Five Months

We decorated pumpkins with Deysi's kids

Happy November!

It's crazy that I have been a missionary for five months now! I absolutely love it though and the time has gone by so fast!

Us with Destiny and her siblings. We made day of the dead cookies my family sent us

My favorite moment of the week happened while I was on an exchange. I was with another hermana and we went to teach Carol. She asked Carol how she met the missionaries. Carol said, "They came and knocked on my door. They found me!" It was so cute! It made the 100s of doors I've knocked with no success worth it! Carol is doing amazing! She finished 1 Nephi this week and loves the Book of Mormon! She also came to church for the first time on Sunday and loved it! She cannot wait for her baptism on December 3rd! She is also super excited to go to the temple and be baptized for her mom and grandma.


Destiny and Natividad are also doing awesome and are preparing for baptism. We are also still working with Deysi and her family. I would appreciate if you would keep Deysi in your prayers. We fasted with her this week that her husband's heart would be softened so that she and the kids can come to church and be baptized.


We are continuing to teach our investigators, build the wards here, find new people to teach, and teach English classes. And we jam out to Christmas songs in the car in between all of that. I really hope Hermana Kiser and I stay together next transfer because we both like Christmas more than the average person and want to spend it together.


Today we are going downtown to go to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, so that should be fun! This is going to be a great week because we get to go to the temple and we have zone conference! We are helping with a big service project over the next two weeks. We will be spending several days working with the Houston Health Department and Project Saving Smiles to provide at risk elementary school students with dental care. Hermana Kiser is a nursing student, so maybe we will get to do something cooler than everyone else too! :)



Have a great week!




Love,




Hermana Bettridge

Our zone! (Texas Houston North Spanish!) We talked about how we are all the pistons of the engine at zone meeting.

Dia de Halloween

Hola and Happy Halloween!

Today was fun because it was dia de preparación and Halloween! Our P-day lasted until 4 today, we proselyted from 4-7, and now we are in our apartments.

This was a crazy week! We taught 23 lessons! (Which is a lot for us!) This week we saw a miracle with a new investigator, Carol. We found her knocking last week and taught her the Restoration on Monday. She loved it! When we came back she had read 1 Nephi 1 six times! So, we set a date with her to be baptized December 3rd! She is super excited to get baptized! We are working with lots of other awesome people right now too!

We were also able to set a baptismal date with our investigator, Natividad! She came to church this week with her kids and they loved it!

I know I talk about temples a lot and many of my non Mormon friends do not understand, so I will explain one purpose of temples. 

We read in the New Testament in 1 Peter 3: 18-19 what Christ did during the three

days between his death and resurrection.

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the

unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the

flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

We read in this scripture that Christ went and preached to those who did not have the opportunity to learn about Him and His gospel during their lifetime. Everyone will have the chance to learn about Him! But, we read in John 3:5 that baptism is the key to living with God again.

These people do not have bodies. They are dead and are in the world of spirits. They can not be baptized.

In 1 Corinthians 15:29 we read about what Christ's original church did for these people.

29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the

dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

They were performing baptisms for the dead. Christ's church has been restored on the Earth today, and the temple is where these baptisms are performed. In the temple we can be baptized in place of our ancestors that did not get the chance to learn about Christ. They then can accept or reject the baptism after they learn about Him. I am so grateful for the knowledge that those who have passed on without ever hearing about Jesus Christ can learn about Him and accept Him.

I hope you all have a great week and a fun Halloween!

Love,

Hermana Bettridge


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Hello! 

It is crazy to think I am a fourth done with my mission now! This was an awesome week!

This week we got to go to a fun wedding/baptism! We got fed some really good tamales! Here is us with our investigator, Destiny. She is going to be 

baptized in a few weeks.

We started the week by working with the Houston Food Bank to distribute food. They gave us this giant box of chocolate and cookies for helping, so we had fun handing it out to homeless people on the street

The two most beautiful things in Texas: Taco Bell and he Hermana Kiser

This awesome, old lady in our ward gave us these dresses! (Look back at the picture, I know I look bald)

We do not have a ton of investigators right now, so we are going to be finding a lot this week! We are super excited because we know Heavenly Father has prepared a lot of His children and we just have to find them! I love my mission!

I hope everyone has an awesome week! We all have hard things going on in our lives, but we have a Heavenly Father who loves us! We can always turn to Him, no matter what!

Love,

Hermana Bettridge

Loving The New Area!

Hola familia y amigos,

Said goodbye to one of my favorite families in Bryan, the Faz family

The biggest news this week is that I am now serving in the city of Houston! I am serving in Houston 3rd Ward (Spanish) and Melbourne Ward (English.) I miss College Station, but I am really excited to be here. I love it so much even though it's sketchy! The other day the Elders' bags and iPads got stolen.


My new companion is Hermana Kiser (like kie-sir.) She has been out 8 months and was also trained in College Station! She is from Utah. She is funny and I can tell we are going to have fun and also have a lot of success this transfer!

At the "pit" that we turned into a park

My second day here we got to help build a playground at an elementary school. It was really hot outside, but we had a fun time and the kids are so excited to finally have a playground. While we were working on that we met one of the Elders' investigators. We helped him plan how he is going to propose to his wife so she can get baptized and they can get sealed next year. ❤️ He did it and they are going to get married Saturday morning and she is going to get baptized Saturday afternoon!

We do not have many investigators right now, so we do a lot of contacting. We spend a lot of the day knocking doors. We did find 7 potential investigators through knocking this week!


I love the ward and members here. On Saturday everyone we visited wanted to feed us. We were fed four huge meals in 6 hours. I don't know how I did it!


Have a great week and go do something to help someone else!


Love,




Hermana Bettridge

Our signs somehow helped the construction progress

My new address is:

Hermana Carolyn Bettridge

404 Oxford St #2206

Houston, TX 77090

Rosa, Alicia, and Jesus Fernando

Saying goodbye to our friend at the laundromat! One day he will get baptized!

(Technically) Done with training!

Hello!

This is a super cute old lady (she is almost 90) I met on the exchange in Madisonville. 

She served a mission in Mexico 70 years ago! We talked in Spanish, 

she still remembers a lot! She teaches an English class in Madisonville and is the sweetest!

This was a crazy week but it was great!


I will start with the sad part, Hermana Sheirbon and I are being transferred away from each other! 😭I am super sad, but we knew it was going to happen because my training is over. I am leaving College Station and Hermana Sheirbon is staying! I am sad to be leaving (after finally getting to know the ward!) but I am excited to go to a new area! We thought I would be staying since she has been here three transfers now, so that was a surprise, but I am excited to go to a new place and meet new people. I have no idea where I am going, somewhere in the Houston area! So stay tuned for next week!


This week we did see an awesome miracle! We were knocking and we found this man, Rigo. We taught him and when we came back we found he had read several chapters of the Book of Mormon. He prayed about it and said he knew it is true! So we set a baptismal date with him for October 29th! He came to church yesterday and loved it! I am excited to hear what happens with him!


I went on exchanges this week in Huntsville and Madisonville. In Madisonville it is so rural they have drive an hour to get to their next appointment. We were in the car for four hours that day! That night we went to the high school football game to contact people. It was fun! I forgot how crazy people in south are about football 😜

Here are some pictures from the week.

I love you all!


Love,

Hermana Bettridge


Hermana Sheirbon had a meeting in Houston this week, so we got to go to Bucee's! It was the best day ever! (Bucee's is the best gas station and so much more.)

Us with our (coffee free) Starbucks #whitegirlpic

This is Bianca from the ward. She is from El Salvador and makes the best food!

Our zone at zone meeting

Me with a member's cat named Blondie

Us with the elders and Kevin and Erick (they are going to be baptized October 29th!)

Almost 4 Months

Hola!

Here is a creepy snapping turtle that was outside of our apartment #texas

Last P day we had a P-Día de hogar (a mix of p day and family home evening) with the district. We came in our pajamas and brought all of our couch cushions. We had a normal family home evening with a lesson and hymn and everything and then we carved pumpkins. Hermana Barerra made us flan. We are all looking forward to it being fall soon! It is still hot here.


This week President Mortensen did a presentation at Texas A&M about what Mormons believe. He gave a general overview and then there was a question and answer.


We are still working with Jose and helping him prepare to be baptized soon. We started teaching a family from Honduras this week too.


I loved General Conference this weekend! I'm so grateful to have the knowledge a living prophet and apostles of God are on the Earth today. If you missed conference you can go read/listen/watch what they said at lds.org. We watched conference up at the church in Spanish and listened with headphones in English


I feel like one thing that they emphasized a lot at conference was the importance of making sure parents understand the importance of preparing their children to face the challenges that come in life. I am grateful I have parents who taught me the importance of the gospel. They set an example I will follow one day when I am a parent.



Have a great week!

Love,



Hermana Bettridge



Here is the district at our p- dia de hogar

Here is a video of our district language study, we had to make the verb in subjunctive form out of cheerios

Another week

Hola, amigos! 

This week our air conditioning was fixed so we had to leave the Morgan's house. We were really sad. But, it's good to have our stuff all in one place again!

This is our friend Michelle. She is from El Salvador. She just got her mission call to Temple Square! (She is gorgeous!!!)

Erick's Party / Family Home Evening (FHE)

This week we found out it was Erick's birthday (we don't teach him anymore but we still love him!) So, we planned an impromptu family home evening/ birthday party within an hour. We made a "cake" out of McDonald's hamburgers. It was fun.

We now teach an English class every week! (Before we were just there to help and to give a spiritual thought at the end.) We are super excited about it! We taught a lesson about how to call work and make excuses for not coming in. We brought coke for everyone so they would love us and we played a lot of games. They all had so much fun! There are only about five people that regularly come, so we are excited to go invite everyone we talk to and build up the class.


This week we have found a lot of success contacting and are excited to teach more lessons next week. Jose is still on track to be baptized next month!


Elder Larry J Echohawk of the Seventy came to speak to our mission on Thursday. He talked to us about the blessings of being obedient to the commandments. President Mortensen also spoke to us. He spoke to us about the story of Joseph in the Old Testament and about how hard things will happen in the lives of people who are doing everything right. I loved hearing both of their talks!


Most of you are familiar with the story of Noah in the Bible. There was a lot of sin and wickedness in the world at this time. But, Noah was a prophet. He could communicate with God face to face, as prophets can (Exodus 33:11.) God told Noah that he needed to go warn the people that they needed to change, but they did not listen. The people made fun of Noah and did not believe in the things he said. They did not think that Noah could communicate with God. When the flood came only eight people were saved. This story shows us how important it is to listen to a prophet of God.


Our world today is much like the world was in the time of Noah. There is a lot of sin. But, we know that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do you think it is possible that God would call a prophet in our day too?


The message that we share as missionaries is that God has called a prophet in our day, just like Noah! We have someone on the Earth that can speak to God and receive revelation for the whole world. His name is Thomas S. Monson. Christ's church also must have twelve apostles. There are twelve apostles on Earth today. This weekend we have the chance to listen to what they have to say! Twice a year there is a conference where the prophet and the apostles speak to us. They share with us the things God wants the world to know. You can watch it on lds.org this Saturday and Sunday at 10am and 2pm. I know that there is a lot of confusion in the world today and I am so excited to listen to them! Heavenly Father loves us!


I hope that you all have a great week!

Con amor,




Hermana Bettridge

Us at Erick's party/ FHE The district