Happy New Years Eve

Hey family!

Happy New Year! Its funny that I wrote you on New Years Eve of 2012 too! It was great to get to talk to you and so funny that it is about to be transfers again. I don't know when I will get to email you but the whole mission is guessing that it will be on Monday cause of transfers

So one of the crazy miracles of the week happened on Saturday. The old folk home was having  a holiday social that we went to and when we came out of it, we were trying to decide what to do. We decided that we would stop over at a family that we had recently helped reactivate. When we got there, her friend Brenda was visiting. from Rio Rancho.  We chatted and asked her if she wanted to take the missionary lessons. she avoided the question by saying her husband is currently working in Oregon while she prepares the house for the next month.  and we just chat on. Her friend, the member, jokingly said that If she didn't get baptized, the member would do it for her when she was dead :) it was fun. they talk about the church a lot. and she sat on the lessons in the past.  She went to the bathroom and when she came out, she went to the member and said "ill get baptized" wow! talk about all of us sitting there in shock!!!!!! and the spirit in the room changed so much as she said those words. it was surely exactly where we were meant to be. the spirit did the rest.

Another miracle from the week was when we stopped by to see a man named Gilbert. I'm not exactly sure how the missionaries met him, but we decided to knock on his door. and wow, is he a talker!!!!! in our first appointment he began by saying that God doesn't answer prayers. And then ended by telling a story about how he prayed and how he felt Gods help in raising his son after his wife passed. It was awesome! He totally taught himself the truth!!!!

We also had a lesson with a less active part member family (Acton's) that told us we could come back and teach them the lessons. They were listening in the past and we had tried them over and over again but they had gotten busy. I finally decided to stop when our Ward Mission Leader invited us to go back again. So I humble myself and we go and end up making an appointment. Then our elders quorum president that has never ever come with us, asks if he can. YES and the lesson went great. the 2 of them were really able to connect well. and now he knows who to call when there is service needed or anything else.

no time

love you all! Happy 2014

Love Sister McShane

Christmas Day Skype with Elizabeth!!

Christmas Day Skype with Elizabeth
Merry Christmas from the McShane Family!!

Merry Christmas Eve!!

Its almost hard to know what to write, when I know that I will be talking to y'all in person tomorrow!!!!

This has been a really good and stressful week, but that is missionary life :)

This week we had another lesson with Memi and mom, it reminded me a lot of your RS lesson. We went into the lesson with the plan of teaching the first half of the restoration about God is loving, dispensations, and Christ, and I just had this icky feeling that it just wasn't right. It wasn't what we were meant to teach her and I didn't really know what to do. We had 30 min, and I couldn't just lean over to my comp and say Hey, this is all wrong. But I just kept praying that I would know what to do and that my comp would to. So I start reading the scripture we had planed on in 1st James about how God is love. And the entire lesson we just talked about how God loves us even though we are so undeserving and about everything Heavenly Father allowed Jesus Christ to do for us. It felt like we would open our mouth to speak because we knew we had to and God somehow gave us the right words and phrases to say. It was  powerful lesson with a woman that I love a lot. It wasn't us doing the teaching.

But that is something I've also been thinking about. Is how God NEEDs us to do His great work. kind of of an awe-inspiring thing.

It seems that love is a theme for the week. We were trying to see one of our investigators that hasn't met with us in about a month. and we were at the end of trying her when we stopped to see Nicole and the family of 5. and She is very honest and just told us about how she doesn't feel Gods love. She feels like she has done too much wrong and has so much guilt. its great to know that through the atonement we can lose that guilt and we will never lose gods love.

We had an early Christmas dinner with the Taylors and it was the best ever!!!! It was a combined traditional/new Mexican Christmas with turkey, ham, and all the sides as well as enchiladas, green chili, homemade tamales, and more. And they gave us a cute ornament that has a picture of a new Mexican snowman in the desert. its half a head and a carrot :) I love them sooo much!

The surprise package was wonderful! We got home at about 8:20 and saw a note on the door saying Sister McShane I have a package for you from Katy from Sister D... So I called, but I couldn't remember who sister D. was. But when I opened the door for her I almost screamed and I knew exactly who it was! IT was sooo cool! And I loved the hugs and it was just sooo much fun! didn't want to say goodbye I just keep staring at the packages and letter and other fun stuff. love it so much. Sorry dad for just saying hi mom. she said that she was just going to send it to mom soo.... you know I was thinking of you. We had dinner last night with the lady who served in your same mission. So cool. but she did tons of tracking

I love yall!!!! Merry Christmas Eve!!! Have fun!

Christmas Package Surprise!

Christmas Surprise for Sister McShane!!
We had some special friends of ours in our ward who were traveling to Albuquerque for Christmas and offerered to take Elizabeth her Christmas presents for us and to deliver special hugs from Mom.  What a wonderful surprise it was for her and a wonderful blessing for us!!  We added lots of extra goodies we were not planning to the package and were so blessed with this sweet connection!  We love and miss our girl so much!!
This picture was taken by our sweet friends!

December half Way gone

So much to say I can't fit it all in. Good thing I'm talking to you... wait, is it next week! wow! no, wow.

First, I will be emailing on Christmas Eve
Second, I've asked Audra Horschel if we can skype from her home sometime in the evening but honestly don't have more details than that. I'm hoping for the evening time because its hard to work after calling home. And this will be my comps first call home.

Mission party was tons and tons of fun! We even drove the long way to get there so that I could go through Bernalillo and Rio Rancho! First area! It was sooo much fun to be there and know exactly how to get to church and exactly where people lived in the area. So much fun! Felt like home. Then we go and of course half of the missionaries in the mission are there including the 2 sisters I was at the MTC with.  We talked and talked and talked. Then I saw Brother Biggs from Enchanted Hills and I find out that my first ward was having a Christmas Breakfast that had just ended so I got to go in and see some of my fav members (all were like, oh, you must be going home soon :/) The food was amazing! A huge feast and they gave us little ornaments with the names of Christ and were sooo sweet. Then the conference was sooo good. I have so many fav parts of it. The first made me cry was when Elder Foster of the 70 said that as we kneel down every night, think about that last prayer you will ever say (on mission) and what you want to be able to say to your Heavenly Father. That was good and I didn't cry from regret more from sorrow as to when that prayer will be. Another part was when he talked about missionary work and the responsibility of it. There is a difference between the work being for

1 the missionaries

2 members helping missionaries

3 missionaries helping members_____ and that is where we want to be. The members own the work we are meant to help teach the people they are finding. Not the other way around. But it is a life style adjustment.  We will see.

Ward party was a lot of fun too. We even had a less active family come and that was great! Its incredible how a great party was turned into something amazing when I saw them come it. Santa was fun and it was very simple. Sad thing about being a missionary is they made us sing Christmas songs Karaoke style in a microphone as everyone else was SUPPOSE to be singing too. gah. haha

Remember last week when I told you about teaching someone named Mimi? She was a former investigator and also the daughter of a less active member that we have been teaching. Well, we finally got to meet with her 2 times and it was amazing! It was on her lunch break both times and when we sat down, you could just see on her face the expectation to be spiritually fed. She was sooo open and ready to hear that she didn't want us to leave and set the next appointment for the very next day. It was a miracle. Her life has changed so much since she last met with the missionaries as she had to learn hard lessons. But now I truly believe that she is ready to embrace the gospel whole heartedly.

This really has been a great week and I'll have to tell you more about it tomorrow. Ask me about

senior couple and Luis

Delgados blessing

I love you all and Merry Christmas!!!! I love you mom, dad, Eyn, Trent, And Amberly!!

PS thanks for the the candy chain, gal! Its sooo much fun to do!

Christmas all around

Dear Family! Merry Christmas! How are all of you doing today????

This week has been good. And not as crazy as last week, although now we just laugh about that story :)

Last night was great. It started with dinner at the Jake/Adorno familys home and it was just a lot of fun. We had pizza and zeps and felt very good and comfortable there. After that, we went to home of a less active woman's named Patsy. We have stopped by her home before and we see her a lot at the assisted living home that we do service for. The moment we saw her we just knew that not all was okay and she was struggling. (but she is not one to ask for help) We just talked with her for a little bit. And shared a scripture about the Christ takes upon himself the sting of death. It meant a lot to the both of us. With her we found out that one of the men at the old folks home I knew had also passed away unexpectedly. While there, another miracle happened in which her daughter stopped by to pick up a pan. She had been a former investigator and we had been trying to see her for some time but couldn't. We were able to set up an appointment to meet at the old folks home. That was a huge miracle.

Sometimes it is funny how being in the right place at the right time makes you late for the next place that you are "suppose"to be at. Next we had a meeting with a returning member and her family. Because of some contention at home, she asked us if we could meet at Starbucks instead and brought a neighbor along. It was really good. We were able to talk about how missionary work is going and about how she has been reading the scriptures. I really loved how she was so comfortable inviting her friends to get hot chocolate with the missionaries. To her, this is just how she lives her life. She jokes about baptizing her friend in the coffee and so forth. I love her and I am thankful for her trust.

Another miracle was that Ruth and Fredrick got baptized on Saturday!!!! Yippee! She is hispanic and he native American from Canada. They are the couple that we started teaching, but then had to pass over to the Elder for boundary purposes. It was really really cool. And I know that I was meant to be here to start that process for them, although I don't think I'll ever understand exactly what I did do. They asked me to give one of the talks and I was more than happy to. I love them so much and I am so excited for there little family. On the way to the baptism, we got a phone call from the WML asking if we were nearby. We were just around the corner. he also asked if I had prepared a talk and what it was on. I told him I was asked to give the talk on baptism. Pause. And he tells me that he had messed up the program and 2 people had been asked to give a talk on baptism. I'm literally 3 min. away from the chapel at this point. And I say, oh.... well... I can try to wing a talk on the spirit if you want me too. he replies and says I don't really care, but that would be great.... haha. So we get to the baptism and I quickly think of a few points I'd really been thinking and feeling and gave a 5 min. talk on it. And it went really well. And I want to say that that is because of 2 reasons. 1 is because Giving talks like that if I know something to say don't freak me out too much and I'm able to just go and look perfectly calm and the other more important reason is because the spirit and my love did the work. It was very nice.

This week we did service in a home without a heater. We were trying to put boards and insulation up. and there was no heat. We were freezing and I couldn't imagine how cold this family must be at night. It was crazy . I love them so much and I was very grateful to be there in there circumstances and do some good. later that night we ate with a single woman who fed us simple sandwiches for dinner. We felt very fortunate to be there and be able to feel heavenly fathers love in there home and there great humility.

Another great event this week was the Messiah and nativity showing that the stake put on. We went to both nights of it hoping to see someone we invited. Although we didn't, it was still a great night and very spiritual. \

I love you all!!!!

Crazy!

Hello my family!!! How are you? So the RS made these countdowns to Christmas and let us make one too. Its not my fav one, but I like it. Problem is that yesterday I realized it was a countdown to when I get to talk to y'all too. :)

The last few weeks have been incredible. I don't know how but I have changed a lot. I've been thinking a lot about change since I got Amberly's great poster that says "Elizabeth    Don't ever change" And really everything she sent to me meant a lot. I've thought about how I am still the same person, but that I have changed, in some ways I can't quite tell yet. But first I have a really long story to tell.

My new comp is Sister Murphy. She just finished training, been out 3 months, and this is her second area. Lets just say that she freaked out a bit from the change. I love her a lot!!! but this change has been really hard on her. As a result, we received priesthood blessings from great Zone Leaders on Friday. But on Sunday we called the STLs and they came over to help. I think the biggest problem was that the trial wasn't going to just go away. On Monday, we called them again and just asked for a hug and it was good for me, but the day had just started out as a downer with a bad dream and so forth. But afterword everything was good and we contacted a few new people, got a potential. it was great! Dinner at the Taylors was a lot of fun, taught 2 people, great day right!!!!!

So we were driving out of a neighbor hood, and at a stop sign when I saw a teenage girl walking toward us waving us down. She looked really panicky. I rolled down the window just enough to talk with her. She said that she needed a ride down to Smiths parking lot and that her dad was going to commit suicide and she had called the cops. ... .... ..... yeah.    We told her no. We couldn't give her a ride and she ran away, but we called the cops any way and reported it. Little did I realize that we were a block from Smiths and that was exactly where I was headed. So when we saw about 10 cop cars and a squad of cops walking with guns towards Smiths, you can just imagine what we were feeling.

We drove away and went to a parking lot just to sit. and recoup. and pray. We called the DL and ZLs but no answer. So we just waited. but of course, we again were not as far as we thought. And the DLS called right as we saw an ambulance leaving from the Smiths area. So at that point Sis. Murphy asked for a blessing. And we were able to set it up for the ZLs to come with another companionship. Of course they show up when I am in the middle of a melt down. I also got one. An incredible one and more on that later. But that is also not the end of the drama...

During dinner, we had gotten a lot of calls from an unknown number as well as a curse word in a text. As we were coming for blessings, It happened again and had a odd conversation that just didn't make sense. And since the ZLs were asking what was up, we told them about the phone calls. They told us to text president. Who quickly asked for the number and then sent this reply

"I have called and texted the number. I informed the caller that his number had been turned over to the authorities and any further calls would result in his immediate arrest. I immediately got a reply of "okay, I'm sorry". I believe you'll be safe."

yeah, you don't mess with President's girls :) I love him

Alright, soo drama done and over. or so we really hope.

But I want to go back to the amazing blessings we got last night. I love our zone leaders. They just really care and never make us feel like "dumb sisters" The blessing was a huge answer to many many prayers. I think the biggest one was when Heavenly Father told me that I am now the missionary that he wanted me to become. And that was a huge thing. I remember a year ago getting blessings about how one day I would be able to become the missionary I want to be and the one that Heavenly Father wants me to be. How when in Cruces, God told me I was a wonderful missionary and President said then I had a glow and how now pres says its even greater. I have gone through a lot and worked so hard. We read 1 Nephi 3:7 today and I thought, hey I am doing this and it is doing good. It is well. And another incredibly special point was when Heavenly Father told me that the greatest and most important part of my mission has been saved for the end. It made me feel so special to just know again that Heavenly father hasn't forgotten me. That it has all worked up to this and many more great and important things. That I'm still here for many important reasons and that it is good. I'm sooo happy to know that I am fulfilling Heavenly Father's expectations. That is all that I ever wanted. That's why I am here and now it is just so much grater and expanded. I know now that coming home is going to be really really hard for me. I am so grateful to make Heavenly Father happy.

I know this is a crazy letter, but i am thankful for it. I love my mission. I love everything we do. I love it. I am happy

I love you all So very much. Thank you for the cards and more!

Love Sister McShane,

Elizabeth