Getting warm....

hello everybody.
we got a little glimpse of the summer texas weather this weekend. it was back up in the high 80s yesterday. it was nice. i miss sweating profusely.
this week was so amazing. the torres family, remedios, luis, florencia, and their kids have just been a constant light in our lives these past couple of weeks. they are so inspiring and sweet and humble and grateful and amazing. yesterday was the one year anniversary of when remedios lost his legs in the accident. they expounded on the story of it for us. remedios and luis (father in law and son in law) worked together at a granite field in hebronville, texas. the family had left everything behind in mexico to come to the united states, six years earlier. they worked their way up from having absolutely nothing, to having a nice home and enough to get by. then one day at work, remdios was moving some of the big granite stones with the tractor. something went wrong with the electrics of it all and it jerked the whole tractor, which in turn bumped a large, 15-20,000 pound stone right onto remedios' legs. luis saw the whole thing, was probably about ten feet away from him when it happened. florencia, (luis' wife, remedios' daughter) had just had their 4th baby a few days before. they rushed to the hospital, remedios was life flighted to mcallen. when he woke up he asked the nurse if she could elevate his feet because they were in pain. the nurse burst into tears and told him that he didn't have legs any more. remedios just put his hand over his heart and didn't say anything. the job that they were working at fired luis and remedios and to this day are not helping them financially with the results of the accident, although they are going through a legal process and trying to get money from it. they had to leave all of their things in hebronville and move here to mcallen to be closer to the hospital. they live in the humblest little home you can imagine with mice and cockroaches and not enough chairs for everyone in the family to sit and eat dinner together.
we told the ward mission leader about their lack of chairs, and directly after that, without us knowing, he and his wife went and bought them chairs and delivered them to their house. when we went over for appointment that night they had new folding chairs and they were so grateful. that's when they told us their whole story. they were so grateful to find people that cared about them and gave them chairs. florencia and luis were thanking us and then remedios said, "no, it's a blessing from god." he is the most cheerful and faithful man i have ever met. everything is a blessing to him and he's just so grateful to be alive. they are so excited for the friendships and they things they are learning at church and for the blessing they can have to be a family forever and follow jesus christ together.
last night i was just reflecting and thinking about them and had the deepest feeling of gratitude i have ever felt. i am so humbled to know them and i know that heavenly father has not put me here to help them, but has put me here so that i can learn from them. i have never loved a family like i have loved them before. i am so grateful for the many blessings that i have in my life, and this opportunity that i have for even just a small time in my life to dedicate my life to giving back and helping others.
...i hope that this email finds you all happy and that we can all remember our blessings and remember to reach out to others.
love,
me

Baby!

Her email to me (her mom):

"baby!
i have no words. i've just been sitting here looking at pictures with watering eyes for the past thirty minutes."

Then came this:

"hello everybody.
this week i have wasted my entire e-mail time looking at pictures of my new niece! happy birthday (today) to my favorite older sister in the world and to her new baby layla.
love,
hermana morrill


"mom, will you put up the cutest picture you can find of the baby? or maybe just the one you sent me of rachel holding the baby. then it has both of them."

Here is what she's been looking at: http://4wardthinking-terry.blogspot.com/

Happy Preparation Day!

hello everybody. feliz dia de preparacion.

this week has been good. we got a new sister in the apartment.. straight out of puerto rico and learning english. its nice to practice spanish a little more. hermana feito is her name.

sonia and jose dropped us. sadly. they got into some anti-mormon literature and after some trying to battle it out with the spirit, jose said, "i will NEVER believe this." its sad that someone can feel the spirit so strongly and then through doubt or fear or lies completely deny it and be seem so miserable. the spirit in their home and eyes had changed very dramatically within a two day period. sad. BUT. we did find amazing people this week. when one door closes another opens. (anyone get that horrible pop song stuck in their heads? "i hope you daaaaaance.") yes i still battle with getting songs of the world out of my head.

anyway, we found la familia torres. sister busath and i do service every week at the church employment office. luis torres came in looking for a job. he had been to our church in corpus years ago with the missionaries and liked it, so he knew we had an employment office and searched us out here in mcallen. we set up an appointment to visit him and his family on saturday. long story short: they are so amazing. it's him, his wife, his wife's father, and they have four children under the age of 5. we went over on sunday morning to help them get ready but they were all ready already, including the wife's father, who has no legs. they were cut off in a work accident almost a year ago and he is in a wheelchair now. the seven of them came to church and loved it and are planning to get baptized, although they are still being scared about accepting a date to prepare for.

we also met a woman named diane. she had an aviary with about 200 birds as of yesterday. she sold them all to the botanical gardens in corpus. we helped her rake all of the bird poop and seeds. at first she was very cold to us and didn't want us to even talk to her. then as we continued to talk we found out she had an aviary and asked her if we could help her clean it and after some time she finally caved and let us come back the next day. when we came back and got to know her we found out that the aviary was really her husbands and that he left her, took all the money, left her with all the birds, and hasn't talked to her since. she said that she has been really trying to work on her relationship with god lately and that the other day when we came over, her initial reaction was to shoo us a way, but that she felt like god had "slapped her on the back of the head
" and said, "LISTEN!" so she let us come back. after sharing a message with her she asked us if she could read the book of mormon and told us that she knows god sent us to her. she is a great lady. she cried and expressed her gratitude for us coming over to help. and she gave us chocolate chip cookies. i love being a missionary so much. i love seeing that god really does love his children and reaches out to them always.. we just have to let him in. and listen to him.

hope everybody is doing well. until next week.
britt

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

feliz ano nuevo!

the pictures are of a few of the sisters down here in the valley, and my district after eating lunch at taco palenque. this was a good week. me and my roommate got to go to a leadership conference (because we're training) and we learned a lot of good things. the gospel is amazing. there are these members in our ward, the ochoas, who are newlyweds. and they had been talking to their neighbors recently about the church. so we decided to stop by and visit them. and for the past month or so things kept getting in our way and we couldn't get over to teach them. but then finally this week things started happening. on monday we went over and we met the wife. her name is sonia. they just had a baby about two months ago. it's so cute. anyway, she asked us all about our purpose as missionaries so we told her we were there to represent jesus christ and help her make changes in her life and come to know of the truthfulness of the restored gospel for herself and so on so on. so she agreed to have us come back again. then they weren't there for their appointment. lame. but we didn't get discouraged. we stopped by again yesterday. we were planning on teaching them about the restoration, but then after we prayed we got the distinct impression that we needed to watch together forever with them. for those who don't know, together forever is a delightfully cheesy 80s movie all about how living the gospel of jesus christ can help us in our family problems. whether it's marital problems, or death in the family, or rebellious children.. luckily in spanish, NOTHING is cheesy. so anyway.. both sonia and her husband jose were there. we call them in to watch the movie. by the end of it the spirit was so strong and sonia was crying a river. when it was over she got up to go to the bathroom to dry her face. jose told us that he wanted to act. that it's one thing to watch or listen to the word of god, but that we need to act. we need to be doing things. then sonia came back and we asked her how she felt. she cried again and told us that she loved it. we then shared 2Nephi 31:10-11 about following jesus christ. and how he has commanded us to repent and be baptized. they had a little bit of confusion as to why they needed to be baptized again because they were already baptized when they were babies. we shared another scripture and then asked them to kneel down and ask god right then if he wanted them to be baptized again. we all knelt down and sonia offered the prayer. the spirit filled the room. she was crying. we asked her what she felt. she then opened up about how they've been having all of these marriage problems and she's been praying everyday for the past few years that something can make their marriage better and that they could grow closer together. We invited them both to be baptized on the 6th of february and they accepted. We promised them that as they grew closer to jesus christ and continually strived to become more like him, and by following his example and being baptized, their marriage could be better. It was such a beautiful moment that i don't think i will ever forget. it's so amazing to see that the lord is constantly preparing people and putting us in their paths at just the right moment. when we called the ochoas later and told them their neighbors were getting baptized they were so happy. it was cool. i'm grateful for members who are not afraid to open up their mouths and talk to their neighbors.
anyway. that's about it for me. looks like me and sister busath are staying together for another transfer.. we got transfer calls this weekend. hope everybody is happy and well.
love
brittany