My First Day, OMG!

I cannot believe that I am sitting in a little tienda in Ojo De Agua, writing to my faimily. this has been the craziest day. So many new things and trusting that everything is gonna be okay! missions man...theyll make ya feel every emotional. all at once.

SO we left the CCM at 2:30, which means no i did not sleep last night at all haha cause packing and stuff also freaking out. BUT we left for the airport and our flight left at 6:50. The flight was good and i was able to sleep, which was super nice. Flying over and into Veracruz was AMAZING! it was so incredibly beautiful. i tried to take pictures out the window but it did no justice. It literally looks like hawaii, so green and beautiful. So we landed and we greated by our mission president! President Cordova. He is amazing and i already admire him so much. Then we went to the mission home, ate breakfast took pics and all that good stuff.
then we went to the mission office, which was awesome! We had a presentation of the mission by the APs and it was awesome. President has a lot of rules..but i can feel thay they are inspired. I had to give my ipod to the APs ;( we cant have them..they will give it back to me when i leave. lol. anyhooo it was awesome.

SO THEN, we got out companions!!! I already love her, her name is Hermana Rivero. She is from Missiones, Argentina! so thats awesome. shout out to brooke and matt. She has only been out for 3 months and 1 1/2 of those months she was in argentina cause she was waiting for a visa. So i think we will learn a lot together!

We are serving in Ojo de Agua, which is 3 hours away from the mission home. So that was a blessing to be able to sleep on that bus ride. But i havent really seen what the area is like cause it was already dark, but i am so excited to be her! It is inland and very north so it wont be as hot :) awesome

I am so excited to be here. I am kinda freaking out and i do feel a little overwhelmed with all of this, but i know i can do this through my heavenly father and my savior! I love that knowledge. All things are possible through Christ. It is the truth and am SO grateful that tomrrow i get the walk the streets of mexico. I feel so blessed! I love this gospel and i love this work.

A scripture that i have read over and over this week is, Alma 5:26.."and now behold, o say unto you, my bretheren, if ye have experienced a hange of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, i would ask, can ye feel so now?" this scripture is amazing. I feel so strongly the need to sing the song of redeeming love. Missionary work is the most important work. I feel so humbled to know that my savior finds me worthy to represant him, this church, my family and much more here in mexico.

I am ready tp serve with all my heart and soul. This is the work of Angels, i can feel it. I love this gospel and i know Christ lives. I love you all, mu family and friends are a huge blessing. I love you.

me amo,
Hermana Farrow

Safe Arrival!

Good Afternoon, Farrow Family

We send you this email to advise you that Sister Farrrow arrived here today safe and sound and is very happy and with her new companion. Here  I have attached a letter written by Sister Farrow when she arrived and a picture.

If you have any questions let us know through email.

Have a great day!

Veracruz, I'm Coming for Ya!!!!!

¡hola familia! I cannot believe that i am writing my last email from the CCM. it is very surreal thinking that this time next week i will be a REAL missionary! I am so excited, nervous about the unknows..but i have faith that the spirit will guide me and my hevaenly father will be with me every step of the way!

SO as for my travel plans. I am leaving the CCM on Monday morning at 2:30 AM. my flight leaves Mexico City at 6:50 but church policy is, missionary have to be at the airport 3 hours early..so thats why we have to leave SO early. The bus riide is about 45 min..to an hour depending on crazy mexican traffic haha. so we will get to the airport around 3:30. SO i will be (if i am able to) calling Mom and Dad at around 4:30-5. So that will be awesome to thalk to them. I am going to have them record the convo so you guys can hear me speak spanish..or if you wanna work out how to maybe be on the phone? idk..its in the middle of the night. ANYWAY!! I wont be traveling alone cause everyone in my district is going to Veracruz, so that is a huge blessing.

So i leave on october 31st (Halloween..sketchy. lol jk) and so that means that Dia de Los Muertos...like one of the biggest holidays in mexico kinda, is the following 2 days. November 1st and 2nd. SO that will probably be kinda crazy. we have heard that in most mexico missions you have to return to your houses at around 6pm. And apparently there are a lot of Brujas (witches) and superstitions in Veracruz haha so wish me luck :) i think its gonna be an awesome experience and one big fiestaaaa!!!

YOU WONT BELIEVE WHAT I DID. so as many of you may know..i would rather sing in front of the whole entire planet..than give prayer. BUT i got asked to say the opening prayer at the Tuesday night devotional. in front of the ENTIRE mtc. IN SPANISH. i seriously thought i was going to throw up..so dumb haha i know. but i was very very scared. buuuut i DID IT! people said i sounded like a latina!! Which is the best compliment i could have ever gotten :) hehe My spanish has been improving..not that it is good..but it is improving!

I had a humbling and special experience this week. So, as usual, i had to go to the bathroom..so I told Hermana Cooper that and we got up to leave. Then i said, actually lets just wait a little bit. nooo idea why i said that, but we waited like 10 minutes and then left to the restroom. When we walked into the bathroom, and saw a latina Hermana on the ground, sobbing. I immediatly got on my knees next to her and held her in my arms. I asked her in spanish, are you okay? what happend? She couldnt talk, because of her tears. I just held her for a few minutes and stayed with her until she could compose herself to talk. She then proceeded to telll us that she was in a trio and she felt so alone. She missed her family and she was so sad about leaving them, that she wanted to go home. After she finished talking I was able to tell her my experience and how i had felt similar, but through the healing power of the atonment and a perfectly empathetic Savior. i had been comforted. She was able to stop her tears and we gave one last hug and left the bathroom. As we were walking back to the classroom, my companion stopped me and said "you realized that you just had a full conversation in spanish and completly made sense" hahah!! It was amazing! I know that it was not me AT ALL! it is so so so amazing that we have been blessed with the holy ghost. I didnt think in the moment of thinking "lets just wait to go the bathroom" was the spirit. but i believe that it was. I know that heavenly father is aware of every single one of his children.
My heart broke for this hermana, but i was so thankful that my companion and I were able to be there for her. Through following the spirit, we will be blessed and at times, be the answer to others prayers. I am thankful that as a missioanry i am able to be so close to the spirit, through my worthiness and dilligence. I love this work and am so thankful for the opportunity i have to be a missionary.

I feel like i am understanding what it means when people say "the mission is the hardest thing but the best thing. the good times, FAR outway the bad." Anytime i feel discouraged, sad, inatequate, or any other bad feeling. I am blessed shortly after with the spirit. A spiritual experience that reminds me why i am here. Why I am a missionary. This is the most important work. This is the work of saving souls. I feel so incredibly blessed to be apart of this "army." I love being a missionary!

I want to finish with my testimony, but those who speak spanish..please do not judge. im still learning.
Yo se que el evangelio de Jesucristo es la verdad. Dios es nuestro Padre Celestial y porque Él es amoroso, ha nos dado un salvado. Un camino volver a dios otra vez. Estoy muy agradecido compartir el evangelio con la gente de Veracruz. yo se que José Smith fue un profeta de Dios y por medio Él, tenemos la verdad en la tierra otra vez. yo se Jesucristo es my salvador. mediante Cristo podemos ser limpios y curados. Yo siento el amor de Cristo y de Dios cada dia. Estoy agradecidos ser un misionera y un representante de Jesucristo. ¡te amo mucho!

I love you all so so much, thank you for your advice, prays and your love. They help me everyday! I love you!

te amo,
Hermana Farrow

One Month Down?!?!!!

Yesterday i hit my 1 month mark?? i am SO confused at how time has gone so fast here. it is crazy. I have 1 week left here at the CCM. I havent gotten my flight plans yet, but i will probably early next week. Im so excited/terrified to enter the field. Part of me just wanta to hurry up and teach, but the other half is nervous to leave the comforts here at the CCM. This place feels like home. I havent realllllly gotten sick of it, but it does get repetive. I am trying to cherish every moment though. Last Sunday i was able to sing at the devotional, i sang "Grand Eres Tu" which is how great thou art. An elder from my zone, Elder Marspini played for me. he is like jacob clingo haha so it was awesome. The spirit was amazing and it felt so good to sing again. it was a good reminder that "bailey" is still somewhere in there haha. 

before i forget to let you know: My p-day will be on WEDNESDAY next week, so make note of that!

okay SO this week seriously went by SO fast. All the days blur together and it is hard to remember everything. but it was still another amazing, inspiring week.

On tuesday, Bonnie Oscarson, the general young womens president of the church came here to Mexico City to speak to us! Her devotional was amazing. She talked about how to Lord lets us struggle, to let us grow! Which i felt applied perfectly to my experience here in the CCM. I have been challenged, but i always see growth after. its "after the trial of you faith" that you recieve the blessing. The spirit sister oscarson brought was amazing. She also talked about an experience she had, inattending how the general authorities assign mission calls. She got to witness Elder Holland search and receive revelation of where to serve. During this story i wasovercome  by the spirit, telling me that my call is so inspired. Veracruz is where i am supposed to serve. I feel so so blessed to be able to be on a mission and soon have to opportunity to serve the people of Veracruz. overcome

This week i was able to recite the "first vision" in spanish, memoried, in a lesson. Other people could do it way before me, but i memorize things slow and it was amazing to feel the power of that experience and share it in a lesson. Even though our lessons are just with our "fake investiators" they feel real. I cry, feel the spirit and testify just as if they are real people looking for the truth. It is my favorite thing we do here at the CCM.

I wish i could put into words how grateful I am to be a missionary, to be a daughter of God and to have a loving Savior. I feel blessed to be so close to the spirit and receive answer through its power. It is real, when wepraywith true intent, our prayers will be answered. I testify of this, and i know it is the truth because i see it every single day. Anything is possible though the power of god and the savior.

Today it is a very cold day in Mexico City, and i love it! This is our first Normal pday, because we were either traveling to the temple or immigration. so it is a nice break to relax and prepare for the next week. I got to watercolor today and that made me so happy.

My spanish is coming along! it is challenging but is really fun to learn. We had a lesson yesterady with our investigator Suzette..we taught the plan of salvation and it was good, but after i felt like i wasnt able to speak as well as i wanted to. i just have so much to say bit so little spanish. BUT when i shared how i was feeling with my companion, she said "hermana farrow...you spoke the best i have ever heard you speak, you sounded fluent."
I shared this experience not to make myself sound good, but to testify of the power and reality of the gift of tongues! I didnt even notice or understand that I was not talking in the lesson, it was the spirit. I had no idea what i said but apparetnly it made sense. SO that was a tender mercy. Something i learn about the gift of tongues is that, we FIRST have to learn the material, so that the spirit can bring it to our rememberance. So i am trying to learn as much as i can and be focused on learning spanish.

Sorry if this letter is kinda crazy and all over the place! lots of thoughts in this brain of mine

but I am happy family. Thank you for every letter i love them and i love everysingle one of you. ALSO MOM THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE. heaven knows i was in DESPERATE need of some Dr. Pepper. anyway, wish me luck on my last week here. and remember that my P-day next week is on wednesday!! I love you all and i pray for you every day.

be good and read the scriptures

love,
Hermana Farrow

Love my Family and Love this work!

HOLA FAMILIA!!

I seriously cannot believe it is already another Pday!! The weeks go SO fast here, its insane. days are very slow sometimes though. So this was my 4th week here in the CCM. it does get a little repetitive, but my district is so entertaining...you never know how a day is going to go haha i love them. we are like a family and they are all like my annoying little brothers.

SO last Sunday me and Hermana Cooper taught relief society, it is the only meeting we get to have in english. which is a HUGE blessing cause heaven knows my spanish isnt THAT good ;) but anyway, it was on the atonement and it was amazing. not because of hermana cooper and i, but because of the spirit. It was sooo strong and all 10 of us girls, in our zone, were balling our eyes out the whole time haha classic. but really it is amazing. We talked about talking on the "yoke of christ". Through Jesus Christ, our burdens can be lightened and we are assured through the spirit that everything is going to be okay! Such an awesome experience to grow and learn from other hermanas.

Since me and my comp. are sister training leaders, we go to go to the branch presidency meetings. It is for district leaders and zone leaders and us! The precidency talks to us and gives is the best advice. it gets me SO pumped to be the best missionary i can be! it awesome.

This week was my hardest week yet. I got discouraged and felt inadequate to be a missionary and learn this language. So i prayed one morning, asking heavenly father to help me know how i can improve and be more positive. Then when i got to class, we talked about the importance of fasting, sooooo you KNOW that was my answer! haha thank heavenly father. So that night i started my 24 hour fast. I started my fast with a prayer asking for an increased desire to learn the language and an increase desire of love for my companion. then started my fast. If you dont already know me....i get VERY grumpy when im hungry sooo wednesday was a rough day BUT I did it!! I have already felt heavenly help, helping me to be more positive about the language and my companion. Fasting is real, it works and it blesses us in so many ways! Try it sometime, would ya?

Yesterday we had our first TRC experience. Which is where real people, from the "outside" come volunteer and we teach them. Sometimes they are members, less actives and sometimes even investigators. We taught 2, 15 minute lessons. This is was supppper humbling experience and I now know that i really dont know spanish and i really need to stop being dumn and WORK HARDER! haha so im thankful that i was able to have that experience. We taught only members and they were super patient with our spanish. The room we were in was like infesttted with mesquitos hahahah so that was disgusting, but we made it through! Spanish is difficult for me, but its coming, i try to memorize one scripture and day..but that doesnt alway happen. BUT i have memorized the missionary objectivo y the baptismal invitation and the first vision! I love teaching the first vision cause it makes me feel like i know spanish. BUT anyhoo, spanish is fun.

I love being a missionary! I LOVE this gospel, it makes me so happy and i have felt a kind of peace i never knew existed. The love Dios y jesuscristo has for us is infinate and can chnage lives. i have felt my Savior helping me through this week. Continue to pray, read your scriptures and RELY on this gospel. It is everything.

Thank you NANNY for your package. who knew trailmix could solve so many problems ;) seriously i loved it and i love snacking on some trail mix! wohoo. ALSO thank you for all your dear elders, they are amazing and they help so much!! Please continue to send them!

I am singing at the devotional on sunday! I am singing How Great Thou Art, but in spanish of course. an elder is playing for me and he is awesome. so wish me luck!!

I LOVE MY FAMILY! every single one of you help me SO much! it amazing. Dont worry about me, i am happy. God is good. ONLY 2 MORE WEEKS UNTIL THE FIELD!!! woohoo.

LOVE, Hermana Farrow

ps. i forgot to bring my camera but i am going to send some in a little...i just have to go get my camera hahah im so dumb

I'm Doing This!

My sweet family! i love every single one of you, thank you for your letters and words of encouragement. thank you everyone who sent my dear elders!!! blake, chelsea, aunt kathy, brookie, matt, brittany and everyone else! they help so much! HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANNY! i love you so much.

So this week was another busy week here in the CCM. it is filled with so many emotions and i love every second of it! A typical day is waking up, breakfast, in the classroom till 12;45, then gym time, lunch, then MORE class hahah it is awesome tho. I have 2 teachers, one in the morning..Hermana Gomez and one in the afternoon Hermana Galvez. They are awesome and i love them. hmn. gomez doesnt not know a lick english hahha so thats a thing. but its awesome because we are forced to use our spanish! Hmn. galvez is from a more wealthy family and was able to get a good education, so she knows english! they are both so spritiual and they loved their missions so much! So they are very passionate about this work.

So usually here it rains everyday at 4pm, buuuut it hasnt rained in 5 days, which is weird. We are in a drought lol just kidding. it is as green as ever! There are 5 rooms in our casa. 2 rooms of american missionaries and 3 rooms with latinas! I LOVE the latinas, they come into our room and we sit on our beds at night and talk about everything we can with the language barrier haha. but they are all so funny and sassy. I am so excited to serve these people, they are amazing,

funny story...so apparently i am allergic to something!! they had they really weird beans, usually they are the standard beans, but these were different, They were really spicy and they were making my mouth burn so bad and i just though it was cause of how spicy it was. I was sitting with my district telling them a story and elder lossee was like, Hermana farrow there is soemthing going on with you neck. so i went to look in the mirror and i had a rash allllll on my neck and my chest!!! hahahah then i put 2 and 2 together. no wonder my tongue was completely numb and my throat was itchy hahah who would have thunk.

SOOO general conference?? SO AMAZING. I tried to soak up every word. It is such a blessing that we get to hear from the prophet and apostales of God! All the american missionaries watched it in the theater room thing, its really nice and has comfy seats..like a big movie theater really. So it was fun to be in a room with so many kids feeling the same way i do haha ANYWAY! Every talk was so amazing, but one in particular stood out to me. Sunday Morning session, Russel M Nelson! he talked about Suffering with Joy! i love it so much. because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, we are able to suffer with joy. in the midst of trial and challenges we can find joy. When we come unto christ, our suffering is swallowed up by his atonement.

I wanna share some thoughts that i had this week about our savior. I have been studying 3 Nephi so much, beacuse my AMAZING Dad (shoutout to kevlar) gave me articles about 3 nephi. So i was specifically reading in chapter 11. This is where Christ visits the people in the Americas. After heavenly father introduces his Son, Jesus Christ calls the people to "arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may fell the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that i am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world." Can you even imagine how these people were feeling? The savior then lets every person individually recieve a physical witness of the prints and nail mark in his hands. As i read this, i thought to myself..i wish that i was there. i wish i could feel the marks on the saviors hand and feel of his light. As i was thinking about this, i felt the spirit overcome my heart with love. I then realized that i have. No, i have not physically felt the marks in the Saviors hands, but i have felt them in my heart. I have felt the marks everytime i fall to my knees asking for help. I feel his sacrifice when i am relived of guilt, shame and sadness. I have felt the Saviors atonement work through me to make me the person and the missionary that Heavenly Father and my Savior need me to be. because i have felt the love of my savior so strongly, i have to share this message with the people of mexico. This gospel is la verdad. Dios es nuestra padre celestial. He is aware of us. So come unto Christ "thrust your hands into my side. feel the prints of the nails. and know that i am the God of Israel, and the god of the whole earth."

I have felt the love of my savior every single day here in the CCM. being here is hard, its hard being with another girl 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is hard to be away from the comforts of home and being away from family. BUT through Christ i can find JOY! I know that this is true, i promise that when we come unto christ, we will feel of his love. feel of his atonement and we will be able to SUFFER WITH JOY! I love being a missionary and i am so thankful to be here.

OH ALSO. we got to go to the Mexico City temple last friday and we are going again today! It was so so awesome, some parts were in english and some in spanish! I was thinking of Grandma Moon a lot the whole time, so grandma..know that i love you so much!! The lord really protects his missionaries because i dont know how we made it back to the CCM alive. the driving here is SOOO SKETCHY! hahah its very scary. anyhooo, I love you guys and i hope that this email makes sense. I just have so many thoughts and so much to be grateful for! I will talk to you next week and im going to try to send pics!

LOVE,
Hermana Farrow

ps. BROOKE WHY ARE YOU SICK?? i prayed for you every single day, i love you so sosososo much. get better soon!