Tempe Arizona Week 5

Sorry I did not write last week, but I was on a plane over the Atlantic. This is last weeks email (Tempe Arizona Week 5), there is another one about this week (Rome Week 1).

This week was the first time I got to go to English class. It was really fun there is a cute old man who goes. He is about to graduate and we are having a fiesta for him on the twenty first. We went on Tuesday and had the opportunity to teach it on Thursday. It was a lot of fun.

On Thursday we worked at the farmers market in the morning. It was a lot of fun! It is not a regular farmers market. Once a week people can come and get a retain about of free food. I really enjoyed it.

After that we headed up to Maricopa for a meeting. It was a really good meeting. We talked a lot about personal responsibility and the importance of being obedience. This lead me to think about agency. Every person has agency, we all have the ability to choose right from wrong. This make it so that "everyone else is doing it" becomes an invalid answer. Every action we make has a consequence. We do not get to choose the consequence for our action. Just because no one knows you did it doesn't mean that there is not a consequence. We each must personally decide to choose the right at all times. If we do not, there will come a time when it will be hard to make the right choice and we will have to suffer the consequences. I invite you all to think about the decisions you make and if you really want the consequence that come from those decisions.

Friday was Hermana Day's birthday!!!! Sorely Sharp and Hermana Doty decorated while we were doing our work out. I made German pancakes for breakfast and we had funeral potatoes for lunch. It was a great day!

Saturday was the Fourth of July!!!!! President Luis payed for us to have a booth in the plaza! We passed out free ice cream and water. We also talked about family history to those that were interested. It was really fun. Unfortunately we had to be in by seven, but that gave me time to pack. When were heard the fireworks go off we stepped outside to watch them. We could see them perfectly from our drive way. It was really nice.

Sunday (July 7) was my last day in Arizona. We went to church in Ajo. It was very nice, all of the lessons were wonderful! After church we went up to Maricopa for dinner. We had to stop in Gila Bend for some things. Herman Day's drivers license expired on her birthday so I had to drive, and lead. That was an adventure! After dinner we finished driving up to Tempe. We talked with the mission president for a while. He gave us all a good bye hug. We spent the night at the Tempe sisters' apartment. After we got everything out of the car we had to say good-bye to Hermana Day and Hermana Doty. They all woke up with me at four in the morning to help. I had to say good-bye to Sorella Sharp, then it was off to the airport. I met up with the other missionaries in Atlanta. I arrived before them so I was afraid I would be flying alone, but they showed up eventually.

I have greatly enjoyed my time in Arizona and will always remember it. It is now time to move on to my next adventure.

Letter dated July 13, 2015.

Tempe Arizona Mission

Letters from this area:
Tempe Arizona Week 1: June 8, 2105
Tempe Arizona Week 3: June 22, 2015
Tempe Arizona Week 4: June 29, 2015
Tempe Arizona Week 5: July 13, 2015

Victoria served in the Gela Bend and Ajo area, in the Maricopa Stake from June 4 to July 5, 2015. Her companion was Hermana Day, and sometimes they were in a quad with Sorella Sharp (her MTC companion) and Hermana Doty. The Mission President was James L. Toone.

Sorella Sharp, Hermana Doty, Hermana Day, Sorella Pinnegar

Hermana Day and Sorella Pinnegar

Maricopa Stake President Luis

Arizona Zone

Other Links:

Arizona Tempe Mission Blog (written by President and Sister Toone)
Arizona Tempe Mission Facebook Group

Map of Mission Area (2015)

Tempe Arizona Week 4

Last p-day in Arizona!

I got some exciting news!!! My visa is here!!! I leave Monday the 6th at 7:20 in the morning! That was a little bit of exciting news. I am excited to go but sad to leave everyone. I love the people here and it will be sad to say good-bye. Luckily Hermana Day and Hermana Doty will get to drive us to Tempe on Sunday!

This week in my studies revelation came up a lot. In church on Sunday we talked a lot about revelation. I want to talk about two kinds of revelation. The first being personal.

Personal Revelation

Before I left on my mission my brother Darren asked me if I knew how I received revelation. I didn't think about that a lot until this week. Every person has the ability to relieve revelation for themselves. Heavenly Father has created a way to guide us in what we do! How cool is that!

We can receive revelation in many different ways. We can get it through the prompting a of the Holy Ghost, by reading the scriptures, and even thought the words of another person. It can be hard to tell when we are receiving revelation. It is not normally a big thing, but small and hard to recognize when we are not looking for it. When we do receive revelation we need to act on it or we will have a harder time recognizing it the next time. As missionaries we ask people to pray and find out for themselves if the message we share is true. We are asking them to seek revelation from God. When we read our scriptures and say our prayers we are more in tune and ready to receive revelation.

On Saturday evening Hemana Day and I were suppose to drive down to Ajo. There had been storm warnings through out the day but it didn't look to bad and the people down in Ajo were not having storms yet. We decided to pray and ask if we should go, we felt we should not. Within ten minutes the wind was blowing really badly. When we got down to Ajo the next day the members told us that it had gotten so bad down in Ajo that the power was out for about an hour. If we had not sought and listened to the revelation we had received we would have been in the middle of both a dust storm and a monsoon. It is so important to receive and follow the revelation we receive. How do you receive revelation?

Prophetic Revelation

The second form of revelation I want to talk about is prophetic. We believe that there is a prophet called of God, to be His mouth piece, on the earth today. We sustain him as such. This means that we stand by him and his council, that we believe and follow his words and guidance. He has the authority to speak and act in Gods name. Some times we might not like or want to agree with what he is saying, but what he says is revelation from God to the world. God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. I know that there is a true and living prophet on the earth today. I know that he has been chosen by God to lead and guide our church. I support him and his apostles, and I strive to follow their guidance and council.

Questions to ponder.

What does revelation mean to you?
How do you receive personal revelation?
Why is it important to have a prophet on the earth today?
How can revelation, both personal and prophetic, help you in your life?

Next time I write it will be from Italy! I love you all and hope everything is going well!

Letter dated June 29, 2015.

Tempe Arizona Week 3

Seasons greetings from the coolest place on earth!

The theme of today's email is going to be mini miracles. Since being on my mission I have seen lots of little ways that the Lord has helped me. I really would like to share some of those with all of you.

The first miracle happened on Monday. We were in Maricopa about to head down to Gila Bend when our air conditioning stopped working. Not only did it stop working, but it started to blow hot and humid air! We turned it off and rolled down the windows. We had some things we still needed to do in town and by the time we were ready to leave Maricopa the AC worked again. We were all very grateful. We have made sure since then not to have the AC on high. We were defiantly blessed. This one was fairly big, but it was still very important, especially in the Arizona heat.

This next one is very small but very important to me. Last week I had switched the finger that I normally wear my ring on because my fingers swell in the heat. Unfortunately when we went into President Luis' house last week it was cool and my fingers went back to their regular size. Because of this my ring fell off and I could not find it any where. This week we went back over there hoping to ask him about something and we searched again, but we still could not find it. Then Hermana Day looked under the couch and there it was. We had already checked under the couch at least five times! It wasn't big, and it wasn't grand, but to me it was a miracle!

This week I met a member of the ward down in Ajo, and he served his mission in Milan Italy! Here about an hour or two from the Mexican border I met someone who speaks Italian! I was able to understand almost all of what he is saying, even though I have not had a lot of opportunities to use my Italian. He and his wife are feeding us tomorrow and he is making real Italian food for us!!! Again, not big and not very important, but still a blessing and a miracle.

My final miracle is probably the smallest of them all. I have been in Arizona for two full weeks now and I still have not gotten sunburned once! In fact, I think I am slowly starting to tan. This has never

happened to me before.

This week I would like to ask you all to look for not only the big blessings you receive,but especially for the small mini miracles that happen every day. As you do this, you will realize just how much Heavenly Father knows and cares about you and about each of his children.

Lots of love

Letter dated June 22, 2015

Tempe Arizona Week 1

Hello from Tempe!

Ciao!!!

This week has been really good. We had a lot of fun with the new Italian Zone. Wednesday we all went to the temple together and hung out. Friday morning we watched Elder L. Tom Perry's funeral. It was really good.

That evening at about six we got called to the travel office. They had been looking for us all day, but had not been able to get a hold of us. When we got there they handed us three pieces of paper. The first one said that we were going to be temporarily reassigned to Tempe Arizona!!! We were super excited. Then we look down a few lines and see that we would be leaving at six in the morning the next day. We were really grateful that we were already mostly packed. It was sad to say good-bye to all of the friends we had made. Sorella Sharp and I were really excited that we would be going to the same place.

When we got to Arizona on Friday we were meet by two sisters and three elders. They were all super nice and really excited. The mission president had been at a funeral and that is why he was unable to meet us at the airport. We finally did meet him about two hours later. He is seven feet tall and really funny. His wife is super short. She is only about five five so it is amusing. We all talked for a while and then we went out to lunch. We went to Olive Garden. When we got back he told us that we would both be serving in Gela Bend and Ajo. This is in the Maricopa Stake. They are two really small towns about an hour apart from each other. They are both right next to the Mexican border but it is an English speaking area.

We were told that there would be a few detours before we got to our area. The Casa Grande Stake was having stake conference. So we spent the night there and went to that. I got to meet Al Fox, aka the Tattooed Mormon. She just recently moved down here. It was really exciting! If you don't know who she is, go to YouTube and look her up*. Her story is absolutely amazing.

After church we finished our trek to Ajo where we would meet our trainers. Our trainers are Hermana Doty and Hermana Day. They are both super nice. Hermana Day is technically my companion, but we are all companions. It is a little confusing. We sometimes split into two and sometimes do everything together.

We got to work fairly quickly after we got there. We went and did some contacting at the Indian reservation. That was a lot of fun. We then went and visited a less active family that only speaks Spanish. That was fun. I could actually tell what was going on!! It was really exciting. Sorella Sharp and I have come to realize that if we speak in Italian they can understand most of what we are saying. We had dinner with a  member. She fed us flautas (taquitos). They were really good and I was really full. After dinner we split up. Hermana day and I went to a little street right out side of town. We were trying to contact some less actives and potential investigators. We got invited into one house. Again the family only spoke Spanish. They also fed us carne asadas. They were so good!!! I was so Full!!!! Then we went and visited a member who was right across the freeway from where we were. The were super nice. They fed us watermelon. I was SO Full.

Everyone here is super nice. We then went and met back up with Hermana Doty and Sorella Sharp. They needed to sync their iPads at the church. The church is so cute. It is a very small branch and there building is super small and cute! There are about four or five rows of pews. It is super cute. Then we went home and went to bed. The weather here is actually really nice. I like it here. The people are wonderful and kind. They are all so humble. It is amazing.

*The link Al Fox takes you to an interview of her by Mormon Times on YouTube. She talks about her conversion story at the beginning of the video. Please be cautious about watching any of the videos YouTube suggests as similar, many of the ones I saw were anti-Mormon material, which is hurtful and poisonous. -RCP

Other places to find Al Fox: Al Fox YouTube, Al Fox Facebook, Al Fox Twitter, Al Fox Blog

Letter date: June 8, 2015