Working hard and smiling lots

Hello hello everyone! I hope you had a fantabulous week full of smiles! I know I did!

 So this week was kind of weird. One of my companions got SUPER sick so we didn't get to work in our area very much at all :( We stayed in our apartment one day. Two days were spent up in Stafford and one day in our area with another Hermana, whose companion was also feeling terrible. So it worked out great in the end! But it was so sad everytime we went out, the two sick sisters were just laying on the couches, coughing up a lung and basically dying. Ah it was so hard to leave them! But they are both feeling SO much better now!!!! YAY!!!! Back to times in the sunshine :D We're all excited to dive in the work here (again haha) and will have lots of great stories next week!
Meanwhile, I've gotten to know my companions really well. They're basically the funniest, smartest, greatest, most driven companions ever. Ah I love them!!!!
And funny story for the week: So one of my companions reallly wanted to go to this place called Steak N Shake. We'd heard it was really good food, with McDonalds pricing.  So we found one and went there for dinner! There was a ton of people waiting inside though, so we went through the drivethrough and decided to go eat at a park. But as we were pulling away, it started raining so then we changed our minds and parked to go inside. Well then we were all bad missionaries and forgot to bring our purses in, because we all just figured someone else would bring theirs in and they would have any necessary passalong cards in case we talked to someone there. So we go in, and walk past all the people waiting, find a table and pull it apart to make it smaller so other people can come sit down, and then start eating our food. Then Hermana Moon realized that she needed more sauce, so she went to find some and couldn't find it anywhere, so she asked a worker passing by if they had any and the worker told her she would bring it right out. How nice of her! So we continue eating, and Hermana Rosen makes a joke about all the people just chilling up at the entrance.  Why don't they sit down if they already ordered? Or if they haven't ordered why aren't they in a line? They were just being weird.  But then as I looked around, I realized I couldn't see a place TO order....so I looked around some more. To my right, a worker is talking to people at a little booth. Behind me, a worker is bringing a tray of drinks to a table. To my right, another worker is handing some people menus. GAH! IT WAS A RESTARAUNT!!!! It totally looked like a fast food place, and the food was just like a fast food place, but it was a full on restaraunt. When the lady came and brought Hermana Moon her sauces, we asked her about it and she confirmed that all those people up front were waiting for a table. :O We were so embarrassed!!! But she was nice, and told us that was her area and we could stay. But none of us had our purses, so none of us had money to leave a tip!  Hahaha it was just so ridiculous.  We ate our food super fast and skedaddled out of there! On the way out, Hermana Rosen tried to sneak out a side door so we wouldn't have to walk past all the people waiting again, but turns out that was an emergency door. Luckily it was locked, so it didn't go off, but that just would have been the icing on top! Whoo! It was hilarious.
Then I went to my first all-Spanish ward correlation. Oh my lanta I am so not ready to go to Argentina! Everyone was talking so fast, and all at once, and it was just pure craziness. I didn't understand a single full sentence in there. Hahaha at one point one of the brothers started flapping like a bird at Hermana Wilkins and I just was laughing my head off!!! I have no idea what in the world was going on.  But it was definitley an unforgettable experience! So I still have lots to learn and I'm excited to learn it! Whoohoo!
As far as spiritualness goes, I re-read Elder Bednar's talk "That We Might Not Shrink." Get talk here It was just so amazing and I got so much out of it! It's all about how Not shrinking is better than simply surviving. And that is definitely the goal of my mission now. Probably my whole life actually. It is so important to work on improving everyday so that we do not shrink. But the Lord is always by our sides, helping us accomplish everything that we need to. No matter what we're going through, he's there with us. I hope you always remember His love for you. Have a great week! And good luck with whatever you're working on improving this week!
Hermana Albright

Here is a map of Heidi's mission so far!

Transfer Number 3!

Hey howdy hey, (know what movie that is from?) how y'all doin today? Can I just say how much I hate Monday holidays? I never realized how many there are!

WHOOHOO!!!! Transfer numba 3! I'm all over the place here in Virginia, and let me tell you I AM LOVING IT! I have gotten to meet so many amazing people and missionaries. And it's really interesting because every area has people from different countries. This area is full of Peruvians, my last area had mostly Puerto Ricans and people from Veracruz, Mexico, and my first area had Hondurans, El Salvadoranians, and Mexicans. It's so great! Peruvians are so far the hardest for me to understand but I think it's just because I haven't talked to them ever before so it's just a different accent. 

I am now in Fredericksburg! We're splitting the area with the Elders, but they weren't working with anyone on our side so it's very similar to opening an area, except with the benefits of having members and less actives. And I'm back in a trio! I love trios so much! It's seriously a party everyday! But a missionary-style party, don't worry. My new companions are HILARIOUS!!!! Oh man I am seriously so happy every second that I'm with them! t's the best! We are working in a little branch, and are all super stoked to get the ball rolling on turning this branch to a ward! I am so excited, we all have so much passion and energy and are just so pumped for the work to progress. And it's so fun being here, because this area used to be part of the Washington, DC South mission just a couple of months ago! So now, not only many missionaries, but also many members are able to say ALBRIGHT? No way! Like President Albright? He's amazing! I miss him! YUP! :D Our last name is definitely one that will never be forgotten here! Shout out to my amazing Uncle Mark and Aunt Karen, for being the best mission presidents ever! Except for my presidents here and in Argentina of course. They're also the best. But seriously, I'm so proud to wear the Albright name on my tag and be identified with such amazing people such as yourselves. It makes my day to be able to say Yup! That's me! I'm his neice! And you better believe I will work as hard as I can to live up to that name!

Having this experience with the Albright name really emphasized to me how I also am wearing Christ's name. And how when we are baptized, we all promise to take His name upon ourselves. I am working even harder to be worthy to bear His name, to be able to proudly say, Yes! I am a disciple of Christ! I hope you all find a way to bear testimony in His glorious name this week and feel of His love. I know that He is our Savior and that through Him, we can accomplish all things. And I know that as we stand as witnesses of Him, He is proud to call us His. I love you all, but even more, I hope you know that He loves you.

A Dios!

Hermana Albright

NEW COMPANIONS!

Conference is my favorite

Hola mis amigos!!!! 

How's everyone doing this week? Did you all have an amazing time at conference? What talks stood out to you? My favorite was...conference. Conference was my favorite. haha They're all so good how do you just pick one? I loved President Monson's talk from Sunday morning though, I've definitely picked out some awesome quotes to live by from that. Shall I falter or shall I finish? I hope we all have the strength to stand strong and not bend under the pressures of the world. STAND. That's my favorite word of the week. (If you write Sister Albright a letter, how many times can you use the word 'stand'?)

Did you all hear the call for member missionaries? Those are what we like to call M to the third power!!!! (and the math geek in Heidi comes out!!)  Member missionary moments are the best!!!! Because they are the most powerful.  Wondering how you can be a better member missionary? Talk to the missionaries! They can help! heehee, referance from last conference. Seriously though, there are so many simple ways. Bear your testimony or post an inspirational video on facebook. Get a list of the less active members, and bring them a little treat to help them feel more loved. Talk to your friends about the gospel! Invite them to a family home evening, or to an activity. Or better yet, invite them to church! Tell them about the blessings you've recieved and invite them to come and feel of the Savior's love too. I know that you will be blessed as you follow the prophet's counsel to reach out to others and help bring them the blessings of the gospel.

So we set up an English projection of conference in the chapel YAY! I got to hear it in English!  and then put up another projector in Spanish in the relief society room. There were definitely some occasional problems with the technology, (technology never works when you want it to) but it all worked out well. And two of our investigators came!!!! So exciting! 

And in other news,  I am leaving Hopewell!!!! Whoo!!! Whoever the new missionaries coming here are so lucky! I have no idea where I'm going or what's going on yet, only that we're leaving and Hopewell will continue to have amazing missionaries. So I'm off on another adventure in another area! More news to come next week. Stay tuned!

Also, in between the saturday night and priesthood sessions, we had a baptism! A family of four that the hermanas in the northern area of our ward had been teaching. And I was asked to be the pianista, with a day's notice! GAH! It was very stressful, but very rewarding. Shout out to Andrea for being the best piano teacher ever and making sure I knew all the things I need to know! The hermanas were doing a musical number and wanted me to change it to a lower key, so I ended up just rewriting the music  (she's a stud) to How Great Thou Art the night before the baptism.  We practiced it once together before. Not going to lie, I definitely made some mistakes and throughout the performance I was just feeling terribly about it all. But at the end I looked up, and the whole family was crying. I felt so blessed to have been even in a small way, a part that helped them feel the Spirit on their special day. I'm so excited for them and the wonderful journey that they are embarking on!

I hope you all have an amazing week as you start living the messages we learned from our beloved leaders. Good luck with everything!

A Dios,

Hermana Albright

Happy Heidi

Heidi is getting transferred  this coming week.  If you are going to send her a letter,  please send it to her mission home.  The address is:

Virginia Richmond Mission
9327 Midlothian Turnpike
Ste # 1-B
Richmond VA 23235-4944

Hey everyone! 

How you doing today? Hopefully amazing! All you Sisters, I hope you had a great experience at the Relief Society meeting! Missed out on it? Make sure you catch up on lds.org! It was a super awesome meeting! For us, the satellite went out for the middle of it, so we ended up just hearing the first and last talks (which were AMAZING!). But my sweet sisters here just started singing when it went out, and it was so great! The Spirit was so strong as we all did cheerfully all that we could do and then stood still for the hand of the Lord (reference D&C 123:23. I think?) anyone want to look that up and comment on if it's right?

We met some great people this week! I am so excited to continue teaching them! And we had a great experience with an English guy! We were tracting in our little Mexico area, and ran into an English guy! He seemed friendly and sad, so we talked to him a bit and invited him to pray that night and see what happens. We saw him again yesterday and he said he prayed and it felt so good, and he now has a job! We were so excited for him! I hope he keeps praying. I know that sometimes the answers don't come as quickly as they did for that man, but I also know that God always answers your prayer. ALWAYS. How blessed we are to be able to talk with our Father in Heaven as many times as we want! How can you make your prayers a little more meaningful this week?

The Lord has been preparing the people here and helping us when we fall short! We got referrals this week! And they all had a link back to us haha it was so weird! But I'm super excited to teach them! Best of all the news this week came on Thursday. We were teaching English class, and originally I didn't want to go because we SO did not have the miles for it! (40 miles round trip, and we were already over. Shhhh....) But my companera was persistent in us going. And guess who was there? One of our investigators!! As we were talking at the end, he invited me to his baptism next week! WHOOHOOO!!!!! You know that it's legit and really for real happening when they start inviting people! And we weren't even talking about that, he just brought it up! Oh man I am so excited for him!!!! AHHHH!!!!!! HE'S GETTING BAPTIZED!!!! 

Anyways, this weekend is conference! (ya... I upload here emails a little late, sorry) Whoop whoop! I am so Stoked to be able to go and hear (and understand!) amazing talks by amazing people. How blessed we are to live in such a wonderful time where we can hear the prophet as they testify of and speak in behalf of our Lord. So blessed! to hear the warnings and be prepared for the mountainous waves of trials that will help push us forward! (check out Ether 2: 24-25. or all of Ether. Or just the whole Book of Mormon. All good.)    I hope you all take advantage of this opportunity to come listen to a prophet's voice! Come with a question or a struggle in mind, and you will receive an answer. That's a promise.

But until then, I hope you have an amazing week! Good luck with everything! 

A Dios!

Hermana Albright

A little shortie

So this week was great! We definitely have some challenges but I am confident that the Lord will help our investigators! In all honesty, this week flew by so fast! I can't even remember what happened! We've started teaching an amazing family, and the mom and daughter have a baptism date! It's crazy though, because every person in that family is so different! The mom is so sweet and cute! She already has a love for the Book of Mormon, because she met missionaries ten years ago and has kept her book since then! The daughter is super quiet but great! The oldest son is super interested and wants to study everything out before committing to anything, the youngest sons are hooligans and don't really listen to the lessons. And the dad is almost anti-Mormon! But he's very nice to us so that's good.

We had a fiesta this week in the ward, to celebrateall the different countries people come from. And it was also kinda like a farewell party for two young men that are going on their missions this week! They're brothers, one's serving in Colorado Springs and the other NYC! It was SO MUCH FUN!!!! And one of our investigators here came too! I made tres leches cake and everyone said it was super good! Whoohoo! It was gone too fast though, and i didnt get to try it :/ oh well! Then some people did performances, and this adorable 3 year old from one of the other hermana's investigators  sang I am a Child of God and bore her testimony! She is SO CUTE! Oh man. It was so great. The pictures are of the Henderson family, they're from Mexico. The oldest daughter is the organist in our ward! She's like ten! It's crazy! And then the other pictures are of my district. There's 8 of us, and we're all in this one ward! It's so much fun though we have seriously gotten so close as we work together through the good times and the bad! I love it!

Hope you all have an amazing week! Love you all! But even better, the Lord loves you! 

A Dios!

Hermana Albright

"I mustache you a question, do you believe in Jesus?"

Heidi still loves mustaches!! 

Their FIesta outfits

Hopeful in Hopewell

Hola!!!!

Answers to questions: My district is HUGE. We have eight missionaries and cover our ward boundaries, which is also HUGE. Seriously. It's so fun! We can't knock doors once the sun goes down , (they might turn into pumpkins) so we can only visit people that we know from about 7 30 on. The sisters do meet sometimes, we just had a sisters meeting this week that was amazing! OH! I almost forgot! President said that we're going to have 50% sisters in this mission! How exciting is that? We meet as a zone for thirty minutes before district meeting every week, and then have a full zone conference every month. And you can look up maps of missions on lds.org if you ever want to check it out. The Spanish is coming along slowly but surely! It's kinda funny, my companion and I get the gist of everything, but we often miss out on important little details. Like if they said yo creo (I believe) or no creo (I don't believe) (just minor details really...) and other things like that. We've gotten some great stories out of it! But we just keep swimming pressing on! :D

We had an AMAZING week! Holy hannah I wish I had the time and ability to express everything that I have felt. We found 12 new investigators, 3 of which came to church yesterday! And lots more potentials that we're going to try to meet with this week too! It has seriously been amazing getting to know the people here. 

We had an awesome experience working a booth at a flea market this weekend! We weren't allowed to give away free lemonade, but it turns out we didn't need to! So many people wanted to come and learn of Christ.  We ran out of supplies pretty quickly, so we're super excited to go again with more things next week!! It was super interesting, we met all the ranges of people there! From the very lows of people condemning us to the very highs of people blessing us and receiving our message joyfully, and everything in between! 

Last week I talked about being an example. The youth here are incredible examples to me and to their families and friends. I have loved getting to know them. Many of them have parents that struggle in the faith, and they are the ones that help keep their family together. They know without a doubt of the truth of this gospel, and are willing to sacrifice anything and everything for it. And they find ways to share truths of happiness to everyone around them everyday! I am so blessed to be able to learn from them and serve with them in this area.    How have you been an example to those around you this week and felt the love of Christ as you stood for what's right? (We would love to have you leave comments to answer this question and send to Heidi in a letter!!)

The Lord has prepared the people hear to receive this message. It's so interesting that we are working in a place called Hopewell, because we have met so many that have lost almost all hope.  I am so excited and privileged to be able to help them come to the well of living waters, the well of hope--Jesus Christ.  I know that my Redeemer lives. What comfort that sweet sentence gives!  He is ready and waiting to take away all our sorrows and pains, if we but come to Him. I hope you all know that you really can be forgiven, and that you can be strengthened by Him. I know that He is the Savior of the world, but more than that, He is your Savior. He personally suffered for you. I hope you know that you are loved.

I hope you all have a great week! A Dios!

Hermana Albright