Week 73 Last email home

Here we go :)

WE'RE HAVING A BAPTISM TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a way to go, right? Its la Familia Perez. Marcela, Renee, and Juanito. They're the ones that came to the church 3 weeks ago... I always knew that the Lord prepares people for our message but HOLY COW! They have kept every single commitment and more! I just love them so so much. They moved into the other ward's boundaries on Saturday so it's been absolute chaos trying to figure out who in actually in charge of this baptism. We're basically having a bi-ward baptism!! 2 wards full of fellowshippers :) it's the best!

OH! So la familia perez needed a ride to church yesterday and we found them one with a member who lives pretty close. She was supposed to take them to our building. Long story short, the ride bailed so they walked all the way to the bus only to find that it wasn't going to be there in time so they walked all the way home. We busted out of sacrament meeting when we didn't see them and with some seriously divine help got them a ride to the other ward's meetings and they LOVED it :') They just wanted to go to church so bad and it didn't matter where. The church is true everywhere :)

What else? Mmmmm Hermana Jimenez has the biggest sweet tooth in the world and she's been stuffing me full of all the amazing Mexican sweets you can imagine. I feel like most of the week I've just been recovering from a sugar coma.

OH! The couple that we found at the beginning of the transfer (they had been taught a bunch by elders but they never wanted to tie the knot) ARE GETTING MARRIED ON TUESDAY :'D Luz and Francisco <3

It's been weird feeling mission things starting to slip away... You feel the mantle placed upon you when you come and you feel it slowly lifted as you go... It's so incredibly bitter sweet. I have a lot of love and honor for my mission, especially all the people that have shaped it. I've found my long lost grandpas and grandmas and moms and dads and uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters. It has been a blessing to wear this tag.

I came on a mission hoping for a front row seat to allll kinds of miracles. It has been even sweeter than I could have ever imagined to experience the simple miracle of perfect love. I know God loves each of his children perfectly. I know that Jesus Christ lived and died and was resurrected because of that same love. They know our potential and it is truly their work and glory to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. Our happily ever after. And as we strive to cultivate that perfect love and magnify it, we will be Their miracles. I am grateful for this special time they have given me to recognize that and so many other things.

Thank you to all of you for your prayers and kindness and wisdom these past several months.

Hasta pronto!

Hermana Lund

1. One last visit with Bonnie and Alex.
2. Construction continues!
3. Lunch with Hermana Rodrgiuez!!!! (The mini missionary with me way
back in the day) She goes into the mtc in a week :') SO PROUD!
4. One more ice cream with Billy!
6. The district surprised me with a mission birthday cake and piñata!

Week 72

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! THIS WEEK!

For starters... Monday was monday. We had an awesome FHE with one of our families. Apparently Mexicans have this game that's SUPER similar to the German chocolate game (minus all the hats and gloves and stuff cuz it's Arizona..) so we talked about life being a time to experience joy and we played the game and laughed til we were blue in the face. So fun. And so nice to see our family smiling :')

Tuesday... My boston driving got me in trouble and I merged into a service truck that had a little steel box sticking out that just ATE up the whole left side of our car... I think Heavenly Father wanted to keep me humble. It worked... Rolling up to all meetings with our nasty car. Yup. Keepin my humble for sure :) "What happened to your car????" ".... me?" But what would my last week in the mission field be without estimates and insurance people and reports and bleh? Gotta go out with a bang :)

Wednesday... Hna Jimenez came back!!!!!!!!!! :') We found out later that she totally snuck out of the mission home with an older missionary couple and President had no idea.. Hahah little sneak. She was going crazy. She's been walking around like she's pregnant, with her stomach all sensitive and she's still on her liquids diet but she's pulling through like a champ!

Thursday... Lots of service! I got to visit my very first mission apartment again :) Their lease is up and so we helped the sisters move out and clean and whatnot. We found lots of random things from my time there and way before. It was a wonderfully poetic trip down memory lane.

Friday... Ward Family History Activity. Totally flopped, 2 people actually came but that gave us lots of time to work on our own family history!! So much fun!! I love it!

Saturday... Planning. A couple of awesome lessons. A stellar dinner with a member equipped with Chewy Bars for dessert :)

Sunday... I don't even know how to put into words the kind of blessings we've been receiving!!!! For starters, we had EIGHT investigators come to church yesterday :) SEVEN of those have a baptismal date for August! And THEN!!! To top it all off... Obispo came up to us yesterday and said, "there's a guy who just moved here from Texas. He's gotten all the lessons, even passed the baptismal interview, and all that's left is for him to get baptized!!!!!!!!!!" We got in touch with him and his missionaries from Texas. Apparently he got all the lessons in Puerto Rico, moved to Florida, got an interview, had to move to Texas, got another interview, moved to another part of Texas, got another interview, and now he's in Arizona for a month! WAAAAAAAAH! We have a lesson with him tonight but we're still just in shock!

This week, my testimony of the power of the Plan of Salvation has been infinitely strengthened. Hna J's dad passed away 7 years ago, yesterday. We got to teach the plan of salvation to one of our families and she testified of the sealing powers of temples. I am grateful for my own beautiful family and for the chance we have to be together forever and for the one who makes it all possible. "Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth... Wherefore how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth..." (2 Nephi 2:6,8). I cherish the time I have to make these things known unto the inhabitants of man as a full-time missionary and then as an unofficial full-time missionary :)

Thank you for all the love and support!

Aprovechen esta semana como hare yo!
Hermana Lund


1. The office says they fix any damage bigger than a coin.... Well...
2. She's back and happier than ever! Also, they asked us to take out all our stuff from the cupboard to fumigate cuz of the cockroach problem and then they never did. We've been living in a room full of
the healthiest food :)
3. Dessert :)
4. Rusty's trick of the week: drinking a whole cup of soda

1. Raspados con Billy :)

Week 71

HEY :)

Wow. Okay. So.

For starters, Hna Jimenez is doing good!! Surgery went well! She's been taking it easy at the mission home, going bored out of her mind but she's alive so we'll take it :) Hopefully she'll be back with us tomorrow or Wednesday!

It seemed like the second she left Heavenly Father was like, "WELL! No excuses to take things slow any more" so we've been SWAMPED. I LOVE it :) Mostly because it's a nice distraction from imminent death but we have seen some CRAZY miracles this week!

For starters, Marcella, Renee, and Juan. They're all about 5 feet tall, cute as can be, straight from Mexico. They've had a rough rough life so far and they saw the church on Wednesday, walked in, talked to a member of the bishopric, and the next night we were all in a member's home having a KILLER lesson. Best part, I told Hna Hernanadez that she was gonna take the lead. Might have been a prompting of the spirit but I was also just really tired... and she CRUSHED IT! :') She took control of everything and was so guided by the spirit! Even when they went on the typical 20 minute hispanic rant about something completely random (no lesson is complete without it), she said "Bummer! But the church is true and Christ will help you with that!" I mean, she said it nicer but AHH so proud :') And then she invited them to be baptized and they said YES :') We left them with the Restauracion pamphlet and had another lesson with them on Saturday. Not only did they read it, but they answered the questions in the back!!!!!!!!!! NO ONE DOES THAT. Heck, I haven't even done that... Milagros! They all came to church yesterday and the ward took them right under their wing! We had 3 other investigators come to church too and all the lessons were so on point! Beautiful, beautiful sunday :')

On a less eternally important note, my favorite part of the week was BIKES. Yeeeeeeeeeeup. Made it almost my whole mission without having to bike... I knew it was too good to be true. We're pretty limited on miles and with doctors appointments and stuff it's gonna be a miracle if we stay under our limit. We had one bike in our apartment left by the other sisters so we went on the search for another one! ... 24 hours later we had a lil BMX bike without a seat and a bike that belongs to an elder who might as well be 7 feet tall...... The Lord always provides :) hahah So Saturday we took off biking in 104 (accidentally picked the hottest day, whoops!) and it was AWESOME!!! Skirts flying, butts bruising, skin baking, chains breaking. It was glorious :) Hahah I loved it! I think Hna Hernandez enjoyed it less than I did... I think we're gonna hang up our helmets for a couple days.

Other miracles: contacted a referral yesterday. We shared a message with her, her family, and her friend's whole family that came over... best part, they fed us pozole afterwards :) OH! We had a SUPER legit monsoon! Power went out and everything :) Trainer and New Missionary meeting was wonderfully edifying as always :) Oh! we were gonna contact a less active named Frankie but he bailed so we talked to a random guy on the side of the road... NAMED FRANKIE. Crazy.

I've been studying "The Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar. Find it. Read it. Love it! It's all about WHY Christ did what he did. He quotes Brigham Young, saying "If ALL the sayings and doings of the Savior had been written, the world could not contain them... The world could not understand them." Christ is the center of everything. We have faith in him because he is perfect in every way and it's a blessing to see how his perfection can truly make a difference.

Gracias por todo! Les quiero mucho!
Hermana Lund

1. It's weird starting to say goodbye to everyone...

2. Making progress :)
3. :)
4. (Insert Hermana Jimenez)
5. Before...
6. One of our investigators has a wiener dog :''''')
7. After...

Week 70 So many footballs

Hey :)

This week was a big old pile of everything!

For starters, Hna J has been on a jello, pudding, and boiled fruits and vegetables diet... She didn't do too well doing it on her own so we made it a comp thing. My stinkin gosh. We've been eating a lot of boiled apples... It grows on ya :) "Empathy in agony is divinity" right? Her gallbladder's coming out this Wednesday (PRAISE THE LORD) so we'll all be happy about that!

Tuesday I got to spend the day with my old comp, the one, the only... Hna B :) It was awesome being back together just like old times... We were teaching this one lady. Super catholic, super stubborn, super not willing to even say a closing prayer, let alone pray about the BOM. So we said a prayer, were about to leave and then her daughter walks in. She takes one look at us and says, "Oh my goodness, I'm so glad you're here! Can we say a prayer together or something??" ....... The apple always falls ridiculously far from the tree? :) Who knows. But we had this powerful, powerful teaching moment and the comp unity came straight back! Other cool thing... Her name was PRISCILLA!! Like recent convert in Nogales, Priscilla :)

Which leads me to Thursday! Priscilla's mom got baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :') We started teaching her back in March! And she finally went through with it!!! To make it even better I got to see Grandpa and all the other members I miss!! And then... SISTER HUBERT SHOWED UP!!! Companion, back at the beginning of the year? Ringing a bell? So good to see her again too!! She and I sang (just like old times) the Baptism song with SISTER PASSEY. Yup. That's right. My mission president's wife drove me alllllll the way to nogales and alllllllllll the way back. 2 hours alone with Sister Passey. My gosh, I don't think I've ever received so much revelation in my life! She's incredible :')

Mmmm what else? Oh! While I was gone, Hna J and Hna H had some BOMB lessons and set a few more baptismal dates :) Oh! and Hna Sands is KILLING it in Nogales :') So proud of all my people.

OH!! Had a horrible lesson with a part member family about prophets on Saturday. Horrible, not as in we botched it, but horrible as in just yeah... The dad is completely inactive and was whipping out Ephesians 5:22junk about women being subject to men and how his wife wasn't doing that... hmmmm keep reading to verse 25... But in the words of Hna H "It was cool to know that the spirit wasn't with them but it was with us." His daughter (our investigator who's been with them for a few weeks and was supposed to stay til the end of July) went back to Mexico early... Asi es!

MMM! So something we learned about Hna H this week: TERRIFIED of footballs. Absolutely terrified. We've been working with her, tossing a football back and forth at lunch, helping her build up her courage! Something we learned about Hna J: TERRIFIED of thunder. Absolutely terrified. After living in what feels like the Sahara Desert for 2 weeks, we finally had a monsoon last night :') Hna H and I were dancing in the rain while Hna J screamed... We had to sing primary songs to drown out the thunder for a solid hour :)

As Hna J was crying, Hna H looks at me and says... "Everyone has a football." Everyone has that thing that makes em shut down, curl up in a ball, cry, scream, the whole everything! For such a young missionary, she's pretty smart.

I feel like I have so many footballs. Every day I seem to discover a new one. But everything works out in the end. I know it. I've seen it. The happily ever after always comes. So rather than just waiting around for it, might as well be part of the team trying to make it happen. "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. And whosoever will love his life for my sake shall find it." (Matt 16:25) Have hope and have faith in something a lot bigger than us.

Keep Hna J in your prayers... Other than that, we're good! Promise :)

Les quiero mucho!
Hermana Lund

1. Old friends from my first area :)
2. Dream team, back together!
3. Comp study took a turn for the worse...
4. We bribe our people with Panera :) works every time!
5. BAPTISM!!! With all my favorite people :')
6. Osito :')
7. Eeegees is approved in our new diet. Nothing but Tucson's finest!
8. Somehow she gets cold...
9. 102 at 9:35 PM... Ready for winter.

1-2. Our elders!
3. :)
4. Preach!
5. Rain :)
6. She got blood drawn... They collapsed on vein so they went to the
other arm.... She's tough! T-2 days til no more gallbladder!

Week 69 As the Lord stretches He seems to be holding on tighter and tighter

Hey :)

I realized I didn't really talk about our area last week... It's stinkin awesome! The Spanish game is STRONG! By far the most Spanish area I've served in. Plus the two native companions. It's the best!
The members are SO nice. We had a double dinner last Monday that just about killed us, but do it for the member trust, I guess. Oh! My favorite part of the area is this one member. They're all wonderful
but there's this one Hermana that beats em all. No idea what her name is but she conducts relief society every Sunday. She's about 4 feet tall. Tiny as can be. And oh man, she talks like a munchkin on helium. SO CUTE! But she gets work done. She's a valiant little sucker. She testified of the temple this Sunday and it was so motivational!

This week was awesome! :) Friday, Hna Jimenez had doctors appointments (shes getting her gallbladder out in a couple weeks!!!) up in north Tucson so we stopped by the temple site. They put up the angel Moroni last week and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!! We pulled around the corner and
it just gave me the chills!!!! I can't wait for the day I get to go inside :) the construction has been cruisin!

Oh! Crazy thing with that! We were driving back from the temple and we pull up right next to these English elders! We stop at a light and they run out of their car, give us a newspaper with a big old picture of the angel Moroni and pull off! There was this article all about how everything we believe leads to the temple. AMEN :)

Miracle this week! We had zone meeting all about the importance of baptism as the gateway for everything else wonderful (Holy Ghost, priesthood, eternal marriage, exaltation). That night we went out with our ward mission leader and his wife. Our investigator "wasn't home" (her 3 year old opened the door and said so........ Sure...) so we asked them if there was anyone they could think of that we could all visit. They eventually thought of this old investigator family that the elders had dropped because they wouldn't get married. Their names are Luz and Francisco :) We went straight there, they were home, we had a killer lesson about baptism and temples and God's love, and Hna Hernandez invited them to be baptized............. They smiled and said, "Absolutely! And perfect timing too because we're getting married in a couple of weeks!" :') Thanks, Heavenly Father.

The Lord has really blessed us. He's really blessed me. I love my companions, I love my area, I love being a missionary. It's hard and I feel like a rubber band getting stretched to the breaking point every
day, but as the Lord stretches He seems to be holding on tighter and tighter.

Oh!! Also!!!!! Good news!! Priscilla's mom down in Nogales is getting baptized this week!!!!! :) we started teaching her back in March! Hopefully I'll get to go. Eternal families for the win! Also, were
helping this family with family history (I seriously love it so much!) so we might be tagging along with them to the temple this weekend :)
lots of blessings, lots of happiness.

Compórtense bien y tengan una buena semana :)

Hermana Lund


1. We made dinner for our district.... I didn't make the cut in the pic though so they drew me in :) They call me Linder... Haven't figured out why but I'll take it!

2-4. Temple :D
5. First whataburger!
6. Hna H is OBSESSED with cute animals. We went to this one house with 3 dogs and she was in heaven :)

1-2. Finger puppets from mom and dad were put to good use :)
3-6. Hna H hit her one month mark :) it's not hazing, I promise...
7-8. Hna J has a notoriously big smile so we've been taking one normal smiley picture and then a "Smile like Hna J!" picture :) Hna H takes it pretty seriously...

Week 68 July 4th

Okay! So week one, last transfer. Dang. Okay.

So to start, last Monday night was full of tearful goodbyes but I know that Hna Sands will take good care of everyone. I miss her too but I couldn't be any prouder!

Tuesday! We made it to the transfer site in time to see a lot of good friends and to get my new companions!!!!! I am with not one, but TWO NATIVES! Introductions and meeting members have been funny. They usually go like this: "I was born in Mexico but I grew up in Utah!" "I was born in Mexico but I grew up in Nebraska!" ".... I was born in Boston, Mexico?" :) but it definitely has it's perks. My Spanish has gotten so good!! And they keep making/feeding me crazy Hispanic things :) I love em :)

Hna Hernanadez has been out a whole week now :) she's amazing. Really quiet but when she testifies.... Buckle up, ladies and gentleman. She testifies with such power. It's incredible! And Hna Jimenez. She's been out almost 5 months. I'm her second comp but she's the epitome of a bubbly sister missionary which has been the greatest blessing! The members LOVE her and they've opened up so so much! Blessings.

Mm what else? Oh. Our apartment. We have bunk beds :) I get to sleep on the top and feel like a little kid again. It's the best! We also have a cockroach infestation. And the elders scrubbed our floor with Pinesol for 3 hours.

Miracles: we had dinner with our ward mission leader and their neighbor randomly popped up and were gonna start teaching her :) we went to a baptism and found a new investigator who were gonna start teaching tonight!

The Lord's been opening so many doors for us. In the past I feel like I've been pretty cocky about transfers, like I know the members, I know this and that. This time I know nothing. And I've learned he really is in charge. 1 Nephi 17:50.

Sorry I'm short on time. I love this work and I know our Heavenly Father will always take care of us.
Que tenga una buena semana!!

Hermana Lund

Enviado desde mi iPad

1. Goodbye to Grandma Duke!!
2. Trio :)
3. CHICK FIL YAY!!
4. Lunch with a random member who loves missionaries :)
5. Weekly planning done right!
6-8. It rained pretty bad this week so we made the most of it :)
9. ... 5 weeks?