Um...we did NOT take these on April first. That's okay. June's picture is not even black and white. When I put it in 'slate' it looked black and white. Until I printed it. Whoopsies. Then it took a long time to get Beau's. But she added Analena in the picture, so it was worth it.
Enjoy our silliness.
(May 31st, 2023)
Yep, I took these pictures today, just hours ago. Never mind that I should have taken them back in February. But it was so gorgeous and lovely outside today and so nasty and snowy in February that I don't even feel bad about waiting.
Ivory is so stinkin' cute. I had dozens of fun pictures, but I only put 10 on here. What a shame. But these are gold. Action shots, great smiles, you can't ask for much more.
Ivory is all the good things in life. If you bottled up emotion, energy, and butterflies in one little body, you would have Ives. I'm only sad that she is getting older because that means she'll fly on to other adventures too soon. But you can't hold onto a butterfly or you will damage its wings.
Enjoy this chica.
Ivory was checking to see if my camera had a .5 setting. It does, so we took a pic. I looked it up and it's supposed to make the subject appear more natural. Well...we nailed it.
Happy Wednesday all!
(April 26th, 2022)
Robyn turned 18 last year. I can't even remember if we did anything special. We should have, but who knows. Most likely we put more money towards her Africa trip. That seems like a sensible thing we would have done. And of course, we celebrated and did the normal stuff.
Robyn really likes bagels and there is this great bagel place down in the Riverwoods, so we took her there. Weirdly, I can tell everyone is doing a hand sign in this picture but I don't remember what it meant.
We also did cake. There don't seem to be enough candles on that cake, but there are plenty of raspberries.
Then a couple gifts and a game. Robyn really likes Beyond Balderdash. She's pretty good at it too.
But the most fun was the balloons. We did an impromptu photo shoot and we had a lot of laughs.
I sure love this girl. She is smart, funny, and quite the entertainment. I miss having her around more.
I usually combine the posts from both years, but Beau had a late birthday this year since she was in Copenhagen for her birthday. So I'll put it on later.
MIS AMIGOS!!! What is UP?
This week was epic! Here's the highlights:
Slept through an earthquake. Lame. My comp woke up and she said it was really cool and lasted more than a minute. She even tried to wake me up... I'm just a deep sleeper I guess.
Got my hair braided by a Haitian woman. And learned that if you want to keep your hair, you should not let Haitian women play with it. She pulled SO HARD. When she combed my hair (yanked the comb through my hair is probably a more accurate description), I could literally feel chunks being ripped out. Then she braided it and she got every single one of my baby hairs in and pulled it so tight I couldn't even yawn til I took them out. I was involuntarily crying. I looked tigre for like three days but not worth it.
Made mango sticky rice. We got gifted like twenty mangos this week and last night our friend gave us mangoes in an old rice bag. That combination gave me an instant craving for Thai Evergreen mango sticky rice. It was apparently compelling enough that I came home and made it even though I had no recipe and also no idea what the ingredients are. #chef? It turned out actually really good. The best part of the experience was the reactions though. When I put my comp's plate down in front of her she was like, "what the..." then our roommates walked out into the room and the American was like, "weird", but the Dominican and the Guatemalan went crazy cuz they thought it was so strange. My comp said it was really weird but she ate it and I think she enjoyed it haha.
Taught a lot of lessons. Lots of them were really sick. We taught this one couple about the Book of Mormon and the guy goes, "Hey, I think I've read that Book before... hang on, I think I got baptized into your church. Yeah, I remember I passed the sacrament when I was like 13. You have to be baptized to do that right?" Then he turns to his wife and goes, "Honey, you have a Mormon in the house!"
On one day we had a confirmed lesson and finally got a member to come with us. But five minutes before it was supposed to happen, the people we were gonna teach canceled. I was like, we are going to use the member cuz she's the only one that hasn't canceled on us this entire week. So we called every single one of our progressing friends to see if they were home at that moment and NO ONE was home. Finally, out of options, we went with our member friend Leslie to go visit Marleni, one of our friends who doesn't have a phone but is always home. Even she rejected us, for no apparent reason. I was already out of ideas at this point, but I was like, I guess we could visit Marleni's neighbor who we had contacted looking for Marleni's house and didn't seem that interested. She was home, she let us in, she chastised us for not coming back and said she'd read our little restoration pamphlet four times! Literally like seventeen lessons had to fall through for us to decide to visit her. I love how God makes sure that His plan happens, even if sometimes his missionaries are a little too caught up in their own ideas about how they want things to happen.
And there are way more cool stories but to not be ridiculous in my novel writing, I'll wrap it up there. I love El Dorado and I am so excited about so many of our friends! The transfer's wrapping up which is crazy, and we're gonna see all of the fruits of our labor next transfer so hopefully I stay here haha.
Remember that God's grace is sufficient for you! It isn't just between perfection and giving up. The Lord loves effort and His plan is all about change and growth. The expectation is "better than yesterday" not "perfect". There's an amazing talk by Brad Wilcox called His Grace is Sufficient that I have listened to so many times that when I read it this week I could literally hear his voice in my head. If you haven't read it before you totally should and if you have it's always a good time to come back to it.
This is a quote from it that I love:
"When a young pianist hits a wrong note, we don’t say he is not worthy to keep practicing. We don’t expect him to be flawless. We just expect him to keep trying. Perfection may be his ultimate goal, but for now we can be content with progress in the right direction."
Keep the ultimate goal in mind but don't let yourself forget the Way to the goal, Jesus Christ! His grace is sufficient for you, no matter what shortcomings you have or what trial you are facing or why you are facing it.
Keep being amazing! Love all of you!
Hermana Cazier
It's been another amazing week in the field! We had probably the best lesson of my mission this week. We've been teaching this couple who is genuinely seeking the truth. It's crazy to see the difference between most people who are chill listening to the word of God and those select few who get so dialed in to the lesson, ask for understanding, and pay attention to the Spirit. Josue, the husband, told us about this amazing experience he had had on the day we had our last lesson with him. That night he had just opened up the Book of Mormon to a random page and he read a verse that basically said, "after hearing the word of God today, are you gonna keep doubting?" He told us he KNEW that was his answer and that this is the truth. We invited to baptism and they didn't accept the date but I've never felt so confident before that a baptism will happen on the date we extended. They have the date in their heads and they are reading the Book of Mormon and they know what the Spirit feels like. That combination equals two baptisms on June 3rd.
It was also really cool that I was on an exchange with a new missionary the day we had that lesson so she got to participate in an amazing lesson and see that there are truly escogidos out there. Sometimes it takes a whole lot of unsuccessful looking to find just one, but all the sweating and searching and rejection and discouragement is worth it for that one soul.
Other exciting things:
- I'm officially an aguilucha with a jersey as proof of my eternal commitment to this team (jk I just liked it better than the Licey jersey)
- we got sancocho
- I got to eat chili with two enormous scoops of red pepper flakes in it and it truly burned so good
- we sang Joseph Smith's first prayer to the tune of Come Thou Fount yesterday in church. Try it and you will find that it actually works.
- missionary work is amazing, I'm not sure I stressed that enough yet
- my mom is the best. She has played a huge part in making me the person I am today. I have always looked up to her and tried to emulate who she is. She is so kind to everyone, so creative and smart. She's hilarious and I could talk to her for hours. She's the super cool mom who can hang out with her kids' friends and just makes it more of a party. Through her I have felt my Heavenly Father's love constantly and I am so grateful that my mom is my mom and that she's gonna be my mom forever. I love you Mom!
Have a great week, you are deserve it!
Hermana Cazier
Wey!
Another week in El Dorado. Passed very fast. We're starting to use the members way more and we went out with a bunch of them this week. I really love this ward and it's been a huge blessing that we've been able to connect with the members so fast and start receiving references from them.
We have so many cool friends. A lady who shared with missionaries years ago and wants to get baptized now. A guy who feels compelled to read the Book of Mormon daily even though he doesn't really want to. A lady who has been reading the Book of Mormon for comprehension and is really liking it. An inactive family who definitely still knows the church is true and have two kids who are eight and nine and haven't gotten baptized yet. Another lady who is married to a strong member and probably already knows everything but is just so dang busy we can never meet with her.
If they would just COME TO CHURCH we would be baptizing left and right but we continue to face the unending challenge of church attendance. I have faith that next Sunday is gonna be the miracle Sunday when they all come.
I am amazed by the faith of the Haitians in our area. Yesterday we had four people come to church, all Haitian women between the ages of 17 and 30. At least three of them have problems with the law of chastity and know they can't get baptized yet because of that. And yet they come to church. Whereas all of our Dominican friends who have easy access to the first covenant with God are making excuses.
Anywayyy pasen feliz semana!
Slacked a bit on fotos but here's us eating the best dessert ever called brigadeiro. I'm gonna learn how to make it this week them and I'll make it for all of you guys when I get back.
Hermana Cazier
Wey! Espero que estén bien!
Some days this week were kinda hard. Lessons are falling through, it is so hot, and there are very few people in the street so contacting is difficult.
But testifying about Christ and His restored gospel is genuinely the best thing ever. Even if we have a day where we try all day with little success, if we have just one lesson, I forget how hard the day was. If you asked me at 6pm how I was feeling basically any day this week, I would say it was kinda rough. But at 9pm when we're back at the house I'm always just like, "BEING A MISSIONARY IS THE BEST THING EVER" and I mean it. There were multiple days this week when we only had one or two lessons towards the end of the day, but they were lessons where the Spirit was present and I got to sit down with one of God's children and tell them about something that has changed my life and can change theirs. And the joy of that overpowers all the exhaustion and rejection.
We're teaching this amazing lady named Penelope. She has such good questions and a genuine desire to follow God and understand the truth. On Saturday we taught her about the Book of Mormon and it was such a beautiful moment when I told her that the copy she was holding in her hands was hers. She promised us that she will study it diligently because she wants to know if it is true or not. She couldn't come to church yesterday but she is excited to come next week.
In my personal study I've been thinking a lot about charity. I've been studying all over but a lot in King Benjamin's address. It's making me think about charity in a deeper way than I have before. These are a couple of the things that have stood out to me as I've been studying:
- if you live the gospel you will naturally develop charity
- we know that God grants our righteous desires, so should we not seek to impart to others of what we have received?
- he who is not charitable cannot retain a remission of his sins
Charity has been an unending quest for me. I want to be full of the pure love of Christ. That involves consciously rejecting the natural man, who thinks only about himself. Sometimes I do better than other times, but the amazing thing is that every day is a new day with many new opportunities to help someone else. Maybe I could have done better yesterday... I'll make it my daily mission to do better today. And that also turns into daily joy. Acting and thinking with charity genuinely makes me happier.
I have been eating WELL. Hermana Fernandes cooks amazingly and I'm determined to this time actually learn my my chef comp and be able to cook a ton of Brazilian things by the time this transfer's over. She made me Brazilian stroganoff and it was so good that I asked for it again like two days later.
Anyway. There's your random thoughts from a missionary for this week. Have a fantastic week! First week of MAY.... holy cow...
Hermana Cazier
Pics featuring spa night, party exchange, a parrot that talked, and me really tiring my comp out. We are having way too good of a time
