OOOPS!!!

Sorry for not emailing last week!!! my companion was doing her last interview with president on monday our normal email day, and I thought I would be able to email you all on tuesday because that was our pday this last week with transfers and all, but then I found out we can only email on mondays! Oops. Sorry. IM TOTALLY fine with the dog bite!!!! hahahahahaha now I see why they tell us not to tell our moms anything like that hahahaha. The dog didn’t even draw blood. He bit my hand while it was in my pocket, I didn’t even bruise from it. It was more startling than anything and i shared it cuz I thought it was funny/ I deserved it from having a bad attitude at the time and God works in mysterious ways to tell get us back on track. :)

Ok a few more things i would like to request if thats ok?? GREEN DRINKS!!! I get no nutrients here. haha I think i have had more french fries in the last month and a half than I’ve had my WHOLE life. But really. They eat them like we eat salad back home. Like with everything. With that and all the bread i eat-cuz it’s cheap, and all the potatoes and rice....I’m not getting what i need. It has happened before that a whole day would have passed and I’ve gotten NO fresh stuff..let alone green fresh stuff. ya green drinks would be super fabulous. More Triguard por favor. i lost two of them, so ive only been using the one. This stuff has been a life savor I’m pretty sure. I’m super healthy and i owe it to that stuff.

If you could send like marriage tips as well?? Talks or something, or activities that couples can do to better their marriage, we’ve been working with couples lately that have been going through hard times. Cool. AH! One of the new girls in my house got a birthday package and there was brownie mix in there!!! sooo goood! wow, real food. haha. If you wanted to send me something like that I wouldnt mind...:) we have a kitchen in my house so i can cook anything. ooh, I would love recipes of any kind as well. :D

Hermana Martinez promised that she would go to our house in October(maybe with Hermana Swartz and Elder Lyon if that’s ok as well??). She was incredible to me mom, please take good care of her when she comes. Like really, she really took care of me, loved me and helped me sooo much. Love her for me k? :)

Pienso que esto es todo..

Gracias gracias.

Wowo so fun! california last week! crazy that maddies driving! I still can’t get my mind around that one....Ah super lucky! I’ve always wanted to go to knottsberry! haha mom, wow I’ve never wanted american food as bad as when you emailed me EVERYTHING that you guys ate hahah. sounded amazing. :) I’m super glad. And dad, you’re an awesome example to me, thanks for your work in the ward, sounds like you are catching the vision of missionary work--work of salvation. I love it.

So I got my new companion this week! crazy no? One transfer down. She’s from Argentina and JUST FINISHED her training, knows no english, and is quiet. Needless to say she is super different than martinez. But she’s cool and she works super hard, but we haven’t been working as SMART as with martinez. aka haven’t been having lessons with members etc and in our lessons I feel like she teaches more lessons and not people(aka our lessons are similar no matter who were teaching). what’s hard for me is that i can’t communicate what i feel we should do with her very effectively. Its probably super super hard to train for her first time, right after she finished training, and with a gringa that can’t speak very well. Ah. esta bien, im learning a ton, and I’m seeing what it looks like to keep a schedule super strictly. On the bright side I have seen an improvement in my spanish in the last 5 days. Cool. I’ve had some of the hardest days so far on the mish these past few days cuz I’ve had to lead this sector aka make all our appointments show my new companion where everyone lives, make sure we get on the right buses and get to the right appointments and make good relationships with the people even though I can’t talk all while I’ve been missing martinez. I know I’m gunna have harder times in the mish though, and I’m pumped to learn. :)

So martinez left us with a baptism this saturday, but it fell through. Sigh. Her name is sami and she has her own salon. So we came by friday and she had a friend there with her which isn’t normal, but it’s happened before. Before this sami had been telling us that she was super excited and felt peaceful about her baptism, so we thought all was good right? anyways come to find out that this friend of hers is super catholic and somehow convinced sami that she wasn’t ready for the baptism, and sami told us all this while glancing at her friend every once and a while. ya hard. All we could do really was bare our testimonies with conviction about the power of prayer and that we knew that God would answer their prayers if they prayed with faith, a sincere heart, and real intent aka that they would act on their answer. The spirit was there, we’ve still been visiting sami, but no baptism.

Well life is good. I love the mission and I have seen it changing me. Let the gospel change you, work to become converted. vale la pena-its worth it. forever.

Love you all SO much its ridiculous.

Hermana Mal Black

Love this work!

Wow, glad all the pictures worked! ah...last week’s email was sooooo good! I spent my whole time writing it--yup none for the friends last week. Bummer that it didn’t work! I wanted that one for the journal. :( It didn’t work in my `sent` folder either. Well, we learn right?

Ok, I have needed to ask this question for a long time to quiet my companion. Is Trevor’s mission for 3 years because he’s going to Japan?? haha EVERYONE that I tell here that my little brother’s going to japan ask, ´so is he going to be out for 3 years?´ they think he needs a year to learn the language. I don’t know how they all think this, must be like a mormon myth here, but please appease this by telling me he’s not. I would die if I had to wait an extra year to see my lil bro again. :O

This saturday we have a baptism! Hopefully two to make up for last week. Franz Rodriguez is his name, AH, super bumbed that you didn’t get my last week’s email, i explained all about him. But pretty much my companion and I try to look for the people who are going to help build the kingdom to teach, and Franz is one of them. He’s an orthodontist of about 35 years who’s married to a girl that’s menos activo, but now who have come to church 3 times! When my comp started teaching him he said he would NEVER come to church or get baptized, but that they could keep coming, he just wanted to make sure they understood. So incredible seeing the way the spirit works on someone. His mind just isn’t at peace for past sins etc, so when my companion said that a baptism isn’t for a change of religion, but for a cleansing from sin, he jumped on that and initially came to church to ´meet the requirements´ of baptism(they have to go to church 2 times before they can be baptized.). Well, this last sunday his wife told us that HE told her that they had to be to church early and was the one to get them going. He also said, `I don’t know how, but those sisters are convincing me..`haha. NUH uh buddy! It’s the spirit!!! I have like 1 percent of it all. I’m just willing to show up and open my mouth and thankfully with the Lord thats sufficiente. Amazing. Saturday night we brought a member couple with us that is Franz´ same age who bore some powerful testimonies and the spirit was so strong. As tradition, we had Franz say the last prayer and he started to cry while he was saying it! Immediately after he started to cry he said `amen`and left the room. His wife was tearing up too. Incredible. Just seeing the difference from the beginning when he was trying to prove us wrong on everything and had a pride wall up, but to see the way the Lord softens hearts and humble people is incredible. Incredible. Afterwards the member gave him a priesthood blessing and everyone in the room was crying (except me...maybe cuz I still can’t understand everything..ha, but I definitely felt the spirit so strong). What was cool was that the Lord was able to strengthen two families through that one lesson. The lesson was way better than Martinez and I could’ve done alone and easier on our part because of their testimonies, Franz and Vanessa learned from an outside perspective AND the members were able to have a spiritual experience and remember how they got testimonies. The members thanked us afterwards, they were really touched. Incredible. All it took was a little extra coordination on our part. Work smarter not harder as Hermana Martinez says.

I’ve realized that that's really what the difference is. Working a little smarter and the small things make the difference. Today at zone meeting the zone leaders asked us to teach for about 40 minutes. We had the most baptisms in the zone for the last month (one a week), and so they wanted to us to help the rest of the missionaries learn how to have success as well. My companion has this bomb article list thing with 3 kinds of missionaries on it. `The Social Missionary`, The Honorable Missionary`, and `The Consecrated Missionary`. The social one is always looking for fun, relies on his own talents to teach people, he looks for excuses when he’s being corrected--always blames it one someone else (always a reason for why he does something wrong, or why he chose to not live the higher law), lives the commandments or rules that he wants to--cafeteria obedience, or does it so he doesn’t get in trouble, is looking for the praise of others and recognition. The consecrated missionary is the one that is incredible. He is obedient because he wants to be, he welcomes correction from his leaders to become better, his study journal is filled with spiritual impressions he's received, he’s constantly looking for ways to improve, strengthen his testimony, and learn more to help others, he sees others as they really are--his brothers and sisters, precious souls of our Heavenly Father, those with the capacity to become Gods and Goddesses. The Honorable one is somewhere in the middle. The crazy thing is that all 3 of the missionaries are doing the same things, it’s just HOW they do them. It’s just their attitude and commitment to God. We can all learn from this. Keep doing the same awesome things, but like while we study do it prayerfully, have more love when we talk to people and always remember him and our purpose in being here on the earth. How we do things makes all the difference. Just that LITTLE extra effort and thinking.

So i got bit by a dog yesterday!!! hahaha i was just walking down the street minding my own business and ignoring a barking dog like I do every day, when that dang dog ran up and bit my hand while it was in my coat pocket! Haha my companion makes fun of me for my slow reaction time, but I literally was so confused by what had just transpired that I just stood there and looked at the stupid animal. we had an eye contact exchange and then I walked away rubbing my hand because of the pain and just shaking my head thinking, ´did that just happen?´haha so at that moment I was kind of having a bad attitude because my companion decided that I would decide what we were going to do and I was feeling sorry for myself for ´not knowing as much spanish as I would like and because I couldn’t remember street names or names of members etc and I’m going to have to lead the sector next week when  my companion goes home and I’m still in my training, and I want to learn by example while she’s still here-aka have her do everything ha´. ya bad attitude. I think the Lord in his mercy gives us dog bites or wake up calls to get a move on and get going! We´re on the earth to learn so let’s get going and dive into the hard times with a good attitude! News flash, it’s not easy! Lets rejoice because we`re here! We`re living Gods great plan of happiness and have the opportunity to learn to become more like Him! We have bodies (an INCREDIBLE gift from God) when a third of the hosts of heaven didn’t! We have the gospel!!!!!!!!!! PARTY!!!!

I love the strippling warriors more and more. They had less experience than EVERYONE else and they `had never fought, yet they did not fear death`, and what happened?? They dominated! They trusted God and he was with them! They had remembered the things they were taught in fhe and remembered the little faith they had first (like Holland said in his last conference talk). So remember, when we are called to the work and think we're not good enough (at least deaths not on the line eh?) or don’t have experience, don’t know the language, TRUST God. And we will always come out victorious.

I’m realizing more and more that the mission is the ultimate learning zone. I have learned so much and I’ve only been out for almost 3 months!(whoa crazy) I am so grateful to the Lord. Well, there’s my soap box, I’ll share more experiences and miracles next week. I LOVE this work and the Lord.

Take care this week, party in cali for me!

much love,

Mal

Lots of Pictures

NOTE FROM MALORIE'S PARENTS: Hermana Black sent so many pictures this week that it moved her letter into the email's subject line and cut it off after just a few lines. So...here's the pictures without any explanation. :-)