HEY HEY HEY!!!!

Hey waggerrsss. What's happenin?? Soooo had a little scare this week. We were taking the new missionaries out to street contact for their first time. (and man i didn't realize how much I've really learned! I still feel so new out here but I really have learned SOOOO much!) but the AP's come up to me and they were like, "hna. wagstaff, who's Elder Salazar?? who is he? I'm like "I don't get it. Is this a joke??" They were like, "come on now. Don't play dumb with us! We saw the letter in the mission office." ahahhahahah so I always write my companion from the mtc as Elder Wagstaff because aint nobody writing elders these days! and she always writes me as Elder Salazer and she forgot to put my name on the front. It just said TO MY SWEETHEART! and the AP's had to crack it open to see who it was to! I was like elders my heart is locked. I don't know who this elder Salazar is! Don't worry fam. Just a simple sister missionary in Colorado! 

This week was wondeeeerful! First off when the relief society asks you to teach a zumba class for them... you know it will be a heck of a week! I acted like it was boot camp. UP DOWN ROUND AND ROUND . 5 6 7 8 HIPS THIGHS BELLY ROLLS TOES TOES DO IT AGAIN! But just getting Diana to do one JUST ONE crunch was like asking her to swim to Alcatraz with a 17 pound baby in her arms. IMPOSSIBLE! It was hilarious though! One lady each time she would do a crutch or any movement would say "this ones for the tacos. this ones for pasole. this ones for the gorditas." I was like all power to you hna. Godinez! you go girl! OH HEY ALSO I THINK I WAS ON CHANEL 13 NEWS FOR THE SEE TO SUCEED SERVICE! THEY INTERVIEWED ME! Y'ALL SHOULD LOOK IT UP! I was scared out of my mind. I looked like a little beehive on fire when they came over to me and started asking me questions but what the heck! 

SO I've made up a small simple game for hna. kirkendall and I.... introducing the new missionary favorite finding game WHATS BEHIND THE DOOR!!!! ohhhhh you know i love a good game! We've been really trying to find lots of people and knocking on peoples doors... best way to put it TERRIFYING. You'd think after a year you'd get use to it but ya just never know what to expect here in Texas.... so here's how the game goes. Before we knock on the door we switch off making a guess. WHO'S GOING TO OPEN THE DOOR!? So if I make the guess that it's lets say a small Guatemalan house wife with 3 kids. Then if I guessed right or close she has to start the conversation and if I guessed wrong I have to start the conversation. Whoever gets the most points at the end of the day gets a good back tickle.. you know I love a good back tickle! soooo here are the people we met this week....

#1 Rueban and Karin- from Honduras we open the door and this tiny little girl named Lucy answers and you hear her mom yell "Quien es?" and lucy yells, "los angeles de Dios!" we taught the Restoration and they loved it! we are going back tonight!

#2 Janet.... we actually didn't have to knock her door she lives on the left curb of Walgreens but we did knock on her heart! She always feeds us weird things out of her pockets and asks us for quarters but I love my Janet girl!

#3 Jovel and his three daughters. Their mom just passed away in January and he was left with three little girls all under the age of 6. They take us into this room and there were his wifes ashes. Fanny was her name. He's like, "will you pray to my wife?" I had no idea what to do. I was like I'm going to pray for your family ok! So we prayed and he just started crying. It made me so sad! 

#4 Jon just itching his bum drinking carrot juice. WASN'T INTERESTED BUT WE KNOCKED! 

#5 Ruiz and fam. We knocked. The guess was old man from Mexico but by golly A WHOLE FAMILY FRESH FROM EL SALVADOR! They let us in. Gave us some punch and let me hold their bunny. It was SOOOOO cute. The size of a stick of butter!!! oh I loved it!

Well we've been finding tons of people to teach. It's amazing!!! I love all these people and I love being a missionary!!!

love you soooo much family!

love natsy

THANKS MOM FOR ALL THE CRAFT SUPPLIES. I MAKE THEM ALL INTO MY PLANNERS! GOTA LOOK AT SOMETHING PRETTY ALL DAY. found this cabbage weeding the prairie. Really thinking of using this in my wedding. Love it

she gave me this darling purple nightgown! what a treat! 

small sleepover with palmer!! this is her last transfer and she's hitting the hills to Utah! 

                                   Diana at church. Check out that skirt I found for her! WINNER WINNER.

more rolls from misael!

 zumba with the relief society. Bryan used every adjective a 10 year old would know to describe how much he loved the church to his mom.

                                                  I found my favorite new place to do studies!!! by the pond! 

Curse you Texas Roadhouse

Dear Fam, 

This week was off the amazing!  First off-all our ward valentines party! whoo hooo hooo Fergie in the house! We came 30 minutes late because that's on time texas style and I thought I was walking into Bingo night at Holladay Health Care. A nice slow jazz in the background, hearing aids, couple of walkers, and we walk in with our investigator who is 20... always fun! But all the young people showed up at 9 when we were walking out! 

So we found this little pup on the side of the road named Misael. He's been here for 5 months just fresh out of Guatamala. i LOVE GUATEMALANS!  He literally is the smallest thing i've ever met. And reminds me of the kid from Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs. We were just walking by and he starts just runnin like a little pup after us! he's like, 'hermanas! I am a member. i just got back from my mission in Ecuador and i have been trying to find the church but i can't and i also have work on sundays." So long story short we've been visiting him and we got him to quite his job cleaning the hotel and now he's just working at Texas Roadhouse. CAN I GET A FIST PUMP FOR TEXAS ROADHOUSE!!! whoooo! love that place... but I'm kinda starting to hate it because they are so mean to my little Misael. He can't read or speak English and they give him the tickets and tell him to cook it in 8 minutes. He told us his boss will just throw his dishes in the trash all day because he can't read what the ingredients are and he just goes in the bathroom and cries because he hates it here in america! it makes me so so sad! POOR THING! But we've really seen him change since he's coming to church. It's amazing the blessings we receive just simply by going to church. We can see life so differently.  I was telling him how much I love the bread there and sunday morning before church he calls and he's like, "Hermana, I got you some pan at my work. Come to my house to get it." we get over there and he is not like your average hispanic where they love to feed feed feed me.... Misael is very worried about his weight and I guess mine. He's our personal little trainer. Knee thrust knee thrust body body up! He's like, "Hermana, you can only have ONE only ONE piece of bread. Do you want to be able to get on the airplane to go home in August?? I would hate to see them have to roll you home in a car. ONE! Only eat one! All you gringas always just say everything is so rico rico rico and your going to get fat!" hahaaha so glad someone is watching out for me. But he literally gave us 100 rolls from texas roadhouse! We feed the whole ward house and definitely ate more than one! But Texas Roadhouse made him work for Valentines day. He was hating on us Gringos on Sunday because there were so many people in there! Dang Texas Roadhouse! 

So let me quickly tell you about Jariela and Onandy. This couple that we taught one time and they absolutely HATED the book of mormon but last night we were on exchanges and I had a strong feeling we had to go back and see them. So I take this sweet little sister who doesn't speak Spanish and I'm like if they start bible bashing, I'm so sorry, but I feel like we need to see them! She's like it's fine I won't understand anyway...

So we knock on the door and they open up quick. They were like HERMANAS WE THOUGHT YOU FORGOT ABOUT US!!!!! We have been dying to meet with you again! I had them read from the BOM and they totally accepted everything and want us to visit them everyday! GOOD NEWS IS THEY ARE ALREADY MARRIED. NO DIVORCES! But it was just such a huge miracle. God really does soften and prepare peoples hearts just in his own timing! 

Well that's a wrap! Love you all sooo darn much! TEXAS HAS GOT IT GOIN ON! 

LOVE YOU ALL AND I JUST COULD NOT LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY ANY MORE THAN I DO! HAVE THE BEST WEEK EVER! 

HERMANA WAGSTAFF

                                         DOING LEGOS WITH STEVE OUR LESS ACTIVES SON

OHH DEAR OH DEAR WHAT'S DIANA COOKIN FOR US TODAY?

VALENTINES PARTY! Diana decorated it with our relief society pres

                                                                                                                                                                                        too much studying

 thank you Misael. one of the 3 boxes full of rolls!! 

This is Jose. His wife is a member and they just moved here from Austin a week ago. They were homeless for a while so we would met them at Mcdonalds. We've been helping them find a place to live and our sweetest bishop let them move in and he decided to get baptized a week later! happy day!

What not to wear to church. Special addition at Texas Thrift.

Dearest Holladay, 

Well Hello!

I just love Diana so much! this week we made a lot of progress... so the dilemmas are: 1. She wants to get married to the guy she lives with but he has to get divorced to his ex wife in Mexico. So you know me... i get a lawyer on the phone (don't ask me how I found her number) and we are talking and she says it will be 1,000 dollars and 60 days to get the divorce to go through! I DON'T HAVE TIME OR MONEY LIKE THAT LADY!!! so if you guys know any lawyers for cheaper hook Diana up.  i seriously hate divorces with all my heart! they are a pain in the rear end! I just want them to get married!!!!

(ps mom it seriously made Diana's whole life that you texted her on her birthday. We went out to dinner with her and she was just thanking and thanking and thanking you. She doesn't have a mom here so she really appreciated it)

Her second concern was church.. and she couldn't have had easier concerns to resolve. first she said she didn't have a skirt she felt comfortable to wear to church and second she said was scared where she would sit at church. BOOOYAAA. These are my kind of concerns Diana! 

Get my fashion sense on and I tell her to meet me at Texas Thrift my absolute favorite store! She meets us there and basically WHAT NOT TO WEAR TO CHURCH WITH HERMANA WAGSTAFF WENT DOWN. I pulled out about 30 skirts that were so cute and explained why I loved them and they were all either too tight, too stretchy, too shiny, too ruffly, too bulky, or long, too short. They couldn't have lines vertical or horizontal because that makes her look fat, and last but not least she said she would rather make a pinata out of that then wear it to church.  But the skirts she was picking were even worse! (i didn't know if i had just been out of the fashion world for so long or what but she was picking some pretty terrible ones) One was about as long as little Williams foot, the other was a bath towel made into a skirt, and the last one she liked was a bedazzled cheetah wrap around. After 30 minutes, I'm like Ok what are we looking for here. And she said she wanted a black and white patterned skirt with a black sweater. Easy peezy lemon squeezy. Thats like asking for a Big Mac at Mcdonalds. SO EASY when you have a mother that taught you some profound lessons at T-J Maxx. YOU GOTTA DIG! And you know what mom- I dug and I dug. I got eye level with those racks of clothing. I made her do some runway walking going down one isle as she was trying them on and the other isle for rapid black skirt finding. It was hilarious. I had about 3 grandmas helping me. They were all these spanish old grandmas just yelling things at her "YOU JUST GOTTA DECIDE!" but all and all we walked out of there with a cute skirt but walked in even better to church on sunday!!! She loved it and had a great experience. 

On thursday after english class we had a church tour. Because hna. k and i have been putting up so many posters and we had about 20 new people come. so we had our bishop come and give them a tour of the church afterwards. I've never heard so many ohhhs and ahhhhs just of seeing the CTR 8 class room. But seriously It was an incredible experience. we ended in front of the baptismal font and had this recent convert bear his testimony of his baptism. all of the people were asking how they could be baptized! It was so cool! I love how simple and beautiful this gospel is!

Well I love you all so much! i hope you have the best valentines day ever! I love you more than Stacy and Clinton love a good pair of high heels. 

JOHANNIE AND MOM!!! THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGES!!! THEY MADE MY WHOLE DAY!

                                               SHE LET ME CUT HER HAIR. MAJOR TRUST 

dianas b-day party at cici pizza

HELLO DEAR

Hello dears,

I'M IN LOVE, I'M IN LOVE, AND I DON'T CARE WHO KNOWS IT... WITH PRESIDENT RUSSELL M. NELSON! I thought Ezra Taft Benson was my love because we really bonded that week my comp had pneumonia. President Nelson arrived here on Friday and everything changed.  I personally have been pretending that he's been here all week. I made my companion do weekly planning outside this week cuz can I get a weather man up in here? I am so confused! hot, cold, hot, humid, slightly freezing... it changes everyday! But I have officially called weekly planning to weekly planning/tanning and we had the most beautiful planning session on our balcony out in the sun! (except for the sunburn that I got on only the right side of my neck. terrible.) And I kept saying, "Hey there goes President Nelson!" "Oh president Nelson, that sneaky guy just circling around our complex." "Oh President Nelson. yep he's coming to join us for our weekly planning today." My companion was sick of the President Nelson is coming jokes but I was just SOOO EXCITED! 

So let me just take you all to Tuesday... we had interviews with president and the APs were like, "Hey do you want to be an usher for the Tri-mission conference?" SAY WHAT?? HECK YA I DO! I asked the APs if I could camp outside the church since we had to be there so early but they said no... So they drew me out a map you could call it. Looked very similar to a high school football touchdown plan. Lots of X's and O's. I was to stand at the back of the chapel and hail mary the Senior couples up to the front rows or if they were elders- pick 6 to the back rows. So I painted my fingernails and everything because I knew this was my one chance, my one opportunity to show them what I was made of as an usher and i just knew President Nelson would come through my door!  So there was me and this other sister, Sister Lynn (she is a perfect mix of addie and abby. we had so much fun together) I had code words for everything. If someone we didn't know was coming towards us my code word was : The bird has perched. A missionary from our mission: Scotch tape (just like old times mom) if it was PRESIDENT NELSON: THE EAGLE HAS LANDED! But what the APs didn't do was show me all the curve balls that were thrown. The deaf elders that showed up looked at me for their seat and I probably signed baby goat milk to them and pointed to the front of the chapel. (Abby where were you with your sign language skills when I needed you??) They also didn't tell me that there would be 10,394 Senior couples that I would have no idea where to sit them! Traffic jams up in the front row. MY BAD! But I look to my right AND THE EAGLE HAD LANDED!!! PRESIDENT NELSON! His body guards really got me. One of them comes up to me and I was so nervous. I mean what's a girl to do when she's President Nelson's usher?? So the body guards says, "I'm looking for the usher to seat me." (I think he could tell I was so excited to be there) and my mind went blank. I start frantically looking around. Who is the usher that is suppose to seat them?? The APs didn't tell me this!  I'm like, "ummm one sec let me find them." He starts laughing, "No. No, I was just teasing you! I wanted to see what you'd say!" ruuuddddeee man. hahaha love him to!

I got to shake President Nelson's hand and he looked me straight in the eyes and just simply said, "Hello Dear." like we had been best friends since sixth grade field day. It was nothing to him but everything to me! Hello Dear will forever be my favorite line! He is the most humble, hilarious man. I LOVE HIM! 

He told us this story that was so amazing! He said I haven't shared yet. So in his last conference talk he shared that story about the two little girls he wasn't able to save through heart surgery and he bawled on the floor until his wife came to his rescue. Well he said that in September those two little girls came to him in a dream 58 years since the surgery and said, "President Nelson we aren't sealed to anyone. Can you help us?" So their father is still alive but has a lot of resentment towards President Nelson and refused to meet with him. But finally they met and he told him what happened. He was able to seal their family and said it was the most beautiful experience! It just made me realize how close our Prophet and Apostles are to heaven! They are amazing men and I look up to them and their counsel so much! One other quote i loved was, "God loves the Unlikely to accomplish the Impossible!"  It was such a wonderful day! i learned so much from him.

Dad I was thinking about you all day Sunday. It was ironic I had to speak in my ward about the same time you guys were speaking. i felt your and moms support and i hope you felt mine!

Diana is amazing! Unfortunately she can't get baptized this sunday and she want's to so bad! She even tried to move in with one of our less actives but the less active wouldn't let her. (i know i was mad too) but her "boyfriend" has to get divorced before they can get married. WE HAVE 5 INVESTIGATORS WHO WILL BE BAPTIZED TOMORROW IF THEY WOULD GET DIVORCED! 

WELL I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! 

LOVE YOUR LITTLE HOUSTON GIRL!

HERMANA WAGSTAFF  

when ward members bring their whole back patio to church!

                                          weekly planning/ tanning got freezing. looked like a small lemonade stand