Cinnamon Rolls Do The Trick!!

Pedro and Victoria.

Say No To Drugs, Say Yes To Tacos!

One of Krista's Dad's old mission
companions, Kevin Ferrin,
is in the ward Krista is serving in!!!

Holaa!!!!! :)

So last Monday we had FHE with Esmiralda and Christopher (the one who we made a cake for). It was okay.... they are such a great family.  We were trying to get her daughter to join in on the lesson but she wouldn't. Esmiralda had Lendy when she was 18 and Lendy had her first kid when she was 15!!!! and Lendy is now 26. CRAZY. We also have been meeting with this girl named Nancy, and I love her!!  She questions everything and claims that she is a pagan. but we just think she just says that because she likes the idea of it haha but she is the only person that actually keeps her commitments! I love it!  She prays every day and reads, too!  She is super smart and I love it!  We also have been teaching Pedro to read and we have also been teaching him to pray for over 6 weeks and he still has been refusing to pray out loud, but last night we got him to pray!!!!  Well, sorta.  We pretty much forced him to! While hermana flores kept trying to persuade him, I knew that wasnt going to work so I just got on my knees, and pretended he said "ok" haha so everyone else followed me, and waited and he still wouldn't, so Hna Flores said "repeat what I say" so she said "Dear Heavenly Father..(in Spanish)." "Now what are you thankful for.." and he just went from there!!!  It was so exciting!!! We also invited him to be baptized.. I'm not sure what he said, but I think it was along the lines of "eventually" ...we'll see.  Last night we also invited Sandra to be baptized... I'm not sure what she said either... I think she needs it to be explained a little bit better. I think she will though. she said "pues, si, pero, i was baptized when i was a baby in the catholic church,"  so anyways... we will explain it better next time.  We ran out of time because we had to be home, but that is exciting!  We also had to go on another transfer with an English sister which is sooo frustrating. because my companion knows just as much Spanish as I do, so in one of our lessons... well it was just really not good.  We had a lesson with this man named Dolores, and it did not go well, but we went back to teach him again and apparently we thought we told him that we were going to bring him a gift (a Book of Mormon) and he thought we were asking for an offering. oops. There is also another family, Joaquin and Brenda, they are not married, but Joaquin was baptized 6 years ago with his active family that lives next door. He is not active, so we have been teaching his "esposa" Brenda. And we got them to go to church on Sunday! It was so great! We brought them cinnamon rolls at 8 and they showed up at church at 9!  It was so perfect!  Hopefully our lesson with them tonight goes well.  Well that's about it.  We meet interesting people all the time... OH YEAH so we were waiting for a member who was coming with us to Brenda's lesson and guess who walked right in front of our car across the street!?!?! CARLOS!! We have been trying and trying to get a hold of him but he wouldn't answer or return our calls!!!! So I jumped out and yelled "Carlos!!!! (with a big smile of course!) Como esta!!?!?!" and he points at his watch and says something and keeps walking.... so I say NO NO!!! COMO ESTA! and I motioned for him to come over but he kept walking. REALLY?! I was SOO bummed. and mad. how rude! anyways. hahahah. i guess that's life. Sorry buddy! There goes your salvation. But yep! That is all I can think of for now. OH and on P day since it was a holiday we weren't able to email!!! So instead, we used that time and went to the bakery!! It was this HUGE building - kinda like a candy factory, but it was a bakery factory! with Mexican baked goods!!! It was so fun! Oh and a woman named Griselda got baptized! Hermana Flores taught her a little bit and then she was supposed to get baptized, but she went to Hondouras and when she came back she got baptized! So she is feeding us tonight.  Also, Elder Davis who has been here for like 9 months of his mission and baptized 10 members in our ward, is leaving today, so they had a party for him and forced me to eat SO much food. I was full for 2 days. The people here are so fun, I love them. I hope everything is going well! 

I love you so much! 

Sister Dedrick :)

As I Have Loved You - Love One Another

Happy Birthday to Christopher!

The sisters made Christopher a cake for his 12th birthday.

Hola mom! 
     How was taking Tommy to the MTC?! How did it go!? Are you still in Utah? How was the weather there? Was it hot?  It's super hot here! I drink water all day long and don't even have to go to the bathroom (guess how much I sweat!?) Its in the 90s and humid :) 

I don't remember if I told you, but we are teaching Pedro to read. It is hard for me because I am not good at Spanish! Haha so I am learning with him. We taught him the vowels and added some other letters to the vowels. He is a super slow learner, but hopefully he will get it! And then gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon! 
     We had zone conference with our mission president, that was super awesome! 
     We have been finding a lot of less actives. It seems that all the recent converts are less active, but also there are a TON of less actives that haven't been found in years and years (10+) so we are trying to work our way in. Some of the stories are really sad. We found Maria Cantu (EVERYone's name is Maria) who is a mom and she is the only one baptized in her family and she is just super bitter. We didn't know much about her before we started teaching the 1st lesson, so we taught about how the gospel blesses families, and she got super defensive and said that her family can't be together forever because they won't go to church or be baptized, so that we were talking about something beautiful that she could never have. It was so sad. We invited her to be an example to her family but she was too bitter, but we are going to keep going back to try to soften her a little. I really hope she will come to understand the Atonement more. I know that would really help her. 
     We have found so many less actives! Some by accident too.  We live in the poorest city in Houston (so I have been told) in the poorest ward and so the ward here is very ... well they kind of know it and don't value themselves. They all have a bad attitude and want to be in other wards, I think that is why a lot of them don't come to church or ANY activity. More than half of the ward is less active. Way more than half. So we are working on that a lot. We are planning an activity that is a movie night. We are going to watch The Other Side of Heaven and have pizza and popcorn.  We  are encouraging everyone to come and bring their family, extended family and friends, in hopes of getting them excited about missionary work and also to help them get to know each other a little bit better. We are trying to change everyone's attitude about this ward. It is so sad. Esmirada and her son Christopher just got baptized in February and Christopher just turned 12 and got the priesthood!  We have been teaching them a lot, and we made him a cake for his birthday. They love us!! haha. They always feed us. We actually hardly ever get fed because no one will sign up for the sisters... we have 3 sets of missionaries in our ward... and everyone always signs up for the elders but not the sisters! haha!  It makes my companion really mad but I think it's pretty funny. Another cool thing- we kept trying to contact this former investigator, but she would never answer the door so we talked to her neighbor!   We talked about the Plan of Salvation, and he was super interested in the fact that God knew us before this Earth!  Hopefully we can catch him at home again. (It's super hard to catch ANYone home for some reason) I think most people don't have stable jobs.  I still haven't heard from Carlos at all!  I had bought him a super awesome tie! and Hna Flores had bought him a white shirt! So we are probably going to give them to a recent convert/less active. He doesn't like to come to church because every time he does they tell him he should be wearing a white shirt, and he doesn't have one. (no wonder there are so many less actives) I am really learning the importance of fellowshipping. It makes all the difference. It helps people feel comfortable and gives them the opportunity to find their testimony. They can't do that if they are not comfortable at church. But anyways, I don't have much else to say. Just working, sweating. Killing cockroaches. Every. Day. I feel bad for the elders. None of them have cars. I don't know how they're alive. I love you and hope you got home safely and that everything is great! 
Love,
Krista

Happy Mother's Day!!

Its like a mini library.... 

We put a Book of Mormon in it!

Sister Holman sent us moustaches so we had to try them on!

We got Julie's awesome package right after we learned that Carlos
was not going to be baptized after all.  We were so bummed,
 but this cheered us up and made us laugh!
THANK YOU SO MUCH JULIE!!

Hi mom!!! It was so good to talk to you! Sorry I didn't have very long to talk, and Im sorry I didn't really get to talk to dad or Tommy!!!! Tell him GOOD LUCK!!!! I am so excited for him. The MTC was SO fun and he is really going to love it there. Tell him to just have fun and enjoy every second of it because 12 days will go by so quickly. Good luck on your trip! I hope you have a good experience! Thank you so much for the pictures of Jace! I cannot wait to meet him! Aunt Anita said that Lane had to take a test the morning that he was born... how did it go? Is everything okay?  Julie sent me some powerful bug spray!!! So I am good now, but thank you so much! :) 

So about Carlos, we don't really know what happened, especially me, because I couldn't understand the conversation haha but apparently he works from early in the morning until 10 pm everyday but Sundays- and he said that is his day to rest and prepare- like do laundry and stuff. We haven't talked to him since early last week. However Pedro, I don't know if I told you about Pedro, but he is an older man that we finally got to come to church last week and also yesterday! He doesn't know how to read but we are teaching him how! Our first reading lesson is today. Which is cool. We are also teaching a Colombian lady who is a neighbor/friend of the Garzas. The work is extremely slow. All we do is knock doors because the ward isn't very helpful, and we just don't have many people to teach. We decided to plan a movie night and watch The other Side of Heaven and have the ward invite friends and get them excited about missionary work,so hopefully we can find more people that way. It was a very slow week but hopefully we can find some people soon!

Also thank you for the card! Julie sent me a ton of things from amazon, she sent me mustaches, and a cardboard cut out of Johnny Depp  and bug lotion and a million oreos!!!!!! Can you please tell her Thank you SOOO Much! They actually came on Thursday which is our 3 hour weekly planning session that wasn't going well, after Carlos told us he had to work on his baptism day... so it came just in time to make us smile while we were upset. Julie, thank you so much! Here are some pictures! This week we also had another exchange but it was with an english sister.... so we went down a nicer neighborhood where they spoke English but we didn't have    much success. We did find this cool mini-library though. The English speaking missionaries have a completely different experience than we do. Everyone we meet accepts what we say and praises God but they are stuck in their Catholic mind set- the English speaking missionaries encounter lots of baptists and other religions that just try to bible bash with you. Every English speaking person I've talked to says something about how we are evil for being racist against blacks (which is something i am so confused about- blacks and the priesthood? I don't even know how to explain that) and we exclude homosexuals, and we are polygamists. UGH! And they never listen to what we have to say. but the Catholics are nice- they just hide in their house when you come back. 

It was good to talk to you. I hope everything went well with Tommy's open house and farewell.  I wanted to hear more about that! Also what is his address?? I want to write him while he's in the MTC. Have a safe trip! I love you! And good luck tommy!!!! I love you so much!

krista

Tender Mercies

Krista with her district 
at the Houston temple.

The whole zone at the Houston temple.

Beautiful flowers from Julie Holman!
Sooooo sweet!!

Bikes loaded!  Sister power!

Hitting the pavement.

Bike up and down stairs - no problem!

Laundry + ice cream = p-day!

Hi Mom,                                                            May 6, 2013

Did you know that when it gets humid, lots of mosquitos come out? I counted 16 bites from one day :) Also my arm swelled up super huge! Haha but luckily it's not summer yet! So my companion that is training me refers to me as "The Bold One." Hahaha did you ever think I would be referred to as that? I have been blessed to have turned my shy-ness into ... well boldness I guess. Lots of people are rude and love to argue with you, but the ones that only speak Spanish are "soy Catholica" and they don't argue... well most of them. Some people are nice to talk to. Also, did you know that when someone has a baptism date, Satan works SUPER hard on them! Also, inviting people to be baptized on the first lesson, helps you weed out the people who aren't ready- which are the ones we are really looking for. We have had a lot of great lessons, but a lot of people we have had to drop. We teach lesson 1s (the restoration) 50 times a day, and are extremely lucky to get to lesson 2. Carlos Quintanilla has a baptism date for this Saturday!!! May 11th! I am so excited out of my mind!!! His story was a miracle. He was already found when I got here. Hermana Flores and Hermana Arcila were trying to visit a former investigator in the trailer park and Carlos walked past them and said "Hey! When are you gonna teach me!?"  They got creeped out because they had been hit on earlier, and it was dark, and in a trailer park... so they kinda shrugged it off but then he said "your church is the one that believes in apostles and prophets right?" So they went over to talk to him! Apparently he had been meeting with the missionaries when he was living in El Salvador a long long time ago. So they began teaching him! He was on lesson 3 when I got here, and so I got to teach him all the commandments and the Doctrine of Christ. So cool. I LOVE teaching him because he accepts everything we say- and always says yeah that is not a problem for me. Anyways I could go on and on but its so fun to teach him. We had him all prepared for baptism for the 4th but the ward had an activity planned on that day and so we had to push it to the 11th. So we have been visiting him and asking him if he has any questions in the reading. We are making sure to visit him as much as possible, like every other day, to make sure nothing happens. Hermana Flores is the coordinating sister training leader or whatever its called so she goes on 7 exchanges or more a month... I have already been on 2 and have another one today haha so on Friday we had an exchange with another trio so this time we had 2 companionships for our area, it was like a quatro-panionship. It was weird.  Anyways, we  planned to teach Carlos about the law of chastity that day but he was concerned about getting baptized!!! NOOOO but we talked him through it and he is getting baptized on Saturday .. I HOPE. I have faith. He is pretty solid. On Sunday he was asking about the Isaiah chapters in 2nd Nephi and I was soooo confused because it was Spanish and I don't even understand those in English!! . As missionaries we always try to have a member present at the lessons... so we did this Sunday and they kinda explained it to him, but it was mostly Carlos explaining it to us!! Haha,  he is great.  I'm giving him the triple in Spanish that Dad gave me! He wants a D&C really badly but they don't give them to us, so I'm giving him mine, since I have a really nice one they gave us at the MTC.  We are also buying him a tie and a white shirt today. I'm super excited. Guess what!  I'm also singing at his baptism.. hahaha me.... singing... hahaha its ok though because Mexicans don't really sing very well so they will be used to it :) 

This past Sunday was just filled with miracles. We had another investigator come to church! His name is Pedro and he can't read! At all!!! He doesn't even know the alphabet. He is kinda oldish. we teach him every Saturday night. His wife works on Sundays so she can't ever come to church and that is always his excuse why he doesn't come- It was a miracle that he came this Sunday  He has been taught 5 times and we are barely on lesson 2. He learns extremely slow. But I love it. I think its great because he is amazed at how well I read in Spanish and how much i can say, and so he can relate to me because he can't  read Spanish, so its pretty cool. So he sat behind me and Carlos with a family that came with us to teach him. Hermano Jaime explained about Fast Sunday to him and invited him to Carlos' baptism this Saturday! (Which was what I was going to do after sacrament meeting)  and he is coming with his wife! boom! He said he is so glad he came to church and wished his wife could come to "feel" how beautiful it was there. AH MIRACLE! Ask me why! Because. Our ward is SUPER disfunctional- there are hardly any people in it. Last Sunday they prayed for the pope in the opening prayer. and in one of the talks, a guy said "repent or you're going to hell!"  Its also super loud with screaming kids and stuff. so I am SO SO thankful that he felt the Spirit. I was dreading that people were going to get up to bear their testimony about crazy things haha but it was good. ALSO we got 2 inactives to church that day!!!. We are bomb and the lord is great!!!  

Also I made it a goal to smile more because when I am sad or upset, I am bad at hiding my emotions and that day that I made that goal, we were knocking and a white lady answered the door and said, "you should leave, I'm a retired minister," and so we kept talking to her and she was so sweet and told us about how she helped her Mormon friend get ready for her wedding a long time ago and how she thought it was beautiful that we believed in families forever- and she said she could tell what kind of people we were through our smiles. Tender mercy- that that was my goal that day! haha anyways, i love it. This is great and there are so many miracles every day. Oh we also found a family that is inactive, we have met every family member of this family that could never be found- and so we are going to bring them all back to church! I'd say more than half of our ward is inactive.  Sadness.  Sorry there are so many typos, but I'm typing as fast as I can. 

Yes I got your packages! Thank you SO much!!!! I also got flowers from Julie!!! Please tell her I said thank you thank you thank you and so do my companions haha. She is so sweet!! We have new missionary training on Wednesday and I'm excited to see all of my MTC friends and see how they're doing! Anways. I have to email President Crawford now. I love you so much and I'll talk to you at 3 your time on Sunday!! 

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! I love you!

love

krista

ps. I'm going to mail you my pictures on a jump drive- it doesn't let me email videos because the file is too big. everything is bigger in Texas...

New Address!!!

Finally, I have a new address for Krista!  Here it is!

Hermana Krista Dedrick

 5718 Eskridge # 9

   Houston, TX 

     77023

Just got a brief update and a few pictures this week:

I'm in the Broadway 3rd Ward. Baytown is close but it's not in my area.

It poured and flooded on Saturday.  Carlos came to church this Sunday and is getting 

baptized soon. He's looking for his brothers and is going to try and get them to come. 

It's pretty cool. Things are getting better. 

Headed out to their 1st areas.

Hmmm, I wonder how that went???

Same shirts!  Hermana Post (on left) 
and Krista are both being trained
 by Hermana Flores.

Dinner at the mission home on arrival day.