Yes, I'm Alive!

Hola everyone!

     Sorry! It's been about five years since I wrote anything! I'm back now though.

     Well, just a quick update because I actually don't know when the last time was that I wrote a blog email. I am currently serving in Newport News/Williamsburg, Virginia. I am in a trio right now. My companions are Hermana Bills, she's from Provo, and Hermana Nyre, and she's from Syracuse:) They are both wonderful missionaries and I love them a lot! We have a grand old time, walking around, speaking Spanish, most of the time in the rain! It rains a lot here... We have fun though:)

     So I'm really bad at writing letters (hence the 0 blog letters lately) so this is how I'm going to split my letters up: Funny thing/s that happened, a miracle and something I learned. Or something like that anyway.

     Our mission has a key indicator called Invite Others. Which means inviting someone that isn't an investigator to do something outside of a lesson, like look at Mormon.org or learn more about the gospel. President Baker wants the whole mission to get 100 every week. We've done it.  But it takes a lot of work, and you have to talk to EVERYONE, so unfortunately we don't always get 100. Well, last week some of the elders in our district got 101 and one of them very kindly told us to "beat it." That was probably the best motivation that anyone has ever given me! and usually our motivation is frozen yogurt on preparation day! Guess how many we got this week? We got 112! Yes, Elder, we beat it. Okay, so that isn't that funny, but I thought it was, haha!

     This week we had an amazing miracle! We have a less-active sister that we meet with and last week when we went over to teach her, she had a friend over and the friend wanted to learn more! So this week we were able to teach her and she just loves it! She's the cutest! For all of you out there, I just want you to know that the best/most interested investigators come from members. SO INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!

     Something that I learned this week is that God catches you when you walk out onto the water. This has been my favorite scripture story throughout my entire mission and this week I really had to put it into practice.

 "25. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

 26. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.

 27. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.

 28. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

 29. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

 30. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

 31. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" Matthew 31

    This week we had exchanges and the sister that came didn't speak any Spanish. Hermana Bills (AKA my Spanish mouth piece) was the one that left. So it was just Hermana Nyre and I. Hermana Nyre speaks Spanish well but neither of us can speak as well as Hermana Bills. Lately I have really not ended up teaching very much because now there are two other people teaching that can speak  way better than I can and so I fade back a lot of the time. So, needless to say, I was super nervous to teach with just Hermana Nyre and I. But it was just fine! I opened my mouth and words came out! It definitely wasn't perfect, but I was able to communicate my point! The last couple weeks I have definitely, like Peter, let the winds and waves around me waver my faith and I started to sink. The Lord knew what I needed to push me back above that all and He caught me. 

I hope you all have a beautiful week!

Hermana Fields 

Independence Day in Photos

Editor's note:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than this is one long post! Hermana Fields didn't send a blog to post, but it's great seeing her beautiful smiling face. ~Angela

Hermanas Fields, Bills and Camps (I don't know when this photo was taken. )

Las Compañeras: Hermanas Fields, Bills y Nyre

Rain and Hastening the Work

Hola!

I hope everyone is doing well!  We made it through another week in the News! It rained a lot this week.  We got to go tracting in the rain and now I feel like a real missionary!  That was fun for a while, until my umbrella started soaking through, and no one answered their doors.  Actually, last week we were walking down the street in a our favorite trailer park, Christian Street, and it started pouring so we went and got in our car.  But, there was another person that we wanted to see so we ran as fast as we could to their front porch and a woman answered.  She looked so surprised to see two random girls on her porch in the pouring rain, and then she just said, ¡Pasen adelante! So we went in and taught her about the Book of Mormon. :)  We actually just went back and taught her and her husband, yesterday, and it went really well. :)  Tracting in the rain works well sometimes!

This last week we have been learning a new way of teaching, and it is pretty different, but super great.  We are teaching very short, very simple lessons: really focusing on using the pamphlets, especially using the pictures in the pamphlets.  Someone from the Missionary Department in SLC came and did a 2-day training on it for all the Sister Training Leaders, District Leaders, and Zone Leaders.  Apparently, we are the only mission on the East Coast doing this.  It's really hard.  We have been trying to get our Restoration lessons down to 10 minutes. The lesson needs to be sooooo simple! We just teach an overview now, and then the investigators use their agency and read the pamphlets for themselves outside the lesson.  It's crazy, but it's super good because, honestly, no one wants to meet with us for 45 minutes or an hour.  The guy from Salt Lake talked about how this is part of the hastening of the work. So that's been really interesting, this week!

We had exchanges this week. One of our Sister Training Leaders actually is a Spanish Sister and just left my area after being here for a year, so it was super nice being on exchanges with her. She knows everyone and is really good at Spanish.  It's actually Hermana Camps! She trained my MTC companion, Hermana Reed, and was companions with Hermana Bills last transfer.  Everyone calls her Hermana Campos, so on exchanges we were "Hermana Campos y Hermana Campos!"  It was great. :)

I sure hope everyone has a wonderful week!
I love you all!
Hermana Fields

1/3 Down!

Hola!

How is everyone doing? I hope fantastic:)

I made it through six months of being a missionary! On Saturday Hermana Fletcher and I realized that one year from that day we will be going to the mission home! It was weird. What happened? I still have a whole year to enjoy anyway. :) 

Another crazy week has gone by in Newport News. Missionaries told me before I came, that Newport News would be crazy, but now I know! It's just an adventure everyday. We do A LOT of tracting as Spanish missionaries and we meet so many very different kinds of people. I have definitely learned that you can't judge a single person! We were having a lesson with an investigator on her porch this week and at about the end of the lesson this other man that also lives in that trailer walked up and started listening in. I had never really met him, but I knew that other people had said that he was kinda' creepy. So anyway, we went on with our lesson and at the end we invited M. to come to church.  And then, Hermana Bills also invited the other man as well. Turns out that he has been listening to us teach some lessons at their trailer (we have two other investigators that live there too) and he is very interested and wants to come to church! And he is also a very nice person! Moral of the story: don't judge anyone! God is preparing people! 

Another lesson learned by Hermana Fields this week: I have been working on reading the Old Testament all the way through, and this week I was reading in Exodus 4. Verses 10-12 say:  

10 And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

 11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?

 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

I relate to this so much. Spanish has been the absolute biggest struggle for me my entire mission. I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue! It takes me 20 minutes just to form a sentence! These verses were a real comfort to me. The Lord has chosen me for this work and He will help me. Spanish is still hard, but I have seen moments where I have opened my mouth and it has been filled.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Hermana Fields 

Call Me Hermana

Hola from The News!

This area is absolutely incredible! It is gorgeous (Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown settlement are in our area!) and I just love the people here!...Even though I can't really understand what they are saying to me! I am now in one of only two totally Spanish branches in our entire mission. Everyone around here just calls it "The Branch."  It cracks me up.

Mi nueva compañera is Hermana Bills. She is an amazing missionary! She's only been out for three months, but she's basically fluent in Spanish and is just amazing. She's from Provo, so it's really nice that we both know the same places. We have some struggles with our names, though. When Hispanic people say Fields or Bills, it sounds almost exactly the same. So I'm probably going to end up being Hermana Campos. The only problem with that, is that the missionary that I replaced was named Camps and went by Campos! Maybe I'll be Hermana Fieles (faithful, sorta). We'll see what happens:)

My Spanish is pretty terrible.  But I'm slowly, but surely, improving. I know that this is where the Lord wants me to be and that He is right next to me, helping me learn this language. People get pretty confused though when my cute, blond companion can speak Spanish and the little Mexican next to her can't. That's alright though! I'll be able to just pretend I have always spoken Spanish one day!  

I hope you all have a blessed week!

Hermana Fields/Campos/Fieles

I'm Finally Going to be a Spanish Speaking Missionary!!!

Hello everyone! 

I'm back! Sorry, I'm so flaky about writing my blog letters. I have good news!!! I'm finally going to be a Spanish speaking missionary!!! I'm transferring to Newport News, VA on Wednesday!!! It will be a real adventure because I think I have only been out a transfer longer than my new companion! But I have heard that she is really good at Spanish, and I'm excited nonetheless:) Sister Glaser and I always joke about how I'm a less-active hermana, but I won't be anymore! I'm being re-activated! 

Not a lot else happened this week, besides being in a tropical storm. Its name is Amarinth. The weather people will tell you that its name is Anna, but it's not. It's Amarinth. No one told us for a while what its name was so we made one up. 

Have a blessed week! 

Hermana Fields

On Miracles and Diligence (21 weeks out)

You know you're a missionary when you go back to get blood work done at the doctor's office, and when you come back your companion is teaching someone about the Restoration of the gospel in the waiting room. 

Hello everyone!
     I hope you all had a marvelous week!  We had a crazy week here in Greenville, but that's actually just normal. :) 
     We have been working really hard to try and make sure that "Miracle May" can happen. Which I know will!  It actually has been pretty remarkable.  As we have been been praying and fasting, so much has started happening!  We had a really great miracle happen just the other day.  We were at the doctor's office and after my appointment we were waiting to get my blood work done, and a lady across the room started talking to us and complaining about health care and politics.  As missionaries, we really didn't know how to respond to politics, but we felt prompted to go over and ask her about religion.  So, we did, and it turns out that she had met with the missionaries about 15 years ago. And, she asked us to come over!  Miracles are happening!  Lots of little things happen every day and it is so exciting to see. :)
     Something that I learned this week in my scripture study is that God doesn't bless you because you are "successful."  He blesses you because you are diligent.  I was reading in Alma chapter 21.  Poor Aaron and Muloki just had such awful luck!  Everyone was so mean to them, and no one listened.  And then, they were cast into prison for who knows how long.  As soon as they were rescued and fed and clothed, they went straight back to work!  After that, they were able to bring "many to the knowledge of the truth."  
     The Lord blessed them because, after everything they went through, they were still diligent in preaching the gospel to the Lamanites. Those were some incredible missionaries!  Even though sometimes in this work things get really hard (though probably never as bad as Aaron and Muloki had it) and you don't feel like your work is doing anything, be patient and diligent!  Things can, and will, start to happen!  I really think that this principle can apply to  a lot of other things in life as well.  I couldn't tell you what, though, because all I currently know is missionary work.
     I hope everyone has one blessed week. Remember to read your scriptures and say your prayers!

Love,
Hermana Fields

This is what happens to trees when they get struck by lightning.