This email was from Easter.

Happy Easter!!

As you can tell I am really happy and excited and just full of gratefulness.

This coming weekend we have General Conference! We are hearing our Living Prophet!!! So excited! Prepare for revelation!!! :D

<3

This week was just everywhere! & quite frankly I don't know where to start.. 

So I am sorry if this email is just everywhere! 

The Cambridge North Zone is just on fire! Every Friday we have district meetings, but our zone has district meetings in the same chapel, so we basically have a zone meeting every Friday. But a month ago we decided to act in faith. We set a goal to find 70 new investigators by the end of March. Our zone has 10 companionship's, so it's about 10 investigators a companionship. As of right now we have 64 new investigators and we have two days left!!! Please pray for us!! 

This week has also been a week full of love!

I love my companion!!! 

Sister Riggs is just an amazing, kindhearted person! I can not even begin to describe how much I love her! 

Our investigators

Alberto & Elena

:( 

So we haven't seen them in about two weeks! They don't answer our calls or our texts. We have stopped by their home and leave little love notes telling them that we miss them but so far nothing. Opposition stinks!!!!! But we just simply miss them because they are awesome people! 

Sonia

Sonia is Christian's mom, and Christian is a member. Sonia is someone that has been investigating the church forever. "Eternagator" Haha. She is ready for the gospel but she never keeps the commitments we give her. So she isn't progressing. And it is really sad. But I still love her and she has told us that she wants to get baptized she just wants a testimony of the Book of Mormon. So we read the Book of Mormon with her.

Natividad

She is from the D.R. and is really sweet. The same as Sonia. She has practically grown in the church but has never gotten baptized. Her son had a spiritual experience when missionaries were over and it was such a sweet memory to her but we are kind of stuck with her... We don't know how to help her grow, of course we are doing everything that we can.. I guess the ball is in her field now.

Delmis

Delmis is our new investigator! She is a former but she doesn't remember anything. She has the cutest kid, Thomas. He is really hyper and funny. She has such a sweet spirit. And we only been with her once but we are seeing her this week! 

Margarita, Marvin, Johnny Gomez

They became our new investigators as of last night!!! Johnny is 10 and he had a baptismal date months ago! His parents are super prepared. Mom's family are all members! And she knows a lot about our Prophet. Let me tell you something! They love prophets!! And they understand why we have them and why no one had God's authority. They are amazing! 

Melendez family

They are from the D.R. and are really funny and outgoing!!! Haha! We are seeing them this week! They understood and know about God's authority. I really hope they continue learning and see how the Gospel truly blesses family!

Rosalda

Wow. I love her! Her daughter was baptized in the Church when she was 9. But her parents aren't members of the church. Rosalda really wants to know if the church is true and she has the most sincere and earnest prayers. We are seeing her and the rest of the family this Tuesday.

 

We are also working with less actives and on of them was Jorge.

Jorge has had trouble with members and missionaries before. So when members would tell us to be careful we were like "uhh okay" but we met with him and he was really nice and seemed like he was ready to change. Sister Riggs and I would always testify to him and tell him to have Christ in his life and he said "I will sisters I will" but he went through some other things. So last week we met with him and he began to tell us how God is racist and then went on to talk about the curse God placed upon the Lamanites and that they shall have a dark skin. I mean he went on for about an hour to which we patiently sat there and just listened and tried to say something to which he would say "I'm talking."

My feeling were hurt. He offended us in every way possible. And I told him that. Sister Riggs was just getting angry and I was about to cry. But I told him to stop. And he got offended and left. I cried. Then later that night in the apartment I yelled "I'm brown!!!!! Was he saying God hates me? CAUSE He DOESN'T"

​

Everyone, I love you. And I miss you all. I know some of you are just a couple hours away but some of you are really far. Argentina, California, Utah.

I can't believe I have 3 months left. 

This is it. 

I need to work as hard as ever before. 

To be an obedient as never before.

Funny story. We were at the train station. We were playing patty-cake. I have lost some weight in the fingers.. My ring fell off and we saw it bounce down to the tracks.. Now it is illegal to go down to the tracks but guess what Sister Riggs did... She went down to which we were yelled at and she got back up. We had to wait for an official person to come and get it.. He was like "I never had to come to get a ring. How did it come off and fall down to the tracts. What were you girls doing?" To which my dumb brain responded "We were playing with each other's hand..." Great now I got a person out there thinking I am a lesbian & after that we told him we are Mormons... GREAT. Right?

But then he was like "Congrats on the weight loss!" 

Funniest. Weirdest. Day. Ever.

I love you all.

​

Always remember that the Lord is calling us! He loves us! 

Please let Him in.

Happy Easter all!!

Sister Flores​

Trust Me

One of my good friends is currently serving in Texas. And this is an excerpt from his email he sent me.

"also this week our recent convert who is 11years old is going through alot of trials and we went yesterday to go visit her and we felt prompted we had to share the story of job with her so we read it and explained it to her and she was able to understand that sometimes we receive alot of trails in our life and that we will never be tempted more than what we can handle and my companion went on to explain how he saw the picture of that little girl and her teddy bear and how sometimes god is trying to give us better things but to do so he has to take what we want we used her little sister for a example we had her get her favorite teddy bear and one that she didn't like so much. and as i saw her get her teddy bear i felt the spirit come over me and just felt at peace for them it was a moment i cant forget. im sure as most of us have gone through trails that we dont always know what lies ahead but if we are like job and stay faithful i can testify that we will see the light ahead and we will be blessed with so much more in the end that if we just have FAITH we will be able to get it. "

And I would love to add that we must trust in the Lord with all our heart!!!

He will always give us bigger and better things! I have seen it in my own life and in those that I teach.

"It was a cat"

I know I have been slacking on my emails. But I have been asked to keep it up because they are funny. 

[ All the different units I have been in on my mission; Spanish, English & Portuguese]

This past week was pretty great! 

We got 3 new investigators! 

Sylvester & Ana. Then Manuel who is Rosalda's boyfriend! 

Sylvester & Ana.

So we called Sylvester and we made an appointment. We were hanging out with him in his yard because we thought there wasn't any females in the house. The wind was really bad and it started blowing things everywhere! So he said if we wanted to go inside. "Sure! But we can't go in unless there's another female in the house, it's just a rule we have." He told us his mom was home so we go in & HIS MOM IS AMAZING! We taught both of them a little bit of everything. Then his mom, Ana, said that she wants to cook for us! She is from Cape Verde. THEN to top it off she said that next time she will invite her friends and family to hear us! 

She is great!!! 

Rosalda & Manuel

Okay I have a true testimony of how loving people's children will change the parents! ​So we have been teaching Rosalda for about 6 weeks and her boyfriend just wasn't interested at all! But we love the family no matter what! So we started walking to their house and taking their daughter to mutual and would give their younger daughter toys and coloring books. We just did things that came out of our heart really. Then 2 weeks ago we gave him a Book of Mormon and that was it. We visit them a week later and Rosalda tells us that he has been reading the Book of Mormon. We talked to him about it and he never told us where he was reading BUT he said that there is a lot of similarities between the Book of Mormon and Bible. So Sister Riggs and I were thinking he is probably around 2 Nephi. 

I love this family so much!!! They are wicked sweet! 

​

When we were walking home one night we accidentally took the wrong path but it still lead us home! And we saw this little free library! You can take a book but you need to leave a book. 

Guess what book I left? :D

​

On Saturday, the city of Revere, held a cleaning day and of course Sister Riggs and I were there! And afterwards they had a BBQ. Those were some delicious hot dogs and hamburgers! I definitely miss home made BBQ. :( 

It's okay soon!!!!!!  (like in 8 weeks!!!!)

​

Then later that night we had service at a wedding! Wow. The sister who was in charge of everything was really organized. And it was a beautiful ceremony. So it was a pretty fun day! We sat at a table with this couple. The lady was a member of the church and her husband wasn't. Her husband is a minister at a different church and he began to ask us questions about the church and he said he never came to church because he thought that the chapels were temples! We explained to him the difference and he said he was really interested in learning but he can't. His peers wouldn't accept it. But I bore my testimony to him and he asked if he can quote me in  his sermon tomorrow. 

So I am quoted. hahahaha! 

#cool

What did he quote me about? 

Our infinite worth.

​

Check out this cool painting on the streets of Cambridge! 

I love graffiti. 

Okay so my subject line.. There's a story behind it...

Isn't there always?

 hahaha

So we had dinner with members last night and as we were eating there was a sound and they said "O es un gato" I didn't think much of it. I just kept on eating and such. So we leave and Sister Riggs brings it up and she's like "that was not a cat" and I was like " yeah it was.." Then she told me it was a girl moaning during some interactions. I freaked out. But I laughed because I am pretty sure that the members knew what was going on but I sure didn't. I wonder if they laughed at me... 

#awkward

 I love you and miss you all!!!!!!!!

See you in 8 weeks!!! 

WOOHOOO! 

Hermana Flores

Christmas video from the Bro Zone. 12-18-2014

Yeah. The Cambridge North Zone used to be an all Elder area until we (Sister Riggs & I) came in.

Elder Araujo gave me his usb. this is their video. 

Cambridge North Zone Christmas Video

"Donde esta mi wa-wa?"

 

 

So, subject line- now that we are on public transportation we always get lost and are always waiting way too long for the bus. Wa-wa is a Latino word for bus but in some countries like Chile, wa-wa means baby. So it's a really funny phrase to say depending on what type of Latinos are around.

But  twice just this week we have been waiting at bus stops and different Elders saw us and gave us rides!

Being on the buses, we talk to a lot more people. It's amazing to see how many people know how we are even on this side of the Country. We don't even have to introduce ourselves half the time! It's so cool to see the prophesy being fulfilled that the Gospel will sound in every ear, to all people. It's happening! Everyone we talk to knows someone in their life that is a member!

Though, not all people are kind about it, we were trying to find a less actives house and saw a guy shoveling snow, so I asked him if we could help and he talked to us-well I should say lectured us for 20 minuets about our religion. But he did thank us for offering so if anything hopefully he can just think of the church now as good people trying to help out.

We had an amazing zone conference! All of our mission presidency spoke to us. My favorite thing was President Packard's discussion on repentance. The English translation of the word changes our view on what repentance means. The Hebrew word is Shub which means to turn or return. Repentance means to return to God. The Hebrew to Greek translation word is Metanoeo, meta means change and oeo means air, so change how we think. Become a new creature through Christ. The error is in the Greek translation to Latin the word is Poenitere, poen means punish. That is not what was intended for the word to mean!  We should think of repentance as turning away from our sins, and turning to God.

"Exaltation is a process of becoming. Repentance is a process of becoming. If you aren't repenting then you are not becoming, and if you aren't becoming, then forgiveness will not help you very much." -President Packard

That's why in the scriptures it says to speak nothing but faith and repentance to the people-faith and turning unto God.

Miracles are going crazy this week! As a zone we set a goal to have 70 new investigators this month. We only have 7 companionships, so that's 10 new investigators per companionship, the record before was 39. In 3 days we are already at 23 new investigators!! It's so cool! Hermana Riggs and I got really pumped when we set the goal so we decided to be as obedient as possible so the Lord could work through us, the next day we got 3 investigators! We have a total of 5 in our companionship. The Lord has already prepared these people, He is just waiting for us to be worthy to be His vessel for these people to come unto Christ.

I am so grateful for our Heavenly Parents and the love they have for us! And to be able to share a message about our individual worth to those who don't think they have worth. As I testified to Elena, our new investigator, that God loves her and she is destined to be a Queen if she follows the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the proper authority, she cried. I have never felt the power of the Spirit that much in my mission. How grateful am I to have been a vessel!!!!

Love always
Sister Flores

Beans and rice....

New Address!!

105 Franklin Ave Apt 2, Chelsea, Ma, 02150

Man. Where do I begin?

This has been the craziest week of my mission.

Transfers

I was transferred from Martha's Vineyard to Revere, Massachusetts!

To a SPANISH WARD!!!!!! I have never worked with a Spanish Ward. Only groups! So this is huge! Haha. There's a total of about 500 members... only about 110 are active.

We got a lot of work to do.

THE BRO ZONE

So I am now in the Cambridge North Zone, which was called the BroZone. There were only Elders in this zone but not anymore!!!! Sister Riggs and I are here!

There's about 20 Elders and 2 sisters. And it is so much fun!!! And they are really supportive! They are always asking us if we need help and when they can they pick us up because we are lost... I love them all so much!

Shot gunning.

So we always say

"I am shot gunning [Revere Spanish]"

That means that both myself and my new companion are replacing the two missionaries that were in the area. In our case, Revere 1st had two Elders. One Elder went home and the other was transferred to another area.

Sister Riggs and I both came and shot gunned Revere!

And boy it has been an adventure!

The missionaries before us didn't leave any notes, maps, schedules, etc.

Sister Riggs and I don't know where to go. To say it nicely, the Elders didn't do anything here, hence we are technically opening a new area.

BOOYAHH.

The Elders APARTMENT......

was a complete mess.

I don't even want to get started...

It took us 2 days to clean it.

TWO DAYS.

People, opening an new area is super hard! And especially when you don't have a car. Sister Riggs and I don't know where to go or how to get to places and it is really overwhelming. But you know what? Since when has missionary work been easy?
Yeah I might cry myself to sleep since I got here because I just don't know how I am going to get to all the less actives homes. I don't know how to get to places, I don't know where streets are, I don't know anything. But I will succeed because the Lord knows everything. He know where His people live. He knows their needs. And He will guide me to them. He has told me that everything is going to be alright and I trust Him. I have never felt the Lord's love and guidance more than I have ever felt it since I got to Revere. And maybe because in other areas I had a car or at least a companion who was there longer. But here we are alone. And it is okay. How else am I suppose to grow? There is no growth in comfort zones.
​

The Lord is with me and He is with all of you, as long as you let him in!

I love you all! Sorry there isn't much to say!

But I do have a lot of pictures!!!!!!! :D

Love you all!
​

Sister Flores
​

3 hours later..

[ Elder Concalves, Elder Jones, Sister Miller and I @ the temple!! ]

Man, this week has just flown by! 

Thursday was awesome! We met with Cynthia again and we taught her the Restoration. We used 4 different object lessons throughout the whole lesson. It was AWESOME. Sister Miller and I work and teach so well together. The lesson was really powerful, and Cynthia thoroughly enjoyed it. She told us that we had given her "food for thought", she then said she wanted to continue to take lessons from us. She is such a sweet heart. 

Then we went and packed our bags so we could catch the ferry to come off island for district meeting, Transfer texts, and for Sister Miller's convert's temple trip.

Saturday was the BEST DAY EVER. We went to the temple so that Danny (Sister Miller's Convert)  could receive his endowment! The Hovey's (Sister Miller's mission family) picked us up from the Cape Cod sister's house, and then we went and picked up Danny! The drive up to the temple. Sister Hovey showed us how to do indexing. It was neat, I'm definitely going to be doing that in my spare time. 

When we got to the temple, it was like being in heaven! Isn't it always?? There were so many people to talk to and hug!  It was glorious! Seeing Danny in the temple was definitely a highlight of Sister Miller's mission, which means it was a highlight in mine (because we have Zion <3 ). Its the best. Danny looked so happy! We were also able to see a family be sealed. It was so sweet, because their daughter, who just came back to church (She was less active)  was able to be sealed to them. It was such a glorious day! Then we all went out to eat, before heading home. The gospel is so true!

Brother Olivera called me Sunday morning when we got off the ferry.... He wanted me to give a talk... Church was in 50 minutes.

But it was great! Sister Miller gave such an amazing talk. I bawled through her talk, and the branch was bawling with me. It was all about the Holy Ghost's role as the comforter. This was my favorite part from my talk: "One of the last things Christ said to His disciples during His earthly ministry in Jerusalem was “I will not leave you comfortless. … But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14.) We are able to continue to feel this peace, even during times of trial and trouble, through the Holy Ghost.

Elder James E Faust said, "The comforting Spirit of the Holy Ghost can abide with us twenty-four hours a day: when we work, when we play, when we rest. Its strengthening influence can be with us year in and year out. That sustaining influence can be with us in joy and sorrow, when we rejoice as well as when we grieve.

I believe the Spirit of the Holy Ghost is the greatest guarantor of inward peace in our unstable world. It can be more mind-expanding and can make us have a better sense of well-being than any chemical or other earthly substance. It will calm nerves; it will breathe peace to our souls. This Comforter can be with us as we seek to improve. It can function as a source of revelation to warn us of impending danger and also help keep us from making mistakes. It can enhance our natural senses so that we can see more clearly, hear more keenly, and remember what we should remember. It is a way of maximizing our happiness.

The Spirit—the Holy Ghost—will help us work out our insecurities. For instance, it can help us learn to forgive. There comes a time when people must move on, seeking greater things rather than being consumed by the memory of some hurt or injustice. Dwelling constantly on past injuries is, by its nature, limiting to the Spirit. It does not promote peace."

I am getting transferred!!!!!

I am going back to the Spanish Program and I am super sad! Sister Miller is my best friend!!!! And she is going home in 6 weeks!! :(

But I am going to Revere 2nd. It is a spanish ward!!!!!!! My first time serving in a ward and I am so excited!! I hope it is where I finish my mission. I only have 3 transfers left.

I love you all.

sorry this email is lame.

Sister Flores

182 W Central St Ste 203, Natick, MA, 01760

I'll send my new address next week!