Hey Padres!!
things sound way fun at home...Thank you for the update on Jared and Tiffany! I'm praying all goes well and romanticky! He's so creative. I love it.

I'm super stoked to hear about the Mormon.org thing. I think it'll be great! It hasn't come to Palmdale yet, but then again, not much does....Please say congratulations to Adam and Josh! I'd love to see pictures if you've got them. They're so great!

It's been a great week. I  totally love Hermana Prince and I'm reasonably certain that we're pretty much the same person...except she's much more patient, Christlike, spiritual, healthy (haha!!) than I am....We've been running in the mornings and it's totally kicking my trash. But we're working like crazy, loving missionary life and becoming closer to each other, to our investigators, and especially to the Savior every day.

In almost every single lesson we had this week, the Spirit was super strong and we were able to teach super powerfully and promise some really cool blessings. Yesterday was a little rough because Sunday is kind of the culmination of all our work throughout the week. We invite, teach, pray, prepare, plan, and pray some more in hopes that people will exercise their faith by reading the scriptures, praying, and coming to church, especially. But we only had one investigator at church. It's frustrating because I feel like we're becoming the best missionaries we ever have been, becoming better teachers, relying more on the Spirit, being exactly obedient, but at the same time, our investigators are dropping us or just stop progressing. But Hermana Prince is such an angel and I'm so grateful for her positivity and diligence. Our recent convert, Amanda just got a calling to be our branch's YW president (we're combined with an English ward so she's essentially the first counselor in the combined YW presidency) She's so excited! and she's going to be the most amazing young women's leader ever! Hermana Prince and I got to share how our YW leaders changed our lives and how they are such role models for us. We also taught her dad Rick again and he finally said that he would pray about Joseph Smith. So great.

We have an investigator named Zitlaly and it's completely a Cinderella type situation. She's a good girl and she wants to be baptized and come closer to God, but her mom is INSANE. I've never seen someone so filled with bitterness and spite in my life. Her mom won't let her come to activities because Zitlaly (according to her) hasn't made drastic changes since we've started meeting with her (which, first off, is a little difficult, seeing as every time we come over we can't actually teach anything because her mom starts screaming at us about how her daughter is a worthless lowlife. Secondly, the changes her mom wants are behaviors that result from her mother tearing her down incessantly.) The first time I met her it took everything I had to keep from hauling off and slapping her and poor Hermana Prince was almost there yesterday. We went over to convince Zitlaly to come to a youth fireside but she insisted that her mom would flat out refuse. We talked about it for a while and we prayed together that her mom's heart would be softened so that we could just take Zitlaly for an hour...or at the very least that her mom would take this gesture as a sign that she really does want to change and allow her to come to church next week. After the prayer, Zitlaly stood up, completely determined, and marched out to ask her mom. Unfortunately, her mom started in on her usual tirade that lasted about 20 minutes. A few of her mom's friends were there and they were all wincing at how vulgar and cruel she was being. They were defending Zitlaly and our case so that we could take her to church and allow her to change. At one point, Hermana Prince bore fervent testimony of the changing power of the atonement, but her mom started yelling again and Hermana Prince started speaking sternly (working up to yelling) at her in English because of how evil she was being. Please please please pray for Zitlaly. She needs help! We've found a few families where I seriously wonder if foster care would be a better option. I have almost no doubt that it would be in Zitlaly's case. Her mom sometimes won't even allow her to go to school because she wants Zitlaly to help earn money for rent by working 3 days and nights in an onion field. Not cool.
Please pray for her. She's clinging to the little light we can offer at the moment, but big changes are needed.

I love you more than all the crazies in Palmdale,
Hermana Beauchamp