Newsletter Week 10

Hey!! Well first off I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!! :) This week was SOOO awesome!! There really is something special to having Christmas out in the field:) And thank you all so much for your love and support. You are all the best! :)

So this week we did a lot of caroling again! It is so fun! :) People are always so excited when you knock on their door and start singing to them haha.. lots of people took pictures and stuff it was awesome! :)

Christmas Eve we went and made breakfast with some of the other missionaries in our area! It was so fun and we ate so much good food:) The Missionaries in this area are so kind and fun. Then we went and did a service project.. We helped one of the members with his garage. We took everything out, built shelves and then put everything back in on the shelves! It was so fun and I totally felt like Bob the Builder... but a female version... ;) I used saws and drills and all kinds of cool stuff.. haha you would be proud Dad:) Then we went and had dinner with the Diaz family it was pretty tasty! they made traditional El Salvadorian Dinner food:) YUMMM! after we got super full there we went to our second dinner appointment of the night to the Penias family!! :) It was also very yummy and she sent us home with left overs too:) So that was great:) The people in our ward are so kind and thoughtful:)

CHRISTMAS DAY!! :) It was super awesome! I got to talk to my family in the morning and that was the best thing ever!! :) They all looked so good and happy:) Made my day. :) Then we visited with the Estrada family and I helped their son set up his new super sweet basketball hoop!! he is awesome! He is 4 years old and can still beat me in basketball... haha. Next we visited the Goosman family, she is a recent convert..we visited for a while and then i went and played Lego's with her kids. They are pretty awesome! :) Next we went to the Torros house for dinner and I ate the best tamales in the world! :) Then we played card games with the family and family friends:) it was a super fun night! And people set off fireworks for Christmas here.. which i thought was weird.. but i guess not.. but anyways it was super fun and pretty to watch:)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WASHINGTON!!!!! 

Huge shout out to my nephew who turned two this Saturday! Love him to death:) And then this Sunday Roland and Jessica came to church again and we actually had tons of success knocking doors this Sunday. It was awesome, people let us in and set return appointments with us.. which is not super normal, so we were super excited! Well Thank you all for everything! I love you guys so much and I hope you all have a super great new years! :)

Love, Hermana Parslow

Newsletter Week 9

The Week of Many Miracles

Hey! So this week was awesome! Definitely the best week yet of the mission!!
Tuesday was a way awesome day!! It really helped strengthen my testimony of fasting:) We had our first lesson with Roland, we tracted into him while we were knocking doors. He is probably in his mid thirties and has a 2 year old son. He is awesome!! We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel and how Christ's church is back on the Earth, we was really receptive to it and the spirit was so strong!! We invited him to be baptized and he accepted! It was great!

Wednesday we didn't have very many lessons planned so we did a ton of tracting!! It was great! We gave out He is the Gift cards and then we met with the recent converts, the Hernandez family! They are so awesome! They have 6 little kids and we have tons of fun with them... haha I give them candy and stickers every time I see them.. haha so they like it when the missionaries come over:) We also play "Down by the Banks" with them.. they think it is fun:) I love this family so much! we are working with them to get them to the temple and be sealed! Best family ever!!

Thursday we had another lesson with Roland, we taught him the Plan of Salvation, he was so happy! he has lost 2 of his older siblings and found peace that they have the opportunity to accept the Gospel in the Spirit World. :) Then we had a dinner appointment with the Estrada Family, and I swear they are the most loving giving family in the whole world!! I love them so much! They fed us dinner and then sent us home with enough food to last us another week! They also invited us over to skype our families on Christmas:) they are the nicest people in the world!!

Friday! This day was so so so fun!! We had a mission Christmas get together!! There is over 250 people in our mission, so it was a blast! I even saw someone who I graduated High school with! So that was awesome! we sang Christmas songs and ate food and laughed and had a great time!! I am so excited for Christmas! its going to be great!!

Saturday we taught a lesson to Roland.... AND HIS WIFE!! :):):) He has been meeting with us, but his wife who is a devoted Catholic has not been interested and wants her son baptized in the Catholic church and none other. This week she agreed to meet with us, she was expressing how she had just lost a very close friend and her friend had always inspired her to come closer to Christ. We decided to share the Plan of Salvation with her. She had a lot of questions and was very interested. We had a member present with her, and the member also used to be Catholic, so I think that helped. But at the end of the lesson we asked her to say the closing prayer in way we had showed her. She was a little hesitant at first, but decided that she would. After the prayer her eyes were watery and the spirit was so strong. As she gave me a hug good-bye she said she would meet with us again!! :) She also came to church with her husband Roland and their son this week. It was so so awesome!!

Sunday: Roland and his wife Jessica came to church with their son Max:) It was so awesome! :) We also went caroling with the elders and it was a blast! The Christmas spirit is the best!

Thank you guys for all you love and support! I received your Christmas cards this week and it made my week! I love you all so much and hope you all have a very merry Christmas! Love you!

Love,
Hermana Parslow

Newsletter Week 8

It is so crazy.. I am only a couple states away from my home state and often have to remind myself that I am still in America. This is a very different America than I am used to! But it is awesome! The Mission President said that the population is 50/50 on Latinos here. There are a ton of Latinos and African Americans here, not as many white, People are so kind and caring. I love it!

My companion is from Hondorus, so she doesn't have her drivers lisence.. which makes me the designated driver, haha people here drive so crazy. But I am quickly learning how to drive like a Texan:)

Me and Hermana Diaz went on exchanges this week and I was with Hermana Tu'i! She is so so so awesome and she helped me so much!! She is Tongan and has a heart of gold! :)

The language is coming.. slowly but surely.. haha I can now atleast pick up the main idea about what is being talked about, not all the details, but atleast the main point:)

This week we were having family home evening with one of the less active families in our ward, and we talked about faith. We read in Ether 12:4. I absolutely love this scripture. It talks about how faith is our anchor. It makes me think of us being in a boat, our faith is the anchor that holds us in one spot during the storm.. If we have a weak (or light) anchor we are going to be carried away and lost in the storm. We need to have our faith firm in Christ and exercise it daily, so that when the storms do come and the waves beat against us we will know that we are safe.

I love this gospel and my savior! Thank you all for all of the love and support! I hope you are all doing great! :)

Love, Hermana Parslow

Newsletter Week 7

So this week has been pretty crazy. I arrived in Texas and got my new companion. Her name is Hermana Diaz and she is from Hondorus.

We went tracting our first day here and I had my first experience of getting doors slammed in my face.. quite a new experience for me. Most people just politely say no.. but there is a few who are not the kindest. haha I also had someone ask me how many wives we have in our church and was telling me that Mormons are killers. He is a very interesting man. His name is Glen. But he is awesome and I hope we get to interact more with him.

The Hernandez family got baptized this week. there is three little kids that were baptized. They are all very sweet and I love them so much.

We tracted into a man named Ceaser, he said he is looking for truth and is interested about learning more. So I am really excited to work with him. We have an appointment with him today. We also met a family with six members in it and invited them to church this week to the baptism and they came to both! It was so awesome! The little girl told us she wants to get baptized , and she is 12 so I am so excited to start teaching them.

Our mission goals are to ask someone to get baptized every day. so that has been fun trying to complete. My companion is cool, she is super intense in the work and has a lot of passion. Its great, sometimes I get a little overwhelmed, but I love it.

I know this church is true and I know Jesus Christ is my Savior. Love you guys! thank you for all the love and support!

Love, Hermana Parslow

Newsletter Week 6

Hey! This week has been really good. It was the final week here at the MTC, so that is super exciting! (:

Our lessons keep getting better and better and so is the Spanish, so I guess that means the MTC was a success.. haha

We had an In-Field Orientation this week and there was a super awesome quote that was said, and I love it so I wanted to share it. Here it is:

Faith is the power
Obedience is the price
Love is the motivation
Spirit is the key
Jesus Christ is the reason.

I am so lucky to be able to go and serve! I already love the people of Texas and couldn't be going to a better mission! I got a really strong confirmation this week that Texas is where I am suppose serve my mission! (: It was an awesome experience.

This Sunday was a pretty big day, we had to sing a special musical number because we are leaving this week so we sang "Mas Cerca Dios, de Ti" Which is "Nearer my God to Thee" It ended up being pretty beautiful, then we bore our testimonies. So I am going to bear my testimony in Spanish, for those of you who know Spanish don't judge too harshly, haha I know I still say loads of things wrong... :) But here ya go:)

Yo Tengo un gran testimonio de mi Salvador, Jesucristo. Yo se que porque de Su Expiaxion todas las personas en el mundo pueden vivir con Dios otra vez. Yo se que Jose Smith fue un verdad profeta, y vio Jesucristo y Padre Celestial en el arboles. Tengo un testimonio que todas las cosas en este Evangelio de Jesucristo, La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de los Ultimos Dias es la verdadera iglesia en el mundo. Y mediante esta nosotros podemos vivir con nuestras familias en cielo con Dios otra vez. Porque yo se estas cosas, yo quiero compartir estas con todas las personas. Y yo muy agradicida por la opurtunidad yo tengo a compartir con la gente en Texas. Yo digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen. 

Love, Hermana Parslow