Sister Macey Gates // Week Seventy-Five

Im so sorry for this week but we have like 20 min ha the computers just started working. But this week was really good:) Last monday we got our farmers tan on sitting by the pool at our apt complex for a couple hours writing letters... i got a nice one, a nice tan line haha We were also involved in a high speed chase this week. We were dropping off a member and this motorcycle just comes around the corner, missed our car by 6 inches with 5 police cars chasing after it. And then when we left it came up behind us again... I was totally like in shock or something, it scared me SO bad.  So funny story, a couple nights ago i woke up in Hna Santoyos bed HAHA super awk like i have no idea how i got there. And then i realized i was breaking the rule of dont sleep in your companions bed haha oops. We do our best to obey the rules! This week there was no teacher for gospel principles class so me and Santoyo got told to wing it, but it went really good. We did it on the atonement. So Rocio and Enrique told us officially they are getting married!!!!!!! WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!!!! And my last sunday here Rocio will be baptized:) The women's conference was amazing right? We actually watched it in spanish so that was cool! I loved this quote: Cuando recibimos la verdad, debemos vivirlo, compartirlo, y defenderlo. When we receive the truth we must live it, share it, and defend it, (something like that.)  Me and Hermana Santoyo got to see Lupita the lady we taught in Corona that got baptized.  She was so cute and told us that we were her Hermanas cause we were the ones that actually found her. We are getting together with their whole family in a couple weeks so have a little reunion haha i'm so excited to see that family all together again:)  I got the chance to go on exchanges with Hermana Rasmussen, she is the cutest. The whole time she was telling me that we were just best friends now:) She actually date Kiel Lambson, Sadie knows him. She is a new missionary, i felt bad cause she couldn't understand like anything or really speak, but she has such a desire to help these people and serve, but i know exactly how she feels. I love this time of year, to remember our savior Jesus Christ. We had the chance to teach the bible class on Luke 23 when Christ was crucified. It was an amazing class. Its cool to be able to learn as you teach. I want you to know I love you all so much!! Happy Easters!!!!

....Ive had diarrhea since easters.....

Love Hermana Gates:)

ps Sorry i have no time to email you back personally:(

Jared and Bethany! Bethany is getting baptized soon:)

Womens conference

We traded shoes for a sec.... how in the world do people walk in these shoes???

Turquoise day!

my awesome tan lines haha

We traded skirts for the day haha

..... sike hahah

HAHAHA don't worry guys its tan now..

Look at my awesome tan lines haha

Sister Macey Gates // Week Seventy-Four // "Happy 17 months!! Wait what?‏"

Holy cow you guys time just needs to stop right now. This is not okay. So sad news first. I just got an email saying Leonarda passed away. She was the 92 yr old we baptized in Lake Elsinore. I am truly grateful we had the opportunity to teach and baptize her, knowing that that cute little lady can be with her family forever as they do the rest of her temple work here on this earth. I loved her so much. Please keep the Valerio family in your prayers. This week was really good tho. Last monday we played indoor soccer and then the power went out so we spent a little bit trying to figure our way out of the gym haha it was pitch black! I totally forgot about St. Patricks day ha so much on my mind but Happy Late St. Patricks Day errbody!!  Funny story: so the other day we were getting gas and this black lady yelled to me MAAM DO YOU HAVE KIDS? And i'm like holy cow is she yelling that to me so i turn around and she yells it again MAAM DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Im like no haha And she was like GIRL DO YOU PARTY ON THE WEEKENDS, ARE YOU A PARTIER??  and i'm like girl no i ain't like that. i'm a missionary. Then she continued to say GIRL YOU ARE SO INNOCENT. I said girl thank you very much! Probably the funniest thing that has happened to me. Being a missionary is great. So this week we dropped Hermano Jaime, i totally cried but i know that one day he will be baptized. It broke my heart. But we got the chance to go to the temple this week, my favorite place on earth! And after we ate at cafe rio and on the way home bought a big thing of strawberries! Its all part of the experience haha Enrique and Rocio are progressing so much! They are making big changes now. Rocio told us that she has gone a week without coffee, Enrique wore church clothes to church(thats a big deal) And they are getting married hopefully in the next couple weeks and then Rocio can get baptized! I had my outgoing interview this week and it was hard. Me and Prez both cried. He started it. President and Sister Mullen are the best. We had a miracle this week. So we have been teaching 2 girls named Lindsay and Abby and its been hard cause we haven't been able to talk with their grandparents but we finally got the chance to talk with their grandpa. He was super curious about what we did as missionaries. He agreed to come to church with Lindsay and Abby, he was totally dressed and ready to go and told us he couldn't, but he totally came and it seemed like he enjoyed it! We see miracles everyday, i will never be able to thank my Heavenly Father enough for the opportunity i have to be here in the best mission in the world preaching his gospel. Its the most amazing thing! I love you all so much! Keep praying for missionary opportunities! LOVE YOU!!

Hermana Geets:)

This is cute Maju she is from Japan!

Hermana Soto took us to the temple. She calls me her Traviesa hahah ah mannnn

LOVE ONE ANOTHER Ha

Hna Rivera gave us shots haha of aloe to help us digest all the fat we eat everyday from the members haha

We helped cute little Gloria pulled her weeds in her back yard. Yay for service opportunities!!

Sister Macey Gates // Week Seventy-Three // "PARA BAILAR LA BAMBA!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO‏"

This week was una LOCURA! We pretty much spent our week at the mission office for meetings and what not. This week was a definitely humbling week. We did not have the success we wanted, find an many people as we wanted, and mexican food makes Santoyo sick(freakin' mexicans HAHAHA) so she was sick a lot this week. But we endured to the end! We did have the chance to talk with Rocio(she is living with Enrique the member) She has had dreams about baptism, and told us about them. She has such a desire to be baptized and be married. Its all up to Enrique to whip out the proposal. That is our goal with them and they made it to church this week!! We also had this desire lesson with Hermano Rigo Jaime, and he is lightly on date for march 29, he just has to stop drinking! Please keep them in your prayers! Yesterday we had a really good miracle. We took Hermana Rivera out with us to an appt. and on the way back i felt impressed to ask her if we could teach her son who is a non member. She had told us before that he didn't want the gospel, that he wasn't interested at all and so we just respected what she said. But yesterday she was totally up for it. His name is Raul. We asked him if he had faith in God and he said yes. And then we asked how he showed his faith and he said he didn't. So we talked about showing our faith is how we show God we love him. We gave him a BOM and invited him to  pray about it and he was so excited to do it, it was awesome. I know without a doubt that our Heavenly Father loves us more than we can imagine. Especially Me and Hermana Santoyo. We had such a hard week and were blessed with an amazing miracle at the end of the week. Sometimes we have to wait, learn patience, to get our answers but he ALWAYS answers us. I love this gospel. I love getting the chance to see people change. This work is absolutely hard, but more than worth it. I hope you all have a great week!! I love you so much!! 

Hermana Gates:)

My awesome planner Hermana Juarez made me!

We went to the cheesecake factory after our STL meeting:) Chicken farfelle and lemon raspberry cheesecake:)

Sister Macey Gates // Week Seventy-Two // "Me voy.... a quedar aqui con HNA SANTOYO!!!!!!‏"

Yo yo yo fam! So I have one transfer left..and I get to spend it WITH HERMANITA SANTOYO!!!! Can you believe this??? I still cant believe it haha and we are staying here in Moval. I am more stoked than EVER. We have been asking for this since the day we got split up and what was funny was when we were together the first time we decided that we were going to serve as STLs together and it came true!:) I love that freakin' mexican so much! This week was a hard week as far as investigators go. We had lots of powerful lessons and only 1 came to church. We have been working with Rocio(non member) and Enrique(member) because they aren't married and living together. We have been trying to help them to get married and on Saturday Enrique told us that he will not be getting married again (he was married before) they said they are calm right now, that they don't have any problems or worries and that made me so sad. We made it clear that this life time is like nothing compared to eternity. Everything we do here matters. What ever we do right now will affect us in the eternities. We always have to look at the eternal perspective. It made me so sad to hear them. But there is nothing we can do but pray for them. We worked hard with Arnold this week. He was doing so good, told us Saturday he knew everything we taught was true and was so excited to come to church and he didn't show up. We think there is a psychological problem with him, just how he is. He is kinda off but we want what is best for him. So we are still trying to decided what to do with him. And we are still working with Hermano Jaime. He didn't drink all this week. And then yesterday they had a party and he started drinking again. We are still working hard with him trying to help him have a desire to follow Christ. This week we had MLC( Missionary Leadership Council) And we talked a lot about the importance of the BOM. The Book of Mormon really is a gift that our heavenly father gave us. I love that book so much!! We also had the opportunity to teach the bible class and gospel principles class which was really fun. So we ate with la Familia Tenorio this week and they made us hot dogs wrapped in bacon with grilled onions on the top talk about dang good!!! We just quite enjoy their food haha We were able to help pack up our old relief society presidents house cause she is moving, and it was an answer to our prayers, we love service opportunities! So yesterday we were eating with La familia Gonzalez and their little daughter Josie(4 years old) wanted to play missionary. So her and her mom were the missionaries, and we were the family they were going to teach. It was the cutest thing. She taught us about the BOM and Joseph Smith and gave us a BOM. Talk about example. That little girl is going to be the best missionary! I'm so excited for this transfer. I cant believe i only have 6 more weeks, totally freaking out but I know i'm doing what the lord wants me to do. I love my mission. And i love you all too:) I hope you have the best week ever!!!

Con amor,

Hermanita Gates:)

I take pride in my clean desk hahah

Dayana is the cutest, she always comes out with us, she is from Peru. 

Blood oranges.. got one? 

This is Josie who we played missionary with:)

And we got our relief society medallions from memorizing the articles of faith in spanish in one week:)

The bishopric

Our district and Hermana Soto:)

This is a piñata

Our planning

The ultimate selfie! I got this from one of the senior missionaries, He told me to take a selfie haha this was at MLC.

Sister Macey Gates // Week Seventy-One

This week i realized that God is trying my patience hahha Its pretty awesome. I loved getting tested. So last monday we went bowling with our zone and its was so fun haha my arm was so sore after, pathetic right? But we played 3 games. This week we had lots of miracles with some less active members. The first was with Hermana Chaves. We had been praying on who we needed to go visit and we felt impressed to go visit her. She was so cute and nice when she let us in. The whole time we were there she was crying. We finally asked if she was okay and she told us that right when we walked in she felt the spirit so strong and it hadn't left. And she showed up to church on sunday:) She hasn't been to church in i don't know how many years! Yesterday after church we went and visited la familia Ibarra/Duran. The mom told us that missionaries or any ward members have come over in like 7 years.... that is so sad. But she told us that she had been praying to know how to figure out what time church started so she could come and then we showed up. God is so amazing. On Friday we had a church tour with one of our investigators, her name is Veronica, the one we met at zumba. At first she walked in and told us that her husband and kids were going to wait in the car. It was cool cause there was actually a scout activity going on and so because of that the dad and kids came in. We had talked to the dad last week and he told us that he didn't want anything to do with our church but didn't care what his wife did. So they all came in and we did the church tour with them. We ended in the sacrament meeting room and had a little lesson with them. The dad actually shared something with us that was so special. He told us that his family has never really done anything together and he wants to change that. He told us that he would support his family and wants to do this together!! It was the most amazing thing. Talk about a change of heart. But they never showed up on sunday. Sunday was sad for us, we worked so hard and got solid commitments to come to church and they didn't show up. But we are going to change that! So all the members tell us all the time that they wanna make us fat so thats cool. This week I learned the 13 articles of faith in spanish, and passed them off in relief society and so next week i get a medallion or something so thats cool too haha I was so proud of myself!! I love this ward so much, we have the most amazing members who are willing to do anything for us. One of our former investigators Luis called us and wanted to meet with us. We took the Soto's as team ups and they were perfect. Luis is an alcoholic and so was Hermano Soto. He was able to explain his story of how he got over it and it gave Luis so much hope. At the end of the closing prayer he was in tears. The spirit was definitely there. Also we are still working with Hermanno Jaime! Saturday we took all of his beer and wine cans and put pictures of jesus on them to see if that would help him stop drinking. Man we have to come up with the dangdest things haha but we are willing to do what ever we can to help them. Im so grateful for this week. I learned so much about patience and how everything happens when the lord says it will happen. I love this work. And i hope you all have the most amazing week:) LOVE YOU!!!!!

Hermanita Gates:)

Hermana Corral was our relief society president, she is moving, but is so amazing!!!!!

And valentines day:) haha

We got heart attacked!!

cross fit haha

Exchanges with sister rutherford- party packs hahha

Multizones

Exchanges with Sister Robert's

Bowling!

national mustache day