Hola Todos!

Buenas!

Hola hola!  This was a great week and we were able to find some of our investigators who we lost touch with!  And I also really got to see how powerful the book of mormon really is!

This week we had a lesson with one of our investigators Ilda, she is so so sweet and we read with her Alma 34, and it was a super powerful lesson!  She really understands and loves reading in the book of mormon which ofcourse brings a big smile to my face! I also really am beginning to see evenmore of the gift of tongues.  I am nwo 6 months and can understand but sometimes when it comes to speaking it all gets jumbled! haha but I can always ALWAYS count on it when i am teaching, somehwo the words come and I can tell that they are really listening and somehow I knwo what to say!  I am so so grateful for the Lords help in this work, and for the opportunity i have to be here!  I love you all muchisimo!

con mucho amor, Hermana Zimmerman

Buenas!

Hola familia y amigos!

This was a great week in Caguas:D
First we were able to have zone conference and here from one of our new area presidents President Zivic and his wife! it was so amazing and I learned so many things about how to improve teaching, contacting and everything!  They are incredibly kind people who eminate with love!  This week i also hit my 6 month mark!  so crazy to me how fast time goes, and looking back i am just filled with gratitude at the wonderful people I have been able to meet and all of the experience i have had that have grown my testimony of this gospel!  The past 6 months also have been filled with some ups and downs as I adjust to missionary life but the one thing i can truly testify of is that the tender mercies of the Lord truly are all around us,  he loves us adn is shaping us into who he needs us to be!  I truly love this gospel:)
A little about our investigator Ilda, she is the sweetest and absolutely loves reading in the book of mormon which is just all a missionary lvoes to see!  She is very kind adn loves learning adn so I am grateful we get to keep on teaching her and showing her the joy this gospel brings!  Also random funnty story, one day we were out contacting and and we saw a lady sitting outside of her porch adn so we started walking toward her adn she immediately got up and went towards the door,so i just yelled hola buenas! and she turned around and just started saying hwo she really doesnt want anything adn how she is catholic and we started talking to her a little more about who we are and how we just have a message that we share with all adn she really warmed up to us and we ended up talking for while and drinking coke and doughnuts on her porch! haha it was really funny how fast things changed and it was a testimony of how we can really talk with all even if they start running away!
Anyways I hope you all have a wonderful week i lvoe you all:)
con mucho amor, Hermana Zimmerman:)

 cake with hermana franco:)

  at the zone conference (combined 3 zones) and most of my mtc group!

6 Months down:D

Hola, HOLA!!!

Hola mi bonitas!

Okay this week was great here in Caguas! I am getting to know the area better but it really is just ginormous!!

A few highlights this week were that first i got to go on Intercambios this week with Hermana Turner! She is super sweet and we have the same name! So I got to go to Guyama for the day and it was super fun!  They had a misional actividad that night at the church and it was so much fun:D  The elders set up a little scavenger hunt around the church and then they had a barbeque and it was so much fun, some investigators, ward members and recent convert were there! I was even able to meet some ward members who know some of the families in Cabo Rojo which was really fun!  I love it because even though i was across the island everybody still knows people are member of the church because it used to be very very very small here so it is so fun to make connections with my area!

This week i was really able to see the power of the Book of Mormon!  We have one investigator who when we started explaining about the book of mormon she asked if we could bring one to our next visit, and ofcourse we just gave her one then and she was just so so excited to have one! I literally was just so happy after this and i am so excited to share even more of our message with her!  We then have another investigator who read everything we gave her and just loved it, she loves learning more adn then even sharing what shes learning!  Truly the Book of Mormon is amazing and so incredibly powerful, it gives us so much dirrection.  The Book of Mormon was also a tender mercy for me this week and I can testify that we can always recieve peace and comfort as we read.

We also were able to get in contact with a cute family this week, its a mom with 2 little boys and they are so sweet!  as soon as we called to the house the little boys just ran out and invited us in and gave us ice cold water(heaven)!  The mom was cooking and so we were just talking to the little boys, I asked them if they read in the book of mormon( a commitment that was given before) and he said he read the whole chapter!  Then I asked what he liked to do adn he said, pray, read the scriptures adn go to church!  They both sat there and then asked if they could teach us to learn how to draw thsi character adn we could teach them a little! haha literally a golden investigator, haha at 9 years old.  But we were able to talk with the mom a little and we are hoping to keep teaching this cute family!  and we were able to learn how to draw a little so SCORE:)

Anyways but overallthis week has been good, I am definitely growing a lot this transfer which is sometimes kinda hard but when we look back i know that we will be nothing but grateful:)  Anyways I love Puerto Rico and all of you con todo mi corazon!:)

con mucho amor, Hermana Zimmerman:)

 Me and Hermana Turner on intercambios:)

cosco pizzaaaaaaa that Hermana Franco bought for us!!

First week in Caguas!

Hola todos!

This week was pretty crazy with transfers and getting to know my new area and comp!  My companion is Hermana Johnson, she is from texas and is finishing her mission this transfer:0  Also she is a recent convert as of 2 years so it has been  really fun getting to know her more!  Also a little about my area, it is so so big and basically like a big city in the middle of the mountains! it is so so green adn i love being surrounded by mountians!  There are also just so so many places to work which is really fun!  The only thing i am scared about is how i have to learn it in just this transfer:0 haha it will be fun!

Overall i do really love my new area!

I also just wanted to talk a little about my last night in Cabo Rojo:)  We went to visit our investigator Jessica and it was incredible to see how much she has grown this transfer, her desire to learn more is so so big and she really wants to have this in her life,  seeing her tell us all about how she just loves church and how she loves the lessons just made my heart so so happy!  Overall my last transfer i think the main thing i learned was about love.  How when we truly love someone we are willing to do whatever we can to help them, as well as loving everybody equally.  We were all together before this life, and we all have the light of Christ, sometimes we are just put into certain circumstances which makes is hard but i knwo and can testify that is is always there.  thsi is something I truly saw adn learned to recognize, as I began to see peopel for how christ sees them and this is something thath really changed my perspective on so many things and i am so grateful for thsi gospel adn the light it brings.

Anyways okay im jumping all over the place sorry about that!  But more about Caguas, i am also in a house of 4 again which is fun!  I am also very spoiled in this house with a dryer, air conditioning, adn hot waterrrrrr:) haha its amazing!

The ward here is also really big and so so amazing!!  I love them all so much!  My second day we went over to a members house for lunch and had some amazing puerto rican food, rice beans adn chicken! 

A little about our investigators, we have one investigator named Ilda and she is super sweet and really receptive!  We had a lesson with her about the Plan of Salvation adn she loved it so much adn so we are excited to teach her more!

Okay next week i will talk a little more about it and have some stories to tell! love you all!  Never forget Heavenly Father is always there for us adn loves us more than we will ever know:)

con mucho amor, Hermana Zimmerman:)

 bag of fish our investigator gave to us! enjoy :D

 pic from Cabo Rojo

pic with Alex a recent convert

 pic with our investigator Jessica

 My trainer Hermana Green!

 dresses an inv. gave us in Cabo Rojo!

 My new comp. Hermana Johnson :)

when i try to make dinner for my comp... mac and cheese:D

It's Crab season!

Hola todos!

This week was great!  Honestly sitting here i cannot really remember what happened so I'll just share a few stories!

On monday we decided to try and do a Noche de Hogar with this sweet menos activo couple, their names are Rosa and Aarnoldo,  Rosa is paralyzed and pretty sick and so we always have the opportunity to go and visit them, they are incredibly kind and humble and really just the absolute sweetest couple who have such a strong testimony and love of this Gospel. They are very close to my heart.  Rosa's husband Arnoldo have now been a member for 3 years and yeah theya re just really really great.  Anyways so they live on the same calle as one of our investigators Jessica so we tried to do a family home evening with them!  Unfortunately  our investigator could only come and say hi for a bit but we still had a little family home evening.  It was super sweet and arnoldo had prepared food for us! He made hot dogs but them put chesse on them and put them into a tortilla and fried them! it was really good but me and my comp had actually already ate but some how we managed to still each eat 3 becuase he just kept giving them to us! haha i was soooo fulllllllll! haha but anyways this night just made me really really grateful for the mission and the wonderful people I have the opportunity to meet.

This week we also got caught in a big rainstorm, haha so we were out contacting and suddenly it just started pouring rain!  We were soaked and within 10  minutes the streets were rivers adn i was wish i had a tube where we could just ride it down! haha but for a while i couldn't see my feet through it and it was just reallly funny!  the best part is all of the people who yell at us adn say "no se mojen!" (don''t get wet!) haaha but really i love the rain here it is so funnnnn!

Also a new family just moved into our ward recently from Texas!  They don't speak english and so us missionaries translate for them, well usually just 2 of us my comp adn one of the elders. but this week my comp gave a talk and so I had to translate... haha I was good translating my companions but the next talk i swear was not in spanish!  i got key phrases and just kinda told some stories and tried to make sure i was teaching principles... haha not sure if it was exactly right but i thought my talk was pretty good! haha jk but yeah it was really funny and luckily i just translated for the kids so i forewarned them hahaha

also fun fact: its crab season!  I thought that when people were talking about how many crabs there were i thought they were all from the ocean, but really they are just everywhere in the dirt, huge huge crabs adn people are going out everyday and catching them!  Also this week was a pescado fiesta in on of the towns in my area so there were tons of people and fish! haha anyways also supposedlyu they had sharks out there for awhile but i didn't actually see them but i believe it!  anyways i hope you all ohave a great week! love you tons:)

amor, Hermana Zimmerman:)

New mission President and tender mercies!

Hola hola!

This week was great and we got a new mission Presidents, the Smarts!  We had a zone conference where we were able to meet them and they are some of the kindest most charasmatic people I've ever met!  I actually wanted to share a story that he shared from his mission because after we had a cool experience that correlated with it:)

He served part of his mission in Nicaragua and when he was there he told us of an experience that he had that i hope i can convey!  He said it was his last day with one of his companions before his companion was to be transfered and while contacting they met a man who seemed to have little or no potential becuase he seemed drunk but he said that he wanted them to pass by and teach him, he pointed to a house adn they said that they would come by the next day at 3.  AFter this experience he disregarded it because he did not seem like someone who had potential.  The following day he and his new companion were out contacting and his companion asked if they had any citas, and he said no and they kept going.  Then later his companion being persistent asked again if they really had nobody they could see, and so he told his companion about the man they had met the previous day and they decided to go to his house.  When they got there they saw this man sitting with his family who had been waiting for their cita and for them to come and teach.  Thsi was a complete shock to them and they taught them and invited them to church with still some hesitance that they would come.  Sunday came and the entire family was sitting on the front row when they arrived to church and they were baptized weeks later!  He then bore testimony about how sometimes its the people who we do not expect it that are prepared to recieve this gospel and how we must not ignore the promptings of the Spirit.  It was so incredible and gave me a lot of perspective!  

Now hwo this connected to us:  We really just have one progressing investigator right now whos name is Jessica, she is very sweet and has come to church but unfortunately hasn't really kept commitements and we haven't really seen a desire in her to really learn more, it is something that has been hard to discern in my new area becuase many think we are just two cute girls adn like to listen to us but it is really hard to see if someone really wants to learn and at this point many signs were pointing to no from lessons we have had from her but she really is our only one so we have been trying to just help her testimony grow!  anyways so we had a cita with her and a member adn we arrived there 20 min late but when we came up we wsaw her sitting on our couch with her book of mormon and she said she was wondering about where we were.  This immediately reminded me of the story i had heard the day before from my mission president where he walked in and saw the family sitting down waiting for them adn I immediately felt the spirit  adn we had a really good spiritual lesson with her in the Book of Mormon!  This was confirmation that we absolutely should keep teaching her because she is receptive to us adn wants to learn so now we are just going to try to really strengthen her testimony:D  

This week the elders in our ward also had a baptism!  it wwas really fun and the ward was so so so excited becuase it was the first one since November!  It truly was a miracle, this man showed up at church 3 weeks ago and we found out that his girlfriend from the Dominican Republic is a member and had invited him to church and told him to find the elders, and he was taught and had this amazing conversion!  Also the elders made everyone french toast adn it was super fun!

Anyways so overall this was a really great learning and growing week and i am very grateful for the opportunity i had to truly see the lords had in my life as i recieved a lot of help in the work this week adn i am also grateful for the new mission presidents who already have helped me!  

I love you all un MONTON!!

con mucho amor, Hermana Zimmerman:)

 breakfast at the baptism:)

 we visited a new area this week so here are some pics from that!

New President and lots of rain!

Buenas todos!

So this week with the 4th of July everything has been closed so i haven't been able to get on until today:)  its actually kinda funny though becuase nobody actually really celebrates it here, they didn't have fireworks it was so quite, I'm pretty sure everybody just went to the beach!  But we did have a district meeting that day adn afterwards our zone leaders who are in our district bought us all pizza so that was super kind!! haha but anywyas so I'm on a little later this week!

But this last week we have a zone conference to say goodbye to the President and Hermana Boucher, i have absolutely loved getting to know them, they are both increcible people so its going to be a little change but we are going to meet our new president tomorrow at another zone conference so i am excited for that!

Also kinda random funny story about that day...

So we have a car but we only use it for meetings, adn on our way back from the conference we happened to slice 2 of our tires as we hit this little sewer drain thingy... haha anyways it was crazy but luckily we were close to a pep boys adn they were able to tow it and the president was able to pick us up so we actually got to see them one last time! haha but really it was actually really funny even though it doesn't sound liek it would be, and we ended up being at pep boys for about 3 hours so if anybody went to pep boys that night they wre able to hear about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! haha it was a grand adventure for sure:) 

Overall our area is going pretty good as we are just trying to find more people to teach:)  We have a new investigator named Rosa who loves to talk and sing, haha but she is receptive to listen so thats a start!  And we also had some good times exploring more of our area since we are white washing:D

Puerto Rico still just makes me smile everday!  we also have a new friend lizard who doesn't want to leave our house, we will put him outside adn somehow he makes his way back in, so either its the same lizard or we have a tiny lizard problem... haha but anyways I guess ill just close with how  much i love this work and teaching even though it can be really hard sometimes I love what i am learning:D anyways have an amazing week friends:)

con mucho amor, Hermana Zimmerman:)

  President and sister Boucher  

 the tire!

 our favorite ice cream called maize with cinnamon

precaution sign for Manatee's!