Brad Wilcox + PRAYER

Buenos diiiias everyone!! This week I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission so far!

We had another leadership conference on Wednesday, and several members of the seventy came to speak to us. I thought it was gonna be a receive instruction to bring back to the rest of the mission type thing. But instead it was just spiritual upliftment for us. And it was AMAZING.

Elder Brad R. Wilcox was one of the speakers. We were so excited about it and he didn't disappoint. He speaks Spanish, which I didn't know. Apparently he served his mission in Santiago, Chile (wrong Santiago), and he's still got the Spanish. It was really cool to me that he didn't lose any of his Brad Wilcox personality and zest even though he was speaking another language. He told us all about the twelve tribes of Israel and what it means to have the birthright, or double portion. He explained how Joseph ended up with the birthright because Rueben broke the law of chastity, and Joseph split his double portion between his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. The job of the person with the birthright is to stay on their father's land and take care of the family. All of the other sons take their inheritance and leave, but not the one with the birthright. That's why Ephraim and Manasseh have the special assignment to gather Israel. Elder Wilcox explained how they have different roles but work together. Members of Ephraim are temporal kingdom builders, and members of Manasseh are spiritual kingdom builders. And together, they are gathering Israel. Elder Wilcox had my comp and I stand up because we were the only companionship in the room that has one Ephraim and one Manasseh, so we're a "perfect painting" of the two tribes working together to gather Israel.

Sorry if that was a little confusing. I learned a lot about the gathering of Israel, but ya tú sabes, Brad Wilcox said it a lot better than me.

Elder Mark L. Pace recommended saying more kneeling prayers with the people we are teaching, really building up to the prayer as the climax of the lesson, the big moment where they feel the Spirit the strongest.

And that's where the reason this week was so amazing comes in. We put that into practice and had some insane experiences.

That same day of MLC, we had a lesson with a family we've been trying so hard with and they have been progressing really slowly but they're also so close. The mom and the daughter want to get baptized, but the mom really wants to do things unitedly with her husband and he won't commit. We really wanted to give them a spiritual experience they can't forget to help them make the decision.

At the end of a great discussion on baptism, we asked them if we could kneel together to end the lesson. Following Elder Pace's advice, the plan was that one of us would say a very simple prayer, then the head of the family would also say a prayer and we would all stay kneeling for a moment so everyone could reflect on what they were feeling.

I said a very simple prayer just asking God to please help this family know the truth. Then I kept my eyes closed and head bowed waiting for Victor to say a prayer. Afterwards my comp told me that she opened her eyes and made eye contact with Victor and nodded at him to pray, but he shook his head. Then he looked at me and noticed that I was praying silently and started doing the same. All five of us in that room were just silently praying. And the Spirit was so insanely strong. I don't know if I've ever felt the Spirit so strongly before. The room was thick with it. The peace permeated deep into our hearts. After several minutes of everyone praying their own prayers, Victor and Yulissa just kind of opened their eyes at the same time and we talked briefly about the power we all felt in the room, then we left so they could continue meditating on it.

And the next day, the exact same thing happened! I was on an exchange in my area and we went to teach this guy named Radames. It was our first lesson with him and we were talking about prophets and he interrupted us and asked how he could congregate in our church. That led to a discussion on baptism and we put him on date then worked it back into the restoration and finished the lesson. And at the end we invited him to kneel with us and pray. I'm not sure if I'm just doing a bad job at explaining that the plan is that we pray then they pray out loud, but the exact same thing happened where I said a simple prayer asking God to confirm to Radames that his decision to be baptized was right, then Radames started praying silently right after. 

Guys, the power of prayer is so real. It brings the Spirit. Praying personally, praying as a family, praying with people you have only spoken with a few times. If the intention in your heart is to talk to God, He talks back. And the peace He speaks with is undescribable. It is literally out of this world. It is the most filling, completing feeling you can experience. And it's possible to feel it consistently.

I invite you guys to make prayer a priority this week. Kneel. Speak out loud. Don't get up right away and forget you were just talking to your Creator and Father. Stay on the ground for a minute and notice how you feel. It is God's great desire to speak with His children, and if you feel like there's a lack of that communication in your life, you can be pretty positive that it's not God who's slacking on His part.

Pray. And you will feel the Spirit.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Hermana Cazier

Also sorry, I don't know why but I'm having some serious problems with getting the pictures to send. So sorry if you end up with two of this email in your inbox at some point cuz I tried to send one with pics and it didn't work.

(June's pictures never showed up, but she did send some to us on What's App, so I'll include those)

Back to Las Antillas! (Last week's email)

Sorry, due to some technical difficulties, this didn't get sent last week. So here's last week's minus the pics cuz I think they were the problem:

Hey mi gente!!

This week we had MLC. It was fire.

I got to go on an exchange back to Las Antillas where I was born like nine months ago! It was so fun! I loved getting to go back to my old area. I still remember where everything is and it was nice to walk those streets again. It's weird to think that so much has happened since I was there because life just keeps moving on and a lot can happen in nine months.

It was a great exchange too. We both learned a lot and saw some miracles.

On Saturday Emily got baptized! The Elders we ward share with have been teaching her for a while and she was unwilling to commit to a baptismal date until she heard a member's testimony. Missionary work is so much more powerful when the members are involved. 

Aaaand today I played spikeball for literally four hours. That's the reason for the lack of detail today. Sorry.

But I love all of you guys, and more importantly, so does God! So have a great week this week! Be of good cheer and seek and expect miracles and you will see God's hand working in your life. He already is, but sometimes we have to re-tune in to notice.

Hermana Cazier

When Events Overlap (Preference)

(January 28th, 2023)

This is a chunky post, but it combines two events because they (unfortunately) happened on the same day. Ivory knew that the Preference dance would be the same day as a ballroom competition. With the competitions, you don't know until the week of, what the schedule will be, so she decided to ask a nice, flexible guy. She asked Ashton, who she met at FSY this last summer. 

She made a fun poster for him and drove out to his house. (He doesn't live close, which in retrospect was going to make things a little trickier.) She didn't just drop it off since she didn't want him to have to drive all the way to her house to respond, so she waited for a response that evening. Naturally, he said yes because he is a super guy.

The day was becoming harder and harder to plan and I eventually sacrificed my date with Tyler and became Ivory's personal chauffeur to make sure it all worked out. (I was actually okay with this because I like going to the ballroom competitions.) It went kind of like this...

Ivory went to a work meeting and then she went over to the competition. When she got home in the afternoon, she went over to her day date. The group decided to do Bob Ross painting. They did a fun mountain landscape called "Towering Peaks." I like how their pictures are completely different. (I mean, they do both have a mountain in them.) (Also notice that Ivory is wearing a lot of makeup for a normal date. That's what happens when you come from ballroom.)

From there, I drove her back over to the competition where she danced the Paso Doble. I feel like I've posted this one before, but it's still a keeper. I love how the skirt flares!

I had a lot of fun watching the other teams and their costumes. No negative reviews today. I'll just share some of my favorites. This group was so fun. They had tear-away skirts. They started in these long red skirts and the boys tore them off later to reveal the black dress. Cool effect.

Okay, I know you've seen the alien dresses before, but in this case the boy in front with the glasses is the son of a friend of mine from college. I haven't seen her in 20 years but we ran into each other at the competition. It was so fun to catch up.

I like when the boys get a fun costume, like shimmer, or a color pop. Here are some good ones.

This bothered me at first since it seemed the red and orange clashed, but I decided it was like fire dancing back and forth, and I do love shiny stuff.

These lacey dresses seem very piratey.

These might be my favorite, although I have no idea why they added the odd masks, but the shoes are so amazing. It was awesome to watch all the kids dance with light up shoes. I want some.

Then it was time to go back to her date. Ivory did a quick change and we drove over to RC Willey, where we met up with Ashton for pictures. Ivory got fake flowers, which means they will last forever. Great choice. It still takes a minute to put them on though.

Ipo was there to take pictures, but all the other couples were late, so she walked the kids around and got some great shots of them. They are so cute.

A few couples showed up and Ivory got one shot before she had to go. We even passed some other couples arriving as we left. I think the traffic was bad so they got hung up. It happens. Needless to say, no group photos this time around.

We went back out to the competition, this time with Ashton in tow. We had a good time watching Ivory dance the Swing. If you happen to be reading this blog in order, you might notice this is the exact same dance that I just posted for the Basketball halftime event. This time around they had less people and Ivory's shoe got stuck on her dress at the beginning. She did a good job staying in dance mode and fixing the hiccup.

Naturally, I took a few more photos of costumes. This dance was so fun. They made a piano out of people and had one guy play it. I love creative ideas like that.

I'm digging that the guys have the same color on their shirts that the girls are wearing. 

Gotta love suspenders and red pants. And more sparkles. I LOVE the sparkles!

I left at some point to go grab food for the date. They missed the dinner with the rest of the group, but we got them fed. 

They finally got to go to dance and spend the rest of the evening without interruption. It wasn't your ordinary dance, but I would say it was especially memorable. 

p.s. I forgot to mention this, but they didn't get last place on any of their dances. Good job team. They really did a great job.

I Love Watching Half the Time

There are ballroom competitions which are serious business (I mean, maybe not as serious for our High School since they never score very high. Harsh, but true.) and then there are performances, which are when the dancers can just enjoy themselves. I try to make it to all of them, but I really enjoy the small performances.

Today I have, for you, the basketball halftime performances from last year and this year. (The Usual) I think they did a Swing dance both years. Let's start with last year.

2022

Things to notice in this dance: 

Ivory has really long hair

She dances with Isaac

She got to do a cool lift with Tristan (her dress covers his face)

The girls got to wear tennis shoes - so comfy

What a fun group. They always seemed to be having a good time when they were dancing.

2023

Things to notice in this dance:

Ivory has shorter hair (cut it for wrestling) but I love it in a French braid into a high pony

She dances with Job (who has really long hair at the moment)

She starts the dance off and ends it in a lift

The ripple they do in the middle is really cool

They have a smaller group this year. But they are still a fun group. I didn't catch them all (or even Job for that matter) but here are these two cuties.

See...love the performances. They are so fun. I guess they are pretty similar to the competitions, but dancing with less pressure seems to bring more smiles.