Family and Friends,

Well once again this week was a week of adventures, but at least this time our toilet worked. ha Well lets start from the beginning shall we? First the spiritual, on Monday night we had a family home evening with a inactive family which was really great because weve only been able to give lessons to the mom, but we finally met the father. No they didnt go to church this week because they were out of town, but at least we got to meet the father and we will continue to work with them to reactivate them.
 This week on Friday I did interchanges with Hermana Mendoza and when we went to visit Hermana Silvia we began talking about baptism and weve visited this hermana for a while now, but this day she was really showing interest in baptism and she told us that she wanted to be baptized soon. Earlier in the month we had put a goal for the 25th, but she has been living with her boyfriend which is why she hasnt been able to be baptized yet and she really hasnt wanted to get married, until Friday. Hermana Silvia told us that she wants to be baptized and that if she needs to be married, shell do it. I was taken by surprise because this whole time that weve been teaching her she kept saying that she doesnt really believe in marrige, but shes now changed her mind because she really wants to be a member of the church. She asked us to come back later that night and talk with her boyfriend about it, so of course we did and it took some convincing, and a lot of help from the spirit, but her boyfriend agreed to marriage and well this Saturday, March 1, well be having a baptism and a wedding! 

Hermana and Elder Utt (senior missionaries) came to our area on Saturday to help us out with some of our investigators. With Hermana Silvia we wathced a video about the importance of families and they shared experiences of the importance of the church in thier marrige and it went really well. They also went with us to visit a couple of other investigators too which was nice of them, they helped out a lot. They also took us out to lunch on Thursday which I was greatful for. ha 

Oh so since Im Hermana Leader of Santa Tecla my job is to watch over the hermanas and make sure that theyre doing what theyre supposed to and to help them become better missionaries. Who knows why, but this change weve had a lot of problems in our zone with the hermanas (and this is why I have more guys friends than girlfriends ha). One night one of the sisters called me for help because she was having troubles with her companion so I talked to her and gave her advice and helped her to feel better about herself. Then the second I got done talking Hermana Slater asked me if she could talk to me. So I was feeling like a psychologist at this moment because it was like alright whos next, but it was definitely needed. She had enough confidence in me to talk to me about what problems she was having and how she has been missing home and what not so we talked for a while and well it takes twelve weeks to train a missionary and I basically did her training from 10:30pm-2:30am. Yup I was definitely exhausted the next day, but it helped to better her companionship and it also helped us to become better friends. Its definintely hard to watch over a bunch of Hermanas but its taught me a lot, and I know that Ive had the guidence of the spirit to help me comfort each of them. 

Mishaps of Monte Sion:

On Monday Hermana Pena and I decided to go shopping for clothes because well after wearing the exact same thing for the last ten months its about time that I bought something new. So we were enjoying our pday looking for clothes and walking around the markets until we went to leave a store called Mega Botique. Here in El Salvador, when you enter a grocery store, or a mall, or anything, you have to turn in your bag and then you get a card with a specific number. Well Hermana Pena and I did that at Mega Botique and when we went to leave the guard asked us for the our number. I looked at a Hermana Pena and said "Youve got the number right?" and then she looked at me and said that she thought I had it. Yep you gussed it...we lost our number! Well youre not allowed to leave the store with your things unless you have your number, so Hermana Pena and I had to retrace all of our steps and look for our number. We even had workers who were helping us, but we never did find our number so we had to pay them for the lost number. Oh the adventures we have. ha 

Oh so Hermana Penas leg was hurting so we decided to turn in a bit early, but then I felt the impression that we needed to visit one other person before the night ended. So I asked if shed be okay and she said yes so we turned around and went to visit this person. Well they werent home, so who knows why I received that revelation, but it is what it is. The second that we turn around to go home it just starts pouring out of no where. Yup we returned home soaked. 

On Friday we went and visited a less active member and her son. We started talking about the theme "choose the right" when all of a sudden the mom went off about how its not right that we as woman have to take the blame for what eve did and how women are treated like scum and who knows what else. And while we were trying to help her see that thats not how it is, her son asked me if I had a choice between a plant and a human what would I chose. I told him human and he said hed rather have a plant because humans dissapoint people and they just die and plants give us oxygen and humans are causing the planet to die. And when we asked him if he prefered his mom or a plant he said a plant and his mom said shed rather have a plant than her son. Where do I live?! haha

Well thats my week for you, Ill let you know how the wedding and the baptism goes next week. Pray that everything will go well this week so that the wedding and the baptism happen. Thanks so much for the letters, love, and support and prayers. I love you all so much. This really is the true church of Jesus Christ.

Love,
Hermana Ontiveros

Family and Friends,

Well as you have all read my life when I was in Ayutuxtepeque was something of an adventure and I havent had quite the same experiences here in Monte Sion...until this week.So whoever was tired about reading about my boring missionary life and prayed for me to have some excitement all I have to say is, the Lord answers prayers. haha Well I will give you those details a little bit later, but this week went really well, we have some good progressing investigators and the work in Monte Sion is starting to take off here. On Friday we had a multizone which went really well because it helped me remember the importance ofmy calling and thatIm here for a reason. Oh yes, Friday my comps and I celebrated Valentines day. We made brownies (in the microwave), drew imaginary boyfriends, playd games and just enjoyed the night because well theres nottoo much that we can do on a day like that! ha On Saturday we had a temple activity where we took less active members and investigators to the temple. We had different stations inside the chapel next to the temple where we learned about the Plan of Salvation, baptism, and the importance of the family, and then we had a station in front of templedoors wherewe talked about why temples are so important. Funny enough there was a couple getting married that day so we ended up crashing thier wedding just a bit, but hey its all good because the activity was a success! ha On Sunday one of the assistents came to visit our area and of course thats always nervewrecking but we had areally good spiritual experience when we explained the book of mormon and I really believe that this investigator is going to get baptized. Lets hope so...have faith,have faith...

Mishaps of Monte Sion 2:

1.Well on Tuesday Hermana Pena and I went to visitone of our investigators and he offered to buy us a drink so we said thatd be fine so he left and bought us some pop.Hermana Pena and I in synchronized motion opened our pop and when we opened it, both of our bottles exploded everywhere! At first we were in shock at what happened but then we just started laughing our guts out forabout five minutes. Needless to say the spirit wasnt really felt duringthat lesson!ha

2.On Wednesday in the morning we all woke up and went to use the bathroom and lo and behold...the toilet didnt work! Every time we flushed it, water would fill up the toilet and spill out instead of doing the opposite...needless to say we had a fun time cleaning up the bathroom that morning. We tried using a liquid called super q which is like a super powerful chemical but that still didnt work so we had to call the house owner. She and a plummer came later that night to fix the toilet and it took him a while but he finally fixed it. Then on Saturday it broke again, and that same plummer that came before tried fixing it but said he couldnt find the problem so we had to call someone else and of course we couldnt get a guy to come and fix it until Sunday so we went a day without a toilet...again..All I have to say is its hard to be without a toilet, and I hate having to go knock on members doors just to use thiers...que verguenza! haha So the guy finally came to fix the toilet on Sunday, he looked at it, took the plunger and plunged it and guess what...it worked! He was able to flush it a ton of times and he never hada problem with it. Needless to say we lookd retarded but we had a good laugh. So yeah ladies and gentlemen once again we have a working toilet. 

3. On Tuesday Hermana Pena and I had a ton of appointments that we were trying to be on time for and well we basically were running from one appointment to another. At one point we decided to start walking because we were tired, but when we realized what time it was we had to run again and the second westarted running, one of the tiendas started playing fast exercise music. Once again Hermana Pena and I busted out laughing. Later that night we returned to the house exhausted and ready to come home, but...Hermana Slater and Hermana Smith had gotten home before us and they slammed the gate door so hard that it was stuck. Yes, Hermana Pena and I were locked out of the house for five minutes until we were able to figure out how to finally get the gate open. 

Well thats my week in a nutshell for ya. Im still loving the mission and working hard to find new people to come to know the gospel of Jesus Christ. My testimony has grown so much here and Im greatful for all of the experiences that Ive had. I know that this church is the church of Jesus Christ and Im so greatful for all of the blessings I have received because of it. Havea wonderful week and thank you for the support and prayers. 

Love,

Hermana Ontiveros

AshLee's weekly letter:
Hello!
Hey so let me first apologize for not posting anything last week, I wrote like four letters and before I knew it, my time was up! Well okay lots of things have happened in these last two weeks. I did intercambios with Herman Slater (the new comp of Hermana Smith) and those went really well. I helped to her do more LPEs, we learned better teaching methods, and we got to take pictures with a talking parrot so ya know that was fun. ha Two weeks ago Hermana Slater and I taught the Familia Rodriguez, Hermana Pena and Hermana Smith, how to play the cup game. I never realized how complicated it was until I had to explain it. Dont worry we recorded it so after the mish you will be able to enjoy this video, but until then..use your imagination! ha Oh so we dont have an oven in our house, but we were all really craving cookies so what did we do...put the cookie dough in the microwave! Laugh all you want, but we were desperate and it didnt actually turn out too bad. ha Oh so funny story, Herman Pena went to throw away some trash she had in one of the "trash cans" on the street and about five seconds after throwing it aways we hear "Hermanas, that is not a trash can!" We turned around confused and then some guy started telling us about how its a decoration for his garden and how we need to be careful where we put our trash and that next time we shouldnt put our trash there. He then made Hermana Pena take her trash out and she had to throw it away in the following trashcan. Needless to say we left laughing and now everytime we have to through something away we say to each other, "does this look like a trashcan to you?" Goodness, some people, its not like theres not trash everywhere in every spot in El Salvador. 
This week I had to go to presidents house for a meeting with the Hermana Leaders and the Zone Leaders, and as always I learned something new and it went really well. On Saturday we had a "Plan of Salvation Activity" with our zone where we invited members, less actives, and investigators. We set up different game stations such as shaving a balloon in under a minute, ring toss, blowing out a candle with a water gun, knocking down soda cans with a nerf gun, and a frisbee throw. Everytime a person played and won a game, they received tickets. We told them at the beginning that they needed to save thier tickets, but they have the option of spending them for different prizes if they wanted. At the end of the activity we went to the sacrament room and we were divided into three different groups. These three groups represented the three celestial kingdoms and where you ended up depending on the number of tickets you had left over. The person with the most tickets won a prize and they got to go to the Celestial kingdom. The object of the activity was to convice people that they had to buy prizes and many of them did, which represented the different temptations in life. So we need to be carefulo with the choices that we make in life and do our best to work hard to return to the Celestial Kingdom. Everyone really enjoyed the activity and we all learned something. 
Well for my spiritual moment, two weeks ago when Hermana Pena and I did our nightly planning we decided to plan to visit a part of our area thats the farthest away but we felt we needed to go there to visit a less active. When we went the next day to visit this less active family we were a little scared because we had heard from the members that the family wouldnt let us in because they dont want anything to do with the church. We rang the door bell and the mom was there and she had a great big smile and let us come up. We introduced ourselves and talked to her about her life and gave a little lesson and in the middle of the lesson she began crying. She told us that she had felt the need to go to church and had prayed to Heavenly Father the night before to send her some comfort and help to get her back to chruch and that Hermana Pena and I were her answer. Its moments like those that really make me appreciate the fact the Im a missionary and taht there really are people out there who are waiting for us to help them come unto Christ. I know that this church is true and Im so greatful for the miracles that I have seen in my mission because of the guidance of the spirit. 
The spiritual thought this week comes from the October 2013 conference. President Monson said that if we study the scriptures and pray daily, we will feel the Savoirs love in our lives, our burdens will be lightened and we will never walk alone. I hope that you can all feel the Saviors love in your lives because He really does love you and wants the best for you. Thanks so much for all of the cards, love, and support I have received from all of you. I hope you have a great Valentines Day this week!
Love,
Hermana Ontiveros

Hey I dont have much time to write today but here are some funny things that happend this week that I will explain in my email next week:

Baking cookies in the microwave

intercambios with hermana slater

we were an answer to a less active members prayers

we learned how to play the cup game and we sang too

I literally found my first car, it had the same stains and everything