Adios Amor! Me Voy De Ti!

Y esta vez para siempre.

That's a super famous banda song here. But sadly it's true. Mi gente...this is the very last time you'll hear from me as a missionary. You can count on seeing my blog posts and my insta bien bonita. But a weekly email like this? Ya no. It's kind of saddening really. But at the same time very exciting.The mission has taught me what it could and now it's time to learn new things. Dang it. But let me tell you people what I have learned. In Venezuela I learned Spanish and learned to be Chapin. In Tesoro I learned to work hard. In Mita I learned to love people. In Vista Hermosa I learned to be inspired and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. But overall in my 18 months of the mission I think the 3 biggest things I've learned is to have Faith in God and his plan, to love people, and to really be myself. I thought that these were attributes that I already had mastered at home. Turns out no, I did not. The mission has really helped me to develop and aquire new skills and work on the ones I already had. And really more than anything I think the mission has helped me to become a better person. I'm still not perfect but it's helped me to try harder. Y honestly I think that's the purpose of this life, to try. God sees the intentions of our hearts and blesses us for it. As my Grandpa Judd said, "The Lord looks on the heart." We're all imperfect and we're not going to be succesful in everything we do. But if we try all will work out. That's the nice thing about having a loving Heavenly Father. Now am I nervous for the future? Heck yes. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. But I know it'll all work out. 'Cause everything always does. I don't know why people stress so much. Why do I stress so much? Haha anyway mi gente I truly do love you people. Thanks for being along for this adventure. Now I'm off to be shocked by the world. I know that life goes on without a body. Pero until the next adventure of mine! Nos Vemos!

Marley Mae Judd

Mi Gente

I would like it to be known that that's what I've referred to you people my entire mission. Mi Gente, Mi pueblo, Mis personas. Porque asi son. I truly do love you people. It's been an interesting year and a half. I'd like to thank all of you people that have stuck around. Thanks for supporting me, for loving, and for really just always writing me. It's been fun getting the occasional glimpses into the real world. It's going to be weird going back and seeing how much things reall have changed. But I'm looking forward to it. Anyway mi gente I'm going to share with you what I shared with the entire mission as my last testimony. It's short and to the point. (and in spanish) But I think it's all true. So here it is:

Mis queridos hermanas y hermanos (porque asi son) yo he aprendido muchisimas cosas aqui en la mision. Pero mayormente La fe y el Amor. Fe en el Senor y en Nuestro Padre Celestial. Si ponemos todo de nuestro confianza en ellos empezamos amar en la manera del Senor. Y cuando amamos como el amo, esto es cuando vemos los milagros. Yo se que tengo un Padre Celestial quien me ama y ama a todos sus hijos. Se que el tiene un plan preperado por cada uno y si seguimos este plan tendremos la felicidad en esta vida y para la eternidad. Se que Jesucristo es mi Salvador. Se que el proposito de este vida es tener la felicidad. Se que tenemos la revelacion y guia personal para ayudarnos en nuestras vidas cada dia. Se que yo amo la obra del Senor! Y comparto todo eso con ustedes en el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen. 


Anyway I love you all! And I'll talk to you next week! For the last time! Que loco!

Hermana Judd

A Real Testimony

Hey mucha! Do you know how beautiful it is to hear a real testimony? It's something incredible. We often hear the testimonies of youngins and think, "How cute!" but it's not a real testimony. It's the testimony of their parents. I think we often times form our testimony by experience. How do I know that the Book of Mormon is true? By reading it. How do I know that prayer works? 'Cause I've prayed. How do I know that living the gospel brings happiness? 'Cause I'm living it. And really if we want to know and be able to testify of things we have to have gone through experiences. Good and bad. This week I had a cool experience concerning testimony. I think I've already told you about Jose. But he's our most pilas person we're teaching at the moment and will be getting baptized this 18 de mayo. Exciting stuff man! But we were in the chapel just talking and messing around with him and the elders who are helping us teach him. When out of the blue we decided to have a mock testimony meeting. At first it was kind of a joke but then it turned into the real deal. Jose's testimony was incredible. It made one of the elders cry. But what I loved is that it was a testimony he gained for himself. He always has a lot of questions and a lot of doubts. But it's been amazing how he's been able to move past them and find answers and really gain the testimony that the book of mormon is true and that this is a restored church. But how does he know that? By the way he's felt here. When we look we find answers and the spirit always testifies of those truths. So mi gente! I encourage you to look for truth and gain your own testimony. Seek and ye shall find! (where have I heard that phrase before?) Anyway.....Love you all dearly! Nos vemos!

A Testimony of the Mission

This week I had a very strange opportunity to share my testimony about missionary work. A brother in the ward asked us to come to his house for dinner and a famliy home evening with his family and another young couple family. The husband just happened to be a RM. The Hermano has 2 kids. One who's almost at the age of being able to serve a mission, but at this point doesn't really want to go. Once we got there I saw the reason behind the invitation. I'm sure you can too. We ate dinner and then de repente he asked us missionaries to share our experiences of how we came to the decision to serve a mission and how we prepared for it. My comp shared her story and I shared mine. (In english. The fam is from Utah.) I was extremely honest. I'm sure you all know my story. I feel like I've told it a thousand times. But I didn't want to serve a mission. But eventually God told me it was something I needed to do. And I'm obedient child when it's my Heavenly Father saying I have to do something. But now that I'm finishing it, I've never been more glad that I decided to go. I've made so many friends. So many people I've adopted as my family. I'll admit I cried. Dang Judd genes. It's amazing how God knows us. He knows what will really make us happy. We might have our plans and sure we might think that they'll make us happy, but will they really? We might throw fits and drag our feet but in the end his way is always the best way. Why haven't we learned that already? I don't really know. Now did I help this kid in his desires of serving a mission. Who knows! And I might not ever really know. But I know that it was def spirit led. But mi gente the mission truly is the best. It's been a time of personal growth but more than anything it's been a time of just loving people. That's what's the most important. Letting people know that they are loved, that they are important, and that someone is always there for them. If it's not you there for them, then it's our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. So how incredible is that?! Anyway I love you people. I'll be seeing you soon. But until next week!!!
Marley

Celebrando con Bombas

That's right! They celebrate Easter with explosives! Haha it's the best. I love how if anything has anything to do with Jesus it includes fireworks. Why don't we celebrate the resurrection with more enthusiasm? Maybe not with fireworks or anything. But it should be a joyous thing. It's the anniversary of when the Lord conquered death. Allowing us to follow his example and conquer it as well. Really the Easter season should be a season of gratitude and praise. It truly is wonderful. And I love that the people here in Guate don't just celebrate it for one day. They celebrate it for a whole week! Woo! Semana Santa! But as much as we celebrate Easter and we love it, I think it's great that as a church we remember Christ and his sacrifice everyday. Or at least we should be. We make him the center of our lives when we are baptized and make those sacred covenants. And we renew that covenant every time we take the sacrament. That's why it's so important to go to church every week. Rebels.

But anyway this week was full of showing my new compita the area, watching health and safety videos, and giving temple tours. So a good week. A normal week. A week full of people telling me how little time I have left. Mala ondas. But asi es mi vida. Anyway my gente I love you truly. I hope you enjoyed your Easter and made it a joyous occasion! Till next week!

6 Weeks Left

Hello my people! I'm officially dying! Woo! Haha but no literally everyone I meet who asks how much time I have just love to remind me how I'm almost done with my mission. It's like, "Really? I didn't know." Haha but alas asi es la vida. Anyway this week in things of spiritualness I've been thinking a lot about the importance of faith. Faith is the first principle of the gospel but I feel like it might be the one we take for granted the most. The faith brings peace. The faith brings happiness. The faith brings light into our lives. But sometimes I think we're scared to have faith. And we say we have faith but we still have fear. That's not faith. Faith is believing without fear and just moving forward trusting in God. I feel like faith has been the biggest lesson that I've learned on my mission. Can I learn spanish? Through faith. Can I train a gringa? Through faith. Can I be a temple hermana? Through faith. Can I go home and be a normal person? Through faith. But really I think since I've learned that lesson my life has been happier. Sure I'll always have my insecurities or doubts. But when we remember that everything is in the lords hands we have no need to fear. The lord wants what's best for us and wants us to be happy. So if we just trust in him even if we can't see what's ahead of us all will be well. And that really dispells the fear and the darkness and brings the joy and happiness. Anyway mi gente....That's what I've got for you that's spiritual.

But in other news we had changes and I got myself a new companion. Se llama Hna Lopez de Guate. She's super lovely and hilarious. She's constantly telling me that I should get married with whatever elder, miembro, investigator, etc that passes by. I gues she knows I'm dying or something and I should start thinking about the second mission. Haha ay no. But anyway I also saw my first convert, Arturo! Hombre it made me so happy to see them! I truly do love the temple 'cause I get to see my friends almost everyday.

Anyway I'll talk to you peeps later! Nos vemos!

Hermana Judd

"Bendice A Las Misioneras"

This week there was a little girl dead asleep during a family home evening. Her siblings woke her up for the prayer and when I asked who wanted to offer it she sat up straight, lifted a solitary finger, with her head bobbing and her eyes still half closed. When we asked if she wanted to say the prayer she just shook her head yes and started to pray. The first thing she said was, (translated) "Bless the missionaries." And that simple phrase made me cry. I realized in that moment pretty soon I won't be a missionary. I won't be a part of all those marvelous prayers. And it made me sad. But shortly afterwards, I realized that I don't have to stop being a missionary after the mission. This last weekend in the general conference I felt the main theme was that the best missionaries should be the members. I loved the talk of Pres. Uchtdorf when he said we should just focus on five simple things.
1.Grow closer to God.
2.Fill your heart with love for people
3.Work to walk the path of a disciple
4.Share what you have in your heart.
5.Trust in the lord and his miracles.
If we do these five things he promised that sharing the gospel will be natural. We'll see the blessings from it. I loved how he summed it up. Believe-Love-Do. That's truly what being a missionary is. If we do those 3 things we're being a missionary. We don't need a name tag to be someones angel. We don't need to walk 10+ miles a day to give someone a hug and tell them we love them. We don't have to learn a foreign language to share the joy that we have. Being a missionary is simple. As Pres. Christofferson said in his talk, "We plant, but God grows." Asi es the life of a missionary. But how is God ever going to 'grow' if we don't ever 'plant' to begin with? I think a lot of us have fear of being a missionary. But why? There's no need to. We have half asleep little kids praying for us.

Anyway mi gente. I love you all dearly but never queerly. I hope that you enjoyed the general conference and got what you needed out of it. I know I sure did. Anyway I love you! Adios!

Marley