Roller-coaster of emotions! :D 11/21/13

HOLA!!! :D

What a fun week! Always a roller-coaster of emotions, but so much fun and so busy nonetheless!!

I'm not sure that I've updated you all yet.. but I wanted to make sure everyone is aware that Sister Retutas family is alright. Luckily she lives in Baguio which is way more up north than in the middle where the typhoon hit. She got to call her family for 15 minutes though and see how they were doing and her mom told her that they were even able to feel the strength of the typhoons with the winds! She said she felt that the roof was going to fly off their home, but luckily they were okay. Crazy though! They are so far away!!! Makes us so sad to even think about it. Keep the Philippines in your prayers!

 Yesterday though was especially exhausting. We had so many things to do and being a missionary is so extremely stressful. Keeping everything organized and all of everyone's needs in order while trying to find which principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ might help them is honestly one of the hardest things I've ever done. It drains you of absolutely every bit of energy you have. Along with having to explain deep doctrinal questions while not letting things get contentious is quite the difficult task. Yesterday we had our assignment at one of the desk areas in the South Visitors Center and Sister Retuta and I were just having the hardest time. We have no idea what happened but people were just WOW. Sooo rude. And us having to try to meet and greet them while striking up conversation is honestly so hard when people are just so not nice. To be completely honest, I was so sick and tired of it that by the end of our two hours, I was actually on the verge of crying and I just wanted to do nothing but relax. I was begging Heavenly Father to help me keep my spirits lifted because i know relaxation was the last thing that was going to happen when we had two appointments and then an investigator lessons with some elders immediately after. So I'm just praying. Don't really know how i got through the appointments, but I did. & then we were waiting for the Elders to come for our investigator lesson and they never came. But them someone else asked us to cover an investigator lesson for them, and we did. And guess what. Heavenly Father answers prayers. As he alwaysdoes. That's not to say that I wasn't still exhausted. We helped out the elders teach this lesson around Temple Square, but Sister Retuta and I afterwards were both so amazed at the love for Christ that this 23 year old man had for Jesus Christ and this Gospel that we honestly forgot about all of our problems and we left smiling and so happy to be doing what we were doing. It was such a sudden mood change that I couldn't believe it happened the way it did. We received the nourishment we needed from the person we were teaching and it was honestly a really amazing experience for me. I LOVE the power of prayer.

So I briefly mentioned Shelby has a baptismal date, and so I want to tell you how I met her and how she is doing. Which by the way. She's AMAZING and ridiculously GORGEOUS. I met her in the Tabernacle at the end of October with her boyfriend who is LDS but is currently not very active in the faith. It was such a nice discussion we were able to have. We talked a little bit about the tabernacle, prophets, the book of mormon, all centered, of course, on Jesus Christ.. She grew up in a not very religious household and she really has not a very large understanding of who Jesus Christ is or what he did for her. So her and her boyfriend agreed to keep meeting with me over the phone when I asked if they would allow me to help them strengthen the relationship between them and Jesus Christ. Which they both accepted to! Pretty cool, right? So yeah. Trymer, the boyfriend, hasn't been answering. & actually from the last phone call I had with Shelby he's actually now an ex-boyfriend, which definitely has been tough for her... but like I always say, just shows how mindful Heavenly Father is of us. Putting people in your path riiiight when you need them. So Sister Retuta and I have recently been teaching her and shared about the Plan that Heavenly Father has for us as His spirit children and we talked a lot about the Atonement of Jesus Christ -- or him suffering for our sins and pains so we could return to be with God again -- she has really been loving reading scriptures and also, I taught her how to pray. Perfect timing! So she told me that she has been praying every say since the first time we talked and it has helped her so much with her breakup, moving back home, work, and everything else in her life.. She said "I've been thanking him for everything I've been grateful for. Its helped me a lot to be happy with myself. Nice to have someone that i can talk to and vent to and will actually listen." She says that she just wants to turn her life around and really knows that this is a path God wants her to take in her life. That she is already feeling like a better person and it makes her happy to know that she is doing something good for herself in her life. I am so excited to continue teaching her because she honestly just has the sweetest spirit. And every time we call her shes like "Sisters!!!!!" :) It just makes me so happy to know that we are helping people come closer to our Savior <3

Update on JB: I've decided that he's really not sincere. I will call him maybe once a month but I think that's about the end of that. But I've forgiven him! & That's important.

Also a really quick thing that happened today was at our early morning Relief Society meeting. We had another guest speaker. Her name is Heidi Swenten or Swensen I'm not exactly sure... but she was telling us that she was in England with her husband. He was a mission president over there, and she was baking cookies for this mission meeting they were having when her husband walked in the room and said that someone was on the phone for her. She was like, who?? and he told her that it was the Prophet Thomas S. Monson!! She described that whole experience, which was actually really entertaining, and it turns out that he asked her to write his biography. We talked a lot about why it is so important to have a prophet to lead us and guide us in these days. She mentioned that she had to read through all of his talks and journals and other things he had written to write this biography and she really got to know him pretty well. She mentioned that in every single one of his talks he always talked about the importance of following the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He has once said something along the lines of "The sweetest experience in all of mortality is to know the Lord will call on you and you will go and qualify" 

And i LOVED that. Seriously. Sometimes following the Spirit is so hard. I honestly never really know if it is just me being paranoid, or if it is the spirit prompting me... but just as Elder Bednar once just. "Quit worrying about it!" If we are following the commandments and trying our best to live righteously, we can just that whatever good impression or feeling or urge we have is coming from our Father in Heaven. She also shared with us one of his favorite scriptures... which I want to share with you. I've read it before multiple times, but I just got chills when she read it to us and used it in the context that she did. It is in Doctrine and Covenants 84:88
" 88 And whoso ^areceiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go ^bbefore your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my ^cSpirit shall be in your hearts, and mine ^dangels round about you, to bear you up."

Heavenly Father is always there for us. Especially during this holiday season. We are getting ready for thanksgiving and though we may have many family gatherings, the adversary wants us to feel alone. But that is why it is so important to remember this scripture. To remember that we must always "be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, evenJesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.” (D&C 68:5–6.)"

Well, I also want to mention that transfers are next week and there is a possibility that I don't have a p-day! So just don't worry if you don't get an e-mail next week. It will come soon enough!

SMILE :D, BE HAPPY :), & REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE<3

Love always,
Sister Corina Selene Cuevas

p.s. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!
Enjoy this mormon message!!! :D It's centered on having Thanksgiving daily!
http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=910930407001