Know Who You Are!

Hey everyone :)  I hope you all are doing splendidly :)

I'm having a blast on the mission! :) Provo is AWESOME!

Here are some of my highlights/funny moments from the past week:

>BLESSINGS: A wonderful, sweet, caring fellow citizen of Provo, came out of his way on a hot summer day (rhyming it up!) to bring my companion and I.........drum roll please.........FROSTY's! :) HAPPY DAY! :D

 

>SEAFOOD:  Ok ok ok...So just a tip for all of you!  I told a lovely, sweet sister in our ward who was making us dinner in a few days that I love love love seafood!!! Which I really really do.  I mean, I love scrimp and crab and fish, ya know all the seafood you could get at Red Lobster...pero...to her this actually means that I LOVE LOVE LOVE....octopus and squid and muscles and clams and oysters...you name it! Hahaha. So yeah...you can guess what I had a HUGE plateful for dinner... :) I had a fun time lol.  So take this from me...DO NOT tell a Hispanic that you love seafood.. it turns out a little fishy! Haha :)

>THE STRENGTH OF THE SPIRIT: We had a wonderful lesson with one of our investigators about the first part of the Restoration lesson.  My companion and I were able to testify about the power of the Atonement.  It was so perfect! Exactly what she needed that night.  She has been going through so many things in her life and the Spirit touched her heart SO MUCH when she learned that she can let go of ALL of her guilt and sins because Christ atoned for all of us.  She felt Heavenly Father's love and she felt how special she was to Him.  :) LOVED THIS! Then at our next lesson, she said that she had received a priesthood blessing from the bishop.  We were able to testify to her that the priesthood is restored on the earth again and that God knows her personally as His daughter :) She said that she feels and knows that this is true! :) Yay!
 

 >I LOVE TO SEE THE TEMPLE: I had the amazing opportunity of going to the Provo temple with President and Sister McCune :)  It was such a wonderful experience to go to the temple -like always :) I felt the Spirit and I know with all my being that the temple is a house of the Lord.  I am so grateful for the knowledge that I will be with my family forever! :)

>KNOW WHO YOU ARE: This past Tuesday we had Zone conference (A meeting/training for all the missionaries in an area, with our wonderful mission president) and it was pretty much amazing!  We had a scripture study in the morning.  And I want to share something that I learned from it... :)
Our call as missionaries is to say nothing but repentance to the people.  And this really means: it's our call to say nothing but CHANGE to the people.  Change for the better, change to increase faith in Jesus Christ, change to become closer to our Heavenly Father.
Now, in order to change oneself, one must KNOW ONESELF.  We have to know who we are in order to know how to change ourselves in a positive direction. We all are children of our Heavenly Father.  We are all special and unique in His eyes.  We know are not perfect; we all make mistakes, BUT our mistakes do not define us. They should not change our identity.  Our actions are simply the things we do, NOT the makeup of who we are.  With this knowledge of who we are to our Heavenly Father, we now can know how we can change our lives to be better aligned with His will.  We are now able to see and recognize what things in our lives are not in accordance or agreement with our divine nature.  This acknowledgement of our divine nature opens the way for us to utilize the Savior's Atonement in our lives and allow Him to change our hearts and our souls.  Through using the Atonement every single day, we are changing, we are repenting, and we are progressing closer and closer to our Heavenly Father :)
Through Christ ALL things are possible, including us becoming clean and pure, despite the mistakes we have made and the ones we make everyday.  He knows we aren't perfect, He knows our thoughts, desires, EVERYTHING...and still, He never stops reaching out to us and inviting us to feel of His love.  He does all of this because He loves us, He knows who we are, what our divine nature is and who we can become.  He will never ever give up on us.  We now have to do our part and REACH out to Him.  We must TRUST IN HIM and RELY ON HIM because He is the one who will stick with us through it ALL and GUIDE us through anything that comes in our path.  Jesus Christ is the one who can truly CHANGE us and turn us into the person our Heavenly Father wants us to be :) 
>Isn't this so great? I love this! :)

Anywhoo... :) This was an AMAZING week! And because I am a VERY slow writer lol This "week" was actually last week...BUT the miracles are just piling on top on one another! And it is so hard to get all of them into writing! hehe :) I love it!

I know you all can find amazing experiences and blessings and miracles in your life EVERYDAY, if you simply look for them :) So start TODAY and look for blessings and miracles in your life and I can promise you, you will find so so so many!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is so so so true! It has blessed my life many many times over and over again.  I am so grateful to my Savior and I know that He lives and that He loves me.  I know that if we rely on Him, He will never ever lead us astray, but lead us to everlasting happiness.
And I say all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen :)

Have a blessed week everyone! :)

Love, Hermana Derges

Out in Provo!

Hey everyone! I has officially been one week and a day in the field!! :)

Woot Woot!

I hope everyone is doing well and having a great week! 

Last Monday/Tuesday Morning my district said our goodbyes to our awesome MTC teachers, Hno. Roden and Hna. Taggart! I am going to miss them a bunch because they taught me SO MANY amazing things that I will make an impact on how I serve my mission. Thanks you two!



After our last class at the MTC on Tuesday, we packed up our bags and traveled the long hours and plane flights and bus rides and camel rides...ALL the way...to the Mission home in Provo!!! (hehehe) and met President and Sister McCune! They are so wonderful and so nice! We had an dinner and then an orientation and a devotional. I learned some really neat things! That we are now "facebook" and "blog" and "mormon.org" missionaries (as some of you have seen already!)  It's really neat how fast the work is moving forward! Eek! We are teaching someone this Saturday via FB and I am super pumped!

After our time at the Mission home, Hermana Sablan and I spent our last night as a companionship...sad day...But we had a fun last night!  We stayed with some members from the area :) They were super nice!

The next morning we all had breakfast at the stake center, where we had orientation and then a devotional from our President :) I learned that we need to leave our nets and follow the Savior and feed His sheep. (John 21:1-17)  The Lord needs all of us to go serve and teach our brothers and sisters and help them come unto the Lord.  We have to forget ourselves and go to work! :) 

After this, we met our TRAINERS!! :) Yay! My companion/trainer is Hermana Cordova! :) She is from California, really close to Disney Land. She is super nice and sweet! And SHE KNOWS ESPANOL! Haha :) So I can learn how to talk and understand the people we teach! We are in the Provo Slate Canyon area! Right at the bottom of the mountains! So pretty :)

My first week has been fun but hard...because I can BARELY understand anything my investigators and less actives are saying....jaja Which is, ya know, kind of difficult to teach....lol  But ALL IS WELL! :) I am learning slowly, but SURELY! :)

We have AMAZING people who we are teaching! I love it! They are all so sweet and we have a few who are really progressing really well.

We have gone tracking! Which it is quite funny running into members every couple doors that we knock..haha.  One door we knocked, a man answered and we asked him if he had ever met or heard of the missionaries before and he said "oh well...I was one for two years.." Haha. Yep. Members are EVERYWHERE! So great! :)  They help a ton in the work out here!

Another great thing that we do in this area and take shifts at the Provo City Center Temple booth! :) We are there for a couple hours a couple times a week.  We tell people what happened to the tabernacle and what it is being built into right now! We get to share this lovely message about Temples and the importance of them in our lives! :)  I love the Temple! And I love that we are so fortunate to be able to go two times a month! I AM SO EXCITED TO GO! :) I haven't been in a while because the Provo Temple has been closed for cleaning...so as you can tell I am pumped!

I love this gospel and I am so lucky and fortunate to be able to here and teach the great people of Provo, Utah.  I know that Heavenly Father has lifted me up and has prepared me for my mission.  I know that I can do the Lord's work with and ONLY with His help.  I can do nothing with out Him and without the spirit in my life.  As I have been striving to have the spirit with me and rely on Him and FORGET myself, I have seen many special things happen :) I know that my Redeemer lives and that His Atonement is real.  This is why I love Alma 7:11-13!  I know I mentioned this last week, but I just love it so much.  Christ died so that He could Atone for not only our sins, but ALSO for every little sorrow, emotion, pain, sickness, EVERYTHING, so that He would know to how to HELP US with ANYTHING we are going through.  He is there through it all.  TRUST and RELY on Him.  He loves you and wants you to come unto Him.

I have a wonderful testimony of these things because I have seen the work of my Savior in my life every single day.  If you try and look for how the Savior is working in your own lives, I can promise you that you will see in countless ways that He is blessing you.

Count your many blessings...name them one by one...  :)

I hope you all take care and have a wonderful day!

Thank you for all of your love and support!
Love, Hermana Derges :)

And it Ended with a Bang!

Wow! This week was fantastic! My last week en el CCM ended with a bang for sure!! :) Oooh yeah!

One of my last classes with one of my amazing teachers, Hermana Taggart, I learned that i have POWER in my calling! I am a representative of Jesus Christ! In our mission conference I learned that I need to think, act, and DO as the Savior would if he were in my shoes right now in Provo, Utah. This really made me think, I want to be able to see others the way Christ and Heavenly Father see them as well! This is so important, especially as a missionary but also as a member of the church. This is His church and His truth and I have a special calling to spread His word to the world. There was a sweet sister who sang a solo in our departing devotional entitled, "I Will Not Be Still" which a part of the chorus goes like this: "How can I keep this truth to myself, when I could lift somebody else". I LOVE THIS! I want to lift others through teaching them the light and love of the gospel and of Jesus Christ! Why wouldn't I want to share this amazing truth? EVERYONE deserves to know that God loves them and Christ sacrificed Himself to provide a way for us to not only live with Heavenly Father again, but to help us in the here and now! Go and read Alma 7:11-13! :) I love these scriptures! Christ knows how to help us and knows how to lift us up to higher heights! :) Go share this wonderful truth with those around you! Don't keep it to yourself! :) I know that you will be blessed by doing this! The spirit will guide you to know what to say. :) Sunday night, after all of the amazing devotionals throughout the day, we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration :) I love this movie! After it was over I was just so pumped to go out and teach others about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and about the restored gospel!

The spirit is so so so strong here en el CCM! I am super sad to leave but so EXCITED to go into my field! I can't believe I leave tomorrow afternoon :) My mission president is actually coming to pick us up! hehe :) Our district sang the EFY medley in Spanish at our sacrament meeting :) and I forgot to mention that last week, I got to play my flute with Hermana Garces on the violin and Elder Craven playing the piano; we played "As I have Loved You". So much fun to play and sing such lovely spiritual music! My Spanish, I feel, is pretty good...this feeling might change once I actually go into my field...lol PERO, esta bien! All is well :)

Sale Vale everyone, I hope you all have a WONDERFUL week!
I love you all!!

Love,
Hermana Derges :)

The view from my classroom! It's the "Y"


Hermana Taggart!


Our zone singing "Para Siempre Dios este con vos" (God Be With You Til We Meet Again)


Hermana Sablan and I with MTC President and Sister Nally


Our lovely zone with the amazing Sister and Brother Price


Look who it is! Andrew!!