I can not believe that 8 Months ago today I was headed to the Provo MTC. This is literally FLYING by!

Mom sent me some money for my birthday and I bought myself a new outfit! Its super cute and I wore it to the interviews with President Cardenas on Thursday! Momma also sent me this necklace! 

A couple we have bee teaching are progressing so well. They have such a huge desire to be baptized and are praying and fasting for the opportunity to be married legally. They study Principles of the Gospel each night and are always full of questions when we go over to their humble home. To get to their house we walk across a huge bridge that scares my companion everytime we walk on it. I think its quite an adventure! 

Our mission leader in our ward, Arnold, is always so willing to come with us to visits or to introduce us to his friends. 

No I didn't really hit him we were just messing around! He is such a good support to us and to the Elders in our ward! 

I had a really good birthday! My companion decorated my bed with paper balloons and confetti when I was in the shower and made a yummy breakfast and "cake" out of bread and peanut butter! Then we taught some lessons and our bishop asked us to come to the Ward Counsel meeting at 3 at the church. So we went to our lunch appointment and the Hermana wasn't there so we went to the church hungry and decided that we would eat something at the house after the meeting. Well there wasn't anyone at the church for the meeting except the bishop and he was interviewing someone so we waited for a little and were watching mormon messages. Then the elders came and so we waited with them. 

​Okay and when I say waited, maybe we partied a little bit...

A hermana came and asked us to come with her so we followed and.... SURPRISE!!!!! 

They threw me a fiesta! haha Elder Reyes has more pictures on his camera that I will send later but it was so fun! We ate tostadas and tamales and had cake! Oh the Mexican traditions are fun!!!!. They have a tradition of biting the cake... I didn't want to but they said just bite the frosting in the corner. I though, hey it won't hurt anyone! So I bent down to bite the cake..... and

BAM! My face was pushed into it!!! haha The sister behind me is Sister Jairu and she helped my companion shove my face into the cake. Ha there is a first time for everything! 

​ I was asked to sing in the other ward that meets in our building yesterday with their bishop. It went well! and after church this Cute Friend came with us to a few visits! It POURED on us!!

Well that's all for this week. I am so happy to be a missionary and I can't believe I am 21 years old! I couldn't think of a better place to be then here serving our Lord and Savior. I know He lives and I know He loves me! 

Thank you all for everything you do to support all of us missionaries!!

Love

Hermana Oliphant

Just another day in Tapachula

I am so thankful for the power of prayer and the opportunity and blessing we have to fast. I was really struggling this week with different things. I just felt so sad and alone to be honest. But Saturday night I took the opportunity to fast and spent a very long time on my knees talking with my Savior and with my Heavenly Father.We went to the baptism of an investigator the elders have been working with and he bore the sweetest testimony I have ever heard. He is 12 years old and his mom and sister are members but he did not want to get baptized until recently, and he is such a sweet boy. Then I woke up Sunday morning and had a new energy, I felt so happy.  We went to church and I partook of the sacrament and was able to feel the spirit SOO strong. After church we worked hard and received a reference from a member for a family and when we went to their house we were able to talk to 4 of the children and they are so excited to learn more! We have an appointment to go back this week. Literally as soon as we left we had the impression to go to a house where we had contacted a woman a few weeks ago, we went and they were so receiving and accepted our invitation to be baptized. I went home last night almost in tears because I had felt the Spirit guiding me, helping me when I really just didn't know where to go. I love when I have opportunities like this.
 They help me so much.

Thank goodness for umbrellas!

RAIN--LOTS OF RAIN

scrapes and cuts from walking in the jungle

Falling up the hill.

I am so happy to hear that you are reading in Ether. I LOVE Ether 12. I seriously use it in every lesson. I love teaching about faith. I think my favorite scripture of all times (or for this week) is Ether 12:27. Look it up! I love that we have weaknesses to help us to be better!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank  you so much for the cute birthday package! I LOVE the cute shirts and the earrings! I also got the letter with the necklace! Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It actually came before my birthday which is surprising! Some things take months to get here and others come in like 3 weeks! 

Sweet birthday wish from Colin.

Surprise!

Birthday tradition:  Hanging up the banner!

 

My new birthday shirt!

It made me so happy to hear Trynn's comment about the scriptures and how he doesn't understand everything but he knows they are true. I have used his words in a few lessons abut the importance of the Book of Mormon! Thanks buddy! 

Well I Love you all so much. Thank you for everything! Keep reading your Book of Mormon, keep smiling and know that I always love you!

Hermana Oliphant

 

PS  Here are some "investigators" that were pretty stiff.  

Sadly, we weren't able to get a second appointment.

Hello everyone! so I wrote letters home today. We will see how long they take to get there!

This week wasn't really interesting. We did a lot of walking in the rain, yelling in our lessons to teach because the rain is so loud on the roof ,and waiting in houses for the rain to lighten up. OH and did I mention that it rained this week?

HA If you can't tell, it rained a ton this week. One day we were in a new area trying to find the house of an investigator and it started POURING rain. My companion forgot her umbrella and so she was soaked. I was soaked except my head and shoulders and we were trudging through the RIVERS that were running through the streets, asking people in their houses if they knew this lady. It was quite the adventure. We found the house and they weren't there..... so we were walking back the way we came and a lady called to us to come to her house and wait for the rain to lighten up. This family was really nice but they kept saying that they have their church and that they just didn't want us to get sick. We taught them about prayer and watched the rain and lightening and the THUNDER that sounded like it was blowing our ear drums it was soooo loud! When the rain was just sprinkling we ran to the bus stop, a few blocks away and went to our house to change. What an adventure this area is becoming! I took a ton of pictures but this internet place doesn't have a place to connect my memory to send them, and I lost my cable in San Cristobal, and literally no place has cables for my Nikon camera. Weird right? I will just send a million next week! 

Today we ate hamburgers in a nice restaurant in the city. It was really nice because we were seated at a table and had a waiter and everything!  My first time with a waiter in Mexico! And, yeah, I ordered my own food and he understood me. I even said no onions hahahahhaha! 

I was asked to sing in Relief Society yesterday and it was the combined men and women meeting. And I was asked on the spot. like literally my Bishop said "and now Hermana Oliphant is going to sing a Hymn... I don't know the number..." and looked at me like," please?" hahaha I had only heard the song like 2 times but I think I did okay. Who knows the tune anyways. Oh how I love sharing my testimony EVERY week in song and through music. :) 

I have been studying a lot in chapter 9 in Preach my Gospel and also in 1st Nephi. I am so happy to hear that you are all doing well and keeping busy. I am glad Dad is home safe from his trip (I didn't know he was going hahah or I didn't remember) and I am glad that everyone is enjoying their summer! Go down the slide in the rec center for me a few times okay?!

Justyce's brothers at the rec center.

I will send more updates about our investigators next week. deal?

Love

Hermana Oliphant

Well what a week we had!! I have now seen my first scorpion in our house.  Luckily, my companion found it and had already put it in the water to die when she told me. UGH I was starting to have hope that we wouldn't have any!!!

​eewww

Also, this whole week I had been feeling really gross. Every time we ate I wanted to throw up, and was never hungry. I had a fever a few days, threw up on Saturday and had a ton of pain in my right side. After church, our bishop gave me a blessing and we called our doctor. He wanted to examine my stomach so we went to the Doctor (really we went to the stake center where our doctor was with his family). He said that I have an infeccion (probably from the food) in my intestines (from what I understood.) so I went to get the medicines last night and took both pills.

Yeah there are huge!!!!! but they are making me feel better which is good and today I was finally hungry and was able to eat all my breakfast! yay! 

Oh and I spoke in church yesterday. I was asked Saturday night to talk about whatever I wanted and they said I would be the last one to speak. SO Sunday morning I studied a bit about faith and hope and then that's what I spoke about. When I was speaking I had the impression to sing. So I shared my testimony through song. I sang "I know that my redeemer lives!" (which is my favorite song!) I sang the 1st verse in English and then the 3rd in Spanish and then the 4th in Spanish and English and made up an ending that was actually pretty cool! and yeah I did it all on the spot haha but hey the Spirit helps us when we are trying to follow his promptings!! Everyone was so quiet when I was singing, which is really rare for a sacrament meeting here in Mexico! Usually everyone is having their little conversations, but when i was singing it was soooo silent! I love the power of music! 

We have found some new people to teach this week by working with the members- I am excited to help them progress! We also had 5 investigators in church this week but none of them currently have baptism dates. We are hoping to get them all progressing along this week. 

​I learned how to braid my hair in a neat way! haha I keep practicing each day to get better! 

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So remember that time that I was in San Cristobal!!! Well this is Cute Hermana Perez and her new companion (well from the last transfer) and our friend. She was a less active member that we visited a ton! She has now come back to the church and has received her patriarchal blessing and has a calling in the Primary!!! I was so happy when I received this picture from Hermana Perez! 

This bridge is behind our house.

The rain makes for great flowers.

Well Looks like my time is about up. I love you all! Enjoy the sunshine and the nice weather (aka you aren't always sweaty and sticky and getting rained on all the time!!









hahahaha It's definitely an adventure!)

Love Hermana Oliphant