Pics!

Most of these pictures are in Gallup the day before I left for Los Lunas. I hope you enjoy!
1. Last district in Gallup
2.same
3.me playing our organ that the elders gave us...
4.me with Sherina! She was my 2nd baptism. :) love her
5.me with the Watchman boys. the one in the suit was recently baptised in sheepsprings.
6.me with Ben Stewart. he cracked me up! love that kid! reminds me of brian.'
7.me with bro and sis jones. he was my ward mission leader. i loved them!
8.me with bro and sis haley. they lived in the trailer park behind us. they're awesome!
9.fav mt in ft. wingate.
10.at transfers with elders anderson (left) and hansen (right)
11.this is for steven. just remember the recipe dad wrote. :)
12.baby weston. he's the son of the wml in los lunas. love his shirt! it's for jimmy. :)

Amazing

Hey Annie! I would rather go vactioning with you! I would be so tempted to stop everywhere I served before we went home and I wanted to spend a few days in AZ with the uncles and stuff. So maybe it would be better to fly home and then drive to New Mexico later. I mean I do have all summer! :) But whatever works out I guess. I'm excited to get ALL my letters from the girls!!!! And I didn't forget Vanessa, she's my niece! Oh, and your problem is a classic one. It's where the mom is contantly talking and bossing their child around that the child literally doesn't hear what the mom says. I'm serious! Ask Julia. She knows everything. :)
That's terrible about the people in your ward. Didn't that happen quit a while ago? Those kinds of things really shake you up for sure! I'm sorry that happened.
I was depressed, but I'm over that now. I'm more stable where I am, and I don't miss the rez quit as much. I still miss it, but I'm not going through withdrawls. Thank goodness! And we had a baptism last week! It was amazing! It was so spiritual! She was soooo excited to be baptised. She looked like a kid at Christmas, I'm serious! She looked at the guy performing the baptism with such admiration and excitement! It was awesome! When she went down in the water I felt the Spirit so strong, and when she came up she started crying. She is a hissidic (?) Jew, and converted to Catholicism, and was actually blessed by Mother Teresa and is involved with generals in the military and such, she was a professor at Harvard, etc. She's pretty much famous. :) Anyway! Her name is Glenda Council. But she said NOTHING that she has ever done compared with her baptism. It was that special to her and she knew it! It was amazing! That was my most spiritaul baptism by far. That was just the highlight of my transfer. :)
I actually have some stomach problems that have occured on my mission, and my companion has the same thing. She talked to the doctor because she does have more head problems than I do. She's actually been to a lot of doctors before she came but they couldn't find anything wrong. So somehow she got better and Heavenly Father told her to go on a mission. So anyway. The doctor we talked to said that most missionaries do have stomach problems. Mine occur once a transfer and lasts maybe 2-3 days. I think it's just stress or something. But I'm getting used to it. And that is just crazy that one of Jimmy's sisters was pregnant! What the heck! I can tell you my comp is not prego. Sheesh. That's just ridiculous.
We had a patriotic program yesterday for a fireside and I got to sing last minute! It was amazing! I have a new favorite song, it's called "I'm going up a yonder" it was sung at Rosa Parks funeral. It's amazing! At ward council we sang an opening song and we had all parts to harmonize - accapela! It was way cool! This ward has so much musical talent it's crazy! Anyway, someone needs to get it for me to add to my collection. On the front it has the name Doreen Raos. I can't remember anything else. But Annie you would enjoy it! Oh man it's amazing! It has a kinda gospel sound to it.
So what did you all do in Cali? Do the girls have the car now? Who's paying the insurance? Julia, I heard from Steven that you all ate cupcakes down there? No fair! Julia, I heard you were getting your call this week!!!!
Brenda, thanks for the granola bars!!! They really help me from eating to much in the mornings! :) And they are really healthy. It's awesome! I'm glad Allen remembers who I am! Which reunion did you go to? I miss my brothers a lot.
Keep writing me letters even if I just write emails! I enjoy letters more. :) But I will be sending a few pictures home. And Steven don't forget do draw me the Plan of Salvation!!! Helen are you excited for Idaho?
Dad thanks for the stories. You should've stood up for what you know was right, but whatever. Sometimes that can be hard. I just tell the elders what I think and if they don't like me than whatever. But most of them just wind up liking me. It's weird. But that's who I am! When I got to this district I could tell they were pretty lazy and didn't get much done in district meetings. But when I came along they didn't know what hit them. My first meeting was lame, they shut out all the people who wanted to work and didn't really focus on working. That didn't go off well with me. But the next meeting they knew they couldn't do that again. So it was a lot better and we focused on working and how to improve. It was awesome! And the elders who do want to work (the Spanish elders) complimented us sisters. It was really good. :) So it is getting easier for me here in Los Lunas. And the ward is amazing and really good to us. I feel like I'm getting more stable here and not freaking out about how much work I have to do. Anyway! Ttyl
Love alls ya'lls!

Love
Leda

Busy

Hey fam,

This week is a lot better than last week. I'm not depressed anymore! Yay! We are having the baptism on Friday, so that is lifting our spirits. Last night we had a lesson with a boy who is dating a girl in the ward, and he's very interested in the church! So I'm hoping he will get an answer to baptism soon. :) We are getting a TON of referrals from the ward, they are very helpful to us and keep us busy. :) We haven't been tracting to much this last week, which means we are seeing a few more people during the day. Yay! Sis Oborn has been getting sick in the mornings, so that has been hard to stay in until 1 or so. But she has had health problems in the past. I have been keeping busy in the morning with organizing the area book into areas, so when we are specific areas we can see everyone who is in the area book. So it's been kinda nice.
We had our mini zone conference last week which was pretty cool! We met President and Sister Miller, they are way nice and Sister Miller is so sweet! I'm excited to get to know them better. I saw Elder Inman (who was in the MTC with me) there, he's a little shy around me for some reason, so I tried to get him to talk about his area to me. It was ok. There were 2 other sisters there, which I've never had any other sister companionships at my zone conferences! So that was nice to have other sisters there. :) I found out that there are only 8 english sisters and 6 spanish sisters in my mission since the split. So I'm the 3 most senior sister in the mission. And I've only been out for 5 months! It's weird. So I'll probably be training the rest of my mission. Oh and by the way, I come home in a year today. Weird! They changed the rules and I have to fly home now instead of being picked up, sorry Annie! :(
How was the 4th? We had fireworks in our backyard, but there were trees in the way! Of course. So we watched what we could through the trees. We had to be in by 7, so that was kinda lame! We went to Highland Meadows after church, it was awesome! There's a family that lives out there, the James family, they have 11 kids. It's awesome! They have a natural health business. So it's all herbs and stuff. Brenda I sent you a card to check out the website, I thought you might like it. They gave me some herbs to help my female problems (since I don't want brith control), so I'm hoping it will help. Rachel James gave me her email address so that you Brenda can email her when I need more herbs when I'm not in Los Lunas. They do not charge missionaries. :) Her email address is purple.frogprincess@gmail.com I will let you know when I need more and then you can forward the email to her. But that won't happen until after I leave Los Lunas.
It gets way hot out here, it's been around 95-100 everyday. Poor Sis Oborn fainted last week, ever since then she has been sick in the mornings like I said. I think I might be pushing her to hard, but I hate just sitting around when I know there is work to be done and people to see! So this is helping me learn patience...I hope! I try not to get frustrated.

JULIA! What is going with your papers?!?!?! You need to keep me updated every week ok??? How was Cali? Do you have the car? Helen are you excited for Idaho? I wouldn't be. Bleh. It's good from what I hear that you are getting away and dating other people. :) So Sis Oborn has a way good quote from Pres Hinckley:

"Many young women are serving missions. Many are preparing to serve, not because they aren't married or have nothing else to do, but because they have a desire to serve. The reason so many are going is because in the next generation, Heavenly Father will be sending his priesthood army to the earth. He wants to send them to mothers who have been properly trained in the gospel. And what better training can a young woman have than that of serving a mission?"

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THAT QUOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's so true! I get tingly everytime I read that. :) :) :) So boys, you need to find girls to marry who have been on missions. They are going to be the ones who are teaching your kids, and what better teachers than the ones who have been trained in the gospel? Yay ya!

Anyway! I love you all! Someone let Steven read this.

Love
Sister Stolp