May 28

Hello family,

 

This week has been super crazy. There's alot going on here in Pomona. Most Sundays are kind of crazy just because you're trying to get investigators at church, and then you try to set up a million things while you're at church since all of the members are there. Well, this Sunday was probably the craziest I've had so far. We have an investigator, named Maria who has a baptismal date in a couple weeks, so it was super important that she was at church this week. Well, we called her Saturday night to confirm her ride and she said everything was ok but turns out her ride was out of town. Well, long story short, about 5 minutes before sacrament meeting starts we're still calling to find her a ride to get her to church. (I swear people see our number and just ignore the call!) Finally, we found one for her! While we're waiting for her to get there, we're also waiting for another investigator who told us he would be bringing 3 of our other investigators that live close by. 15 minutes into sacrament meeting and they still aren't there. they live closeby so we decided to drive over and see what happened. we get to his gate and see this pug hanging out by the door. pugs are supposedly pretty nice, so I open the gate and start walking up the door. Well....pugs are NOT nice! about half way up the door that dog came charging at me and was literally about to bite me! we turn around and Hermana Quezada is yelling at Hermana Crawley to open the gate. Hermana Crawley can't open the gate. and the dog is literally lunging at us trying to bite us. Finally the gate opens and we shut the door in his face. I will not own a dog after my mission. We stopped by our investigators that live next door and they have visitors so they can't come to church.

 

We get back to church about 30 minutes after sacrament meeting started and there is Maria sitting in the pew with the members! I was so happy. Anyways, the rest of church was crazy too, we taught primary, which was fun but looots of energy, and then everyone wanted to talk to us and set things up. AH!! It was really great. I was especially super happy to see Maria there. We've been working on getting her there for a long time. She loves it there and so do her kids. Her daughter was singing along in primary more than half the kids there! She totally acts like she's already a member. It's so awesome. I'm excited for her baptism.

 

It's been a great week, we've been finding lots of people and seen lots of miracles. It's been amazing. I love it.

 

Have a wonderful week! sorry this letter is a little scattered.

 

Love, Laree

Hermana LaPierre

 

Missionary Writings

HOLA familia!!

Como estan? This week has been great! My new companions are awesome, they have tons of life and energy and they want to be here!! Which I love, we're going to be doing tons of work here this month. We're also going to have a baptism this month. Just wait.

So....my new companions. Hermana Quezada is from Springville UT. She's super cute, half Mexican....I'm jealous. Doesn't speak spanish though, but she's really driven to learn it, so that's been really good. She's got a ton of energy, which is really good. Hermana Crawley is so cute. She's probably the sweetest girl I've ever met. She's too nice. She's waiting for her visa to go to Buenos Aires Norte! She's so full of faith and tons of love, so she's awesome. She had to go home after the MTC for a medical issue and so while she was home, somehow she found my mission blog. It was kind of weird to have her know so much about my mission. She was asking me about my investigators by name and then would ask me about funny experiences she had read about. She's so sweet.

Training 2 hermanas at the same time has been a different experience. It's fun though. They're pretty easy to train so far, so I can't really complain. It's just a different way of doing things and working with them, but I'm learning as I go and the Spirit is helping me out. I'm pretty confident that things will be really good this month.

We had dinner with a member this week and when we got there, she told us she had a surprise for us. I was so convinced that it was that she was dating someone in the ward or that she was engaged or something like that. the whole time I was totally expecting something like that. After dinner, she went and grabbed something.You could tell she was so excited to show us. She came back and handed us her temple recommend! You could tell she was so proud. She was so excited. As she showed us she got so emotional and her eyes were so full of tears and all she could say was "I'm so happy". I will never forget her face, how excited she was, smiling and crying, after having been through so so much for so long to finally have a temple recommend. That was such a powerful experience for me to see how much it meant to her to have a recommend. It made me realize how much it really means, how important it really is. She said she just felt so different already and she hadn't even gone through yet! THIS is why I am here!! I'm here to help people get there! I love her so much. I will never not be worthy to be there. After what it takes so many people to get there, seeing how much they treasure it, how can you not do everything you can to make sure you always have a recommend? I will never forget that.

This week has been great. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!!

I love you all. Hope everything is good.

love,

Hermana LaPierre

May 12 Letter

Well...I hope you're all doing well since we last talked yesterday. It was a pleasure to see all of you...very sorry none of you got to see me for very long. (why didn't anyone tell me my video was off earlier?!) Anyways, things are going well.

I don't remember if I told you yesterday, but I dropped off my companion this morning. She'll be going to Pasadena in English work. And.... I'm going to train! (I guess there's really not much of a surprise about that anymore). But, this time, I'm training 2 sisters. One that's here for good and another that's a visa waiter. They come tomorrow. I'm excited. It should mix things up as far as training goes. So that'll be interesting.

There's been a completely new standard for the work now. President just got back from a mission president conference and was talking to Elder Perry who told him that we need to be baptizing at least once a month. So that's what we're going to do. It's going to stretch me, but it's going to happen. That's the standard now for everyone in the mission, doesn't matter what culture we work with. I'm excited. It'll make us change how we work, and work harder for the Spirit. Bring it on!

I love you all. It was so good to see you!!

Love,

Hermana LaPierre

May 6 Letter

Hello Family!!

How are you all doing? 

 

We still aren't sure about skyping/ calling this Sunday. I'm not sure who in the ward has a skype for us to use, so we'll have to find someone first. I may just be calling. Either way, I'll probably call or have my companion call first so you'll know. 

Things are going great this week. We contacted a homeless man that was a referral. He's super interesting. From New York. He has a million stories. He was married to an LDS woman once so he's fairly familiar with the Church. 

We also had a really awesome day yesterday! We've been working with this family since we got to Pomona and after 2 weeks, things started to feel weird with them and they started missing appointments and it was just weird, We haven't had a full sit down lesson with them for a long time. Well, they (the woman and her boyfriend's daughters) came yesterday to church!!! It was so great! We got to talk to her during the second hour (we grabbed her before she went to sunday school and talked to her in the empty chapel). Her son is a member and just got sealed to his wife in LA on Saturday. She got to go and wait in the visitors center while they got sealed and it sounds like it was amazing for her! We got to talk to her about how someday after she gets baptized, she'll be able to go in there. She's so excited. She really wants to get baptized. I'm so excited for her and so glad things are back on track with her. 

Something I've learned about faith this week is how faith is really trusting in who Heavenly Father is. We learn about His attributes by reading the scriptures and reading about how He works with His children. When we learn who He is then we can trust that He will help us. He is constant, He does the same yesterday today and forever. If that's true, then we know that He will give us answers to our prayers. He's done that countless times in the scriptures and in the past, so why can't He do it today?!  He's performed hundreds of miracles, so why not now? He loves each of us like we were His only child. He wants the very best for us. If we really believe and trust that, how can we doubt that He'll answer our pleas and perform miracles today? He wants us to succeed. He wants to see us back. We just have to show Him that we trust that, by doing our part by moving forward with complete confidence and not looking back.

I can't wait for the day when I get to see Him again. I want to do everything I can here. I want to be able to tell Him that I did everything I could. I can't wait to kneel before Him and tell Him that I tried as hard as I could. I hope that when that day comes, He'll stand with His arms out and say "Thank-you for trying". 

I know that my Redeemer lives. He lives! 

I love you, 

Hermana LaPierre