She is greenie-breaking/senior companion with Hermana Gutknetch and Hermana Eskeets will be training in Escondido. Hermana Schwegler did not go to the Irvine mission but did get switched to English work! Crazy! Poor thing, she was pretty bummed, but she's happy to be staying in the Carlsbad mission too.

So, we had a pretty sad situation arise recently. Mauricio (who just got baptized a few weeks ago and actually received the Priesthood not last Sunday but the last) decided he didn't want to come to church anymore or do any of those "churchy things", like reading, praying, or working towards going to the temple. I was absolutely devastated and shocked, because up until about a week ago, he was SO solid! I guess he has been getting a LOT of hassle from his family, friends, coworkers, and everyone he lives with. They bully him like crazy about it. His girlfriend broke up with him, and I guess he was having a hard time with some other temptations. Poor thing. The good thing is, is that we've been able to talk with him about it and we know he still has so much faith, he just doesn't have a lot of patience and doesn't like what he's been going though. Poor thing. It's so sad how hard Satan works, especially right after baptism. That is when people are most vulnerable. The ward is getting really involved though and trying to help give him more support that he has been lacking elsewhere.

Alfredo (a recent convert who was baptized just a few weeks before) is as solid as a rock though! He went to do baptisms for the dead last week and LOVED it! He's so sensitive to the Spirit! We were walking over to his house yesterday to set up an appointment and also to ask him to go visit Mauricio (because they are neighbors and buds). Before we even got there, he come out of his house and walked right over to us. He told us about how that afternoon he felt the Spirit and had the prompting to go visit Mauricio (he never just goes and visits him, by the way). He said they had a good talk, he read with him in the scriptures, and committed him to coming to church on Sunday to talk to the Bishop about the situation. Man, Alfredo is such a baller! He is so solid and such a good missionary! He actually came out of his house as we were contacting a lady and he come over and bore his testimony in the contact - haha it was so great. Alfredo is a spiritual giant and going to help many lives - including his son's hopefully.

Things are going fine with Cristian, but hopefully we can help progress a little more this week and resolve some of his concerns and questions. He's doing well though. Rosa is great, but will be moving soon, so she will be learning from the other missionaries, but she'll still be coming to our ward. She really wants to work towards baptism, so hopefully her Fiancé will give us a chance and come to church with her on Sunday. We've picked up a few more investigators, but we'll see if how things go by next week. Like I said before, we are trying to work more with members and less actives, so hopefully that will be fruitful soon.

I'm so excited to meet my new compy today! I'm sure she'll be wonderful! I'm feeling a little overwhelmed because this ward is really demanding and this area has so much going on and I still feel like a new missionary and I'm training again, but it should be great fun, right?

Oh yeah, some Mexicans on the street the other day told me I "almost" sound like a Native! Yes! I'm getting there! Though I don't have a Mexican accent, which is funny because I've learned most of my Spanish from Mexicans.

Well, I'm sure there is a lot I've left out, but I can't think of it right now and I'm almost out of time. I sure do love you mama and all the fam! Tell Chaddy to write me! Ariana too - she forgot to write me back this week. Lame. Ok, well, I love you a lot. I love the scriptures so much mama. They make so much sense. We talk to all sorts of people and get all sorts of arguments and bashing and every time I can just turn to the scriptures and the answers are right there! I love that the Gospel makes so much sense - it fits my green personality ;) I know this Gospel is true with all my heart. It's all true. I love my Savior and I love His work, even when it's hard and I'm tired, because I know it's all worth it. I love you all and hope you have a good week! Pray for me and my new compy!

Con muchisimo amor,

Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante