Tuesday, June 30, 2015

MORMON HELPING HANDS DAY SAY WHAAAA???? 6/29/2015

H E L L O    F R O M    H O U S T O N 

So this week has been nothing but fun! I can't even tell you guys how much I love being a missionary and how much I am growing spiritually (and physically a bit:) haha 

SO ISMAEL GOT HIS LETTER FROM THE PROPHET AND HE IS GETTING BAPTIZED TOMORROW!!! It was the best news ever!!! He's been waiting for so long to get baptized and he is so excited! It was the happiest moment to get a call from President Ashton and hear that he got the "OK" from President Monson! So awesome! So that will be tomorrow and it will be amazing!! 

On Tuesday we were invited by the mayor of Houston to a meeting at City Hall to thank us for our service in the community! So we were on tv!!! woohoo! AND GET THIS!!!! They declared June 24th as MORMON HELPING HANDS DAY!!!!! Is that not the coolest thing you have ever heard!!! We were all freaking out! That day is gonna be better than Christmas! haha jk:) But it was such a cool experience to be apart of:) 

Our investigators are doing so amazing! I'm so excited for each of them to make the decision to come closer to their Heavenly Father through baptism:)

I'm so very grateful for this amazing opportunity I have been given to be here in Texas:) This gospel has changed my life and I know it will change yours if you let it:) Thanks for all of your love & support! Love you all so much! Have a great week!

-Hermana Ihrke


Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life. - 3 Nephi 5:13
​City Hall Girls!!!!

HERE IT IS FOLKS!!!!! sooooo cool!!!!! 

​Disaster relief district!!!!

​SHOPPING AT ANTHROPOLOGY!!! #20minutesago haha!!

​District breakfast:) 

​We rock them jumpers!! haha (I think they are good shopping comps as well)

Tropical Storm Bill......... 6/22/2015

-H O L A- 

So this week has been FANTASTIC!!! I don't know if you guys heard about the huge storm that hit... it was called tropical storm bill. For security measures we were asked to stay inside ALL DAY on Tuesday... and the weather consisted of a few minutes of rain and some good sized puddles! SUCH A JOKE!!! haha bill was a dud! but it was good:) 

On wednesday I got my new comp! It's hermana Call from the christmas sweater selfies!!! IT'S SUCH A PARTY!!! 

We saw so many miracles this week!! We have 6 awesome investigators right now and they all have baptismal dates! 

We have Manuel and his 2 kids and they came to church this Sunday and are so excited to be baptized! 

And Ciclady... she just needs to get married! 

Ismael who is sooooo excited and wants to be baptized right now! 

Marcos who is living with some members and he has come to church every sunday for like 3 months! 

We are sooo blessed!!! 

We also just got a brand new car! Fresh from the dealership with that fresh new car smell and everything!!! 2015 toyota corolla !!! So you could say we are having a great week! 

Oh and  April, a less active young woman, is now reactivated and going to girls camp!!! 

Such a great week! 

God loves you, and I love you ! Have a good week! ttyl!

-Hermana Ihrke
This picture was sent from a member in Bri's mission, with her new comp!!!!

Monday, June 15, 2015

E S P E R A N S A S D R E A M ! ! ! ! 6/15/15

 = H E L L O =

Oh my goodness so this week has been so crazy and sooo fun! 

I don't even know where to start,

Monday- went to the Galleria! Got my shop on, so if im wearing new clothes... thats why:) After that we had an awesome family home evening with the VIllas and the Olayas, and we brought our investigator Marcos. We taught about the iron rod and made a path with a bunch of string and then we blindfolded people and made them follow the "iron rod" haha it was way too funny seeing everyone try to walk around with blindfolds on in a tiny apartment! but it was great! 


Wednesday- we had a unexpected exchange and Hna Bird came to me and Hna Wood and we did a Bunch of service! than we met with this awesome girl named Lauren! She's 19 and so dang cute!!! We got frozen yogurt and talked about the church! She loved it and during the prayer she just started crying because she could feel the spirit so strong! It was awesome:) Then April (a 14 year old less active girl) came to young womens for the 1st time in forever!! And shes going to go to girls camp!! So exciting! 

Thursday- we saw Ciclady, an investigator, and her brother in law was there and turns out that he's a member and is so excited to introduce his family to the church! Sooo happy! 

Friday- we DEMOLISHED a house... the only thing standing were the support beams and the roof. It was awesome!!! I have some sweet vids of me taking out some cabinets with a huge mallet thing, and using a saw :) It was fun!!

Saturday-  we had the coolest experience!! We were teaching Esparanza, she mostly only speaks Swahili and French but we have been teaching her English. We were talking to her about temples and we showed her a picture of the salt lake temple and she looked at it and looked at us and said "the other night after I fasted about being baptized, I had a dream of this place (pointing to the temple) and my ancestors were telling me to go into it." She said that she knows she needs to go to the temple to help her family who has passed away and she will be getting baptized really soon:) Then we had a baptism for Molly ( a recent convert's daughter) It was sooo awesome! I lead the music:) haha 

Sunday- we had an investigator devotional and Rafael and Oscar both bore their testimonies!!! It was so unbelievably awesome I feel like a proud mom or something! haha they are great!! 

Monday (today) - found out that Hna Wood is being transfered and I'm getting a new comp, I find out who on Wednesday. And we found out that there is going to be a flood worse than the last one so we are evacuating our apartment and going to live somewhere else for a few days:) super fun right? haha It'll be great! I'm just worried for the people who are going to get round  #2 of the flood after we helped clean everything up! But It'll be good:) 

Love you all so much, sorry for the long email but being a missionary is so great! You should try it if you haven't already:) have a good week!

love Hermana Ihrke
Molly's baptism!!! She's the cutest!!!


​My district! we <3 service!

Mountains of cockroaches fell out of the wall when we took it out.... nasty!! 


Frozen yogurt with Lauren!!! Love this girl!

Ripping up some floors!

working hard

Wilver!!!

Reunited !!!

selfies :)

​Wilson!!

Thursday, June 11, 2015

+ chilling at the beach + 6/8/2015

H o l a ! ! !

So this week has been awesome! We have been working so hard and we have been sweating so much!!!! It's been really HOT! 

We have been doing a lot of service and it has been so much fun!! I love service!!! 

This week I went on exchanges and, for the 1st time in 10 months, I went somewhere other than Houston!!!! It was amazing!!!!! I went with Hna Widdison, my favorite person in the world! She is missionary in the YSA ward! It was way too fun! We went and studied by the beach in the morning and for lunch we went to the kimah boardwalk and got lunch at bubba gumps! YUMMMM!!! It was beautiful!!!!! I love the ocean!!! 

Then we did more service! I have never felt more happy in my whole life! When you serve others is when you really can feel the love of God:) 

Everything is going great! I love you all so much and I hope you all get the opprotunity to serve someone this week because it will really make a difference in the life of the person you serve and in your own life as well:) love you! 

-Hermana Ihrke
 heres some sweet places we've been working at! check um out if you want:)



Lunch time is the best time! And watching the boats go by is the best!!!!

​beach side chillin

​BUBBA GUMPS!

​I LOVE palm trees:)

​I look like I just got out of the flood but this day was UNREAL! Boardwalk with the beautiful Hna Widdison!

​From the bday party:)

​For those of you who were wondering... yes I got CAKE smashed in my face! I look like a bunny! haha

​We love eachother!!!

​love this girl with my whole heart! :)

Monday, June 1, 2015

Floods, tornados, and A LOT of service!!!!!!! 6/1/2015

~H E L L O~ 

OH  MY  GOSH  THIS  WEEK  HAS  BEEN  CRAZY!!!!!!!!

    So this week there was a huge storm!!!!AND a tornado took out one of the apartment complexes in my area! So we went over there to help out and to translate (because 90% of the people who live there only speak Spanish). There were 11 buildings out of the 26 buildings that were destroyed and some people lost everything! It was so sad! But we were just doing what we could to help.   Then the mayor comes and talks to us about what she would like us to do and she thanks us for the work we have done. Then the congressmen also comes and thanks us! It was so cool to be able to help out the community in this simple way! (no worries I got pictures with them but I'll send them next week:) We had 2 members and a few investigators that lived in that complex and none of there apartments were touched! How cool is that! Prayers were defiantly answered:)

    Right after that we had some emergency transfer! It's been crazy, I've had 3 different companions this week and at one point I didn't have one at all... haha but it's all good and now it's me and Hna Wood and Hna Huntsman :) We are having a great time! We are part english because we are taking her area and ours, so we are ZEBRA (spanish and english) it's awesome! 

     That night we had a sleep over with a bunch of other sisters because we were going to the temple the next day. But there was so much thunder and lightning no one could sleep. We woke up to some screaming from downstairs we looked out the window and you wouldn't even believe what we saw! (no worries I got pictures!) There was water that went over the windshield of our car! It was crazy! So then we went down to help some people move there stuff from the 1st floor to the 2nd and in the process Hna Sanchez cut her foot in the water on some broken glass.... and that water is SO DIRTY!!!! toilets were overflowing and so much nasty stuff was in that water!!! So we knew we needed to get her to the hospital ASAP! Her cut was super deep and super long! We cleaned it and stuff. But the only way out of the apartment was to take a boat!!! YEAH A BOAT!!!! For some reason she wasn't allowed to go in a boat, so after 10 hours of waiting for the water to go down we went searching for the nearest spot that wasn't flooded so we could get a car in to take her to the hospital! After a while we did it and she got 9 stitches and she is doing very well:) If you were wondering if we made it to the temple, we didn't! We lost 6 missionary cars that day, including mine... and the water was inside the car all the way to the dashboard. So we lost all our gps's (sorry dad) IT WAS CRAZY!!!!! 

   For the rest of the week we have just been doing A LOT of service, helping out red cross and helping people that were effected by the flood.  Shout out to Walmart for donating cleaning supplies and food to help us help others! And a huge shout out to the girl scouts who gave us lunch and girl scout cookies and all the wonderful people who have been giving us food and water when we forget to eat it's so cool to see the people who weren't effected by the flood come and give there time and energy helping those who were effected! POEPLE ARE SO GREAT! :)   I'll tell you more about it next week cause I have absolutly no time! But I just want to say that SERVICE IS SO AWESOME!!! Seriously the recipe for being happy is SERVE OTHERS! It makes everything better:)

    My birthday was also awesome and I just want to say thanks to all of my good friends from H1 nand H2 who made it the best day ever! We had a blast! One of the best birthdays by far!!! 

    I love you all so much and I can't wait to tell you more about my crazy week next week! Hope to hear from yall soon:) 

    -Hermana Ihrke

... warning lots of pictures to come :)

We ​got our keys off the roof finally! (dont even ask how they got up there...)

Just ​working for the city!!! Sooo cool!

​This is the view from my apt... thank goodness we are on the 3rd floor!!! Too bad our cars weren't...

​This is inside the 1st floor of our apt.... good thing it didn't get to our mail!! haha!

​This guy is a legend!

​Walking around trying to find dry land!!!!

​Temple trip!! We made it!

​Look who came and surprized me on my bday! Oh yeah and we had church in our work clothes today! Church was only and hour and then we went out and served! And the MAYOR SPOKE AT OUR CHURCH!!! SO CRAZY!!!!

​LOVE THEM!

​SO MUCH CAKE!!!