La Ultima Semana

Hola mi humanos,

Como estan??!! I can't believe its my last week here!! its gone SO fast and I feel like I still have a LOT to learn before I go out to Chile! But its fine because I'm STOKED to see Chile and teach real people! So my flight is on Monday at 11:55 pm which means we are probably leaving the CCM at 7:45ish. The flight is 8 and a half hours-which isn't that bad. I honestly am super nervous because apparently in Chile they speak REALLY fast, drop word endings, and half their vocab is different than the Spanish here...so yay...on a happier note I'm pretty sure I'll get to email again on Sunday or Monday before I leave!

And our district took our district picture and they make these really cool power points with all the districts leaving. I am having them send that to you guys with all our pictures as well. Our district was pretty cool-we dressed up in the Chilean flag colors (red, whit, and blue), held up a Chilean flag, and us girls held a sign saying, "Those Viña Kids," because that's what the Elders always call our district, lol.

Oh and Hma Hones and I taught  a lesson on Sunday about the Book of Mormon. It was pretty awesome, we put all these cards around the room with the "questions of the soul" from PMG pg. 107 and then all the matching scriptures from the Book of Mormon and they had to find all the question with the corresponding scripture. We had them split up into 3 groups and it got pretty competitive, lol. Then we had two people share experiences they've had where the Book of Mormon has answered a question in they had. I thought that I went really well and the spirit was definitely there!

Our notes around the room for our lesson

More notes around the room

Some elders corrected the grammar of a note some hermanas left 

The title of our lesson

I was really reminded of you guys this week because we watched the devotional Elder Holland gave with the Peter and Christ analogy-"Do you love me?" X 3, "Then FEED MY SHEEP," and the Joseph Smith video where Lucy Smith is narrating what we saw at the St. George temple visitor center right before I left. Elder Holland's talk hit me hard! It's So different now that I AM a missionary I LOVED it. Here are a few things that impacted me:

• Listen to investigators with your HEART
• Yes you are "called to serve" but SO WHAT? SO WHEN? FOR HOW LONG??
• NO LESSON YOU GIVE IS GIVEN ALONE
• We are the HOPE OF ISRAEL
• DO YOU LOVE ME?? THEN FEED MY SHEEP! 
• We are called follow HIM FOREVER
• If you serve you mission and then come home and go astray YOU WILL BREAK THE HEART OF GOD HIMSELF
• HOW CAN YOU GO OUT AND TEACH PEOPLE THE IMPORTANCE OF ENDURING TO THE END/OBEDIENCE JUST TO COME HOME AND DO THE VERY OPPOSITE??!!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE Elder Holland??

Also, one of our teachers had us all think of an impactful scripture/chapter/story/experience we've had with the Book of Mormon and we all sat in a circle and shared ours. We were ALL crying, ALL bearing awesome testimonies of how this Book has changed our lives and "pricked our hearts" enough to change. I know that the Book of Mormon has ALL the answers to ALL of our questions! There is NO truer or greater Book in ALL the world! READ IT. PONDER IT. and PRAY -with REAL intent- to know if it's true and it WILL be made known unto you. If any of you have an experience with the Book of Mormon please let me know- our teacher asked us to ask our families for one:)

Also, while reading in PMG this week I came across this quote by Brigham Young about his conversion that I'd love for you guys to read—its on pg 199 (last paragraph) which I just fell in Love with! I know this gospel is true with EVERY cell in my body! And because I have been given much, I too must give! That's why I'm here. To share this message of hope, love, forgiveness, and total joy with the world! I love this gospel and I love each and every one of you, just like Heavenly Father does! 

Con todo mi amor,

Hermana Logan

A Mexican in a sombrero

Me and my friend from college, Elder Bean

4th Week Down!

Hola mis amorosos!

Man, do I love all y'all! I pray for all of you EVERYDAY and hope you feel my love for everyone of you! I have been truly blessed with the best humans in my life! Thank you for all you've done for me and helped me to become the person I am today! Also, thank you for writing me! It always makes my week!

So this week has been kinda crazy! I may or may not have gotten sick... there was-as people are calling it- a huge plague that hit here this past week! There were only 3 out of our 7 Elders who didn't get hit. I was hit with a fever and I couldn't keep anything down for like a solid two days. It make me pretty homesick, too. Missing my amazing, nurturing family and the pleasures of America, but I was so grateful for the Hmas here that took care of me and dealt with my miserable self. Plus my sickness only lasted two days and I am so grateful that I was able to recover so quickly!

But no worries, I am all good:) 

So the sounds of Mexico City are pretty dandy! We got the Hunger Games canon which goes off like 10 times a day at least. They say its the Catholic churches surrounding us-but i don't know what for,. Then of course, there's the blaring horns of traffic/some kind of train/bus horn that crazy long. Lastly, there are fireworks that go off during broad daylight, lol. Oh, and Ron will love this- every Saturday night the hill of houses surrounding us have an ALL NIGHT FIESTA that is still going on when we wake up in morning! 

Oh, and in case you thought mt getting sick was bad luck: NOPE, WRONG AGAIN! (Just for you Andrew:)) I got bleach on my plain black skirt-right on the front where everyone can see! So if you know of anyway I  can fix it, please let me know! 

Ok, now for all things spiritual:

This week we talked a lot about how to know whether you're teaching by the spirit or not. Which I have been struggling with because I know hen I bear my testimony/pray during lessons that its supposed to bring the spirit-but I just wasn't sure if it was truly happening because sometimes you just answer questions and strain to have them understand you and afterwards you wonder if that is impeding the presence of the spirit... son one of our maestras showed us a video from Elder Bednar and I really loved what he had to say:

•  Many of you wonder,"How do I know if what I'm saying or doing is what the spirit would have me say or do. Heres your answer:

QUIT WORRYING ABOUT IT!

• Be obedient, be the best missionary you can and press forward. Everything you need to know is to just DO. Do everything you can- sometimes without really knowing why. And you may not know it at the exact moment it happens- but it IS a spiritual prompting.

And then this morning I came across 2 Nephi Chapter 33 during personal study and I FELL in love with it! Its Nephis last words and I just replaced my name with his throughout the chapter. It was AWESOME! It was EXACTLY how I feel! I want all of you to PLEASE go and read it and then know that is what I want to share with the world! Believe in Christ! Believe in His words-Believe this Book is His word, for he will tell you that these words are His and that they ARE TRUE!

Man I cant believe I only have 13 more days here! THE WEEKS HAVE JUST FLOWN! But Im so grateful for all that I have learned here that I KNOW will help me in the field, for HE SHALL prepare a way for me! 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH!!!! 

Con todos mi amor,

Hermana Logan

Love the Lord!

HOLA everyone!!!!

So I'm going to try to make this short cuz I have a lot of pics to send and they take forever! Plus I can only send two at a time. So I'll start off by answering a few questions and some funny things that happened this week:

• The food here is actually not that bad. Today we had one of those rare occasions of American food, fried chicken! But usually its like some kind of meat or taquitos or something. Its definitely NOT as good as Ron´s cooking- NOT EVEN CLOSE, but its typical cafeteria food. And there is always cereal and a salad bar.
• So it POURS here like every few days! I mean it FLOODS the walkways and grass EVERY TIME it rains. lol. 
• Found out my companion talks in her sleep! Like you can have full on conversations with her! She even sings when asked! Lol. It literally was the funniest thing! 
• So my first investigator turned out to be our new 2nd teacher. So, our investigators are played by our teachers, but they play REAL people(like friends of theirs or something). So now we are teaching two different "investigators" played by our teachers.
• Spanish is coming along, I can understand the majority of what is said, but I don´t speak it too well yet. I sound pretty much like a caveman but I know with a lot of effort it will come!

Okay now for the spiritual stuff from our devotionals this week:

• The apostles spent HOURS upon HOURS upon YEARS to make PMG, so we need to spend at least HOURS studying all that they made for us. 
• in Relief society we talked about the patters on the lord (D&C 52:14) and how we usually follow the pattern of Adam and Eve. We are in the Garden of Eden and then thrust out into the lone and dreary world. Like the MTC was the lone and dreary world but will come a garden of Eden until we are cast out to the lone and dreary world of our mission, etc. Yet the Lord will ALWAYS prepare and provide a way for us to accomplish all we are asked to do and get out of our comfort zones.
• And in another devotional we learned that we need to obey the Lord because we LOVE him. And we must love him BECAUSE HE LOVED US FIRST! BEING HIS REPRESENTATIVE IS A PRIVILEGE SO DON'T WAIST A SINGLE SECOND, FOR HE NEVER DID!

Okay also, this morning we got to go to the temple (visitors center cuz the temple is closed) and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!! 

I LOVE THIS GOSPEL AND ALL OF YOU WITH ALL MY HEART! I have learned SO much in such a small amount of time and I am excited for all that I will learn still. 

con todos mi amor,

Hermana Logan

Week 2 in the CCM

Hola Everyone!

So 2 weeks down! Okay first off Mom and Ron PLEASE keep sending me Dear Elder letters! They print them out so I can keep them and I can read them whenever! Your letter made me cry! And then i was laughing through my tears:) Thank you SO much for sending it to me! I really missed all of you this week and wished you could all be here with me! But anyways, this week was super spiritual! Sundays are jam-packed with AMAZING messages! So here are some of my highlights:

• In Relief Society we talked about the "Tongue of Angels" in 2 Nephi 31 & 32 and its meaning. The teacher connected it like this T.O.A.- universal language of love- holy ghost(2 Nephi 32:3) - words of Christ. *This was superb because while teaching our first investigator last week she said she had prayed to know if the BOM is true and our church and she felt like it was true and agreed to baptism! I was SO moved! It was like I was being converted all over again! Almost like living through her:)* So then she talked about how if we speak with the universal language of love we would feel the love of Christ for our investigators and thats why we receive so much joy when they finally know its true!

• We watched a Jeffery R. Holland video which of course was SPOT ON! Please please please look it up! It's his talk at the MTC on Jan, 2013 and he said some impact things:
• Moroni saw US in our day and the work we would be doing
• The apostles knew their end was coming and that testifying would be useless because the apostasy was coming but they kept proselyting-why? Because they knew in our day WE would finish the work and we WOULD  NOT FAIL!
• But we have to be better than them and all the missionaries before us
• Because this isn't a break from our "real lives" THIS IS REAL LIFE!
• YOU ARE COMMANDED TO COME HOME WITH AT LEAST ONE CONVERT AND IT BETTER BE YOU!
• HE HAS CHOSEN YOU SINCE THE BEGINNING TO BE HERE AT THIS TIME
• We may be teenagers but the future is in OUR hands
• It's called Preach MY Gospel for a reason, we need to preach HIS gospel!
• In Helaman 5 it says Nephi and Lehi did preach with POWER AND AUTHORITY
• Like with alma the younger, when the angel came he did cause the earth to quake (Mosiah 27: 11,12,18,19) and they were so ASTONISHED they fell to the earth.
• ASTONISHED´S root is TONER meaning thunder
• Go cause an earthquake in someones life- EVEN ASTONISH THEM!

• Okay this next video CHANGED MY MISSION OUTLOOK FOREVER! type in "missionary work and the atonement" into youtube and watch this AMAZING VIDEO!!! I just summarized my thoughts form it:
• Many missionaries ask why missionary work is so hard *this was how i had been feeling this past week when teaching because the language barrier is SO hard and frustrating because I can't bear my testimony like I usually do cause I don't know how to express it in Spanish. So our lessons didn't turn out as well as before and I was just pretty down so I was asking the lord for some encouragement and THIS IS WHAT I RECEIVED!!* This work is not easy because salvation has NEVER BEEN A CHEAP EXPERIENCE! Why would you expect it to be easy for you when it was never easy for HIM? And when we suffer we get to stand shoulder to shoulder with the most perfect life this world has ever known. Yes, this work is hard but there is NO other way. Look at Christ's life: It wasn't easy- He even asked if this could be different "Father if thou be willing remove this cup from me." How can we begin to complain when he suffered an eternity more than us yet He went on, He went though with it to the END. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how hard it gets, WE CHOSE TO BE HERE and WE MUST DEEP GOING because we are HIS representatives and HE NEVER QUIT. We are the future because we are the gathering of zion and our job is the MOST IMPORTANT job this world will ever know! 

Anyway this week turned out to be pretty freaking amazing and I love this work even more now! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

con todos mi amor,

Hermana Logan

P.S. Okay so everyone keeps asking about the food, the food here is actually pretty good. Sometimes it's pretty questionable but they always have cereal and a salad/fruit bar. AND THEY USUALLY HAVE WATERMELON!! :))) So yeah it's pretty great... not as  good as Ron's cooking OF COURSE, NOT EVEN CLOSE!

Look at this huge moth!

Me and my companion

Me and my companion when we forgot our umbrellas 

Me with the hermanas I live with 

Trying to recreate the famous Beatles album cover... in Mexico

Forgot my umbrella

Week 1 Down in Mexico

Hello everyone!!!!

Well I am officially done with week one in the MTC!! Lol. Okay so after we got off of our flight here in Mexico I was so surprised to see how GREEN it is here. I was expecting like total desert hahaha. AND DONT GET ME STARTED ON THE DRIVING! WE DROVE TO THE CCM FROM THE AIRPORT AND I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE!!!! But we made it here and it's totally beautiful! And yes I found my companion Hermana Jones and she is great! She is from Washington state(tri-city area). She is super fun and all the Elders in our district love her cuz she is like kind of a tom boy. But she has an amazing conversion story about her and her whole family which is awesome!

Ellen and her companera in the pouring rain.

Okay so our district has 7 guys (did have 8 but one of the Elders went home already cuz he just felt totally out of his element and such) and four of us girls and we are all going to the same mission! But the boys are super hard to concentrate around cuz they are pretty rowdy lol. Plus they love to ask Hermana Jones about her life... But we all get along great and its been fun getting to know everyone! The Spanish started out as a real big struggle for me but now I am getting more confident about it and I have felt the power of the gift of tongues already on my mission and I know what my setting apart blessing meant! 

So when they say they keep you busy they MEAN it! Its like so insane how much we do in one day its hard to talk about a whole week in one email! But I thought I would share some highlights!!! 

Okay so we had a really cool devotional about the second shortest scripture in the Bible which is Remember Lots wife. He talked about how it was so important for her to not look behind her like the Lord commanded, but she did. But not even that she looked back longingly etc. He tied it into how we need to leave our past behind us so we can focus on being the best missionaries we can be! Which was pretty cool and impactful to me. 

We also watched a video about John Tanner that was SO good! I didnt know ALL of his story and he was truly a man of pure faith and consecration. He gave literally EVERYTHING he had to keep the gospel and I need to do the same! It was super amazing to feel the spirit so strong during a video!!

Ok, so this is the best part of this whole week. We started teaching and investigator on our second full day here- ALL IN SPANISH. So the first lesson we taught was pretty much all read off our notes and such and it was very impactful. Our second lesson went better but we still werent feeling right about it. So our last lesson we decided we were going to just ask her questions and totally rely on the Spirit and the little spanish we know to do it. I was so impressed to just totally rely on the Spirit and as we were walking over there I was super stoked to do it it was fantastic! 

So we get in there and we just do our best with teaching Andrea and not any lessons. So we invited her to say the opening prayer and then we both started asking her about how she felt when she prayed and we talked about the Spirit and the Atonement. She was almost in tears!!!! Which is quite the change from just reading the whole lesson! After that lesson we both were so giddy with the Spirit and it was AMAZING! I wish I could convey the Spirit that was there. I couldnt understand all that she was saying but it felt right and thats all that matters! Plus we did it all mainly in Spanish! If someone had told me that five days into the mission I would have been doing that I would NOT have believed them! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!! 

So we were challenged to bear our testimony in español to our families so here it goes!

Yo se que La Expacion is verdad y es como nosotros puede ventir con de Dios otra vez. Yo se que Jose Smith es un propheta y El Libro de Mormon is Verdadero. Esta Iglesia es verdadero con todos mi corazon. Yo se que de Dios ama mi y usted. Yo es muy agredecido por de opportunidad a sevir de misional y de poder del Espiritu Santo. En el nombre de jesucristo, Amen! 

I love all of you SOOO much and appreciate your emails they were all super sweet! I hope you will continue to write me and can feel the Spirit through my email! 

Ill talk to you all in a week!!! 

con todos mi amor, 

Hermana Logan 

I'm Here!

Dear Family and friends,

I have arrived safely to the CCM and it is still not completely real lol. This place is amazing and I have made a ton of friends all ready! My flight to Mexico was literlly like half missionaries! It was insane! So far it has just been wonderful and totally great to become friends with everyone! My P-day is on Wed so you won´t hear from me for a week. I realized my camera doesnt have a memory card so I am going to see if they have any here, if not could you guys send me one? Oh, and Mom my passcode to my computer is on my information document on the desktop of our computer. I havent been able to find my companion yet, her name is hermana Jones... but Hermana Balito is my temp comp right now cuz we found each other on the flight and are sticking together! I cant wait to email all of you about my new week and experience so far!! But I only have five min!! It just doesnt feel real at all, but its relaly cool to be totally surrounded by other missionaries! I am now going to unpack and get settled in right now after I email! But I love all of you and this place is literally amazing! Ok, Ill write you in a week!!! Con dios!

Con todos mi amor,

Hermana Logan

P.S.Signing my name like that was super cool and fulfilling! I have been waiting to do that forever hahahaha! Big hugs to everyone!!!!

P.S.S. Sister Lindemann I SAW NATE HERE!!!! Ill send a pic sometime!

Pictures of Ellen at the airport